Chalkboard Flower Photo Booth

Dear Em,
My dear friend Colleen got married a couple weekend ago. While I plan to recap her wedding day tomorrow, right now I just want to talk about the wicked fun photo booth we made for her reception. On a hot & humid September weekend I got together with Colleen and a bunch of her super fun friends for a DIY wedding crafting weekend. There was a list of things to create, but my task was mostly the photo booth (are you surprised?).

Colleen really liked the chalkboard look, & wanted chalkboard elements to fill her special day. In fact, her online invitations were black with etchings of white flowers. She wanted the photo booth to have a similar design to her invitations.

We needed:
- Thick black fabric
- White chalk
- White acrylic paint
- Painters tape
- A digital copy of the invitation
- A computer or tablet
- A projector
- A stand
- Props

Colleen originally purchased 3 yards of thick black fabric, hoping to hang the fabric lengthwise. The fabric was probably less than two yards wide. Since weddings typically mean big groups, we worried about how few people would be able to fit standing in front of the fabric at once. Instead, we decided to hang the fabric width-wise, & Colleen bought an additional 3 yards of the fabric to tape underneath. This gave us a nice, large space to work with.

Using painters tape, we taped the first piece of fabric to a bare wall. Colleen & Erin measured to make sure the fabric was straight across. They taped a straight border of tape, leaving blank fabric that would be used when hanging the backdrop to the stand.

Next, I loaded a picture of the invitation onto an iPad & hooked up the iPad to a projector. It took quite a bit of fiddling with the size of the invitation on my screen & the position of the projector. After a while, it was perfectly lined up, & we had a great template shining on our black fabric. Erin was certainly the more fabulously artsy of the two of us, & I mostly tried to follow her lead. We traced the lines of the flowers underneath the painters tape with white chalk.

Next we painted in the flowers with white paint. It took at least a couple coats of paint, & I have to say I was pretty much over it by the time we were done.

But then I looked at the end result & loved it! The photo booth backdrop looked absolutely fabulous & was perfect for Colleen's wedding.

Ali made a very professional looking photo booth sign to go along with the backdrop.

For props, I painted chalkboard paint on two different pieces of wood we bought at the craft store. This way, people could write their own messages for their photos. I also printed prepopulated chalkboard messages on card stock & glued them to wooden dowels. We recycled some of the props we had made for your aunt Andrea's shower photo booth. I grabbed two large frames that we weren't using. Lastly, I raided your costumes for fun hats & headbands & boas & glasses.

Colleen dusted the backdrop with chalk, to give it a true chalkboard look. We used gorilla tape to hang the backdrop on a stand. I have to say, the final result was pretty freaking awesome!

Everyone had so much fun taking pictures at the photo booth- & I mean everyone, because we took a huge group shot before the day was through.

I think this was my very favorite photo booth yet. I hope you continue to like photo booths, because I see many, many more in your future.

I love you so,
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: Heart Shaped Map Gifts

Dear Em,
Rather than registering for typical gifts, your aunt Andrea registered at the Honeyfund. We weren't supposed to bring gifts to her shower, but her bridesmaids may have cheated. You see, I recently discovered Pinterest. I've known about Pinterest for a while now, but I was trying to avoid anything that might add to my already serious internet addiction. Since the other bridesmaids had made wedding shower & bachelorette boards that they were pinning away to, I had to join Pinterest so I could see what we were planning to plan. Sigh, once you go Pinterest, you never go back.

I was looking at the various "Andrea's Wedding" pins one day, when I saw something cute that your aunt Andrea had pinned herself. It was a set of three maps, cut into hearts, & framed on the wall. The maps highlighted the locations of where the couple got engaged, got married, & honeymooned. It was such a fun idea & looked so easy, I was excited to make your aunt Andrea something that she had pinned.

I decided instead of highlighting the locations of where they got engaged, where they got married, & their honeymoon, I would frame the maps of where each of them had grown up & where they were getting married. I think the idea was to repurpose maps, but that got a little tricky. First I looked through our weathered United States atlas that we keep in my car. We have written & highlighted all over our atlas, & I realized we probably still want use of all of the pages. I probably could have printed maps from MapQuest, but I wanted the maps to look professional. So, I ordered an atlas on Amazon. This was a smaller atlas, & some of the locations were separated onto two pages. That wasn't going to work for my project. So then I ordered three separate maps of three different states. When I got them, I realized they really didn't look like anything more special than what I could have printed from Google Maps. Sigh.

I made a heart template that would fit well in the frames, traced heart shapes over the areas of the maps I wanted displayed, & cut the heart shaped maps out. Then I taped the map hearts onto a square of gray card stock background that I had cut to perfectly fit in the frames.

The frames worked perfectly as a gift for Andrea & also decor for her wedding shower.

Since our Bride is from Rhode Island, but has been living in another state for five years, we also gave her a number of Rhode Island themed items with the frames. She smiled as we presented her with a Rhode Island shaped cutting board, Dels Lemonade mix, Olneyville New York System spices, Iggys Clamcake & Doughboy mixes, Rhode Island Hot Sauce, & Kenyon's Grist Mill Johnny Cake Mix. We were happy to give her a little piece of home for wherever her travels take her.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, my Pinterest addiction only started there. I'm sure unlimited projects await.

I love you so,
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: Mason Jar Sweet Tea Favors

Dear Em,
On a gorgeous day last weekend, your stunning Aunt Andrea married her sweetheart- your now official Uncle Lowell. It was such a beautiful & fun event for our whole family. While the wedding has already happened, I'm not quite finished recapping the wedding shower. I have just a few more Wedding Shower Wednesday posts before I wrap up this segment for a little while.

One of my very favorite projects of the whole wedding shower were the favors. Pretty early in the planning process, I did a Google search for Charleston themed wedding favors. Since it was a destination wedding, I thought it would be fun to highlight something the area is known for. I found a couple images of mason jar sweet tea favors, & I swooned. I love, love, love sweet tea. I love, love, love mason jars. Plus, using actual lemons in the mason jars would give everything a natural pop of color.

I was prepared to beg the rest of the bridesmaids to agree with me on the mason jar sweet tea shower favors, but they really liked the idea without me having to get down on my hands & knees. We ordered mason jars in bulk (I think at the time they were least expensive at KMart). I also bought a large box of orange pekoe tea bags, & two boxes of sugar cubes (we would also need lemons for the recipe but I planned to buy them fresh right before the shower).

We debated whether to add glitter to them (like we did with the center pieces), but in the end we wanted people to be able to drink their sweet tea in the mason jars & modpodge glitter might make that difficult. Still, we wanted to add cute pops of color. We tried to cut out circles of fabric to place between the disc part of the lid & the band of the lid. It was kind of difficult to work with & looked a little frumpy. I looked at the glitter paper that we had bought in bulk for some of our other projects & realized it was the perfect thing to add a little glamour & pop of color. Using the lids as a stencil for the circle size, we cut out a circle of glitter paper for each mason jar.

We made labels which included the Bride & the Groom's names, "Thank You" for coming, "See y'all in Charleston," & a recipe for the sweet tea. We painted a rim of gold glitter paint around the labels to add a little extra fun. Then we filled the mason jars with tea bags & sugar cubes, put on the glitter tops & lids, & fastened the labels on using pieces of pink twine.

I was absolutely giddy with how they turned out. Each one of the bridesmaids had added their own fabulous idea to the project, & as a result, they came out better than I had ever hoped. They were so pretty & so fun.

Since we created the sweet tea favors a couple months before the shower, I waited until the night before the shower to place newly bought lemons into the jars. There was just one problem. None of the thirty lemons I had bought were fitting into the jars. They were all too big! You & I ran to the grocery store, mason jar in hand, & measured 30 more lemons that would fit (there were a few weird looks at the crazy lady who was hoarding all of the lemons).

Sigh. Crisis averted. We placed the favors in the venue, & I fell in love with the way they added to the pink & sparkly decor. They were fun. They were practical. They gave a nod to the fun location where we would soon be celebrating the Bride & the Groom's wedding. There were a few bumps, but in the end, I loved these shower favors more than any other shower favors I've ever seen.

Needless to say,  with the 30 original lemons that we couldn't use, I tried a lot of lemon recipes in the next couple weeks. You know what they say, when life give you lemons...make a lot of yummy lemon flavored food. And yes, we did make freshly squeezed lemonade for the very first time.

I love you so,
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: Pink & Glittery Baby to Bride

Dear Em,
While our super fun photo booth created new memories at your aunt Andrea's shower, I wanted something to display past memories. I just love Baby to Bride photograph boards. I feel like they're such a fun conversation starter & a non-sappy way of looking at all the moments that have led to up to a big milestone in a bride's life.

I was happy to volunteer to make a Baby to Bride board for Andrea's shower. While I had many photos from the past ten years, I asked Andrea's friends for digital copies of photos. Grandma gave me tons of photos from when Andrea was little. There were adorable pictures of Andrea & your Daddy from when they were little, sweet pictures of Andrea & Papa during father-daughter dances, & hilarious photos with her friends. In the end I had so many precious moments to choose from, I knew it would be a challenge to contain them all on the one board.

I started with the largest piece of foam board I could find. To keep with the glittery theme, one of the bridesmaids cut out the letters for "Baby to Bride" out of gold & pink glittery paper. Because I was working with copies of the original photographs, I was able to trim the photos in attempt to try to fit as many as I could. I started at the top with the baby pictures, the photographs jutting from the top & sides of the board. I used a glue gun to adhere the pictures to the board & continued in chronological order as I moved down. The pictures overlapped & peeked through the glittery letters.

The end result was a full board of memories celebrating the bride to be.

You were ecstatic to find yourself among the precious moments pictured on the board. I have to say, it was fun for me to reminisce about the memories that I was a part of. We were happy to be able to use the board again at Andrea's bachelorette party. It was a fun decoration, that almost every girl was a part of. It made me smile to watch each girl's face light up as she found her spot on the board.

I think of the possibility of making your baby to bride board some day. I think we might need more than one board.

I love you so,
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: Pink & Glittery Prizes

Dear Em,
We had so much fun with the games (toilet paper bride & newlywed game) at your aunt Andrea's shower, & I wanted the winners to take fun prizes home with them. Since the ladies at the shower would be traveling to the wedding, we all thought that travel themed prizes would be perfect. We looked at sunscreen, chapstick, & finally luggage tags. I love luggage tags. I feel like I can't get enough items to distinguish my plain, black luggage from everyone elses plain, black luggage in an airport.

So, I did a google search, an Amazon search, & an Etsy search for luggage tags. Nothing seemed to be quite right. I felt like everything was either expensive or cheesey. I emailed the other bridesmaids with some of the options I found, & they all agreed we hadn't found the perfect luggage tag for Andrea's event. We just knew we could do better...so I did.

I ordered 12 clear acrilic luggage tags. With shipping, it cost a little more than a dollar a luggage tag. I bought gold & pink sparkly paper & used a business card to trace 12 rectangles into the gold paper before cutting the rectabgles out. Then I cut out 12 pink, glittery hearts using our heart punch. I used a glue gun to fasten the pink heart to the gold background. Before sticking the glittery insert into the clear acrillic tags, I used pink pen to print "Name", "Address", & "Phone Number."

I loved how quick & inexpensive these were to make & how super cute they came out. They were the perfect prizes for our pink & glittery (with a little bit of travel) theme. The only downside is that the white strap doesn't seem to fasten securely. You loved the luggage tags so much, we kept one for your own suitcase. I think we'll take the white strap off & just use ribbon to securely fasten the tag to your suitcase. 

I can't wait for you to travel with your glittery & pink luggage tag.

I love you so.
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: The Newlywed Game

Dear Em,
There were two wicked fun games we played at your aunt Andrea's shower. The first was the Toilet Paper Bride Game. When we thought about a second game, we knew Wedding Shower Bingo was out. Since the Bride registered on HoneyFund, there would be no gifts to fill the Bingo sheet with (also, I feel like I play that game at every wedding shower ever). After doing a Google search, I found fun ideas for a Newlywed Game, & all the girls agreed it would be perfect.

Your uncle Lowell lives in Florida with your aunt Andrea. While he's been to RI to visit quite a few times, Andrea's friends & family haven't been able to get to know him like they would if he lived here. We thought including him in this game would be a fun way for everyone to get to know him & get to know them as a couple.

After looking for ideas online, I put together a list of questions for the game. First we asked Lowell to answer these questions about himself.

1) What is your favorite football team?

2) What is your favorite beverage?

3) Where did you & Andrea meet? What most attracted you about Andrea when you first met?

4) What is your favorite pizza (toppings & place)?

5) What person, character, or sound do you do your best impersonation of?

6) Andrea is a natural born…

7) What is your biggest pet peeve?

8) What is the cutest thing Andrea does without realizing it?

9) If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

10) How did you propose?

11) What is your middle name?

12) What did you want to be when you were a little kid? What do you do now?

13) What do you love about Andrea the most?

14) What was the name of your very first pet? How many pets do you have now? What kinds? Names?

15) What are you most excited about being married to Andrea?

Then we asked him to answer these questions about Andrea.

1) What is your favorite color?

2) What is your shoe size?

3) What is Lowell’s best feature?

4) What is your favorite restaurant?

5) Where was your first date?

6) Lowell is a natural born…

7) What is your biggest pet peeve?

8) What did you want to be when you were a little kid?

9) If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

10) What was your favorite vacation to take with Lowell? Where are you going for your honeymoon?

11) How many kids would you like to have?

12) What movie star are you most like?

13) Where did you first say “I Love You”? What do you love about Lowell the most?

14) What was the name of your very first pet?

15) What are you most excited about being married to Lowell? When is the wedding?

Then we printed the questions below and handed them to guests as they arrived. We asked everyone to fill out what they thought were the correct answers about the bride, the groom, & the couple.

How well do you know

The Happy Couple?

Bride

1) What is Andrea’s favorite color?

2) What is Andrea’s favorite restaurant?

3) What is Andrea’s shoe size?

4) What does she think is Lowell’s best feature?

5) What did she want to be when she was a little kid?

Groom

1) What is Lowell’s favorite football team?

2) What is Lowell’s favorite beverage?

3) What is Lowell’s middle name?

4) What did Lowell want to be when he was a little kid?

5) What does Lowell do for a living now?

Couple

1) Where did Andrea & Lowell meet?

2) Where was their first date?

3) Where were they when they first said “I love you?”

4) How did Lowell propose?

5) How many pets do Andrea & Lowell have (extra points if you can list what kind of pets they are & what their names are)?

6) What is the Andrea & Lowell’s wedding date?

7) Where are Andrea & Lowell going on their honeymoon?

Lowell had written answers to the questions on pieces of paper, took screen shots of him with the answers (he got really into it, there were props involved, & it was truly amazing), & sent them to us. We pre set-up Lowell's photo answers up on my iPad. We sat Andrea in the middle of the room with a dry erase board & marker. First Andrea answered the questions about Lowell on the dry erase board as her Maid of Honor held up Lowell's answers on the iPad. Then we asked Andrea the questions about herself, & her Maid of Honor showed us all what Lowell thought the answers were.

The plan was that the questions we asked the couple tied directly into the questions that the guests had filled out on the forms we passed out. The guests were supposed to tally whether they had answered the questions about the couple correctly as Andrea & Lowell's screen shots answered. Except- Lowell changed things up a little bit when he decided my questions were too easy. So, he threw in some really tough questions, like what is Lowell's blood type (which Andrea actually got right). While the questions no longer completely went along with the forms our guests filled out, Andrea was able to provide all of the answers at the end. Our guest with the most questions answered correctly won a prize.

I'm glad Lowell got to be there with us even though he wasn't actually there. It was super fun & kind of adorable.

I love you so,
Mommy

Wedding Shower Wednesday: Toilet Paper Bride Game

Dear Em,
I have to admit, sometimes I'm jealous of your Daddy. Guys don't really have to go to showers (but they really should take showers). They don't have to pick out the perfect wedding shower or baby shower gift. They don't have to wrap it up. They don't have to go to a breakfast or a brunch or a lunch where they don't know most people just to watch someone open presents...forever. For the most part, showers are not my favorite. I had a hard time at my own showers (though I'm so incredibly thankful for them). It was hard sitting in the center of everyone- with everyone watching me- while I opened gifts for an hour. There's pressure to show the right amount of enthusiasm & gratitude while opening things- things like towels & bed sheets. I remembered feeling flushed & stressed & exhausted.

So, when your aunt Andrea decided that she would register on Honeyfund & forgo opening gifts at her shower, I thought that was the best idea ever. It also meant that an hour (or two) of her shower wouldn't be filled up with gift opening. So, as bridesmaids, we were tasked with thinking of fun activities to fill her shower with. While the photo booth became one fun activity for the guests, we also wanted to plan a couple games. One game that I knew of but had never actually seen at any of the showers I had gone to was the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Game (we also played a newlywed game).

It was super simple to set up. We gave each table of ladies 3 rolls of toilet paper & asked them to choose one bride. The table had to work together designing & creating a toilet paper wedding dress for the bride in 10 minutes.

At the end of the 10 minutes we asked the "brides" to assemble in the middle of the room. We looked at them all together. I feel like we had some professional toilet paper wedding dress makers in our midst. There were toilet paper bouquets, braided belts, intricate headpieces. It was actually pretty amazing (especially since our bride mostly looked like a mummy).

So that we could all get a good look at their extravagant ($1.50) couture gowns, one by one, they runway modeled their "dresses."

There was laughter- so much laughter, but in the end, the real Bride-to-Be chose a winner.

I loved this game. Who knew toilet paper could be so much fun?

I love you so,
Mommy