Getting Crafty for Jennifer's Shower

And now for something completely different. Crafts!

I'll preface this by saying that I am not a craftmaster, I'm impatient and get overwhelmed when trying to visualize how to craft things, and often, it's likely I won't finish what I started without my best friend Cora the real craftmaster to step in and help me through the task. With that said, things can be really easy when you've got good and simple ideas and a hot glue gun.

So here's the story, I recently had the pleasure of helping with my sister-in-law's bridal shower/housewarming party, and had to work through the dilemma of living over an hour and a half away. I had to make practical stuff, cute stuff, and keep it really cheap. I think I succeeded.

One of the really cool things I just had to try was something we've all seen a thousand times on Pinterest, but I'm including it here because when I tried, I had a hard time finding a step-by-step tutorial on how it was done. Cora and I also decided that we had a more difficult monogram in the letter "S" with all of the angles and slopes. Then again, we were probably just whining because of all the times we burnt ourselves with the glue gun. :)

 So for us, the biggest challenge was where to start. Cora decided to cut strips of the twine off and hot glue them in lines over the edge.

 Then we wrapped each one carefully and as accurately as possible, by hot gluing them at the top and bottom so they would not slide or overlap.

 

There was a few places near the top that we had the relief of not having to hot glue every piece, but once we got into the slopes, it was impossible not to have to glue them at least at the top. This is very meticulous work, and as you can see, even at this point it wasn't going to be perfect. Luckily for me, I like to embrace little imperfections as charming. If you're not one of those people, it's going to take you probably twice as long, and it took me/us a good bit.

Because my sister in law's wedding colors are going to be green and purple, I found those cute little adhesive flowers at Hobby Lobby very much on sale. The fabric flower and the white lace flower were both made of scrap fabric Cora had at her house. All of the pieces were glued on. The hanging piece you see up top was also just some more scrap fabric we looped over the "S" and then tied in a bow up top. Those were also secured with hot-glue.

So there you go, that's how we managed that monogram door hanger. Jennifer loved it, to my relief, and someday, when I'm feeling brave (and bored), I'm going to make one for myself. However, I can't imagine wrapping a "W" is going to be any easier!

My next feat was making little food markers that were cute and inexpensive. For these, I needed a glue stick, glue gun, two pieces of scrapbook paper, and mini-clothespins (got a package of 50 at Hobby Lobby).

These are pretty self explanatory, I used a light backed scrapbook paper and glued a darker color to the front of these, then hot glued a tiny clothespin to the back to clip on food trays and label them. I took decorative scissors and gave them a textured finish for a little added pizzazz.

Next, I wanted to make badges for the bride and groom. I want to emphasize that I bought nothing make these, in specific. We made them with things we already had on the table. Scrapbook paper, buttons, twine, and scrap fabric. I made the one for Jennifer and Cora made the one for Ryan. For his, I unfortunately didn't catch any pictures of her making it, so I'm going to try to describe how she did it.

On a piece of scrapbook paper, Cora used her glue gun to pinwheel from the center out in a spirally circle. When she was done, she cut the circle out of the paper, leaving the paper it was glued to on the back. Our goal here was to prevent this badge from being too frilly, girly, and silly. This was a couple's shower, and we didn't want him to be embarrassed to wear his badge. So I had the idea to fold scraps of fabric like a mens handkerchief would look sticking out of his pocket. We printed off "bride and groom" on another piece of scrapbook paper, and hot-glued them on along with the buttons.

Now for Jennifer's, I didn't take any pictures of me making it either, but I do have pictures of Cora making the fabric flower for the monogram door hanger, and it was exactly how I did this one. If you don't know how to make a monogram flower, look at these pictures below.

 She's simply twisted up a long piece of fabric and spiraled it, hot gluing as she goes. When you get to the end, simply tuck the end piece to the back and glue it there. When you're finished you'll have a rose. Luckily for me, Cora is a crafty genius and keeps all sorts of odds and ends around the house that might someday be of use. So it was, she just happened to have old plastic name tags from a work function in her garage, and we pulled out the badge safety pins and glued them to the backs of these new badges that we made. They turned out super cute!

Last but not least were the lace Mason jars that we made. I saw something similar to this on Pinterest and thought that they were just lovely. When I talked to my SIL about what she wanted at her shower, she simply said she wanted it to be pretty. Naturally, I also wanted it to be pretty for her. So I made these little guys to give her table a softened effect. So I went to the grocery store and bought a pack of canning jars (6.99 and I had four leftover), a spool of lace at Michaels, and used the twine from the monogram door hanger. The lace is secured with superglue (we tried adhesive spray but it made it way too sticky) and the candles inside were LED battery candles bought at the dollar store (I bought two packs in case the battery died).

Jennifer's shower turned out really lovely. I borrowed my grandmother's lace table cloth and put a cheapie green plastic one underneath (.94 at Walmart) to incorporate the green part of her wedding colors.