FH Projects

Well well well. FH CAN be crafty! Once he's taught properly, that is. The boy had never used a glue gun or spray paint in his life before this trip. Still hasn't used spray paint, but I'll take glue gun skills over nothing! Remember that cork placecard holder project I posted about a little while ago? Well, I decided to have FH work on it and he pretty much finished it! He did 101 of them (I started him off with like 20).

He was really happy that I took a picture of him doing crafts.

Near the end we decided they didn't all have to match because we were running out of corks. Then I found another bag of them after he left... and MOB told me Aunt Wendy had sent up a bag of corks with Uncle Randy a few weeks ago, too. (I'm going to be rolling in corks - love it!) So I'll probably do at least another 15 or so just to have extras. Plus I have NO idea how many people are coming yet! Yeah, that requires me to finish the invites and send them out... I know I said end of June but I have no idea where June went! I finished the UK portion of them, so those will go out as soon as FH puts them in the mail! Anyway, I'm not working on any other projects (except packing up wedding stuff to take to MOB's house for storage this weekend) until the US portion are finished. I think I have something like 50 left to do... FH did help me a bit on the invites as well. He cut paper and ribbon for me. (Hey, I'll take what I can get.)

Back to corks - look at this super awesome thing Bridesmaid Lela got me for my birthday! It's a cork cage! You put the corks in the top and they're caged in the bottom. There's even a little "gate" on the bottom you unlatch to get them out. LOVE IT.

-C
xxx

Cork Placecards

I started a new project last week! Most of you know that I've been hoarding corks for... um... ever. Yes, seriously. It goes right along with my "I can't throw anything away" thing. I've been saving corks for a couple years now, and when we got engaged I knew I'd want to use them for a DIY project of some sort. Initially I thought I'd do placecards with a slit down the middle, like so:

Hip Hostess

I'd seen them for sale all over the place and thought, hey, that seems super easy to do, why don't I just make my own? *seems* was the key word there. I sat down with some corks and my x-acto knife one day and proceeded to almost lose 3 fingers in one sitting. I was honestly perplexed. How can this really be this difficult?! I thought it was going to be a quick and easy slice down the center and done. Nope. I put this project aside for awhile. When I was visiting MOH Ryann in Kansas, we went to a winery with her sister, friend, and parents and I ended up telling them about my cork collection/projects. Turns out, her parents have been collecting corks, too. They did something pretty awesome with them! They sliced corks in half and filled in the side of one of their cabinets with them and it looks great! MOH Ryann's mom said they used this super sharp knife to cut a slit down the middle in order to attach them to the side of the cabinet. So I starting thinking, maybe I just need a longer, sharper, knife.

Then I decided I liked the look of the two-corks-glued-together-with-ribbon-wrapped-around-it idea better! Like so:

WeddingBee Post

BONUS - this project really IS super easy! You hot glue two corks together, then wrap ribbon around them (with a tiny bit of glue to hold it on). That's it. Really. That's it. Here are mine (not my placecards, that's one I got from another wedding):

I felt so productive when I got 30 or so done the other night while watching Criminal Minds. Sure, it takes more corks to do (2 per place setting versus just 1), but it's so much easier and you don't have to deal with the potential issues involved in the slit ones:

- slit has to be at a bit of a diagonal so the card looks up or at least straight ahead (sounds frustrating)

- have to stabilize the cork somehow - attach something flat to the bottom or cut off the side of the cork so it stands up and doesn't roll around

- can watch TV while gluing instead of having to pay very close attention to where you cut

- potentially losing fingers...

So folks, cork donations continue to be accepted - and will be after the wedding, too! I plan on making a dart board out of corks someday. We'll see how long it takes me to get around to doing that... but I will do it!

One last thing - yesterday at Target I saw a box of "decorative corks" for $10. What?! There must have only been maybe 10-15 in there, and they weren't blank corks - they looked just like most of mine! Can you say rip off?

-C

xxx

Green as in Repurposing

To me, nothing feels better than when I find use for something I've kept for so long not knowing what I was ever going to actually use it for. I mean I get SO excited. Like, "SEE, told you I'd find a use for that egg carton!" Ok maybe I don't keep egg cartons, but I keep a lot of things that a LOT of people would throw away.

On Friday, I read Bowie Bride's blog post on her wedding crafts. side note: I can't believe she's doing everything without a tutorial - what a rockstar! I got inspired by the idea of going through your house and finding things you can repurpose for your wedding. It didn't hurt that we got snowed in all weekend, so I actually couldn't go anywhere to buy anything for projects and had to use what I had on hand! I was way too excited to venture to the basement only to find a massive picture frame that I had taken the picture out of years ago, but couldn't bring myself to throw out. I decided to make it into a massive bulletin board where I will stick escort cards into (or a table listing onto, whatever I decide) for my wedding, and then use it in our house afterwards. Who can't use a bulletin board, afterall?

Luckily I've been saving wine corks for years, because I knew I had to eventually find something useful to do with them instead of just throwing them out. UNluckily I've been saving for 4 years and it looks like I may still not have enough! I've been planning on using them in other wedding projects, so have enlisted the help of family and friends in saving theirs, and now will need even more! For the bulletin board, I decided I wanted to make it mainly corks from foreign lands (or it may just turn out to be corks from other people, since it's going to take so many!). One of my bridesmaids brought me back a bagful from Singapore last summer, and my future mother in law gave me a bunch the last time I was over in England. Needless to say the frame was a bit too big and I need a lot more corks to fill it! Any donations to the cork fund are greatly appreciated :)

this is as far as I got - I need more corks!

I've been sick all weekend, and even stayed home sick from work today, but did manage to get a couple projects done/started/progressed this weekend. Taking yet another cue from Bowie Bride, I'm going to leave you with a wedding craft teaser. Anyone care to take a guess as to what these are going to be??

- C
xxx