Gift Giving: Buying for 200 people

The whole gift giving process is difficult.  It's hard enough to find the perfect gift for one person that you know they'll love, cherish and most of all, use for years to come.  It gets even harder when you're buying for 150-200 of your closest friends and family.  What do you get for said crowd that won't break the bank but also won't end up in the trash can on the way out the door?  The options really are limitless.  There are so so so many great ideas out there, it's just so hard to choose!

I really didn't want to just give something that people would never use.  The whole jordan almond thing is nice and traditional, but not for me. 

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I've also been to a few weddings where they gave out M&M's as favors.  Either personalized or not.  I think it's a cute idea, especially the personalized ones, but I wanted something more original than that. 

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I guess the first thing we needed to decide is whether we were going to DIY or not.  I'm still on the fence about this but for a large wedding, it just doesn't seem as feasible to DIY favors.  There are just too many of them and the benefit of saving money and having a bit more personal of a favor just doesn't outweigh the time cost in my eyes.  But I still swoon over pictures like this one:

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My original idea was to make sugar cookies in the shape of fall leaves (for our October, tree themed wedding) and decorate them with icing.  Something like this.

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I wanted to do a couple different shapes and give each person 2-3 cookies.  Which I am realizing means that I need to make up to 600 cookies to make this happen.  In order to really keep them fresh I'd have to ice them the week of the wedding.  Although I've never done this before, I have a feeling that week will be packed full as it is without having to carefully decorate acorn, pumpkin, and leaf shaped cookies.  So, FI and I decided to rethink this whole DIY favor thing.  We've come up with an idea that I like even better than the cookies and I think will work really well.  I'm super excited about it and I really think our guests will love it.  I'll tell you all about it... on a later post!

Have you gotten a favor at a wedding that you just loved? 



DIY Project for the Guy

Yup, that's right.  The mister has a to-do list for the wedding.  I know that a lot of times the guy thinks he just has to show up on the wedding day, but that doesn't fly with me.  And, to be honest, I think K likes doing things for the wedding.  In small doses, of course.

His list isn't very long and most of the tasks I've given him have been things I know he'll enjoy.  See, K really likes woodworking.  And so, anywhere I can I've tried to incorporate this skill of his into the wedding.  It's also really cool because it personalizes little things in the wedding a lot more since he made them. 

I know you are all wondering what he made.  You ready?

What is it, you ask?  It's a photobooth prop, of course!!  See, I just love seeing pictures like this one:

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And I've known from very early on that I wanted to do a photobooth at the wedding.  While the free-standing, old school photobooths are really cool.

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But there's one eensy, weensy problem with that.  It's WAY out of budget.  So,we're going the DIY route, fo sho. 

So, I think that K did such a great job making this.  I even tried it out.

But the best thing he did on this speech bubble chalkboard is the handle!  There's a nifty little handle in the back so it makes it easier to hold and see in the photos.  Like so: 

So what do you think of his first DIY project??  



DIY Calligraphy: The Result

This whole calligraphy thing seemed a bit daunting to me.  In true form, Mamabean told me I should just hire someone.  She's of the opinion that if there's someone out there who gets paid to do something, you shouldn't do it yourself.  That's all fine and dandy for her and all.  But reality check:  we're on a budget!  And as I've said, people are just going to throw these envelopes away.  So, DIY it is.

I started off with the essentials.  My fountain pen with additional nibs, some plain paper, a pencil, ruler, and a good eraser.  

Then I started attempting Italics.  My pen set came with a few different ink colors so I started playing with red, since I thought I wouldn't use it on the actual envelopes.  My attempts looked a little something like this:

 And this...

Oh yes, and this:  



Watch out!  I'm getting fancy here.

So after practicing for awhile, I thought I could start tackling some plain white envelopes.  I don't have photos to show you, but let's just say that I went through quite a few before I was ready to start on the nice envelopes that matched our STD's. 

After what felt like a really long time and a lot of practicing, I finally started on my first envelope.  I started off by drawing lines on the envelope in pencil.  I did 7 lines starting 1 1/2 inches down from the top.  The lines were 3/16 of an inch apart, since I was using a fine fountain pen.  This distance changes based on the type of nib you choose. 

The 3/16 inch distance is basically to determine how large your lowercase letters are.  Letters like a, c, m, n, s all should fit in that space.  Letters like b, d, and p will have their "tails" above or below this line.  Uppercase letters end up taking up almost 6/16 inch, so two spaces. 

After drawing my lines lightly, I slowly started on my first envelope.  And I think it turned out pretty good!  After erasing the lines, the envelope looks like this. What do you think?

Could be better, but not bad for my first attempt! 

Since then I've done about 50 envelopes and let me tell you, my hand is hurting!  Each envelope takes a lot of time, a steady hand and lots of patience.  But after awhile, here's where I am.  I'm still learning, but I think I'm getting better!

What do you think??  Are you ready to tackle your own DIY calligraphy now?  

Calligraphy: Which Pen to Choose?

This is my first major embarkment into DIY territory so I hope you've got your seatbelts fastened!  We ordered the STD magnets from vistaprint.com and they came in last week (Yay!!).  Now, I had already decided that I wasn't going to hire a calligrapher.  I think they charge WAY too much money, and honestly, if my wedding guests are anything like me, they're just going to throw the envelopes out.  So I decided to DIY.

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I took a trip to one my new favorite stores since I started wedding planning, Hobby Lobby.  There I purchased the following items:

1.  A fountain pen with different sized nibs and 4 different ink colors.  
2.  A Calligraphy book
3.  Some other random wedding things that have nothing to do with this post. :)

The book I bought has been immensely helpful and if you're looking to do some simple calligraphy, I would recommend it.  If you're looking for more detailed, elaborate calligraphy it's probably not the book for you. 

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They also sell it on amazon.com so you can read more reviews and maybe get it used.  It's called "First Steps Calligraphy" by Don Marsh. 

The pens I purchased were pretty basic pens.  From what I've read there's some pros and cons to the most common types of pens.  There are others such as the reed pens and quill pens but these are much more advanced and they're a little bit beyond my DIY capabilities.   

Dip Pens (This is overall the best quality, but also the most advanced)

Pros: 
There's a large variety of nibs available for this type of pen.
You aren't limited as far as ink goes.  There's a lot of different inks available for dip pens.

Cons: 
More difficult to learn.
More difficult to control than fountain pens or markers.

Fountain Pens
Pros:
You don't have to pause to reload the pen so it's easy to maintain the smoothness of calligraphy.
More portable than Dip Pens.

Cons:
Limited variety of ink types.
Limited nib sizes.

Markers
Pros:
Easy to use.
The most inexpensive option

Cons:
Inaccurate definition.
Very limited size and color range.
Limited use. 


After weighing the pros and cons, I decided on the fountain pen because it's less maintainence and much easier to learn and control. 

Next up, more DIY Calligraphy!