Recap: DIY Cocktail Napkins

after mastering my beloved gocco machine, i decided that i was going to take on making my personalized cocktail napkins for our wedding. i went to IKEA of all places to buy my napkins since they were having a blow out sale on these, i snatched them up for uber-cheap. i bought them in navy and white - and at that time i had planned on just repeating the pattern i used on the blue.

well needless to say, i got a little creative/ambitious and thought i'd incorporate our paisley pattern from our invitations on the white napkins... and i was really happy with the way they turned out. below is a candid from one of my bridesmaids, the napkins were sitting on the cake table... note to future brides: if you take on DIY projects, give a list to you photographer, i blew it on that, and therefore didn't end up with many photos of my DIY details.

the navy napkins had our sand dollar

Blair & Justus

August 2, 2008

all in metallic gold ink

below is a close up of our sand dollar image

above is our cake with the napkins next to it

here's a close up of the paisley napkins

and finally a shot from the design process: gocco'ing napkins means - very little counter space!

give me some time and you'll be able to view some client's custom cocktail napkins that i'll be posting on my company blog for an upcoming wedding... go to JoiedeVieJewelry.blogspot.com.

centerpiece update

k, so today my mom and i did some major wedding agenda errand running... we hit paper source, crate & barrel, and cost plus world market....

while at cost plus we rummaged through their clearance area and found these beauties for a buck a piece, that's $1 folks:

Clear Fleur Stemware (Wine Glass)

in my last centerpiece post i talked about the IKEA stemmed votive option,

 but i wasn't sold on them.  then today when we saw these, they were way less contemporary, and a way more graceful shape. so we snapped up 15 of them, well actually 16 in the end... they weren't packed up very well and one went for a sky dive as we walked out of the store!  

oops... 

so they gave us a new one. 

 fyi: cost plus people were really eager and helpful, either that or just really bored! =)

so plan for these is to put water in them and a floating candle, which we will

hopefully find this weekend on our adventure around LA... 

we'll be hitting some of my jewelry wholesale vendors, then to see a designer in the diamond district, next to china town for more lanterns, and we'll end at Moskatell's

to look for some wedding goodies.  

i'll update later about our day trip!

The Bucket List

so i decided i want to use galvanized buckets as many of the small flower holders... i have a few places i'd like to use them for the ceremony and reception decor, here are my ideas:

this is from a wedding my photographer shot this past summer (Memories by Michael), i plan on using galvanized buckets to pot indigo, cream and purple hydrangea in them and hang them on every other chair along the back row of the ceremony chairs.  this way when a guest walks up the backs of the chairs look pretty, id rather do this than line the aisle with the buckets, i found the idea to hang them from the backs of the chairs in one of my many bridal mags

 i would like to hang buckets on the railing of the stairs at my venue, which is this left pic (photographed a la moi!)

the right pic is one more from Michael, with bucket list inspiration for my stairs also.  after the ceremony is over i plan to have the buckets taken from the chairs and placed on the bars and various tables for the guestbook and such. yay for multifunctional decor!

any creative ideas of ways to save on decor and make it go the extra mile for multiple purposes?

My Martha Wedding Inspiration...

a long while back, i think before i was engaged (yes, i am one of those brides, shhh...) i was flipping through a Martha Stewart Wedding mag (yes i did buy one prior to being engaged) and i came across this inspiration for one of the main focal points  of our wedding reception.

once i became engaged i stumbled across this reception look again, i had been searching for paper lanterns, i had seen many pics of receptions incorporating them.  although at that point i wasn't quite sure what look i was trying to achieve, other than a nautical feel....

then the above Martha inspiration came my way, instantly i knew i wanted white, blue, and a few purple lanterns in various sizes.  rather than Martha's approach of hanging the lanterns over a table, i wanted to use them to focus the attention on our dance floor.  after realizing my vision, my mom and i made the trek up to china town in los angeles on a mission to get great prices on paper lanterns, sure enough 16 lanterns and $60 later, my lanterns and i were driving home. 

 i was quite pleased with myself!

also, a few days ago my sis-in-law informed me that paper lanterns were on sale at 

Cost Plus World Market, so i found these fabulous brocade style lanterns! i think they are all really neat, but the blue are by far the winners in my book, since they work so

well with my color scheme!

so the problem is now, what would i do with these.... hmmm...

ha! i know, i could use them outside at the cocktail hour for decor! genius... 

this way the lanterns will tie the cocktail hour decor and reception decor together without being the same exact style! 

the next plan of attack was to use the centerpiece idea for some of my reception tables.

after that same LA trip, i was about ready to give up on the idea of 5 various sized hurricanes on each of these tables, wow that would cost more than just sticking with flowers!

well one night at Big Lots, i spotted a drinking glass set that was uber cheap, and had 3 various sized cylindrical glasses, which a candle would fit very nicely in... hmm.. since all the hurricanes will be wrapped in a white paper, it really didn't matter what they looked like! ha, i saved money again for my smaller "hurricanes."  

now the problem of the tall ones, well on a visit to good old WalMart, my brilliant sis-in-law saw the Catholic prayer candles (for lack of a better name) and thought hmm... hurricane plus candle all for $.99, can't beat that! cross off the candle situation, and it looks like the table decoration problems were solved.

crisis averted! 

Reception Decor ideas....

so i don't even remember how i stumbled across this company but i know i've seen some event planner use them for a "platinum wedding".

Wonderful Wedding Graffiti is truly fabulous in my opinion. not only do they specialize in tying together an overall theme for you wedding invitations, favors, and day of details... they also have a whole world of domestic graffiti for the home or other creative projects.  this image is what i plan on doing at my reception, since the yacht club has a massive fireplace that i had planned on making the focal point of the party! i love it because it places attention on the vows of a wedding, which in my opinion, aren't cherished these days the way they used to be, especially since so many couples opt for writing their "own vows".  not me, i'm sticking to the traditional vows, and i will showcase them on the mantle! =)