Kids bags: Complete

Here 's the completed and stuffed kid bags: 

Here's the inspiration bags from Pinterest:

One more check mark off the list!

Feelings...nothing more than feelings

Today is 24 days to until the wedding.  There are still a lot of loose ends for me to tie up but as we get closer and closer I find that I'm not worried about the wedding at all.  We have an amazing wedding planner who has held our hands throughout this whole crazy process.  We're getting married in the beautiful place that we dreamed about and our kids and family will be with us.

 And the marriage itself?  Not a doubt in my mind.  These feet are toasty.  We've been living together for five years, including seven months of double unemployment and rather than wanting to kill each other, we came out the other side closer than ever.

For the wedding and the week of vacation itself, our family will be with us.  I think that's the source of most of my stress and tension.  We've never gone on vacation with all four of the kids before.  We've taken them to Disney two at a time and both of those trips had their issues.  Now we're taking them where they outnumber us and there's more pressure for the trip to be magical and happy.  The logistics of trying to work out spending our wedding night alone has been difficult but I think we have it all worked out except how we're getting the kids back to us from the family members we have watching them that night.

I am a little worried that despite shelling out for a DJ that it will be me and my sister dancing and no one else.  I want people to dance.  Can I force them?  Is that legit?  ;)  I worry that people won't like the food.  I'm fairly sure my dad will complain.  At this point though, all of that is out of my hands.

And there's the blog.  I had intended to use it to monitor my weight loss but that didn't really happen.  So what if I didn't lose 50 pounds leading up to this event?  You know what? This is who I am and while I'm not giving up, I am okay.  Happy even.  No matter how much I weigh, I get to marry my Prince Charming and live happily ever after.

I still have outstanding crafts to complete- including our cake topper.  I don't know why I am so nervous about it but I keep putting it off.  Now time is running out.  I have to finish our welcome bags and the kids goodie bags.  I have to pack all of our wedding stuff into a box to be dropped off at Franck's 3 days before the wedding.  I have to figure out how I'm getting the welcome bags to the various resorts.

What I've been doing...what's left to do?

Escort cards/favors:  done

Names smeared to protect the innocent!  

Cake topper DIY

Guess what came in the mail yesterday and I hurriedly sketched all over them. Our little wooden peg dolls that are going atop the cake!!!

I had planned to order a set of these little figures, custom painted to look like us-- plus one for each of the munchkins.  I trolled Etsy like mad and favorited my favorite artistes.  Then I realized how much it would cost to buy these, plus shipping and not knowing what they would actually look like when completes.  I decided that I have enough crafting and art mojo to attempt these myself.

So I went to every craft store in my surrounding area and couldn't find the larger sized dolls.  I easily acquired the smaller ones for the kids but I ended up ordering the 3.5" dolls from a cool woodcrafting website. Even with the shipping, I still feel like I got a deal.

If you look really close you can see my sketch.  I'll be painting some day soon!

Wish me luck! 

Tip o' the Hat(s)

There have been a couple incarnations of Disney's bridal mouse ears over the years.  One set features a sparkly sequined headband with attached veil and a top hat with mouse ears and the other has the traditional beanie caps decorated for a wedding with a mini top hat and a tiara/veil combo.



Disney wedding couples seem to not like the newer set very much.  I like the bride one but the groom one is kind of cheesy.  The tiny top hat and the mock tux? Weird.  Either set provides the annoying combination of squished hair and no shade for the eyes. You can still generally find the older style bridal ears around but the top hat is nearly impossible to find, unless you want to spend $100, which is insane.  So I had a new set (that my wonderful sister gave me) and the old bride ears that I got on ebay. Still, we wanted a better option.

When we first started considering a Disney Wedding we became aware of one couple that is sort of the rock star couple of Disney Weddings.  I've mentioned Carrie Hayward before.  She literally wrote the book on Disney Weddings.  She was married in Epcot in February of 2008.  When I was looking at pictures of weddings, hers were among the first I saw and were certainly among the most memorable.  If you're a total Disney nut, like us, you'd love her trip reports on her blog.  Anyways, Carrie's husband, Patrick, got all crafty with his bad self and revamped the standard mouse ears by removing the ears and attaching them to Bride and Groom baseball caps.

Keeping the Kids Busy

I'm starting to tie up all of the little loose ends!

Today my munchkins had the day off from school (why?!?!?!?) so I was limited in what I could do with my day.  So I sat down at the computer to put together a little activity book for all of the kids who will be at the wedding.  While I am dreaming of dancing like a crazy person with all of our munchkins, doing every silly participation dance out there, I know that they will likely want some time at their table too.  So here's what I did.

I created this little beauty in PowerPoint, figuring that of the programs I have at home, it would be the easiest in which to manipulate images. There are a slew of Disney coloring pages out there on the web.  I was looking specifically for wedding images but I also included some that are just couples.  I also threw in some wedding themed games and puzzles.

The cover is in a font that Disney used to use in the 80s.  It's free and available to download.  It's called Florida Project.  On the back, I put the date and location of the wedding. The finished book will be a folded, stapled 4.5 x 8.5 booklet.  You know, half of a standard sheet of paper.  I was thinking I'd have the cover printed on red cardstock, but then the kids couldn't color the castle.


Click for a sneak preview (black and white line drawings!  Such exciting graphics!)

Table Name Signs!

I spent most of yesterday in my basement craft room working on these four little signs for the dining tables at the wedding.  I always feel kinda bad when I go to a wedding and the tables are numbered and I'm at like Table 17.  The head table is usually table 1 and the parents of the couple are at 2 and 3... and then there's me, the cousin or the friend or whatever and I'm like the way afterthought.  I didn't want anyone to feel that way so instead of numbering our tables (we only have four so far!) so I'm naming them after Disney characters.

Prince Charming, the munchkins and I will be sitting at Mickey.  Duh.

There's also Minnie, Donald and Goofy.  I have Pluto and Daisy on reserve if we need them!

I made these using my Cricut and the Mickey & Friends and the Accent Essentials cartridges. The frames were easy once I worked out the sizes.  All of my time investment came from piecing together the tiny components of the characters after getting them to cut out properly.  I think I need to replace the blade on my machine.

Anyway, here they are:

For the record, Goofy, was the hardest.  His pieces were the most complicated to cut and the smallest to handle.  My fingertips were covered with glue when I was done!

Ribbon Wand Tutorial

No idea who this couple is! I copied this off the web years ago!

 I finally got around to some of the wedding crafts on my to-do list. Today, I put together most of my ribbon wands (before I ran out of ribbon)! These are for the "staged exit" as we leave the Wedding Pavilion after the ceremony, like that random couple above. They make for a prettier photo than bubbles, which can be hard to see and don't show up well in photos.  The ribbon wands also give the photographer a longer opportunity to shoot than rose petals, which are thrown and then fall to the ground really quickly. I love the photo above so I knew we were going to do this! Here's how I did it.

 

Fit to be Tied, part 2

The Results are IN and they're bright and colorful!

Fit to be Tie-Dyed, part 1

This is not a shirt I made.  I just liked it.
So I had to attempt my own.

Prince Charming and I are getting ready for our trip to the World on the 17th.  I cannot wait.  CAN. NOT. WAIT!!!!  So we've been buying those little odds and ends that are needed for the trip like cheap ponchos and anti-chafing stuff and new shoes.

Since I'm me, and I'm not happy unless I've got some random craft project in the works, I decided to make tie-dyed tee shirts for all of us.

I spotted these on the DIS boards.  There are a million pictures posted over there, some more successful than other, and lots of instructions and tips and hints.

I had to give it a shot.