Ribbon and glitter and wood - oh my!

Things that I am thinking right now:
1) I can't believe it's only Wednesday.
2) How is it already Wednesday?!

I simultaneously feel like this is the longest week ever, and that I need more time in the week for all that I have to do. People keep asking me if I'm enjoying my time off, but it doesn't really even feel like time off. I had a bad day yesterday - I feel like I'm supposed to relax and enjoy this time, but I'm so stressed out I don't even know what to do with myself. I woke up at 430a today for no damn reason and laid in bed for 30 minutes trying to force myself to go back to sleep but it wasn't happening, so I figured hey, why not blog?

Clinton had his bachelor party on Saturday and while he was out doing that I decided to take advantage of having the place to myself and make a total mess while doing my crafts and trying to get things organized.

At some point in the night, my living room was actually even MORE cluttered than this. I did not take a picture however, because it was after 3am and I was delirious.

First I finished up all of our favors.

After the favors I decided to get everything organized and ready to go. I made stacks of candles so that when we do our set-up it will be really easy - one stack per table, no confusion, and hopefully not 10 people asking me where things go. I packed everything for our centerpieces neatly into 2 boxes, and a 3rd box for table signage. I also packed a smaller, separate bag with important small things that I need easily accessible in it - ring boxes, flower girl buckets etc.

Next, I got to crafting. The first thing I made was a card box. There are DIY cardboxes all over the internet that look like a 3 tier cake - the point of these is to make something people can put cards into so that they can't be stolen. While this was originally my intention, when I went to Michael's to buy supplies, I realized I just didn't want something that big and plus, we're having a relatively small wedding - we know/love/speak to everyone there on a regular basis and are close enough to them to not have to worry about anyone stealing anything. So I went in a different direction and just bought a small, plain wood, card-sized box. I also bought a metallic champagne paint, some burgundy cardstock, and some gold letters (I already had the sheer ribbon pictured).

From this...

And this...

To this!

It's kind of hard to see the color, but it's a very light gold/champagne with a bit of shimmer to it.

It wasn't difficult, just required a little bit of precision for the lining, and patience for the paint to dry between the 3 coats. I guess some people might say it's a risk to have an open box like that but I don't know, I kind of feel like if you think it's risky, then you probably invited people to your wedding who shouldn't be there.

My next project was a cake topper. Now, this cake topper journey has been a trying one. A week before the wedding and still didn't have one - so frustrating. I (well, we) knew exactly what we wanted but it was proving nearly IMPOSSIBLE to find. As mentioned in a previous post, we have a sort of inside joke with crabs - the extremely short version is that before saying The L Word, we used to say "I peench" to each other (which basically meant the same thing, but SOMEONE *cough*notme*cough* was too scared to say it) because of this old commercial for the Honda Element with Gil the Crab. It's a little too silly to explain much more, but it's something that has stuck with us. We still say it sometimes, and always draw little crabs on cards and stuff. SO. Even though our wedding could not be farther from a beach theme, we knew we wanted crab cake toppers no matter what.

DO YOU KNOW HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO FIND CUTE CRAB CAKE TOPPERS? I WILL TELL YOU. IT IS VERY DIFFICULT. Apparently people just don't want their cake topped with a couple of cute crustaceans, believe it or not. I found a few, but they were mostly real-looking crabs, which, I don't know, just doesn't seem cute to me? I wanted something cartoon-ish and simple. I finally found ONE thing that I liked on Etsy. I didn't end up buying it because the seller was charging $70 for it, and it probably would have been even more because hers were blue and red and I would have asked for custom white. Finally I decided I could not possibly justify spending that much money on something that nobody else would probably even notice, so I thought I'd give it a whirl and see what I could come up with myself.

While at Michael's for the card box materials, I remembered that I had purchased the little wooden crab for the our save-the-date pictures there too. I found some crabs in the same section that were similar, but not exactly the same. I actually liked these ones a little better though, because they were slightly rounder and friendly-looking. I bought 4 of them so that I could do a trial run and a final draft, but I ended up only using the two because I was happy with my first attempt.

Plain wooden crabs.

First I traced them onto a piece of paper.

Then I drew the design I wanted on the picture and cut out some construction paper accessories.

Next up, 3 coats of plain white paint, then a tiny brush w/ some black paint for the faces.

 I don't have pictures of the next step, but basically I used some burgundy carstock painted black to make a bowtie and top hat for the groom. Next I cut out a tiny piece of tulle to make a veil for the bride. I also placed a few rhinestones on her claw as a bracelet. I decided to skip the bouquet because it looked unnatural anywhere I placed it. I had also purchased a small wooden base and I used mod-podge to stick the little guys to it. The base is painted white, and it's hard to see but there's also 1 coat of  clear iridescent glitter on it so that it is not the same finish as the bride and groom crabs.

The final product.

In better lighting, but hard to see the shimmer.

Final cost - like 4 bucks. Take that, $70 etsy topper! I did this one all on my own without consulting the groom which was a bit of a risk - he's been involved in nearly every decision thus far so I was worried he may not like it, but I didn't want to be texting him while he was having his boys night out. The good news is that the next day when he came home, he was in the middle of telling me a story when he stopped and asked me where/when I bought the cake topper, because he really liked it and didn't remember me showing it to him. Score one for me! It was pretty sweet to say, "oh I didn't buy that, I made it last night". Bonus point - he also loved the card box. Whoo-hoo, go me! DIY Bride for the win.

I also finally finished painting the initials for our Sweetheart Table. This was actually a long process because they originally started out neon green and yellow, so I had to primer them and use A BAJILLION COATS of glitter paint. That is an exact number.

And lastly, my most recent project this week has been the seating chart. Talk about a tedious task. That is definitely one of those that I wish I could have delegated to someone else, but wouldn't have trusted anyone else with, so I got stuck with it. It wasn't as difficult as I thought but I did have to do some finagling to get everyone where I thought they might be comfortable. Of course, there's always that one person who you don't want to subject anyone to and finally you just have to put them somewhere and hope it all works out haha.

Step 1 - Posterboard. I highly suggest this method. I also highly suggest a pencil instead of a pen. Rookie mistake.

Final product after I typed it all up and matted it in this frame I picked up for only $5!

 So that's what I've been up to this week! My living room no longer looks like that 1st picture, but one wall is stacked several boxes high. The spare room is mostly cleared out and will be finished today because OH HEY MY FAMILY ARRIVES TONIGHT! Actually more than one part of my family arrives today - my mom, step-dad and brother get in tonight from Nevada and are staying with us, and my sister and her husband and my 4 nieces are getting into town from Oregon. I hope I have just a moment to spend with other out-of-towners before the wedding, but everything is so hectic it's impossible to say. I can't believe how close the day is! I hope to blog again before Saturday, but no promises!