Guest Post: DIY Wedding Ideas

27 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Guest Posts, Weddings

Tags

coffee favors, decor, diy, DIY napkins, ice cream bar, napkins, party favors, Trisha Jefford, wedding

The days of Pinterest and DIY projects are among us and it seems like every time I log into Facebook another one of my friends has posted a photo of an impossibly cute, DIY based project or craft they’ve made. With this in mind, I’d like to say that employing DIY projects and ideas for a wedding (or other event) does not have to translate into countless hours of gluing, cutting, and assembling. In my time as an event planner and caterer I have come across a few great ideas of my own that I like to suggest to clients who wanted to add a little extra something for their guests to enjoy.

DIY Napkins
Taken a look at linen costs lately? To buy just a set of four can sometimes set you back $12-$15, not to mention any cleaning costs incurred after your guests use them. To get around this expense, and to give your event a little more personality, I’d suggest an inexpensive and fun alternative to my clients. DIY napkins!

To make napkins you will need:
– A couple of large packs of simple paper napkins in a variety of colors
– A pair of heavy duty scissors
– A stencil of a shape or design of your choosing

To begin, make a simple stencil large enough to be used on the napkin, but interesting and intricate enough to catch your guest’s eye. For mine I’ve chosen to use a simple leaf shape. From here, all you need to do is cut this same shape into the napkins you picked up (make sure not to cross the seam of the napkin). To achieve a layering effect, put two colors together per guest, such as a rustic orange and a mossy green, or whichever color you think will go great with your event’s theme or season.

Some of these next ideas would work great as well:

Photo Credit: Weddingbee

Photo Credit: Intimate Weddings

DIY Party Favors
Giving your guests a meaningful thank you gift doesn’t require you to take a huge gouge out of your bank account. A great party favor that I frequently suggest to brides and grooms to-be is a DIY take home bag of coffee! This project can be accommodated to a wide range of budgets and only takes about an hour to do.

To make DIY coffee you will need:
– A package of small brown paper lunch bags
– A spool of ribbon or twine
– Computer sticker paper or a stencil
– Your favorite coffee beans (ground or whole)

One thing all great coffee has is a name! You can get as creative as you want when naming your coffee, but I’d suggest keeping it in line with your new last name, “The Eagleston Roast”, or “The Jameson Brew”. Whatever name you go with, make a quick stencil or sticker design on your computer and slap it on the bag. Tie some ribbon or twine into bows and place it above or below your name and just like that, you have an easy yet creative party favor for your guests to enjoy. If you have a little more time and money to spare you could order a customized stamp from an internet retailer.

Here are some more great ideas:

Photo Credit: Apropos Roasters

Photo Credit: Wedding Paper Divas

Photo Credit: Green Wedding Shoes

DIY Desserts
A good wedding cake can really hit you in the wallet; and a good vegan wedding cake can often be the price of a small country’s entire GDP (just kidding, but really). If you’ve been following recent wedding trends then you’ve probably noticed the new direction dessert options are taking. Many couples are choosing to completely disregard the traditional wedding cake and instead, electing to take another route entirely. While I still recommend getting at least a small cake for cutting, and picture purposes, there’s really no reason why you can’t go avant-garde and get a little creative in the dessert department.

My personal favorite is setting up your very own DIY ice-cream bar. This option costs quite a bit less than supplying cake for all of those dessert-eaters, this creative post dinner idea is also a lot of fun for guest of all ages.

For DIY ice cream you will need:
– A couple gallons of ice cream (I recommend “Purely Decadent” ice cream in multiple flavors)
– A handful of your favorite toppings
– Serving dishes

By doing this, wedding guests are free to dress up their dessert however they like. I remember one couple that had a sign at their dessert bar instructing their guests to snap a photo of their creations, then hash-tagging it on Instagram or Twitter under the wedding party name. This made for a fun, creative photo album for the guests and wedding party to look back on later.

Here are a few great examples:

Photo Credit: Eat, Drink, Chic

Photo Credit: Katelyn James Photography

Photo Credit: Alli McWhinney Photography

I hope some of these tips and projects can help you or have inspired some ideas of your own for your upcoming wedding. Remember saving money and cutting costs does not have to translate into dowdy or shoddy. Think outside the box and your guests will leave satisfied and maybe even a little jealous of your creativity.

{Trisha Jefford has worked a variety of jobs across the food service industry from waiting tables to being a personal chef. She is a wife and mother of two wonderful girls who put up with all of her whacky taste testing. Trisha currently blogs and writes for EZ Cater, a site that specializes in finding you the perfect corporate caterer.}

Nautical Design and Decor

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Guest Posts, Jim Klossner, The Home

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

blue, boats, decor, design, home, Jim Klossner, nautical, navy, ocean, redecorating, sea, shells, water, waves

Do you ever crave a moment by the sea? Maybe it’s the tranquility of the waves lulling you to sleep, the fresh salty breeze, or the feeling of sand between your toes. Whatever it is about the ocean that sets your heart in motion, you can carry the look into a beachside house or bring the ocean to you when you’re 1000 miles from the sea. Here are some great designs for inspiration.

A great nautical design starts by leveraging navy blues and bone whites throughout your fabrics, paints, and accents. Navy and white stripes make a great runner and pillow combo, especially when combined with this funky navigational chart wallpaper.

Photo Credit: The Home Barn

White furniture is easily given a nautical flare with some blue pillows scattered about. The boat book shelf is an ingenious touch that leaves you in a “sitting beside the sea” mood.

Photo Credit: Decor Medley

Blue stripes integrate with this ultra-modern nautical take, with sleek clean lines and lots of natural light. Check out the mirror a la porthole for a fun twist.

Photo Credit: At Interior

There are several ways to bring the ocean theme to your bedroom – these striped walls provide the perfect backdrop for an otherwise mellow nautical design.

Crisp modern nautical sheets and coverlets, along with curtains and other fabrics, are a great and inexpensive way to bring this look to the bedroom. Some options hearken back to the glory days of big ships, and have an antique nautical feel like this set.

Other approaches are more minimalist.

Another popular approach is integrating the patriotic with navy themes. These tend to be bolder, and bring in reds and more color to work with. If you like a bigger color palette, this is a distinctive take on the nautical theme.

Photo Credit: Home Decorating Co

If your kids are little sailors at heart, the options are endless. Some light carpentry quickly builds a shell that turns a kid’s bed into an actual boat.

Photo Credit: Marine Insight

In any room, small touches that quickly lend a nautical feel include interesting rope designs, like these framed on the wall and used as part of accessories.

Photo Credit: Ocean Home Mag

Photo Credit: Style Theories

Boats are being worked into design in interesting ways, from accent pieces to the furniture itself.

Photo Credit: The HomeBarn

Life preservers have a role in nautical design, both indoors and outdoors. Some are functional, others purely decorative.

Photo Credit: The HomeBarn

A whole other approach works in softer pastel colors, seashells, and sand to give more of an “at the beach feeling.” Shells can actually become part of the structural support of a house or an accent piece.

Photo Credit: Porta Weddings

Photo Credit: Make Merry Events

Outdoor spaces can also be transformed with nautical elements, from lighting to lawn furniture. Any backyard can give the feeling of overlooking the sea.

Photo Credit: Nautical Cottage Blog

Photo Credit: Shades of Light

Photo Credit: Houzz

With all of these great ideas, you can give a nautical makeover to any room of your house in no time. So what are you waiting for? Start redecorating today!

Written by Jim Klossner

How to Make Flower Arrangements

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Daisy Hart, Everyday Design, Guest Posts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

centerpieces, decorating, diy, dried flowers, Flower Arrangements, flowers, nature, ribbon, silk flowers

Decorating your house with flowers is a great way to brighten up the interior and bring some color into your home. Creating beautiful flower arrangements at home is quite easy and almost anybody can learn how to do it. With a little practice you can even make them look quite professional.

When decorating your home, you can use both fresh and dried flowers. Both can help you achieve great results. Even artificial or paper craft flowers can do the trick. All you need to do is to provide yourself with the proper materials.

How to Make Flower Arrangements

Carefully choose the proper colors. If you would like to accent a certain room in your house or use specific colors, you will have to do some pondering beforehand so that you are sure you will make the right decision. Pick what type of flowers you would like to use for your floral arrangement. If you enjoy being creative and don’t mind making new displays every other week, use fresh flowers. Some types of fresh flowers, like jasmine, for example, will grant your room with a magnificent aroma. However, if you are allergic to pollen, or would like a long-lasting arrangement, choose silk flowers.

How to Make Flower Arrangements

The room decor needs to be complemented by the colors you choose. If you are a beginner in this field, use the help of a color wheel. As complementary are considered the colors beside the one you have chosen. Similarly, contrasting are those that are on the opposite side. For example, if the main color theme of your room is yellow, pick a color that is next to the yellow color on the color wheel.

Before you actually start making the arrangements, make sure you have nice containers for them. You can use ceramic vases, large coffee mugs, wicker baskets, brass containers, sculpted clay or even small cardboard boxes. Don’t forget that you will need a watertight container if you use fresh flowers. According to the size of your container, cut an appropriate piece of floral foam which will fit just right. Glue it to the bottom of the container. If you are to be using fresh flowers, soak the foam once its glue dries. Thorns and lowers leaves are to be trimmed in order not to rot or mold in the water.

How to Make Flower Arrangements

Greenery as well as the tallest of the flowers should be arranged first. If the arrangement is to be a centerpiece, put them in the middle. If not, put them in the back. While arranging the rest of the display’s components, be careful not to create any single color patches. For instance, if you have a bunch of red flowers, do not place them all right next to each other, but rather put a yellow or a pink one with some greenery among them. This will break the patch.

How to Make Flower Arrangements

If your container of choice is a wooden box or a basket, use some trailing greenery which will soften the container’s sharp outline. Adding plain or scented candles is optional. However, if you decide to use such, make sure everything is properly trimmed in order to avoid setting your arrangement on fire.

As a final touch, you can attach a ribbon, preferably a silk one, which is to be changed throughout the year, in order to match the themes of the different holidays – a green on for St. Patrick’s Day, a red one for Valentine’s Day, red-white-blue one for Independence Day, etc. By making floral arrangements you will bring in bright color and mood in your home, which can last all year long.

Written by Daisy Hart

http://www.flowersbypost.org.uk/valentines-flowers/

Bedroom Makeover on a Budget

18 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by melissaoconnor in Everyday Design, Sarah Atkinson, The Home

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

bedroom, beds, budget, curtains, design, designing, furniture, interior design, painting, redecorate, redesign, shabby chic, wood

It is that time of the year when everyone needs to be tightening the purse strings as Christmas well and truly hits and January is spent recuperating from it. But that shouldn’t mean you have to put off doing something you want or need to do. The word ‘budget’ doesn’t necessarily mean having to sacrifice quality and style, it’s all about knowing where to look for things and how to create an expensive look for a fraction of the designer price tag!

Don’t redecorate, work with what you’ve got
Redecorating can be the most expensive part of making over a room, but what many people don’t realize is, you don’t have to change the wallpaper or paint to change how it look. If you have neutral colors and patterns on the walls then you are in luck, as you can change the style of the room to just about anything you like. If you went for something a bit more bold and bright at the time of decorating, don’t start stripping the walls yet! Look into what the current trends are. Maybe when you first decorated it was in fashion to have every single item in the room in one color, but now the trend may be to mix and match, the more colors the better!

Photo Credit: Digs Digs

Give your furniture new life
Kitting a bedroom out with a new bed, wardrobes, chest of draws, cabinets and more is another expensive part of redecorating a room. And there is probably nothing wrong with the furniture you have, you just got bored of it and fancy a change. So change it!

If its wood you can do so much with it. Sand it down and give it a new varnish or paint it a completely new color altogether. Shabby chic is very on trend at the moment, so painting it white and then distressing the paint would look great and isn’t hard to do at home. The best part is, it looks expensive and has a designer look. For other surfaces you could get some stencils and spray some fab new designs or purchase some appliqués (readymade designs) and stick them on to the boring old furniture surfaces.

Photo Credit: Painted Cottages

Photo Credit: Thrifty Inspirations

For beds, divans allow you to change the headboard easily so you could get a new one or jazz up your old tired looking one. For complete metal or wood bed frames don’t despair! You can bring new life to those by weaving colorful fabrics such as ribbon or scarves through their framework and hang decorations on their ends.

Photo Credit: Signature Homes

Curtains and bedding on a budget
Bedding and curtains are one of the main focal points of a bedroom and if done right they can make a room look modern with very little damage to your wallet. Satin is the material of luxury so it makes sense to assume satin bedding and curtains would be expensive? Not at all. You can find quality satin bedding and curtains for a fraction of the designer price tag. Don’t fancy sleeping in satin bedding or even want to change your bed covers at all? You don’t have to. You could simply purchase a satin bedspread which will cover the entire bed when you aren’t sleeping in it and throw on some bed cushions to make your bed look like it is straight out of a showroom.

Photo Credit: Furniture 4 World

There is so much more you can do with your bedroom no matter what your budget, it just takes a little creativity and imagination and you could have a whole new bedroom whenever you like!

Written by Sarah Atkinson