Sweetie Bar!

Here's a trial run of our sweetie bar!!! This is kind of how it will look on the day, only we're going to get some big swirly lollipops and a couple more jars as I cant imagine the sweets will last that long! 

Compared to how much some sweetie bars can cost, we managed to keep costs down by getting the jars from the Poundshop, Poundstretcher, B&M Stores etc and sweets are from Makro.  The wooden sweetie dispenser was made by my Father in Law to be, which I decorated with fabric strips and hearts that coordinate with the candy cones (kindly made by my Mum!).  I bought some plain white paper bags from eBay and put a personlised sticker on half and heart ink stamped the other half.  I also put the stickers in some paper pots as another option for holding the sweets.

The wooden heart was made again by FIL to be and I decorated it to coordinate with the rest of the sweetie bar.

Excuse my garden background!!! Will upload some pics from the 'real' sweetie bar after the (second!) big day.....

Memory Books

Here are the memory books that I've made for my three bridesmaids.

I went back through all my old pics (bought back lots of lovely memories!) to find some for each of my bridesmaids.  I found some scrapbooks on ebay and covered them in some paper, attached a tag from East of India and on the inside, Ive put a poem inside a little envelope.

When we get back from the wedding in Cyprus, I'm going to finish them off with a picture of us from the weding on the front.

One of my most fun DIY project so far!!!

Free wedding websites!

These are a great idea to keep guests up to date with wedding plans, to share images and to receive RSVP’s!

What’s better is that they are free and you don’t have to be a computer whizz to create one!!

Here are a few of the best I have found:

Wedding Path

Getting Married

Big Day

DIY Flowers

Another way to save money for your big day is to do your own flowers There are lots of online tutorials (see below) available. Will work out much cheaper than florists and you can get it exactly how you want to!!

Get a few pictures together from bridal and florist magazines, work out your colour scheme and how many bouquets, buttonholes, corsages etc you will be making so you will know how many flowers you  will need. It may be an idea to have a trial run too!

If I can find the time in between getting back from the wedding in Cyprus and the wedding reception back here in the UK, then I will give this a whirl myself!!! (To match the bridesmaid’s wrist corsages that I have made of course!!)

Here are some links I’ve found for DIY wedding flowers:

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-a-wedding-bouquet
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-a-floral-buttonhole
http://www.ehow.com/how_17553_make-bouquet-bride.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_4999234_design-own-bouquet.html
http://www.perfect-wedding-day.com/make-your-own-bouquet.html


And some great books...

Tealight/Mirror Plate Centrepieces

Here’s my second lot of centrepieces! Not much of a DIY element to these but thought I’d share them all the same! The lovely tea light holders and mirrors are from The Range, petals and scatter jewels are from eBay…

Floral Centrepieces

Here are one lot of our centrepieces – a very low budget centrepiece to fit with our shabby chic theme! I made some tags of love quotes and tied these round the top of the jam jars with ribbon and tied some raffia round the top for that rustic look! Uses artificial peonies and roses and voila!

I used artificial flowers from eBay and jam jars from Amazon

Guest Book Sign

Here’s our guestbook sign, I’m hoping it will encourage people to sign to save sending the best man round all the guests with the book he he!

The sign is made out of wood, I then covered the front of the heart with paper, cut out an oval shape of glitter card and stuck another oval over the top of that with the writing. I also slightly changed the post box – I just added a sign to that too using the same backing paper as the heart.

Budget-friendly, simple and yet (hopefully!!) effective!

PS. Sorry the pics aren’t great!!