d.i.o. - did it ourselves!

Okay sorry for not posting sooner but I had to wait for some of the pictures to arrive from the photographer (it will be obvious which ones were taken professionally and which were taken by yours truly). I wanted to show everyone the fun DIY projects MZ and I made for the dinner so here they are!

Our first project was the centerpieces. Below the picture are instructions on how we made them:

• Hurricane glass decoration
• Play sand
• Ivory pillar candle
• Sea shells
  
• Raffia
• Glue gun

Basically all she did was fill the hurricane glasses with the sand, stick the candle inside and scatter some sea shells around the candle. She then tied raffia around the outside of the hurricane glass, tied a bow and glued a sea shell on it. Presto!

Next, we wanted an appropriate way to direct our guests to their tables. Inspired by Shore Chic, I decided we could make our own starfish-in-the-sand placecards. Scroll down below to see how they were created.

• Starfish
• Sand dollars
• Raffia
• Cardstock
• Elmer's Glue
  
• Sand
• Funky scissors
• Hole punch
• Bucket
• Plastic box

First, we printed out the guest names and table numbers on different colored cardstock and cut them out with funky scrapbooking scissors. Using raffia and the hole punch, we tied the tag onto the starfish or sand dollar.

Next, we used the clear, plastic top of a serving tray (from Costco!), flipped it upside down and cut a little piece out of one of the corners. We drizzled some Elmer's Glue inside the bucket and threw sand in there to give the effect of sand pouring out of the pail. Then, we placed the bucket in the cut-out corner of the plastic "box" and taped it down.

Lastly, we dumped the sand in the "box" and stood the starfish and sand dollars in alphabetical. For a finishing touch, we also stuck the shovel in there as well.

It came out really cute and we received a lot of compliments for our creativity. In hindsight, I would have used a bigger wooden box to hold the starfish and sand dollars. We didn't really have enough for all 35 place cards.

The other big DIY project we did was a "Family Palm Tree." Remember how I mentioned in an earlier entry that I wanted a cool family tree to show how everyone was connected at the engagement dinner? Well much to the surprise of my family and friends, I made one.

There wasn't much to it; I used brown oak tag to create the palm tree trunk. Then I cut out six different palms out of green oak tag. One palm was for my immediate family, one was for my extended family and one was for my friends. I cut the same palms for Gianfranco's side as well. Then, on the appropriate palm, I wrote the names and relationship of each guest at the engagement dinner. The point of the palm tree was to show how everyone at the dinner was connected to me or Gianfranco and although it wasn't in a very noticeable spot, it still got some attention!

Some other things we did?

- One groomsman (my cousin in Mexico) and one bridesmaid (my cousin who was on vacation) were not present at the dinner so I blew up pictures of their heads and glued them on a stick. I wanted their faces to be in the bridal party pictures, whether they were real or paper.

Creepy? Yes. Hilarious? YES!

- Also shown in the above picture are the tasty treats we displayed. Even though we had a yummy cake, MZ thought it would be fun to fill beach pails with all different sorts of candy. We had lollipops, Twizzlers, Milky Ways, pretzels, etc. We also left little goody bags for our guests to bring some sweets home with them!


-We ordered the favors below, removed the pre-packaged ribbon, tied on raffia and stuck our own funky-cut thank you tag. They came out really cute!

- We also made our own napkin rings by tying the raffia into bows and gluing a seashell on top. It was a small detail but was acknowledged by many!

So there ya have it folks! I apologize for the insanely long entry but I wanted to show off MZ's hard work!

If you have any cute DIY ideas that you're planning on creating, I'd love to hear about them!