DIY Bride

DIY Wedding Hair? You bet!A very simple how-to for crown braids; long hair is swept into sophisticated curls.Courtesy of Andrea’s Virtual Hair

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Favors are meant to be little tokens of appreciation from you to your guests. Whether they are elaborate or simple, what you give your guests should reflect your gratitude and be something most of your guests can appreciate.

Before you spend countless hours and lots of money on favors that will be ignored or thrown away, we’d like to offer you some hints to make your favors a hit.

1. If it’s not edible or useful in everyday life, you’re likely wasting your time and money. The idea of a favor is to give your guests a little “thank you” for sharing your day. Most guests are appreciative of the gesture, no matter what it is. However, not everyone wants to cart home little trinkets to clog their junk drawers, memory boxes or garbage cans.

2. Find favors that will appeal to MOST OF YOUR GUESTS. You may find lacey, highly scented potpourri sachets to be the veritible cat’s meow, but the 50% of your male guests, 2% of your highly allergic pals, and 30% of your friends who have very different decorating ideas will not be as charmed by them as you. You’ll likely end up with lots of left-overs.

3. Forget monogrammed items. Frames, glassware, trinkets with your initials are likely candidates to get left behind. Why? Who wants someone else’s initials on their glassware? It’s kind of creepy. Want to put your monogram on something? Attach a little card or ribbon with your names/initials to the favor or put your monogram on the packaging, not the item itself.

4. You’re an adult. The majority of your guests are adults. Please distribute favors that (a) look like something an adult would appreciate OR (b) appeal to the kid in all of us. Nostalgia toys (Legos, Pez dispensers, Pla-Doh) are big hits for kids and adults alike because most of us can relate to them. Frilly, girly things are better saved for 7 year old girl guests or for your bridal showers, if you’re into that sort of thing.

5. Inexpensive doesn’t have to look cheap. Chances are if the favor looks cheap, it’ll get left behind or will get tossed.

6. Make certain guests know they exist. We’ve attended many receptions where the favors were hidden in a basket next to the door. Putting favors next to each guest’s place setting is ideal or personally handing them out to each guest during the reception is a nice way to greet each person and thank them individually.

So, what are the favor “shoulds”?

- They should appeal to most adult guests, male and female.
- They should not be highly scented.
- They should be useful or edible.
- They should given with love and gratitude.
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This query came in from one of our readers. We’re delighted to have an easy solution for her!

Q: I”m hoping you can help! I’m using eyelets and brads to attach my invitation pieces together. The problem is that I need colors that match my invitations and I can’t find any. I tried painting one with acrylic paints and that didn”t work. The paint just fell off when I was attaching the pieces. Any ideas?

A: Kudos to you for being so crafty! The paint idea is still a good one. You may want to try a spray paint or an enamel paint. Some companies make an enamel medium (Plaid comes to mind) that you can mix with acrylics to make an enamel-like paint. This may adhere better to the metal eyelets and brads.My other suggestion is to use rubber stamping embossing powders. This is simple and works great! I’ve tried this with brads, but not eyelets, though I suppose it will work just as well. You’ll need embossing powder of your color choice, a heat gun, and a pair of long-nosed tweazers to hold the brad while you’re heating it.

Step 1: Open your jar of embossing powder.
Step 2: Clamp the stem of your brad/eyelet in your tweazers.
Step 3: Heat the top of your brad/eyelet under your embossing gun for 5 - 10 seconds.
Step 4: Dip the brad/eyelet into the embossing powder while it’s screamin’ hot. Pull out immediately.

Voila! The embossing powder should immediately melt on the brad. If not, give it a quick blast from your heat gun.

For eyelets, you may want to use a shallow container or just a piece of paper to put your embossing powder on. This will help keep the color just on the rim of the eyelet and not coat the whole thing.

Good Luck!
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From one of our readers:

Q: How do I glue vellum to my invitation without big puddles of glue showing through?

A: You have a few options for attaching vellum to cardstock.1. Spray photo mount adhesive (we love the 3M brand) - Spray a thin layer (you can use a piece of scrap paper to mask off the areas you don’t want to adhere) and simply press to your cardstock. Dries clear and very quickly. Small cans of adhesive around usually around $5.00.

2. Vellum tape - Relatively new to the market, vellum tape is a super-translucent tape that blends into most vellums. Scotch brand is widely available at craft stores and is usually around $5.00 for a roll.

3. The other option is to not use glue or tape at all. How about trying any of the multitudes of eyelets and brads that are so popular? Or, try punching two small holes in your project and weave a small ribbon through and tie a bow?

From one of my readers:

Q: I love the way vellum looks but haven’t had much success in making practice invitations with my printer.

A: Vellum is a sturdy, translucent paper with a wax-like coating that is typically used as overlays for invitations. It has a smooth, slick surface which can make it difficult to print or stamp upon. Inkjets have problems with vellum because the wet inks have a hard time adhering to the smooth surface of the paper. The same goes for rubberstamping inks. There aren”t enough rough fibers for the ink to grip and soak in to, so it smears.Don’t fret, though, there are vellums on the market specifically made for inkjet pritners. Epson and Stampin’ Up make good ones that are likely compatible with all injkets.

If you are unable to find inkjet compatible vellums or want to use a colored vellum, you may be able to do so with a little tweaking of your printer’s settings.

* Go into your printer set-up and adjust it to the transparency setting. This will put the least amount of ink onto the vellum.

* Go into page set-up in your word processing program and set the margin 1″ from the top of the page. This will allow the printer time to get a ÏholdÓ on the vellum and reduces smearing.

* Select “economy”, “draft” or “speed” print mode (depending on the specific machine). This will lay down the least amount of ink possible, making it harder for the ink to smear.
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On average, a wedding in the U.S. will cost $20,000. The factors that most affect how much a couple will spend on their wedding are number of guests, geographical location, and availability of funds or credit. If a couple puts the full cost of a wedding on a credit card and pays only the minimum allowable payment per month, that couple will, literally, NEVER get out of debt.

Traditionally, the bride’s family bore the bulk of the financial burden for their daughter’s wedding expenses. This has changed dramatically in the last decade or so as the groom’’s family is contributing more to help out the couple. However, many couples - especially those into and past their mid-20’s - are paying for their own weddings with modest or no help from relatives.Because the pressure to throw a huge, pricey wedding still exists, many couples find themselves turning to credit cards to pay for wedding expenses. These couples will begin their married life together deep in debt that will haunt them for years to come.Some numbers for you to consider

We used the Credit Card Payoff Calculator from Genus Credit Management to do some quick debt calculations.

* A credit card debt of $20,000 with the average interest rate of 18% will take you 219 YEARS to pay off with a minimum allowable payment of $325 per month.

* A debt of $10,000 with an “good” interest rate of 14% will take you 32 Years 2 Months to pay off using the minimum allowable payment of $200 per month.

* A $5,000 debt with an interest rate of 21% will take you 73 Years 2 Months to pay off with a monthly minimum payment of $100.

Scared? This is serious, life-long debt for ONE DAY of celebration.

Don’t let the credit card companies fool you

Many couples get giddy when they see credit card offers for zero percent interest. While it may seem like a great deal, it’s important to read the fine print.

* Some zero percent offers are an introductory rate meaning that the zero percent rate is guaranteed for a limited amount of months before they raise it. Expect it to go to at least 7%, but, more likely, 14% - 18% after the introductory offer expires.

* Zero percent may apply to only balance transfers from your other credit cards, leaving you to pay a hefty percentage on any new purchases you make. Or, conversely, you may pay zero percent on new purchases and a high percentage rate on balance transfers.

* Another issue with zero percent cards is you must pay on time each month. One late payment - even by a single day - can cancel the whole 0% deal and you’ll end up paying high interest rates… some over 24%! And don’t forget the late fees. One company we know of charges an extra $35 on top of a higher interest rate for late payments.

You may be better staying with a low interest, guaranteed rate card in the long term… and don’t use it for wedding expenses.

Always read the agreement and look for the annual percentage rate, annual fees, late fees, and any other fees or rate changes that may affect you.

Where to find the money

If you find that you need extra funds for your wedding celebration, you have few options.

* Personal Loans - Your bank or credit union may have decent rates on personal loans.
* Credit Cards - As stated above, this is a bad, bad idea. Resist at all cost.
* Donations From Family - You may be surprised at the generosity your families may bestow upon you. Graciously accept financial help they may offer, but don”t demand or expect them to shell out big bucks for your celebration.
* Extra Jobs - You and your fiance can take on extra jobs for a few months to generate extra income. This is probably the best way to get the money you need. If your own wedding isn’t worth working extra-hard for, think about your plans and re-budget for something within your means .

Your best chances of beginning a debt-free married life is to live - and create a wedding - within your means. There’s no shame in creating an inexpensive, affordable wedding!

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Curious about where to find samples of wedding music to listen to? We found Wedding Globe’s library to be a helpful resource.
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Are you confused by the various types of music file formats out there? Most of you would have heard of the popular MP3 format, but are you aware there are other alternative digital music formats like WAV, WMA, RA and MIDI? Some of these give better sound quality than MP3 (e.g. the WAV format) but also need more disk storage space. Others like WMA give file sizes smaller than the MP3 format and are more suited for portable music players
Let’s run through the various file formats now:The MP3 File Format

MP3 files have the extension “.mp3″ and are available for download from many web sites. MP3 (MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3) technology compresses a sound sequence into a very small file (usually one twelfth of of the original file size). The designers of MP3 compression algorithm managed to do this by eliminating sounds that the human ear cannot perceive. While MP3 technology is impressive, it has been abused by music pirates. One can very easily create MP3 files from commercial CDs and make them available for download. The RIAA and major music companies have been cracking down on the distribution and sharing of MP3 files in this manner.

The WMA File Format

WMA (Windows Media Audio) is Microsoft’s proprietary music file format that it is marketing aggressively. WMA files are smaller in size than MP3 files, but still retain a decent level of sound quality. This format is getting very popular in websites for sampling music and also in portable music players. However, whether WMA will overtake the popularity of MP3 remains to be seen.

The WAV File Format

A wave file is characterized by the file extension “.wav”. This music file format provides raw, uncompressed audio data. Originally invented by Microsoft, wave files are still used widely (examples include your start up and shut down sounds in Windows). Audio quality is excellent, but the file size is huge. A full pop song in wave format may take up to 30 MB of disk space or more.

The AIFF File Format

The AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) is a popular music file formats used in the Apple Macintosh operating system. In a way, they are the Macintosh equivalent of wave files. AIFF files have the file extension “.aif” when accessed via a PC. They contain raw audio data (which result in excellent sound quality) but take up a large amount of disk space.

The MIDI File Format

The MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file format was originally created for recording and playing music on digital synthesizers. MIDI files are very small in size. The reason for this is that the MIDI file only contains information on how music is produced (e.g. note-ons and note-offs). The sound card which plays back the MIDI file takes this information and plays back music using an in-built soundcard wavetable.

The RA File Format

RA (RealAudio) files support streaming technology. Created by Progressive Networks, an RA file is highly optimized for live, streaming audio from websites. RA files are best played back on RealAudio players which are freely downloadable from Progressive Networks.

Conclusion

Well, that wraps up our coverage of the most popular music file formats out there. You may be interested to know that there are many software applications which can convert music from one format to another (e.g. MP3 to WAV or WAV to AIFF). Do a search for these applications at www.download.com.

Written by: rn

Gary Hendricks

http://www.digital-music-guide.com

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Uses For Vellum

Vellum is such a fun material to work with because its uses are many and it’s easy to customize.

Some ideas to play with:

* Envelopes for seating cards

* Gift tags for favors

* Mini lamp shades for wine glass votive holders

* Votive candle wraps

* Rubber stamp and cut out shapes (i.e. butterflies) for use as decorations on and around the tables

* Cut strips of vellum, stamp with your name and wedding date and use for napkin rings or around favor boxes

* Make boxes or pouches for favors

* Use for wedding program overlays
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Folder-style invitation

Inspired by a popular line of similar, pricey invitations, we created our own version for just a fraction of the cost. This project takes a bit of time but the effort is worth it! The full instructions are available to members in our downloads area, under “Project Sheets”. Look for the “folder-style invitation ” listing.

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