Party + Wedding Ideas

Giant Polish Chandelier

I had wanted to make a Polish Chandelier since I bookmarked Laura Normandin’s a few years ago and then I was at Tail of the Yak and they had a giant one in the window. I was so inspired it went to the top of my crafting wish list. I’m pretty in love with how it turned out. I went around the house all day saying “I think thats the prettiest thing I’ve ever made”. If you’ve never heard of a polish chandy I noticed Holly did a nice post on it right here. Traditionally they are pretty small but I think these giant ones would be super cool for a wedding. You could hang one over each table. The materials are very cheap but let me warn you they are a tad labor intensive. A DIY is coming later this week.

Thanks to my friends Anne and Meg for coming over and wearing cute dresses! They are the perfect props to the chandelier.

DIY: Ombre Tablecloth

This brilliant DIY is by Brittany of The House that Lars Built.

I wanted more than anything to make some ombre tablecloths for my wedding last year, but I assumed it would be tricky and messy. Well, I finally decided that the perfect time to try it out is for the table at the booth we are setting up at Portobello Road to sell the souvenirs my friend, Cramer, and I made for the royal wedding.The good news is that ombre is easy beazy. And I think it’s going to be killer for the wedding weekend. Now, don’t let the industrial look of the photos fool you, I just happened to be helping Cramer with her textile project at her school when she suggested I try it out in their facilities. I also tried it a few weeks ago in a bathroom using buckets. Use what you’ve got!

Materials:
3-4 buckets
water
piece of fabric
dye for textiles (I used Dylon in flamingo pink)
special salt (as required by the directions on the dye)

1) Fill up 3 or 4 buckets with varying levels of water and put in the same amount of dye into each one. Stir well. Add the salt in as required.

This post is by Brittany of The House that Lars Built.

2) I started with a test fabric, which I highly recommend. Start by dipping the fabric into the the bucket with the highest level of water and use that one to determine how high you want the dye to go.

3) Take the fabric to the next level of water and dip it lower. It may create a very noticeable straight line, but keep on going.

4) Repeat with the smaller bucket–the darkest amount of liquid. It, too, will most likely a very straight line.

5) The trick to smoothen the distinct lines is to repeat the process over and over, each time holding it in the water for longer amounts of time, maybe 10-20 seconds.

6) Next, I tried it on a white piece of fabric. I folded it up with the length I intended to dip so that it would enter the water more easily.

7) Repeat the same process as the sample piece but hold it in longer to really hold the color. You can keep it in the buckets for minutes. This will also give the dye time to sink into all the layers of the fabric that have been folded over.

When you think you have dipped it enough, open the fabric up gently to make sure there are no splotches of color. Re-dip if necessary.

9) Hang to dry.

10) Voila! You’ve now ombre’d your way to a tablecloth.

I noticed that the color faded a lot in the drying process, but I’m rather glad about it because it was a little too flamingo for me. I can’t wait to try this on more items–some bed linens, maybe some pants. For now, I hope it goes over well at Portobello. Good luck!

All photos by Brittany for Oh Happy Day

Bicycle Wedding

I’m so excited that I can finally post some pictures from the wedding of my friends, Rebecca and Derek. They got married last fall and Martha Stewart Weddings just posted a slideshow of the day on their site. I can honestly say this was the funnest wedding I’ve ever been to. First Derek and Rebecca are lovely people and smart and talented. I helped print the invitations and with some day-of coordination but I can’t take credit for any of the genius ideas. That was all Rebecca.

They said in the invitations that there would be physical exercise and to wear comfortable clothing. But they didn’t tell everyone that they would be going on a progressive party around downtown LA on bikes! After the ceremony everybody walked around the corner and saw that there were rows and rows of rented bicycles. It was so exciting! Everyone spent some time decorating their bicycles, then we took off. The first stop was a picnic lunch at a park, the second was a stop in at the LA institution, Diddy Reese and the last stop was for toasts at a botanical garden.

All these photos were captured by the talented photographer Rachel Thurston and you can see a ton more photos and read more over at Martha Stewart.com (seriously I’m barely scratching the surface on the details here.)

Would all 80 guests at your wedding be game to get on a bicycle and go for a bike ride?

(All photos by Rachel Thurston)

Guest Post on Snippet & Ink

The wonderful Kathryn from Snippet & Ink got married last week. (Can you imagine the pressure of the perfect wedding for a wedding blogger?) And she asked me to do a little guest post. I did it on taking inspiration for weddings (or parties) from the genius Anthropologie displays. They almost always use cheap materials on a large scale, like these flowers made from plastic bottles. Usually it probably isn’t very expensive to produce you just need LOTS of help from friends. Check it out right here.

images from Flickr

Colorful Wedding Decor

My friend Rachel Thurston shot this great wedding. I love these fabric decorations and the colorful bottles that look like they were snagged from a thrift store. Check out more pictures on her blog. I love how you can use cheap materials to make a big impact.