Bridal Shower Gifts

As you know, one of my good friends is getting married... her wedding in is less than a month! Her bridal shower was on Sunday, so for the past few weeks I've been doing my craftin' thang! Okay, so the theme was naughty or nice. I decided to be nice. Plus, I'm not sure how homemade lingerie would go over with the bride-to-be.

So, after pinteresting/pinterest stalking/ actually researching outside of pinterest, I came up with a series of little gifts I thought would not only help the bride out with her wedding, but that she would enjoy too.

The gifts I made were a name wedding dress hanger, a wedding wreath, a homemade wedding dress card, a fabric flower bouquet, a wedding memory box, and a bridal survival kit. I took in-the-process pictures of the wreath, bouquet, and card so you will get a semi-tutorial for those.

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Name Wedding Dress Hanger

To make this, you need a wooden hanger ($5 a pack at Target), needlenose pliers ($6 at Target), floral wire... the gauge you need is in the tutorial linked above (I think $2 a roll at Michael's), and a daddy with a drill (priceless).

It's pretty self-explanatory... use the pliers to shape the wire, drill holes in hanger, glue in.

Some tips I learned:

1) shaping the wire is not as easy as it looks. Unfortunately, my first attempt at this is what Tiffany got... wonky letters and all.

2) Use all lower-case. It may bug you, but I started with an upper case & it doesn't fit on the hanger.

3) I used tacky glue and let it dry overnight. It dried just fine.

4) Finally, neddlenose pliers are not cheaper at Michael's than at target.

The gift turned out alright. It wasn't my favorite but Tiffany seemed to love it and said the m had... character. I still have 4 hangers in the pack so... future brides, beware!

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Wedding Wreath

I actually didn't find this gem on pinterest! After exhasperating the limited pins on pinterest for bridal shower gifts, I returned to the trusty google. (This reminds me that I haven't explored instructables lately... how depressing!) I found a picture of this wreath from Etsy ($110!!!!) and kind of went from there.

Supplies needed:

6 ft Plumbing piping styrofoam from home depot (this is what I have been using as the shell for all my wreaths. My dad says its what you put copper pipes in if that helps. Either way, its less than a dollar for six feet of it.)

1 thing (ball? Schiel?) of white yarn

Leftover black yarn, youll only need a few yards. This yarn is just that normal cheap stuff, nothing fancy.

Scrap black and white fabric

Gizmos and gadgets a plenty, whozits and whatsits galore, may need some thingamabobs (aka pearls/beads/gems/sequins/whatever you have in your junk drawer... ive been working on a bucket of Mardis grad beads we got at a festival last year and never threw away)

Wooden people. I got mine at Michael's for like a buck. They were in the wood aisle and they were called game pieces. This was after the lady who worked there said they didn't have any wooden people. You can use pre-painted people if you can find them, or maybe little dolls. Or even bells or something else wedding-y.

Acrylic paint (if you need to paint your little wooden people) I used black, white, brown, and yellowish gold. Oh, and a little blue for the tie.

Paint brushes (little ones)

Assorted ribbon for hanging

Hot glue

Patience

Directions:

1. Cut your piping. For mine, I cut it in half, made one half into a circle, then cut the other half a little smaller so it could be a circle that fits inside the other circle. I did this so that it would be a thicker wreath.

2. Duct tape both circles closed and together. Black tape would probably work best for this, but as you can see I'm not nearly normal enough to buy black duct tape. It doesn't really matter because it shouldn't poke through.

3. Tie one end of the white yarn around the wreath skeleton.

4. Go rent a movie. Find yourself a nice comfortable place on the couch and an hour or two to spare.

5. Wrap. Wrap and wrap and wrap really close together, then squish what you've wrapped even closer together and wrap some more. Yes, this is extremely irritating because you have to stick that huge thing of yarn through the wreath on every rotation.

6. When you've reached the beginning and your wreath is completely covered in white yarn, start again. Wrap around and around again, making sure it looks bulky and even and there aren't any holes. Tie off (Don't worry, you can hang your ribbon here to cover the knot).

7. Make a design with the black yarn. This was harder than it seemed and took some playing around with it to make these crosses. I also went over then twice to make sure they really stood out.

8. Paint your people. I guess you could have done this earlier, but mine didn't take long to dry at all. I cant give you much help with this, all I can tell you is I just looked at the picture and kind of went for it. The paint for Tiffanys Blonde hair matched the wood perfectly so I had to add a little brown to make it pop. I used the pointy end of a thumb tack to make the eyes and the lines of the tie. For the bride's side bun I looked all over for something perfect and eventually settled on a small piece of fuzzy yarn that I knotted up and trimmed down and glued on there. For your people, you'll just have to be creative and do your own thing. The thing Tiffany liked the most was how much they looked like the couple, so little touches would really stand out.

9. While your people are drying, you can make your flowers. I used the same procedure I always do for making fabric flowers, found here. It's super easy. I just used pieces of old fabric I had... black and white tshirts I believe. For the centers I used beads off of my Mardis grad necklace collection and an old fake pearl necklace that broke.

10. Glue your people and flowers on. I used hot glue.

11. Add a mixture of ribbon to the top for easy hanging.

12. stand back and enjoy your work.

I snuck this on the brides door the night before the bridal shower so that she would have it there when she got up in the morning. She loved it and even mentioned taking the little people off and using then on their wedding cake. Woot woot!

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Bridal gown card

Ok, this is a simple card craft that I threw together. I just took a piece if creme cardstock and added a trimmed piece of pretty scrapbook paper to the top.

I cut out the bust of a wedding dress from white cardstock.

I cut about four piectles of tulle to make the skirt, layered them, and glued them on to the waistline.

Then i took a piece of thin ribbon and put it over the transition.

I trimmed the tulle on the bottom. I think it would have looked better with more layers of tulle.
Add a sentimental message inside and wa-la! A card.

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Fabric flower bouquet

Inspired by this listing on etsy...

I saw a picture of this on pinterest and thought I would make it for the rehearsal or decoration or something. I used tulle and burlap because they are in the theme.

I pretty much just made a bunch of fabric flowers that I always make in different colored cotton, silk, some burlap, lace, and tulle.

I tacky glued them all on a styrofoam ball and pinned with sewing pins to let dry overnight.

I have to say, I'm disappointed in the price of a styrofoam ball. I feel like Michael's takes advantage of crafters with their ridiculous prices. Should have gone to home depot.

Anyways... I stuck the thick cardboard tube that came with the tulle into the ball and glued it after I covered it with burlap.

I finished by adding more of those gizmos and gadgets to the middle of the flowers and any gaps. I also clipped a little butterfly on there and finished it off with a white bow. Then I got to put on a fake wedding ring and white bathrobe to model... don't judge.

A word of warning... I hot glued a LOT of flowers. I got blisters from the glue not only on every finger, but on places I'm not even proud of. I have a blister running down my leg from where the hot glue gun fell off the desk and grazed me on the way down. I have a blister on the inside of my thigh from attempting this project while wearing pajama shorts. Every time I use hot glue I think ill build up an immunity to the pain. No luck yet.

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Wedding memory box

I bought a photo box. Logan helped me rip up sheet music leftover from a music book purchased at goodwill for my music pumpkin I made last fall. I paper mached it to the box. When it dried, I added letters and more fabric flowers. The box is to put trinkets/photos/etc from their wedding.

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Bridal survival kit

I made this for another friend last year. You just get a bunch of things the bride might need on her wedding day in case of emergency or forgetful minds. I wanted to put it all in a big mason jar to fit in to the theme of the wedding, but I only had a small jar so it turned onto a jar with a homemade bag attached. I some things I included were: folding hairbrush with mirror, cosmetic pads, qtips, cotton balls, medicine, hairspray, mini lint brush, mini tide to go pen, buttons, safety pins, tissues, gum, mouthwash, body spray, and lip gloss. I also had chocolate and an energy bar to stick in there but they didn't make it.

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The gifts were a hit, I had fun making them, and Tiffany seemed to like them. The party was gorgeous. Tiffany did everything herself, including making all the delicious food and setting up this gorgeous table.

Enjoy the pictures!

Ps.Sorry about the typing and wording in this post and the next one... I typed them on the go on my kindle and it was pretty much like texting two whole blog posts.