Craftacular!

Don't you love weekends where you barrel through wedding projects and craft to your hearts content? Seriously, I do. Crafting is a zen thing for me. It's the only time when I'm not freaking out about logistics and can just focus on the task at hand whether that's gluing stuff down or cutting perfect edges.

So this past weekend, with my sixteen year old cousin, C as a helper, I finished off the details for my guest sign-in table. Here is a general mockup (it's missing another framed photo-- same as the one on the left) and a digital photo frame that will include a slideshow of Mr. Canary and me through the years as well as photos of other family members.



What's shown: hand bound love quotes guest book ($45 from Marta Designs), wooden frame ($4.99 from TJ Maxx), flat top glass vase ($0.75 from Michael's), flower pens (quick tutorial below), brass photo stand ($12.99 for two from eBay), and bird cage cardholder ($29.99 for two from Save on Crafts).

What do you think? When it was all set up, I was so ecstatic to see it come to life. I can't wait to see how it will really look on the day of. As is, it's not too shabby... if I do say so myself. ;)

Now for a quick tutorial for flower pens. They were very easy to make and took about 30 minutes to make six pens. I found all the supplies, except for the pens, at Michael's. Since I always have boxes of pens lying around, I just used what I had, which were Uniball Gelstick .7mm pens in black. They're fade resistant, inky but don't bleed, and acid-free, so whatever my guests write will last forever. ;)

The rest of the materials:

• Roll of floral wrap tape ($1.19)
• Silk flowers ($0.99)
• Tape
• Gluestick

These were super easy to make. Once we had all the materials, all I did was cut the flower leaving about a 3-inch stem.

I used scotch tape to tape the flower to the end of the pen.

(Those are C's very helping hands wrapping one of my flower pens!)

Then from the top, used glue stick to adhere a bit of the floral tape to the pen, and started to wrap the pen right until it reached the nib point. Initially, I wasn't too crazy about using floral tape because of the green color and wanted to use satin-faced ribbon instead, but the tape allowed for me to still cap the pen (which is really necessary with gel-stick pens).

And voila! The completed pens as we started to fill up the vase. I finished off the vase by tying a pink satin-face ribbon around the rim.

Success! Another project is complete! What were some of your completed weekend projects?