wishing upon a star – 2012

like what i do when the ber month arrives, i list down my bday/christmas wishlist... but first let's revisit my last year's..
0. macbook pro (but i got this already a few weeks ago {dec 2011} as an early bday/christmas gift)1. airbrush makeup system.<-- bought it myself and i love it!
2. YMCA 1 year membership<-- dont need it
3. Lightroom 3 for mac<-- got it as late christmas gift
4. mac mouse<-- got it
5. iphone 4s case <-- got it
6. issey miyake perfume<-- got it
7. that photoshop actions im eyeing on.
8. and maybe giftcards from dress barn or macys or charlotte russe

not bad...


 for this year i want... hmmm

1. broadway show (wicked or lion king or jersey boys)
2. harry potter land (florida)
3. ikea gift card
4. flower seeds
5. lil bob

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Our DIY "Message In a Bottle" Wedding Invitation

We decided to DIY our wedding invitation for the civil wedding because we're going to have an intimate wedding with just less than 50 guests and thought  it would be manageable. It ended up being a major task and took us a month to finish even if we just need to make 23 pieces of invitations. I won't recommend this if you have 100 guests, well, not unless you have a knack for torturing yourself, lol. But I must say, after our guests received theirs and they started calling us/texting us to tell us how impressed they were and raving that it's the most unique wedding invitations they have ever received, it was all worth it in the end....

 Anyway, so here's how we pulled this off.

 We divided this into phases. First phase is putting the sand and tiny shells in (which is what I volunteered the h2b to do, lol). Second phase is adding the accent ribbon on the bottle. Third phase is the actual invitation (printed, rolled and placed into the bottle, and added medium-sized and large shells). Last phase is the box, including the final touches like the accent ribbon and the tag.

 Here's what you'll need:

roll of rafia, the bottles and unassembled boxes (right)

For the first phase.
1. Bottles (I ordered my bottles from coloredsand.com, look for "message bottles")
2. Tiny shells  from A.C. Moore and medium and large shells from walmart.
3. Sand (got mine cheap from Joann's fabric shop). I also added some Cape May sand into the mixture (Cape May is where our wedding will be held).
4. Plastic spoon and paper funnel (for pouring sand into the bottle).

For phase 2.
1. Ribbons (I got lucky and found a ribbon on sale at Joann's fabric shop that looks weddingish)  2. Sticker ribbons for hiding the overlapped ends of ribbon #1 (got mine from michaels, martha stewart has some interesting patterns)
3. Motif ribbon (bought a turquoise blue from michaels)
4. Glue (that can work for both fabric and glass) 5. A lot of patience. Putting glue on bottles and fabric isn't my favorite thing in the world, let me tell you that, lol.



  For phase 3.

1. Paper of your choice. I used a handmade paper from michaels, which,  by the way, is a daunting task by itself because i had to go to several michaels branch because not all branches carry the paper we need and if they do they would just have, like, 10-15 of them (i need atleast 23 but i tried to get more in case of printing errors).
2. Rafia ribbon for keeping the scroll in place.
3. Nautical theme charms (got mine from etsy.com, look for happysupplies)  






For phase 4.

the plain box before gluing in the wrapper

1. Boxes ( also got them from coloredsand.com)
2. Ribbon for tying the boxes shut.Although, this is really optional. You can actually just tuck in the the cover inside (see right image). 3. Gift tags, to write in the name of your recipients.

rolls of exotic wrapper ($3 each and each  piece makes 6 boxes)

4. Any interesting wrapper. I was lucky to find one from artistcraftsman  (they have the most amazing exotic wrapper collections!) which is just a block away from where I work. Just cut the wrapper into the shape of your box then glue the wrapper in place.




 For the steps I think everything is pretty much self explanatory. Or if you still want to see the detailed steps it's the same as our DIY WYB message-in-a-bottle necklace (click me), the only additional steps would be for the accent ribbons on the bottle and making the boxes for the bottle.




 And oh, here's our finished product (the picture has our monogram sticker but I decided not to put them anymore because it makes the box looks busy):

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Vintage Spool DIY WYB (Paris themed)

In my previous blog, I showed my beach themed, message in a bottle DIY WYB . I used that for our civil beach wedding female entourage WYB. Here's another one I made for my other set of female entourage.

Because our church wedding theme in the Philippines is about travelling and because we are adding some Parisian elements to it I figured I should do a WYB that's kinda dramatic. And that inspired this project (click photo above for better view).

Our church wedding's motif in the Philippines, by the way, is peach and yellow that's why there's a peach tiny flower and yellow ribbon around that WYB and ofcourse I have the Eiffel Tower charms (bought it from etsy.com, look for happysupplies).

Now, I am going to share how I did this. First, the materials you need.

1. Vintage spool.
2. Paris rubber stamp (you can get one from amazon).
3. Yellow ribbon (or any other ribbon color of your choice).
4. Lace that's 1/2 inch wide. I used up just less than a yard for my 7 spools.
5. Tiny flowers of your choice.
6. Eiffel tower charms.
7. Black and red stamp pad (or any color you want).
8. Cream colored fabric (or any other fabric you want as long as it's plain).
9. Alphabet rubber stamps
10. Needle and thread.
11. Fabric glue.

 Now for the steps.

1. Remove the stickers on the spool. Dab it with wet cloth if there are still some difficult to remove residue left.
2. Let the spool dry then bring out your Paris rubber stamp and stamp both sides of the spool base.

3. Measure the width of the body of the spool and cut your fabric accordingly.  How long your fabric would be would depend on how long the name of the recipient is or how big or small the alphabet rubber stamp you have. I would advise you to do at least one mock-up spool WYB before you start this project in full throttle.
4. Stamp one side of your fabric using your Paris rubber stamp.

5. Then flip the fabric and start stamping that other side with the name of your recipient and the role you want him/her in.
6. Glue the end of the fabric on the spool. Make sure the part you glue in is the end of the sentence/question part. I just think it's logical if your recipient sees his/her name first while she unscrolls the spool.
7. Then measure the circumference of the spool and cut your lace accordingly. You would need 2 of that lace per spool. One for the top and another for the bottom.
8. Sew the lace in.
9. Hook your charm on the ribbon of your choice then wrap the ribbon around the spool and tie it on the spool securely.
10. Insert the tiny flower.
11. That's it your done! It's up to you how you want to package this. What I did is I bought those cheap organza cream pouch, put the spool in.

As for the shipping part (in my case my entourage are in the Philippines but I am in the U.S) I got myself a bubble wrap lined enveloped and placed the organza pouch with the spool inside.

Here's my finished product.

And here is where I got that inspiration (i love etsy.com!):

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Yet another DIY WYB

s much as I want to send out the same message in a bottle necklace to everyone who we want to be in our wedding party, culture and differences in chromosomes told me I can't. Actually it was the H2b who pointed that out to me. He said that for the female entourage, American or not, would surely love receiving our message in a bottle necklace WYBs. The male species, on the other hand, probably won't. Atleast for the American men. So I had to give out two different WYBs.

This is easy to do too.

What you need:
1. black cardstock
2. white cardstock
3. small black buttons
4. glue
5. ribbon (i used tiffany blue) optional:
6. sand
7. tiny shells




Steps:

1. Cut black cardstock crosswise and fold in half.
2. "Dog ear" the top layer . Make sure the corner of the dog ear's won't go past the edge of the black cardstock. Lest it would be difficult to make an envelope to hold that card.

3. Practice printing the wordings. There should be enough space on top for the pseudo (extra long) half bow tie. In my experience one card stock is good for only one message.
4. Once your done practice-printing and you printed the messages for all your male ento into the white card stock it's time to cut.
5. The white cardstock should be, atleast, 1/8 inch smaller than the black cardstock on all sides.
6. Glue the white cardstock in place.
7. And the buttons.

8. Tie a knot on the ribbon of your choice.
9. Glue the inside part of the knot
10. Cut the ribbon to desired length. You can experiment on the length of the ribbon but it's supposed to mimic half the bow tie.

11. For the envelope just fold the white cardstock in half. It's up to you if you want to do it length-wise or cross-wise.
12. Before you cut the white cardstock put your finished WYB card inside so you would know how much you need to cut including the space you need for gluing the envelope together.

Optional:
12. Since I have a beach theme I put sand on my envelope. I just put glue on the white cardstock and poured the sand in.
13. Then I glued shells at one side of the sand.

That's it! You're done! By the way, make sure you wrap the card with bubble wrap before putting it in a bubble wrap envelope. Yes, better safe than sorry. And here is our finished product.

And here are some other variations:

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new chapter

and so i changed my mind.

I figured since I'm now in a different stage of my life, I thought it would be a good idea to start a clean blog.

With this let me officially welcome you. Thank you for stopping by.

You're still free to visit my old blog, though. What I am right now is a result of the things I did and the things I said yes or no to in the past. Feel free to take a peek here: obedientnonconformist.blogspot.com

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DIY Message in a Bottle necklace WYB

WYB means W-ill Y-ou B-e. I don't know who invented that concept but I sure do like that idea. I personally think it's more thoughtful than to just tell your wedding party verbally.

I have to do two sets of WYBs. One for our Philippines' church wedding and another one for the U.S. civil beach wedding. Since both of the weddings have different themes I decided to make two separate designs.

 The picture below are some of the mock-ups I did but decided against it and went totally in different direction. There's one of those mock-ups though that I am planning to use.

I am very excited to share how our WYBs look like but I wanted my entourage to see them first so I waited until all my female entourage received theirs. Oh, and yes, they all said yes!


 So first I'll walk you through the materials you would need. Read on:

materials

1. sand (bought mine from Jo-ann's fabric )
2. shells - medium (bought it from walmart)
3. shells - tiny (bought it from micahel's )
 4. vial bottles with cork with silver screw eyes...60mm tall by 12mm wide, with a 7mm opening (bought it from an etsy seller)
5. silver chains (a.c. moore )
6. rafia (jo-ann's fabric)
7. wooden boxes (bought for $1 each at michael's )
8. vellum paper (i used 2 colors, dirty ivory for female ento & light blue for the male ento)
9. silver ribbons (for tying up the scroll)
10. tiny trinkets of your choice (i used starfish for the female ento and fishes for the male)


 Looking at my materials I'm sure you know already what I'm up to, lol and you might have already visualized the steps but I'll enumerate the steps anyway.


 0. Get some old newspaper and cover your work area with it. Believe me you'll need it.It will make cleaning stray sand easier.
1. Make a fake funnel. See that white inverted triangle in that photo above? That's just a small piece of bond paper that i rolled and just made sure the end fits the mouth of the vial glass.
2. Get a used plastic spoon and start pouring the sand in. I suggest you just fill 1/8 of the glass so you'll have room for the tiny shells and your scroll.
3. Drop in 2-3 tiny shells. I try to combine the neutral colored shells with some colorful ones.
4. Put the cork in and screw in the loop screw eyes. Make sure its centered before you completely screw it in. And be careful, you dont want to break the delicate cork.
5. Insert the chain through the loop screw eyes.


 Easy right? So we're done with the first step. Next is the message and packaging.

male ento WYB..i used cream for the female ento

1. Do some mock printing for the scrolls. Try different font sizes and try different width sizes. You want to make sure the scrolls aren't too long that you won't be able to put the cork in. It's important that you do this first so you won't waste those expensive vellum paper.

 2. Once you're done putting fake scrolls in your bottle necklace it's time to print the real ones!

 3. Measure, measure, measure!  then cut. Again, we don't want to waste the vellum paper. What I do is I draw a line and made sure it's leveled. You want the scroll to be the same width on both sides.

 4. Roll the scroll. Since we did Step #1 you probably know now how to roll the paper really thin so it would fit in your vial.

 5. Put some tiny glue in the middle of the scroll. This is so it won't start unrolling while you put the silver ribbon on it. Dont put too much glue that it would be hard to remove. i use the tip of my pencil when I add the glue.

 6. Put a dab of glue to where you'll be placing the ribbon (middle) then start looping the ribbon in (I just loop the ribbon twice) and knot it twice. You need to glue the ribbon before you loop it so it would be easy to squeeze in the scroll with the ribbon inside the vial without the scroll falling off from the ribbon. Again, don't put too much glue. Cut the ribbon to desired length but make sure it's long enough that you could tie in your trinkets.

 7. Put the scroll inside the bottle with part of the silver ribbon hanging out. That is so it would be easy to take the scroll in and out the vial glass. Place the cork.

 8. Tie in your choice of trinket on the other end of the silver ribbon. Your really don't need to add a trinket but we don't want a loose cord just hanging out of the bottle, that would look dreadful. The trinket is for added wow factor, lol.

 9. Try taking the scroll in and out of the bottle atleast once to make sure everything is glued in perfectly. That ribbon is the only way your recipient can access the scroll easily so if that gets unattached even before they were able to pull the scroll out and, worst, the scroll started unrolling itself inside the bottle, they would never get to read the message. So it pays to be anal retentive once in a while, lol.

 We're almost done!

 Now, originally, I was just thinking of putting my message in a bottle necklace in a small white (or ivory) organza pouch but I chanced upon those cheap wooden boxes from Michael's so I used that instead. The other cool thing about those wooden boxes is it has a space on top and a glass cover to put in extra stuff. So here are the optional final steps.

1. Open the top part and put in a small shell then I closed it back.
2. Place some rafia inside the box as lining.
3. Then put in the Message in a Bottle necklace WYB and add a semi big shell right next to it for accent.
4. Put some rolls of bubble wrap on top to keep the contents from shaking and prevent them from breaking.
5. Close the box and wrap the outside with a bubble wrap. Remember the top of the box is glass.
6. Get a mailing envelope with a bubble wrap lining (we can't be too careful with breakable items like that) and put the box in.
7. Seal the envelope.

That's it!  Below are samples of the finished product both for the male and female wedding party.

I got this idea from Urban Outfitter's Message in a Bottle necklace. I just jazzed it up a bit.


 

 And the wordings in the scroll are:

 1. Peggy, if we promise not to make you wear an ugly dress, will you be our Bridesmaid? Our wedding will be perfect with you by our side – roxxxx &mxxxn 
2. James, it would mean so much if you were by our side on our wedding day. Will you be our Groomsman? – Rxxxx &Mxxxxn

Feel free to share this or use this for your own WYB but please if you're using my photos just remember to mention that you got it from 2sqrtof3.blogspot.com.
Enjoy!

 P.S. I used a different design for our ring bearer and flower girl WYBs.
That would be on my next post.

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on DIY Will-You-Be cards

according to our wedding timeline i need to start doing mock-ups for our WYB cards....... i usually do my DIY stuff during weekends but i was extra ordinarily inspired today, lol....

here's what i came up with so far..... i was able to do two mock-up WYBs for the bridesmaids/maid of honor and only one for the groomsmen/best man.....

they're supposed to be tiffany blue but they look more like aqua on those pictures......oh well......

anyway, since these are just mock-ups, they don't reflect the actual size and shape of the final output..... this is just so i could see what a certain combination would look like..... i still have different shapes and sizes of buckles and ribbons that i could experiment on, so what you see on those pictures may not be the final design yet.... but right now i'm leaning towards doing the buckled WYB....the dressy WYB is cute but it looks more like an invitation for a sweet sixteen than a WYB.... 

those, by the way, are just for the U.S. wedding..... i need to look for another WYB inspirations for the wedding in the Philippines......... our church wedding motif is peach with yellow while the civil wedding is tiffany blue......

WYB = will you be (my bridesmaid/maid of honor  or my groomsman/best man)

p.s. i'll post my mock-up napkin rings on my next post......

below are my inspirations.....i forgot where i got these images, if these are yours please drop me a line.....

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