DIY // PARENTS GIFTS

While I wait for the professional pictures to get back, I do have some other things to share with you!

I finished these projects up the week of the wedding and since I promptly fell off the face of the planet, I never got around to sharing them. I couldn't think of anything to get our parents that had meaning, and I hadn't quite resigned myself to a monogrammed watch or hand stitched hankie. I understand these are "traditional" type gifts, but, not my jam. 

Then I got the idea to do something using the first dance songs for both our parents- my dad, and his mom. I bought 2 frames and used my calligraphy pen that I addressed envelopes with, and wrote out sections of the lyrics from the first dances. The frames are blank because we're going to give them a print from the first dance or wedding in general, once we get them.

"A Mother's Song" was M's mom's choice: 

"The Way You Look Tonight" by Frank Sinatra was my dad's: 

Once again, I struggled with M's dad, but after seeing it hundreds of time on Pinterest, I decided to try out the glass etching glue-paste-stuff.  It's highly toxic, so make sure you have gloves. It's also highly expensive, and cost more than the damn vase, but I didn't use much so I still have it for future projects. I will say, it didn't seem to "stick" as well as I thought it would, but it could've been the curve of the glass, or that I didn't glop enough on. It still worked! Just took a bit longer than I expected.

I used some vinyl stickers to put the words "live, laugh, love" on the jar, with our wedding date.

So those were some affordable parent gifts we came up with! And by we, I mean I. Lets get serious. haha.

I thought I was going to have to brace for another intermission in blogging, since I was supposed to fly out Saturday morning for a trial I was second chairing in Peoria, Illinois all of next week. We got called into an impromptu phone conference today with the judge and knew where it was headed: the case is venued in federal district court, which is still up and running. However, take a wild guess what one "non-essential" function that will not be funded is? Juries. So, since they couldn't fund a jury, and even if the shutdown ends tomorrow, our case is not a super high priority in the court's eyes, the case is being continued- likely until early next year. SO I'm off the hook (for now), and can attend our FIRST WEDDING as a married couple, with M this weekend! I'm jazzed.

WEDDING CRAFTS REVISITED

Today we're going to revisit some wedding projects that I've mentioned.. and then never mentioned again, or that I have since redone. 

Almost a year ago (holy crap!) I talked about our "Anniversary Books"I was making for the tables. To refresh your memory, they looked like this: 

 

I had made 10 of them. Then I stopped. Mostly initially because I ran out of twine, then later because I realized I absolutely hated them. I started to think: This is something that I want to be more than "just another Pinterest project" to have at the wedding, and that this would be something we were planning on holding onto for forever, and revisiting every anniversary. I didn't want something flimsy, or trashy looking, I started to want a REAL notebook to put at each table. I also then thought that in addition to reading the notes people left us at the front of the book, M and I could use the back of the book to jot down our favorite memories, and things we learned, from the last year. 

SO, in search of something more stable, I poked around Target.com. I saw they had sets of small notebooks, 3 for $4.

I ended up finding some that were red, green and blue with different polka dot patterns on them. When I got home, I realized we still had a bunch of engagement photo prints that we weren't using. SO, I trimmed the photos down to size, glued them onto the notebooks, and peeled the 1-10 stickers off the old notebooks..and was left with this:

I'm SO much happier with them, it's unbelievable. I'll have to make a little note that I'm going to paperclip onto the top of them, and then put them on the tables.

Also, FINALLY almost done, the "Instagram wedding photos" some of you may have been seeing me repost to IG (kellybea14).  I finally ordered the second wave of prints from prinstagram, and taped them all to twine. I actually just got a 2nd frame today from M's mom. I'm going to re-spray the one below, and spray the other one, gold. When I'm done, the set up will look something like this:

I'm going to string them between the frames, and prop them on the escort card table! I hope people enjoy seeing these set up! I also have a sweet note I printed and framed that talks about how Matt and I couldn't do it (marriage) without such great role models around us. Not that our single friends aren't good role models, but I thought it'd be nice to celebrate other people's marriages, at our own.

So, there's an update!