I DIY'd Pomanders Too!

Like the many Bees who have gone before me (think Mrs. D'orsay and Mrs. Spring Roll), I have opted to make tissue paper pomanders to decorate our ceremony site!

I had been searching high and low for options that would look great, be non-fussy, and affordable. I started seeing these pomanders pop up on Weddingbee and on other sites, so when I came across these instructions and saw how simple it looked, I picked up the supplies to make a couple of pomanders (I waited to buy all of the styrofoam balls until I was sure I wanted to make a lot of these).

I opted for 4-inch styrofoam balls, and would guess that it took anywhere from 15-20 flowers for each pomander. And, better yet, Mr. S got in on the flower making action and helped me make some!


I was only going to make 8 pomanders (so 4 on each side of the aisle, spaced out), but I had enough styrofoam balls and TONS of tissue paper and ribbon, so I just kept on going until I got 10 done.

Originally I had absolutely no clue how we were going to attached these to the pews. I'd bought some of these pew clips, but once I got them I realized there was just no way they'd fit over the top of the pews. I was getting SO frustrated...until, that is, we went for our last meeting with our minister a couple of weeks ago and checked out the pews. There are teeny, tiny little hooks on the end of the pews for just this purpose!!

So, as you can see below, I just took some string and, using a needle, pulled it through the top of the ribbon and created little loops. The pomanders should now perfectly hang!


This was by far one of the easiest DIY projects and I'm so glad that this is what I ended up doing! It's a minimal investment and will compliment the aesthetic of our wedding overall. Our church has a 100 year old sanctuary with dark wood and pale yellow walls, so keeping our ceremony decor as minimalist as possible will definitely compliment the space.

Are you DIY'ing your ceremony decor?

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Wedding Programs...Penguin Style!

The programs are done!!! Well, almost. But half the hurdle is deciding what you want to do, designing it, printing it, cutting the paper, and then putting it all together. As of right now, half of my programs are completely done, and the rest are ready to be assembled. Not too shabby, eh?

Mr. S and I were inspired by Mrs. Penguin's programs for her Thai Water Ceremony. We liked the way the pages fanned out, and from a DIY perspective, the actual process was pretty straightforward.

I love Mrs. Penguin's lovely flower design and cool, calm colors:

Source: Weddingbee

With our Mrs. Penguin-inspired programs, we took 8.5x11" green cardstock and cut the pieces in half vertically, and scored the pieces down the middle horizontally. So, they're a bit taller and skinnier than Mrs. Penguin's, but I was able to get two covers per sheet and didn't have to put a whole lot of thought into the cutting.


Instead of putting more of the "cover sheet" on the inside, we put that on the front (we'd originally tried it as Mrs. Penguin has it, but since we weren't decorating the front, it looked like it was missing something).


We also stuck with a 2-color combination, mostly because there wasn't a third color that we really wanted to add in. Page 1 is the order of service, page 2 lists the wedding party, reader, parents, etc, and page 3 is a thank you message from Mr. S and I.

The inside pages are just slightly smaller than a quarter of a page (so they're 3.75x5"). So, between the pages and the cover, I used 77 pieces of cardstock for 52 programs (I'm debating whether or not we'll need more...our headcount is only 100).

There definitely have been some bumps in the road, most significantly being the fact that our printer always seemed to want to change the margins! I did a test run with one at the end of last week, cut it perfectly and it worked great. The next night I printed out enough for 50 programs and went to cutting...only to find out that the margins were just slightly off! So, the words are much closer to the edge on a couple of the pages than I would prefer. Disappointing, to be sure, but I'm just going to slip my photographer one of the good ones for her to snap pictures of!

This is my last big DIY project for the week, and I'm almost done...hurray!

Where did you find inspiration for your programs?

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DIY Menus...Or What I Spent My Saturday Night Doing

I randomly decided I "needed" menus and proceeded to invent what seems to be the most time-consuming method for creating said menus. And, considering the fact that I think I just wanted menus because I thought my photographer would take cute pictures of them, I probably could have just made one and pretended after the fact that they were at each place setting.

Rest assured, I'm not that jaded about them and I know they will look cute on the tables, but I did spend the better part of my Saturday working on these and I'm only 1/3 of the way done.

The principle behind the menus is very simple (which is why it seemed like such a good idea at the time!) - I took green card stock and cut each piece into thirds horizontally, so that each piece was 2.83" x 11". I then scored each piece into quarters for ease of folding. This, my friends, was the easy part...and the part of the process that I did over a month ago and left until now (crunch time!) to finish.

I laid out our menu items in Microsoft Publisher, each item in a 3" x 2" rectangle. I then printed the menu "innards" onto white cardstock and used my handy paper cutter to cut each rectangle.

Salad and entree:

Dessert and celebration message:

Each rectangle was taped onto the green card stock, strategically placed so that the heart-shaped hole punch I used would not go through the white card stock. I'm sure there is a much handier, craftier way than double-sided tape to attach the white cardstock. I know that Glue Dots are great but I didn't have anything like that on hand this weekend and, to be honest, I don't want to spend any money on this project! The down side to saving money, however, is the time consuming process of taping everything!

The skinny black and white stripe ribbon that I love so much is perfect for tying these closed, and my handy scallop punch strikes again for the menu cover!

Could I have done something easier or not have menus at all? Of course. Do I regret not testing out putting a few of these together before a cut and scored all of the card stock, leaving me no room for changing my mind? Definitely. But the end product is super cute...now only 90 of these to go!

Have you decided to make menus, and if so, what do they look like?

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Showering with Thanks

I'm fresh from my bridal shower/bachelorette weekend, and I can't wait to share the fabulous details of the day and night! While I wait for my lovely bridesmaids to send some pictures my way, I thought I'd share the gifts I put together for the bridesmaids.

Mrs. Latte's gifts for her bridesmaids had stuck in my head and I knew I wanted to do something similar...but lacking creativity, I decided not to reinvent the wheel and instead just take her idea (thank you, Mrs. Latte!).

Please don't mind my awful photography...these weren't completed until just before the shower, so I had to quickly snap some shots!

I bought these great gable boxes that were the perfect size, and using a handwriting font printed out the "thank you" message onto card stock, which I then cut out using pinking shears and glued onto the boxes.


Using a mixture of typewriter font and the handwriting font I printed the messages onto cardstock, cut them out, punched a hole into each with a heart-shaped punched and tied them onto the items with my favorite black and white ribbon.

...some yummy cinnamon scented soap...


...yummy smelling candles...


...and my favorite chocolate chip cookies using this recipe and sprinkling the top of each cookie with sea salt pre-baking to get the perfect salty-sweet combo...


I'm so glad I was able to give each one of my five bridesmaids a little thank you for giving me such a great weekend!

Coming up...the Stiletto shower and later the bachelorette extravaganza!

Did you do anything special to thank your bridesmaids?

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Card Box...Complete!

Remember when I had this great DIY idea for a vintage suitcase card box? Yahhhh...my first attempt turned out so badly I couldn't stand to snap a picture of it before it landed in the trash. So, I went with my backup plan.

When I was planning my candy buffet, I picked up this black cake stand, which happened to come in a great box. I'm not using the cake stand anymore, but it's been sitting around my kitchen in that box. It only made sense to stop trying to think of something new and go with what works - a hat box turned card box.


Mr. S cut a slot out of the center with a box cutter, then I took some extra damask fabric I had on hand to cover the top. I didn't have big enough of a piece of fabric to cover the whole top, so I used two separate pieces.

I hot glued it in place on the top, then...


I flipped it over and gathered pieces, pulling the fabric tight, and glued it in place. I didn't have the patience to try and get it smooth, so instead I pulled it so that it looked gathered around the side.


To cover up some not-so-nice edges around the slot, I glued some ribbon in place and tucked it into the underside of the lid.


The finished box! It's simple and a little rough around the edges...but I finished it in less than an hour using materials I already had in the house.


I'm glad I ended up going with a classic idea rather than trying to reinvent the wheel for my card box - one more completed project is incredibly helpful at this stage of the game!

What are you using for the card box at your reception?

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Semi-DIY Bouquet Vases

Yes, the main decor element on the head table at my wedding will be a combination of cheap IKEA vases and tape...and yes, I'm quite proud of this!

My plan has always been to have the bouquets pull double duty and enhance the head table, but I didn't want to just put them in boring, clear vases and call it a day. I thought about silver julep cups - Save On Crafts has quite the selection -but it was more of a financial investment than I wanted to make. Plus, they don't really go with anything else we're doing. They're very elegant and for any other affair I'd be head over heals for them, but there isn't an ounce of silver anything at the wedding...excluding eating utensils, of course.

On a recent trip to IKEA, I purchased a 9-inch tall square vase for my bouquet...

Source: IKEA

and five 6-inch tall square vases for the bridesmaid bouquets...

Source: IKEA

One thing to note - if you're considering these vases, they have a thick base, so subtract an inch to determine how much room you'll actually have in them. Since the larger vase was only $5.99 and the smaller vases were $2.49 each, I couldn't pass these up and honestly just wanted to be done with it.

I've been unsuccessful in getting ribbon to stay put on vases, and had considered covered these with fabric or fun paper, when I found Etsy seller Nothing Elegant. She had this whole assortment of Japenese masking tape that comes in fabulous patterns and colors. But, the tape shipped from Korea. Hmm. In fact, I had a hard time finding it sold in the United States, except for this Web site Happy Tape. But, to get a black and white design from Happy Tape, I would have had to buy a set and probably spend around $30.

Taking a chance, I ordered this tape from Nothing Elegant (please note: in checking her shop, she has almost nothing for sale at this time; I'm hoping this is just for the short term because she had a fabulous assortment of tape!), and spent about $15.00 (including shipping). Aren't these stripes fabulous?!

Source: Etsy

Much to my surprise, I received the tape faster than I often receive items shipped from within the US...and the tape is absolutely fabulous!

I immediately took one of the shorter vases and started playing around with arranging the tape. I love that if I mess up, I can easily pull it off and start over. What do you think of the first attempt?

Since we still have a couple of months to go, I'm going to hold off on decorating the rest of the vases. I think these are going to look fabulous on the head table, and I won't sit there worrying about some ribbon or paper just popping off in the middle of dinner...decorating with tape was the best idea EVER!

What unique products are you integrating into your decor?

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DIY Invitation Addressing With a Twist!

I've posted about the in's and out's of our invitations...we've had them in our house since about February, but actually taking the final step - addressing these suckers - took some planning. We have these fabulous outer envelopes, but I just didn't know what to do in order to stay in line with the integrity of the design. Oh yeah, and in line with that pesky budget.

Source: Plush Paper

Along with many others, I fell in love with this easy way to mimic calligraphy, as posted on Project Wedding. I'm sure many others have hopped on board with this great project, including Miss Piglet (her invitations are fabulous!).

I liked this idea, but having done many a mail merge at work, I absolutely hate running envelopes through the printer because I've been witness to far too many fatalities - jamming, crookedness, black marks, you name it. I just couldn't subject my precious invitations to a chancy procedure. But since the whole project just boiled down to tracing, I decided there had to be a way to piggyback on this project.

I present to you my makeshift light box:


Taking one of the little click lights that we have on the underside of our kitchen cabinets, I took the glass out of a picture frame and propped it up on two books, sliding the light underneath. Voila! This setup was perfect for illuminating the addresses (of course, if I had dark envelopes this project would not work).


Here's a sample of a finished envelope (don't mind the messy blurring that I did to hide the full address):


It's not perfect, but it fits with our design exactly. The rest of the invitation was done in a typewriter font, so I used that for the addresses. This font also tends to be a little irregular, which lends itself perfectly to tracing! It would be fun to try this out with a more calligraphy font, but that's another project for another day.

If you're thinking of going this route because you can't stand the thought of running your envelopes through the printer, here's what I did:

1. Set up a labels mail merge through Microsoft Word
2. Use Avery Label 5168 (5" x 3.5")
3. Set up your font, centering and spacing preferences, and set your address text toward the bottom of the label (you'll need to experiment to find the right place; the first line of mine started at the 3" mark on the label)
4. Before completing the merge, also make all borders thick black lines
5. Complete the merge and go through the individual "labels" to make any adjustments, check for errors, etc*
6. Print your "labels" onto regular printer paper
7. Use a paper cutter to cut out the "labels" - the black lines at the bottoms of the rectangles can be used as guides when you're cutting them to ensure a straight line, especially if you don't have a paper cutter and are using scissors
8. What are intended to be labels are actually perfect for slipping right into your envelopes to then trace

*You will probably want to go through a couple of trial runs before you complete the merge to get the address located on the right part of the "label" so that it falls on the right place on your envelope.

For me, this was such a painless process, except for the pain in my hand as I addressed away! The mail merge makes it incredibly seamless, allowing you to pull straight from the Excel list you're maintaining.

Of the 73 invitations I have to address, all but six are done! And, I didn't mess up on a single invitation thus far...I think it's safe to call this project a success.

How did you choose to address your invitations?

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Invitation Innards

I was so excited to finally have my maps, which meant I could then put the "innards" of the invitations together. Since we had this extra piece to include, it gave me a perfect excuse to create belly bands with some extra ribbon I had. What do you think of the final product?


After downloading Dafont's LP Flowers 2, I found a shape that would match our damask theme. I laid these out in Microsoft Publisher and then printed them out on white cardstock. Using my handy 2-inch scallop cutter (that I think I use for every project now!), I cut out the disks.


I had a bunch of black grosgrain ribbon that I was previously going to use for the bridesmaid bouquets. I cut the ribbon into lengths that would tightly "bundle" the invitation pieces with a little overlap for taping. I had enough to bundle over half of our invitations. Not wanting to spend any more money, I used some thinner white ribbon that I had on hand to finish the rest. I ended up really liking the look of the white as much as I liked the black ribbon.

Using super strong double stick tape (the package claims it's permanent), I wrapped each invitation packet with a piece of ribbon and secured it with the tape. I then taped a circle to the center of each one, hiding the place where the ribbon overlaps. Sneaky!

Stacking them as I went, I gathered quite the pile sitting precariously next to me on the sofa...and they magically didn't topple over, even when I got up! (to get the camera, of course, to document my stellar stacking abilities)

This was a project that I easily completed in one evening. Yes, it got a bit tedious toward the end. I was hunched over, sore, and my finger was shredded by the end of the tape dispenser. But I'm in love with the final results and hope that our guests - at the very least - appreciate that pieces of paper won't be fluttering to the ground when they open their invitations!

While I wouldn't claim that the tape I used ("Duck" brand double sided tape) is permanent, it seems to be quite secure. When I took the bundles out a few days later, only one of the 75 had come unstuck and the rest were holding strong! It's out of my hands once those babies hit the mailbox...

Were you able to complete an extra project from start to finish, using only items you already had?

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Favors...All in the Details

I posted a little while back on our favor change from a candy/dessert buffet to making a donation to a local non-profit bakery and giving out samples of their tasty maple cashew granola to our guests.

To ensure we wouldn't change our minds to something else, I quickly ordered 125 3"x5" muslin bags from Etsy and we picked up a stamp from Jo-Ann Fabric that said "all you need is love." I gave Mr. S the stamp and a green ink pad and he stamped away. Cute, right?


Using my handy dandy 2-inch scallop cutter (one of my favorite wedding/crafty purchases thus far!), I laid out a message to attach to the muslin favor bags. Each bag will have three of these scallops - 1 with a thank you message from us, 1 with information about Blue Sky Bakery, and 1 with the address and web site of the bakery. Using my recent purchase of a Fiskars Eyelet Punch & Setter (another fun crafty tool), I joined all three tags together with an eyelet and threaded through it the strings of the muslin bag, like so:


Oh, and don't forget about the good stuff...this to die for maple cashew granola! I bought 3"x4" plastic ziploc bags from Etsy that fit perfectly inside of the muslin bags. It's not more than a few bites of granola-y goodness, but hopefully those who live in Chicago will seek the bakery out to get some more!


Now we just have to wait until the week of the wedding to pick up bags and bags of granola to fill all of these tiny little bags. We've talked to the bakery and it sounds like they should be able to fill our huge granola order for that week! Beyond the granola (I'm estimating spending about $180 on it), the rest of the items - from the bags to the tags - was less than $60 for 125 favors. Yay!

Beyond the fact that we're making a charitable contribution and supporting a great cause, my favorite detail of the favors is how great the "all you need is love" stamp looks on the bags. What little detail really makes your favor special?

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Centerpieces: Revisited and Redefined

Way back when I posted about the different centerpiece items I'd purchased from Crate & Barrel. If you link over, you'll see the cute little tealight holders, vases, and black chargers. In my mind it was going to be simple, chic, and budget friendly! I'd pick a great bloom to go in each vase, wrap ribbon around the vases and place everything on damask table squares.

I finally compiled everything a month or two ago to see my vision come to life. Here she is:

It could be worse...but could be better, to say the least. Please disregard the yellow gerber daisy, I had picked up whatever flowers they had at Whole Foods. The picture frame is a placeholder for whatever we're using for our table numbers. There was just no "wow" to it. It's fine, gets the job done...but Mr. S and I wanted to see what else we could do without throwing a ton of money at the centerpieces. I'd spent about $225 for enough tealight holders, vases, chargers and fabric to outfit 15 tables.

Oh and if you're wondering - Momma Stiletto is kindly making the table squares for us! Doesn't the first one look great? I love the fabric we ended up choosing, and I'm hoping to take the squares after the wedding and turning them into a keepsake such as pillows or something of the like.

Anyway, Mr. S and I got to researching different options that we thought we could pull off with minimal investment. The general rule seems to be taller = expensive, so we wanted to get some height on the tables. One centerpiece-of-the-moment seems to be branches. So we went into full force research mode finding good DIY's for branch centerpieces and pricing them out. Word to the wise - branches can be very expensive!

I came across an online store called Nettleton Hollow, which has branches that are reasonably affordable. Better yet, they have a blog with great DIY advice for their projects (quite smart, if you ask me!). On their blog I found this fabulous DIY for flowering birch branches combined with dried grass.

I decided to go for it and bought all of the supplies they suggested, and enough to decorate 8 of our tables. I've got one done and I LOVE it!

If you're thinking about doing this yourself, here's a breakdown of what I bought, what I did, and links to the products. Of course, that blog post I mentioned gives a great DIY as well!

Natural Birch Branches: $16.50/bundle

Fountain Grass: $12.50/bundle

I used 18" tall square glass vases: $6.45 each (I found square to be cheaper than cylinder vases and had to bit the bullet and pay the somewhat hefty shipping!)

Small white silk flowers: bought 4 bunches from Jo-Ann Fabrics on sale for $1.00 a bunch, cut them off of the stem

They suggest using 6 of the birch branches and a half of a bundle of fountain grass per arrangement, as I did above. Each bundle of birch branches has approximately 25 branches. So I bought 4 bundles of fountain grass and two bundles of birch branches. I think the biggest cost saver of this project is using the fountain grass to give your arrangement some more volume rather than using the more costly birch branches.

So, including shipping I spent right around $100 for the branches and grass (I was amazed at how reasonable their shipping was!). The 8 vases were $75 including shipping, and around $4.00 on little silk flowers. So, $180 total or around $22.50 per table. Amazing! The only downer was the vases - they seem to have some paint spilled in them and smell a bit like paint. Wha?! It wasn't worth contacting the company about but I probably wouldn't order anything else from them.

After purchasing all of the items, just use a hot glue gun to glue a few flowers on the branches - I think less is definitely more with the flowers, but that's just my opinion!

I love that this gives us some height, some of our green is pulled through via the fountain grass and brings some drama to the tables that we were otherwise lacking. Of course, we still have 6 or 7 more tables to "outfit" with centerpieces! Since I have all of those short vases from Crate and Barrel, and I had been budgeting for a bloom at each table that now won't be needed for 8 of the tables, I have a plan brewing that I'll share with you soon!

Did you decide that your centerpieces needed a little extra "oomph" from what you were originally planning?

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Coming Up Daisies: Escort Cards

Way, way back in the dark ages...you know, in March of 2008 when I furiously started planning this wedding, I fell in love with escort cards tucked neatly in beds of wheatgrass. And really, what's not to love? It's bold, vibrant, matches our color scheme...and if we get really ambitious we can make healthy smoothies with it the next day!

I didn't, however, want to use the standard folded escort cards. I wanted paper flowers.

Source: Brooklyn Bride

For the past year (yes, year!) I have searched high and low for the perfect way to fulfill my vision. I've always loved origami, so I tried any and every folded flower I could find instructions for (beyond the basic lily...far too easy, and I wanted to show off some mad origami skillz). But every option I found either wouldn't have set well in the wheatgrass, would be difficult to attach a leaf to, or just simply involved far too many steps for me to make 60+ flowers.

Another roadblock with orgami was the paper. Most of the prints I found just didn't fit in with our color scheme, and I didn't want to use a non-origami paper as origami paper is really the most convenient to fold with and it's already in perfect squares.

I finally gave up the origami dream and trolled the Internet searching for a better solution. I came across a papercrafting blog called Scrappy Habits that has a great tutorial for incredibly cute paper flowers.

Source: Scrappy Habits

I immediately bought the supplies I needed from JoAnn Fabric - black and white cardstock, teeny green brads and a 2-inch scalloped circle cutter. I decided to use black cardstock as the base for all of the flowers, and then for the top piece, half are plain white cardstock and half are cut from pages from a book of love poems by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. I like how the poems look as flowers, and that if guests look closely they'll find snippets of loving words.


It only took me about an hour to use the handy little scallop cutter to punch all of these out. Then, another evening Mr. S helped me cut, fold the petals and put them together with the green brads. But...of course we don't know seating assignments yet! The greatest part of this project is that we could pre-make all of the flowers that we need, and then when we have the seating assignments, make the leaves with the guests' names and attach them.


For the leaves, I created a teardrop leaf shape in Microsoft Publisher. To ease the process, I just outlined them with a green dot pattern, so I can just cut around the pattern and not have it look too sloppy (I hope!). On each one I'll print the names and seating assignments in a very light grey and then trace over them with a felt tip pen, like I did here. I used a typewriter font to match the font we're using on our invitations and in other places (sorry for the blurry picture, this is what happens when Mr. S is off shooting weddings...I'm left to my own devices with the camera!).


Our box full of flowers is complete and just waiting for leaves! I'm so glad to have knocked out this project so early in the game, and I'm excited to see all of these blooms scattered across the trays of wheatgrass.

I'll leave you with a snippet from the Pablo Neruda poem "Not Only the Fire":

Ah my life,
it is not only the fire that burns between us
but all of life,
the simple story,
the simple love
of a woman and a man
like everyone.
Did you do anything special with your escort cards?

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DIY Card Box Idea

I've seen the cute bird cages, mail boxes and hat boxes that brides are using these days for their card boxes on the gift table. So many of them are tailored to fit in perfectly with their themes. I, however, can't seem to get myself to jump onto that bandwagon. Sometimes I wonder why I have to make things so hard on myself.

Anyway. I've been trying to think of creative options for the card box that fits us, but doesn't make me go crazy. Or broke. I started thinking about vintage suitcases like this and how they tell there story of where you've been.


Source: Travelsmith

I've seen from time to time these great card board versions of vintage suitcases. Paper Source actually has a wide variety of them at pretty affordable prices - these black suitcases range from $8.00 - $14.50 each, depending on the size. Because they're cardboard, you could cut the bottom out of the top and middle cases, part of the top off of the middle and bottom cases, a slit in the lid of the top case, and adhere them all together, so when you drop a card in the top, they collect in the bottom case. Unfortunately for me, these are black with red stitching, and I don't want red. And I can't seem to find all black anywhere (or anywhere I can afford)...and really, can I afford to spend much money on this at all? No.

Source: Paper Source

Lucky for me, I came across this DIY suitcase. It's apparently made out of a Bisquick box! Who knew? Find the instructions here for this simple project. This project gives you so much more freedom because you can use whatever boxes you have available to get the size you want, fabric or paper that matches your color scheme, and it will cost next to nothing!

Source: Pecuniarities

I envision creating a stack of "suitcases" in black and telling our story on them through pictures of us - where we've been through our relationship. Since we're not planning (at this time) to do any form of a slideshow of pictures of us, this will be a fun way to display our memories as a couple, with maybe a few baby pictures pasted on for good measure :)

As I get going on this project, I'll be sure to share the final product...hopefully it will be beautiful!

What will guests be dropping their cards into at your reception?

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Pieces of Us

I was torn on this whole toasting thing. I had found a couple of viable options for toasting flutes on Etsy. They're cute and would easily go with our theme...but I was feeling a little "meh" about them. And a little "meh" on whether or not we even needed to buy anything at all, or just use whatever was placed in front of us.

But then Tina from With This Ring, I Obsess chimed in and shared she was going back and forth on this and was so glad she decided to do something special. I tracked back through her fabulous blog and found the great champagne glasses that she so cleverly personalized with charms from Paloma's Nest (did I mention that I <3>?!). Such a cute, clever idea Tina!

After searching on Etsy...yet again I was saved! I found this fabulous pair of platinum-rimmed vintage champagne glasses from Little Byrd Vintage. Oh, and did I mention that they were only $10?! I scooped them up immediately!

Source: Etsy

But, what to do, what to do for that extra little detail (you know, one of those details you obsess over, but only you and your mister will even notice!). I love the scrabble tile pendants I've been seeing all over the place on Etsy. They're so cute, but I'm not a big necklace purchaser in general, so I've never really had the urge to buy one...until, of course, my champagne glasses need some pizzaz!

Piece of Me Pendants on Etsy has an amazing variety of pendant designs...including... dahdahdah...a cupcake and a camera! Get it, get it? I love to bake, Mr. S is a passionate photographer...and the cupcake is even covered in sweet little hearts! They were only $5.95 each and I can easily reuse the pendants for other purposes (or even as a necklace, of course) after the wedding. Score!

Source: Etsy

Source: Etsy

I won't lie...the only less than stellar part of this $22 toasting project of mine was actually attaching the pendants to the stems of the glasses. I used white ribbon that I had on hand, and it was really quite too wide to do me any good. Did I stop and wait until I had something better? Of course not. I crammed the ribbon through the little pendant opening and somehow managed to wrap it around the stem of the glasses in a somewhat orderly fashion.

I could always swap the ribbon out later for a better look, but the they've really grown on me. I like that the pendants are positioned high up on the stems of the glasses and they're snuggly tied into place.

All-in-all, I love the sweet details of these petite little "his and her" glasses and that we'll be able to use them to toast special celebrations for years to come! (Whew...another detail...DONE!)

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Displaying all the Sweetness

So, I've got my fabulous cake all lined up, and I'm super-psyched about it. Now that it's all taken care of and I know all of the details regarding tier-size, I can start turning my attention toward cake stands.

My bottom tier is going to be 13-inches in diameter, so my baker told me I should look for a stand that's around 15-inches in diameter to ensure that there's plenty of room. Hmm. A 15-inch cake stand seems to be terribly difficult to find, and I keep on falling in love with stands that just simply won't work.

This amazing emerald glass cake pedestal is only 10 inches in diameter, but I loooove it! Swoon. It's so vintage and beautiful. Since we're only doing a minor detail in green on our cake (with the rest being black and white) this would just make our cake shine. It's $75, but would be worth every penny. However, it's only a 10-inch square. Boo. Maybe some other bride can take advantage of this great find!

Source: Look in the Attic & Company

These silver cake stands seem to be standard for weddings. And, don't get me wrong, they're beautiful and look amazing on cake tables - very elegant. Another bonus is that they come in a multitude of sizes (this one is the 15-inch diameter that I'm looking for) and it's only $49.85! However, it would be kind of a bummer to not be able to have a use for it after the wedding. And, my cake isn't going to be incredibly tall, so I'd love to find a stand that will provide a little height. Let's call this my backup plan.

Source: Save on Crafts

Next up we have this white cake pedestal with a lacy detail. The description says that it's 14-inches in diameter (so cutting it a bit close for me), but I would assume with my 13-inch diameter cake, the lacy detail would be covered. There's a definite chance that it would end up looking a bit awkward. But, at $40.99 it's on the list.

Source: Amazon

Departing from a vintage feel, this modern white square pedestal caught my eye. It's a 14-inch square, and even though my cake will be round, I think it would be kind of cool to have it on a square pedestal. While the others that I have looked at have been slightly more ornate, I like the simplicity and clean lines of this pedestal. At $49.99, it's also a good deal.

Source: Amazon

Finally, I could just go completely DIY and play around with this Martha Stewart cake stand project. I came across it forever ago and have kept it in the back of my mind. Marth provides great instructions for taking plywood, paint, ribbon and fancy door pulls and turning them into an elegant cake stand. Of course, I wouldn't get the height that I'm desiring, but it would be cost effective, allow me to put my own details into the stand to match my decor, and at the end of the day I could just take the the door pulls and toss the rest!

Source: Martha Stewart

Awhile back on Etsy I also spotted these emerald green glass door pulls. Perfect for the DIY cake stand! Etsy seller Spartan Enterprises had quite a variety of glass door pulls, and these emerald green pulls are priced at $34.88 for 10, which is a great deal as these can often be quite pricey at specialty stores. Of course, I only need 4 in order to make my stand, but I'm certain my DIY spirit could find a use for the rest.

Source: Etsy

I'm certainly glad that I have plenty of time to make up my mind (re: order a lot of things online and then return them, haha!).

Has anyone else out there found great ways to display yours cakes beyond the usual silver stand? Any suggestions? Ideas?

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