This is akac11's Pink Wedding!

Here's the line of thinking that gets me into these huge projects: I am going to use plastic cups for the bar at the wedding, but I wanted real glass at the table settings. I could've rented glasses for $.50 cents each. But then I thought, "Orrrrr I could buy glasses for not much more, personalize them, and use them as favors." So that' what I did.

These glasses were about $1.60 each, including shipping, which I thought was very reasonable. I have a diecut machine, so I used that to cut out stencils on contact paper. I then stick the stencil to the glass, and then used etching cream to etch it. I was originally going to use an exacto knife to cut out the stencil in reuseable vinyl, but it came out too messy looking. Also, etching one glass at a time would've taken ages. At least with the diecut machine, I can make a bunch of stencils and do a group at a time.

The tricky parts - (1) the glasses are round, so its very hard to get the stencil on properly. It takes me awhile to line each one up. If anyone has ideas on how I can do this more easily, I'm all ears. (2) once I use the stencil once and it gets all wet, its not very reuseable, so I have to cut out 100+ stencils, and the die cuting machine is very slow. (3) its challenging not to get any bubbles in the stencil, which allow etching cream underneath, creating messy looking etched spots.

Overall though, I think they're pretty neat, although a ton of work.

Neither my finance nor I particularly like cake, so after much angst, we decided to do a pie bar instead of cake. The pic is the sign I made for the bar, using the same technique as the guestbook below. For pie stands, I went to goodwill and bought a bunch of plates and vases. of various heights. They're all packed up, so no pics, but I plan to glue the plates to the vases to make a few rows of stands in different heights, similar to the second pictures.

My wedding is a sort of rustic garden theme. For my guestbook, I'm having guests fill out individual pages, with various information. I'll put all the pages together in a book. For my cover, I decided to try out wood burning. It actually came out better than expected.

I made a design just in power point, and printed it. Then I traced (from the back of the page or else it would come out backward) the design with a charcoal pencil. You can press the charcoal design onto the wood, and it transfers the design. Then I traced over the design with a wood burning pen, and voila!

That is just the cover. I was planning to use another piece of the same wood as the backcover, but it is thicker than I thought, so I think it might be too clunky. Anyone have ideas for what I can do instead? And how I should bind it? I'm still trying to work out those details.

I also wanted my pens to be a little more interesting, so I made these butterfly pens. They are just normal BIC pens. I got some artificial butterflies on wires. I just covered the pen, including the wire, with floral tape. This was actually very easy, which is good because I made one for each guest!

Here are my wedding invitations. I wanted a pocketfold, but I wanted a more interesting paper, so this is what I came up with. The pocketfold paper started out 12x12, and I cut and folded it into that shape. Then I used a paper punch to make the pattern at the top of the pocket, and used double-sided tape to tape lace to the outside of the flap.

The actual invite portion was a separate pre-cut 5x7 cardstock, which I paper punched with cutouts, through which I laced ribbon.

The inserts were regular 8x11 cardstock, which I cut into shape. I used a fiskars cutter for all the cutting.

The whole thing was a ton of work, but I'm happy with how it came out!

Hi All,

I've been perusing this site for awhile, but didn't intend to create my own page. I decided, though, that I've learned so much along the way with all my 9 million DIY projects, that I should share with others.