Wheaty Goodness

This blog is full of pretty, good ideas, but this one's my favourite! I love the look of wheat in wedding decor, centerpieces, bouquets even!

Table Number Ideas

I had originally planned to do simple tent card table numbers on card stock, printed off at home. They'll still look nice, but without the added stress of an elaborate DIY project.

Now I'm on the fence. I saw these tin can table numbers over at 100 Layer Cake and they're so pretty! I love that they'd be made out of something that would be recycled anyhow, and you can customize the inside colour (you could spraypaint instead of using paper to avoid catching the paper on fire if you're using real candles inside).

Is it worth adding yet another DIY project to the list? Or should I minimize my stress and stick to the simple paper tent cards?

A Little Something Extra

I came up with the idea that I wanted to add a little something extra to the tables at our wedding reception. In addition to the centerpieces (or as an extension of them) I created these curled strips of paper. They are aged by dying the paper with tea and each strip when uncurled has a quote about love, friendship or family. I think they'll look cute sprinkled around the centerpieces and will be something nice for guests to read!

They're incredibly easy to make. First you type up all the quotes you want to use and print out as many as you'll need. Next you brew some tea in a rectangular cake pan. I used two bags of orange pekoe tea, but anything dark would work. Dip your paper in one sheet at a time and give it about a minute to soak. Take the sheet out and let it dry flat on a dish towel. 

When it's dry, cut the strips and trim the ends (if you want). Then roll them up tight, uncurling them after you've rolled them to make them a little looser looking.

What do you think? I might add a few to other random tables... where the seating chart will be when people walk in, at the photobooth, etc.

Free (or nearly free) Wedding Decorations!

I have to admit, I would rather have no centerpieces at all than rent them at the ridiculous prices decorators charge these days. Naturally, I decided DIY was the way to go. But if you're not careful, DIY projects can cost just as much as renting, and then you're left with an excess of wedding decorations (which also means you may have purchased newly produced items when it would have been more eco-friendly to rent them). My challenge then was to create centerpieces (and other decorations too) without purchasing too much new 'stuff.' That's when it occurred to me: Freecycle!

Our city has a great Yahoo group where everyone emails one another things they are offering for free or wanting to get for free. All I had to do was decide what I wanted to make, and then send an email and hope for responses. I ended up getting almost everything I needed to make our centerpieces, seating chart, favours and invitations!

Our centerpieces are going to be glass jars partially filled with bird seed with a candle in the center (like the photo above, although these are a work in progress - I don't plan on tying the string around them, although raffia might work). In some cases I got even more of something than I asked for - one person gave me 6 boxes of glass jars when I had only asked for about 2 dozen jars in total!

Does your community have a forum like this that you can make use of?