Made with Love. Paid with Pennies.: June 2015

The first half of my 2015 has been filled with "milestone" celebrations... bridal showers, baby showers, weddings, and birthdays have booked my weekends solid. Not only have I been able to spend more time with the people I love most, but I have also had an excuse go on a DIY frenzy...

I have a tendency to bite off more than I can chew when I am presented with DIY opportunities - I find myself saying things like “of course I will make all of the invitations by hand!” or “ I'll make 50 glass tags – no big deal at all!” – But when push comes to shove, the reason I commit to all of these crazy projects is because I love making my loved ones feel loved (sappy, I know). With that being said, I had to be rather strategic with my decorations for all of these events, both from a budget stand point and a size standpoint- transporting center pieces on a Bolt Bus from NYC to Connecticut was simply not an option.

My next few posts will highlight a few of the things I made for a few of my favorite people in the last 6 months…First up, my cousin Carly's bridal shower that was held at my parent's house.

Invitations:

Despite what I mentioned above, I opted to order the shower invites from minted.com rather than make them- not only do they offer a gigantic selection, they really let you flex your creative muscles when it comes to designing the final product.

Carly's wedding inspiration was rustic yet feminine- I wanted to make sure that her shower felt the same way all the way down to the invitations. Below is a snap shot of what all the invitees received in the mail....

Decorations:
I wanted to keep it simple and personal.

Carly and her new husband, Andy, have been together for quite some time, and so most of their story can be told through pictures...with 6+ years worth of facebook photos and a very sweet email response from Andy it was easy to come up these gems:

As you can probably tell from the photos above, I wasn't kidding when I said that I committed to making over 50 drink tags...each had a different floral pattern and each had a different "wedding" word...