DIY Wedding: Aisle Runners (oh and a fire too...)

When my sister was planning her wedding, I was browsing some wedding forum somewhere and came upon a picture of this super spectacular personalized aisle runner (sorry, I can't find the picture-I tried. I really really did). I BEGGED her to let me make one for her because it was just awesome. She agreed and I was so excited!!!!

This one wedding item made the largest (and most firey) impact (in my opinion) and it looked great in pictures (see at the end of the post...).  It was also VERY easy to make, so easy that I almost cried when I looked on Etsy and saw how much people charge...Again, I'm in the wrong business. I really just need to do this for a living and give the bar thing a rest...but I digress-as usual. 

I bought a 100 ft runner (I think I got it at Hobby Lobby) which was waaaaay too long. I cut 25 feet off the end of the runner, measured out 50 feet from the new end and placed the monogram there. I was slightly apprehensive about this, probably because I can't measure to save my life.  It all worked out in the end though... 

I really wanted to personalize it, but I needed the monogram to be 3' by 3'.  I had one heck of a time trying to figure out how to print the it that big,  my printer wasn't having it, so I finally just called a copy place and they did it for me. Very easy. 

Here is the monogram printed on big paper behind the runner so that we could trace it:

Originally, I had the "H" behind the other text and we were going to make it glittery, but that would have looked weird with the black paint being non-glittery, so I put the H on top.  After some consideration,  I decided to NOT make the "H" glittery, because I didn't want it to get all over her dress when she walked over it.  I'm glad that I kept them separate in the end, the paint bleeds a little when you use it on that kind of material and the two colors wouldn't have looked very good bleeding into one another. 

Mom and I traced the monogram onto the runner (I had help on this craft...there's my mom!  HI MOM!!!).

There she is, hard at work. Good Job MOM!

Then I started painting.  Mom was bored at this point, so I took over.  Before I started, I put wax paper behind the runner. That paint is nice and all, but it would NOT have been nice all over my dining room table...

It looked really good. Like, REALLY good. I was actually quite proud of myself.  When I rolled it up to ship to Florida (where the wedding took place) I put wax paper on both the front and back of the design.  The aisle runner material is very porous and I didn't want the paint bleeding through onto the non painted parts.  In the package, I also put a huge roll of very wide, very sticky double sided tape. I wanted the florist to use that (and not stick pins) to secure it to the carpet. They did NOT take my advice and panic ensued...more on that later. 

Here is how it looked on the big day...

Now onto the most disappointing moment in my crafting career...Notice on the sides of the runner that there are candles in water vases on the floor. Yes, that's right. There was FIRE on the FLOOR when there was a very very VERY flammable aisle runner mere inches away. After the wedding party marched out of the chapel to take pictures, someone knocked over the fire ONTO the aisle runner and it proceeded to go up in flames.  I did not know this, nor did I hear anything about it until the cocktail hour (thank God for wine) when my husband told me. I thought he was kidding, but soon confirmed the story with my father in law (who would NOT lie to me) and so it was true.  One of the wedding guests  actually put out said fire with his hand and sported burn blisters for the rest of the evening. 

The moral to this story? If you're going to have an aisle runner, DON'T PUT FIRE ON THE FLOOR!  DUH!  I tried to tell her...she wouldn't listen and my masterpiece went up in flames. 

DIY Wedding: A Homemade Veil

Right after I got married, my sister Lindsay got engaged. Since weddings were fresh on my mind, I took the opportunity to put all of my DIY skills to use. I did a lot for her wedding (programs, menu's place cards, aisle runner, her veil, a video slideshow, the invitation suite etc...).  She wanted a really long cathedral veil. Have you priced cathedral veils lately?  Ridiculously expensive. 

Since Lindsay has an obsession with Princess Di, the veil had to be really really long. I think it was five yards of glimmer tulle. It cost me all of $20 to make. 

Here I am cutting the end. We wanted it to be rounded. What this picture does not show is that I used a huge salad bowl as a template to round the corners.

I sewed on a big comb...This is the extent of my sewing skills. If I could have glued it, I would have. I hate sewing.

Before it was steamed, but the comb is on, it's cut and rounded, so we're almost set. 

I thought it was a little boring, so I bought these scrapbooking sticker crystal things at Hobby Lobby.  When I stuck them to the tulle, they kept coming off, so I put them where I wanted them and then I used Gem-Tac glue and a paint brush and painted the glue onto each of the swirls.  It took forever, but that stuff worked, let me tell you! On the day of the wedding, the veil kept catching on everything and those babies stayed on, but the tulle around some of them ripped that glue was so good. 

See how long that thing was?????

You can see the rhinestones here...

DIY Wedding: A Pink Crinoline!

I wasn't a bridezilla, I really wasn't, but when I was engaged (four years ago), I found myself more and more outraged with the price of wedding stuff.  Slap the word "bridal" on something and expect a 70% increase. It boiled me. So for my wedding, I DIY'ed a lot...

While browsing Etsy this evening, I revisited my bridal rage for a moment when I discovered that sellers are charging upwards of $100 for dyed crinolines. OMG. I almost had a heart attack. I dyed my own crinoline (and a few others) for my wedding. I wore a pink one that my sister wore a year later when she got married...It cost me less than $2 to dye it.  I think that I even bought the actual crinnie on ebay for like $10. So, you can understand my outrage. It also took me all of 45 minutes. I'm in the wrong business. I need to start selling this stuff...

How to Dye a Crinoline (or anything really...)

An important site for dyeing info is the RIT DYE SITE...there is a color chart that will help you make custom colors, should you want them...

To start, I filled my washer with hot hot water, then I put on gloves (you don't want pink hands do you?).  BEFORE I put the dye in the wash bin, I dunked the crinoline into the water. Since I didn't have anywhere else for the wet crinoline to go, I put a towel under a laundry basket so that water wouldn't get all over and I put the wet crinoline in the basket.

Here is my set up...

I then added the dye (RIT liquid dye, Rose Pink) to the wash bin and set it to agitate, then I added the crinoline to the dye and dunked it in as much as I could (this is where wearing gloves comes in really handy, because that water was HOT).

Here's the crinoline right before I shut the washer lid to let it agitate.

I kept setting the washer to agitate, I let it go for about 15 minutes, then I took it out, unraveled it the best that I could (it was heavy...) then I put it back in for another 15 minutes. This step is really important because if you don't unravel it, your crinnie will end up tye-dyed.

A mid-cycle pic...

After it was done agitating I let it rinse twice, the 2nd time, I added just a bit of detergent, rinsed it again, let the water drain and I took it out.

Here it is right before I took it out of the washer...

I hung it up in my bathroom the best that I could...it was REALLY tangled within itself and I had to have the husband (then the fiance) help me...

It turned out pretty well. I think the color on the bottle very accurately describes the color that the crinoline turned out to be. I was surprised by that actually.

Here are pictures of my former crinnie and hoop skirt that I had also dyed. I was trying to match the color "truffle," which was the color of my bridesmaid dresses...it took a lot of work, four things of rit dye, but it was successful.  I freaked out at first because it was REALLY purple.  I looked on the rit site and saw that you could make burgundy out of 1/2 cup dark brown and 1 cup of wine, I switched that up and it ended up really purple, so I used two more packs of dark brown and voila! Perfection!

Up close color of crinnie #1

Here's the hoop skirt and crinnie together...

The crinoline looks tie dyed in this picture, which to be honest, it sort of was up top, the fabric for this crinnie was different from the one that I actually wore. 

Out of thousands of wedding pictures, this is the only one that I can find with a good view under my dress...Which is a good thing I think?