Today we continue the Wedding Collection - a collection of crafts put together by the Creative Bride in our household. For the table seating plan, the wedding stylist had offered us the use of a very sleek modern mirror on an ornate stand to post the table seating arrangements. It was very pretty but really not in keeping with the theme or style of the wedding at all. So Michaela set off to the thrift stores in search of something more vintage-looking. What she had in mind was a picture with an ornate frame. Her search didn't yield the fancy frame she had hoped for but she did find a large, old print with a wooden frame that was in pretty good condition and at $5, it was a steal! Armed with a can of metallic gold spray paint, she removed the print and the backing from the frame and spray painted it to tie it into the burgundy and gold theme. All that was left to do was create a document with the seating arrangement on it, size it to fit the frame and have it printed at Officeworks......

Today, we continue our creative bride's journey as she creates the handmade details that made her wedding a memorable affair. Table numbers are essential to help guests locate their seat at the reception. Once again, Michaela wanted something more unique than what was being offered by the wedding stylist. With their  official engagement photos only recently taken, she and her fiancé decided to create memorable table number using these photos. Her plan was to have the table number on the front and choose a selection of their engagement photos to go on the back. But she didn't want them just glued on; she wanted them to be transferred on. So here's how she went about it. We forgot to take photos of this process but there are many tutorials online which show you how to do it. Here's one from DIY Cozy Home that she liked. Here's how Michaela described the process: Preparing the Timber I bought a long plank of pine and cut it to size. We ended up with around 12 pieces......

  Today we continue the "Wedding Collection" - a series of posts about the handmade details that made my daughter's wedding a very personalised affair. In this post we look at place cards for the reception. Our creative bride wanted something more than the standard tent-folded place cards being offered by the wedding stylist. She had a sophisticated, yet simple idea in mind - a triangular piece of wood which would emphasize the geometric chevron pattern on the table runners. A slit on top will hold the place cards. The project seemed straightforward enough: cut timber into triangles, cut the slit, paint the outside white and the ends with gold paint. I mean, how hard could it be? Well, as it turns out it wasn't hard at all..... but in our haste, we did manage to make hard work of it! It all started out well. Using this post from the Ruffled blog as a starting point, she found some timber moulding with a triangular profile at the hardware s......

Personalising your wedding with handmade touches is a fabulous way to make your special day a day to remember . For my daughter Michaela's recent wedding, there were many handmade details - each one of them was a labour of love and took many hours to complete but they added an elegant, understated touch to her day and were a talking point amongst the guests. Today, we begin the "Wedding Collection" - a series of posts showcasing those details. This is the final instalment for the wedding bonbonnieres: boxed Lavender Sachets. Take a look at Part 1 and Part 2 for more details. The bonbonnieres consisted of a simple piece of cotton fabric filled with lavender. Michaela cut the fabric into a square, folded it in half and then stitched it on two sides to form a sleeve. Even kitty Kitty Kat wanted to get in on the act.  One hundred sleeves later and the pile looks like this. A project of this size necessitates you work production-line style and that you em......

A few weeks back I shared how to create a silicone mould for casting tags that will be attached to the bonbonnieres for my daughter's wedding. With the mould made, it's now time to cast the 100 tags needed.   We chose polymer clay as the casting medium for the tags - it gives them a nice weight. And because they will all be painted later on, we were able to use up lots of scrap clay that I had in the studio. To begin, roll out the clay to the thickness of two wooden stir sticks. Timesaving tip: Use a pasta machine to roll out a whole sheet of clay to the desired thickness rather than rolling out enough clay for one or two tags at a time. M y brain was a bit foggy with project overload before the wedding but i f I had been thinking clearly, I could have saved a heap of time! Cut the clay using the same oval cutter that the mould was made from.   Insert the cut tag into the mould positioning it so that it lines up. Press the clay down into the mould so that the clay is impresse......

Putting your craft skills to work is a great way to add one-of-a-kind personal touches to any special occasion. In our household, we're busy preparing for a wedding and being a crafty pair, my daughter and I decided to incorporate some handmade details to add that extra pizazz to her special day. One of the projects we're tackling is the bonbonnieres. Hers will feature a handmade polymer clay tag with a sentiment on it. It's a big undertaking to make 100 so to speed things up, we made a mould from silicone rubber. But before we get into making the mould, we created a master tag by following Marie Segal's tutorial from Art from my Heart. Marie suggests looking in the Mexican aisle for the alphabet noodles she uses to create her sentiments. In Australia, I found them in the Italian aisle. But no matter where you are in the world, look for something like San Remo's Soup Pasta . Begin by conditioning the clay and then place it between the wooden stir sticks and roll......