Wedding Aisle Runners

                My husband and I married on a deck over the ocean.  It was perfectly beautiful.

                We had ten guests.  I think we had two rows of three chairs on each side to make an “aisle.”  In the months leading up to the wedding, I was becoming upset about the lack of aisle definition.  I know that is a really ridiculous thing to become fixated on, but yet, I couldn’t shake the idea.

                I discussed with lots of people how to define the aisle.  Bear in mind some parameters:

One. It was a deck.  Wooden material.  We were completely unable to poke things in the ground.  I got a lot of suggestions of Sheppards’ hooks.  Yeah – totally impossible.

Two. We married in Bermuda.  This meant we had to transport all materials from the east coast of the US to a tiny island in the Atlantic.  The lighter and easier to transport materials, the easier it was for everyone.  Again, people suggested sticking Sheppards’ hooks in potted soil, mason jars with candles, or bringing bags of small colored marbles.  Again – totally impossible.  

Three.  Wind.  The deck was over the ocean.  Anything small and light (but easily transportable!) would blow away.  

                I was at a total loss.  I really scoured the internet and The Knot for suggestions, but I kept coming back to this same picture in my mind.  I’m a simple girl and I wanted a simple scattering of rose petals to define the aisle.  How could I recreate it and still work within the restrictions I outlined above?  

 

                Some extra googling lead me to the idea of petal ribbons: ribbon covered with scattered rose petals.  The ribbons could be taped to the deck and the petals would not blow away since they were glued to the ribbon.  Below, you can see how our actual aisle ended up looking.  I'll tell you how I made them and then tell you some other variations I had on this idea. 

  I found a website that sold these ribbon petals, but holy hell, they were expensive.  I wasn’t about to spend the kind of money they wanted on 60 feet of ribbon covered with rose petals.  Not when I could make them myself, wrap them up carefully in my suitcase, and bring them to Bermuda.

                I started with the ribbon.  I wanted the widest ribbon I could find, which turned out to be 4.5”.  I ordered white satin ribbon from Papermart that is actually used for building openings and ceremonial cutting of things.  Hey, it worked!  Price?  $11 for 100 yards.

                I next needed rose petals.  I found an awesome website: www.petalgarden.com.  They sell both silk and freeze-dried petals in more colors than I ever imagined.  Two great perks of this site: I could order samples of any colors I wanted for $2.95 (Samples!) and they offer a guide for estimating how many petals you’ll need depending on your use (Petals101).  

Since our wedding colors were not finalized at the time I ordered the petals, I went with simple ivory.  However, had I known my maid of honor would be in dark purple (which meant my bouquet and my husband’s boutonniere would also be dark purple), I would have done a mix of ivory and dark purple or another coordinating color.

I determined that for the type of coverage I wanted on the ribbon, I’d need 200 petals per five feet of ribbon.  For 60’, I’d need at least 2400 petals.  I ordered 3000 petals (color #402), so it cost $50.  The website does offer deep discounts on large bags of similar color petals, other “throwables” (like snowflakes,hearts) and floating silk rose petals.

The last piece I needed was glue.  I tried several, but the best choice was fabric glue ($3).

I was ready to go!

I cut the ribbon into five foot sections.  I spread fabric glue all over the first foot of the ribbon then covered it with rose petals.  I placed a book over newly glued petals to keep them in place while the glue dried and moved on to the next one foot area.  The glue dried in ~ 5 minutes.  I removed the books and was finished!

In total, I made 12 five foot sections to equal 60’.  It would line either side of our 30 foot aisle nicely.  Total cost = $11 + $50 + $3 = $64.  Transporting to Bermuda = free!

To get them to Bermuda, I wrapped each five foot section in paper towels and laid them in the bottom of my suitcase.  They were perfect when we got there.  Our coordinator taped them to the deck and we had a beautiful aisle.  Interestingly, after the ceremony, they made for fun picture props…

I did have other ideas for how to accomplish the scattered petal look.  Tulle is another type of ribbon that is made very wide.  I considered buying very wide white tulle, lying it on the floor, scattering petals on half long ways, and then folding the tulle over top of the petals.  While there would be no gluing of individual petals, you’d still have to figure out how to seal the tulle.  Anyway, just thinking out loud.

Wedding Invitations, Wedding Save the Dates

  Well, it’s official!  I entered the 3rd Annual Cards and Pockets Design Contest!  Since I spent time finding all the information, I thought now would be the best time to showcase our design here!  This paper project was a labor of love between my husband, my Aunt, my mother and I.

Save the Dates

All materials were ordered from Cards and Pockets.

Matte: color Mars, size 3.5” x 5”.

Information: cardstock color Crystal, size 3.25” x 4.75”.

Envelope: RSVP envelope (designed for cards 3.5” x “5), color Silver.

The drawing of our venue was done by my aunt!  She’s fabulous at art and we are extremely grateful she was willing to help us out with these invitations!

I scanned her drawing onto the computer and designed the rest of the card in Power Point.

The Cards and Pockets Print Shop printed our invites and cut them to the appropriate size.  We ordered the mattes and silver envelopes directly from their website.  Using Zip Dry Glue, my husband and I assembled all the Save the Dates.  

Extras: My mother designed the stamp at Zazzle; the seals were from Staples (I tried to find a link for the seals, but just can’t find one.  Sorry!  But they are in the invitation section of any Staples store.  They have many different kinds to choose from!  Some are really wedding-y).

Ta-da!

Invitations

All materials were ordered from Card and Pockets.

Pocketfold: Perfetto, color Mars (one size only)

Matte: color Silver, size 5 7/8” x 5 7/8”

Information, Inserts: card stock color Crystal

                Invitation: size = 5 5/8” x 5 5/8”

                Guest Information: size = 5” x 5.75”

                RSVP: size = 3.5” x 5”

Envelopes: both RSVP and Perfetto Envelope in color Silver.

The drawing of our venue was again done by my aunt!  

I scanned her drawing onto the computer and designed the rest of the invitation, Guest Information Insert and RSVP card in Power Point.

The Cards and Pockets Print Shop printed our invitiation/inserts and cut them to the appropriate size.  Using ZipDry Glue, my husband and I assembled all the invitations.

The RSVP envelope had my parents’ address printed by our home computer/printer (not shown).

The invitation envelope was handwritten by a local calligrapher.

Extras: The return address on our invitation was done with a hand embosser from PSA Essentials sold through Papyrus.  It's difficult to see in the picture due to blurring the address and parent last name, but it was quite legible in person!

Voila!

We did a lot of DIY for our wedding including aisle runners/liners, guest book, and Thank You cards.  Look for those posts soon!  I'll link them here as they come up.

If you find that I didn't hyperlink any of my materials or they are hyperlinked incorrectly, just let me know! 

Sugar Cookies & Chocolate Sugar Cookies

         I was inspired this weekend to make sugar cookies in the shapes of test tubes and flasks.  Sadly, Center City Philadelphia wasn’t interested in selling cookie cutters in those shapes so I’ll make them another day.  Instead, I made Jack O’Lanterns.

Yummy Sugar Cookie Recipe (from Williams-Sonoma)

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups of flour*

½ tsp salt

12 tbsps unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 ½ tsp vanilla

Two sheets of plastic wrap

*For chocolate sugar cookies, replace ½ cup of flour with ½ cup of unsweetened cocoa powder

Preparation Directions

Place flour, salt and – if necessary – cocoa powder in a bowl.  Set aside.

Beat butter on high until creamy (~ 2 minutes).

Reduce speed to medium and add sugar slowly.  Stop occasionally to scrape down the bowl and clean up the beater so the sugar will be incorporated.

Beat butter + sugar mixture until light and fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla, beat for one minute.  Be sure to scrape down the sides of bowl for full incorporation.

Add half the flour mixture and beat until the most of the flour has been absorbed.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Add the other half and again mix until fully absorbed.

Remove the dough from the bowl and knead together. 

Split into two halves, knead into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 2 hours – 2 days.

Cookie Cutting

Tools

Rolling pin

All purpose flour

Cookie cutters

Cookie sheets

Spray oil/grease the pan

Cookie preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Flour your counter.  The recipe says lightly flour – I’m telling you to flour it.  Otherwise, your cookie dough will stick to the rolling pin and/or the counter.

Remove a ball of dough from the fridge and let warm to room temperature (~ 5 minutes).

Roll out carefully to a sheet ~ 3 mm thick.  

Tips:

Thicker is better than thinner… 

The best technique for rolling, especially with the chocolate sugar cookie dough, is to place the pin in the middle and roll towards one edge.  Then place back in the middle and roll to another edge.  This minimizes cracking and sticking. 

Also, I recommend flattening the dough as much as possible with your hands before starting with the rolling pin.

Flour the edges of your cookie cutters and cut out your shapes.

Place cut cookies on a pre-greased cookie sheet.

Knead the scraps back together into a cohesive ball of dough to roll it out again.  Directions say to only re-roll dough twice.  I re-rolled upwards of 4 times and it was fine.  Keep going until you run out of dough or patience!

Cookie Decorating

Ingredients

Colored sugar (see end)

Powdered sugar

Decorating Tips

I used my fingers to place colored sugar on the cookies before baking.  To keep it sticking to the cookie, I ran my fingers over the sugar and slightly rubbed it into the top of the cookie.  

If you’d like to use powdered sugar, bake the cookie first then sift powdered sugar onto cookie upon removing it from the oven.

Baking Directions

Bake for 8 minutes.  The bottoms should be golden brown.

Tips:

            Rolling the cookie too thin will lower cooking time so keep an eye on them!

The recipe recommends 12 – 14 minutes for bake time, but that was much too long on my oven.  I burned my first batch.  Luckily, I found my burnt sugar cookies to taste just as good as the non-burnt ones!

Colored Sugar!

                I had no idea that I could color my own sugar.  I looked all over for orange colored granulated sugar before making these cookies but to no avail.  A quick Google search assured me that I could color my own sugar with food coloring.  Good to know!

Ingredients

1/3 cup of white, granulated sugar

Food coloring

Ziploc bag

Directions

Add sugar to Ziploc bag.

Add the minimum amount of food coloring drops needed to create the desired color.

Seal bag and work the sugar into the dye with your fingers.  Keep going, shaking, moving the sugar around, etc until all the sugar has changed color.

Adjust color with more food coloring, if necessary.  Try to keep coloring to a minimum, however.

My cookie cutters came from Williams Sonoma.  It was a Jack O’Lantern pack – LINKY.

However, I nearly bought these from Willians Sonoma instead and planned to frost my sugar cookies.  Another time!  LINKY.

Roasted Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

                I’ve used this recipe on seeds from pumpkins as well as various types of squash (such as acorn).  It is easily the best pumpkin seed recipe because boiling them in water ensures that the salt flavoring stays with the seeds.

                Preheat the oven to 400 degrees C.

                Clean out your pumpkin to make a Jack O’Lantern (hehe) or to cook the pumpkin flesh, then separate the seeds from the pumpkin guts.  I usually put them in a colander and do a quick rinse of the seeds with water.

                Determine how many cups of seeds you have.  

                *Boil 2 cups of water for every ½ cup of seeds.*

                *Add ½ tbsp of salt for every 1 cup of water.*

                Bring your salt water to a boil, add the seeds and simmer for ten minutes.

                Spread 1-2 tbsp olive oil on the bottom of a cookie sheet.

                Pour off the salt water and place the seeds in a single layer on the cookie sheet.

                Bake on the top rack for 10 – 20 minutes depending how crunchy and dark you want them.

                These are mine!  They cooked for 20 minutes and were delicious!

Jack O'Lanterns

            We’re about midway through October and squarely into Halloween season.  I’m not a big fall person, but Halloween is fun.  I like corn mazes, scary stories, pumpkins and all that jazz.  For the past several years, my husband and I have carved Jack O’Lanterns together.  They’re fancy and fun and grow mold in about four days.  

                Ever wonder where Jack O’Lanterns came from?  I went searching and found a short blurb on www.history.com (http://www.history.com/topics/jack-olantern-history).  Now, any television station that willingly puts on a series of shows about “ancient giant aliens in biblical times” earns an eyebrow raise from me, but I’m trying really hard to put those experiences behind me.  

                It starts with a guy named Stingy Jack who lived in Ireland.  He invited the devil for a drink but wasn’t keen on paying for said drink (because he's stingy, see).  Instead, he suggested that the devil turn into a coin to pay the tab.  Upon doing so, Jack put the coin in his pocket next to a cross so the devil could not change back.  Eventually Jack freed him and made an agreement that the devil would not come looking for him for ten years.  

                Unfortunately, Jack died not long after.  God refused to accept Jack because of his devil dealings and the devil couldn’t go back on his word.  Instead, Jack was sent back to the land of the living with only a lit coal to light his way.  He placed the coal inside a hollowed turnip and roamed the land.  He gained the nickname “Jack of the Lanterns,” which was shortened to just Jack O’Lantern.  

Kids in Ireland and Scotland carved turnips to place in their windows to scare off Jack (or any other evil spirits).  England prefers to carve beets.  Following immigration to America, the tradition became to carve pumpkins.  

Did you know that a pumpkin is a fruit?  I always thought veggie.  Huh.

Anyway, here are our Jack O’Lanterns from the past few years.

My husband and I have this pumpkin carving kit: LINK.  Literally, it was the best $5 ever spent.  That long flat green scoop cleans out the guts perfectly and those weak looking knives are excellent at cutting out designs.  I highly recommend buying it. 

The Obligatory Introduction Post

I blame my mother.  Growing up, she taught me to make baked goods from scratch, cross-stitch any kind of fabrics, pour chocolate shapes, and make the things I wanted rather than buy them.  For my fourth birthday (I think), I was in love with CareBears so she hand-sewed about 25 CareBears and hung them from the ceiling by a shiny ribbon attached to the tops of their heads.  Each kid got to take home a bear as a favor while my sister and I got nicer stuffed bears hand made by her.  I got Birthday Bear (and cried because Sunshine Bear was my favorite - sorry, Mom!!) and my sister got Good Luck Bear.  We both still have them - dirty, worn and loved.

She still does tons of crafts and now I do, too.  I can't wait to share them with you!