May

17

Expert advice from Afloral: Buried in flower choices

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We’ve heard it countless times, and we’re not surprised at all.  DIY brides are sending out a cry for help when it comes to picking out their artificial flowers for their wedding.  Many brides want to create something special for themselves and their wedding party; keepsakes that people would be proud to display and won’t banish to the back of the shelf or attic when they get home. (Sorry everyone, your secret is out!)

A discussion with a first-time bride or groom generally starts something like this…

“I want to make my own wedding flowers, but have no idea what the flower names are, or how to know whether they go together, or what colors to choose, or even what supplies I will need. HELP!”  We smile every time we heard those words, because we know you’re not alone. However, there’s no need for panic!  Here are some things to consider if you have the DIY spirit, but not the flower know-how:

Colors – Start there, and other things will fall into place.  Trying to decide what flowers to buy for a bouquet without knowing what your wedding colors are is like trying to buy all the paint for a room before deciding on the color scheme.  It’s difficult!

Afloral feature image 1 Expert advice from Afloral: Buried in flower choices

Style – Now that you know what your wedding colors are, what is your wedding style?  Do you have a theme, or are you building your wedding around a particular season?  Take a look online to gauge which styles you like.  There are round bouquets, cascading bouquets, and arm bouquets, just to mention a few.  Once you have an idea in your head of what shape and style your bouquet will have, you can go on to picking your flowers.

Afloral feature image 2 Expert advice from Afloral: Buried in flower choices

Flowers- Don’t worry if you don’t know the name of the flower, or if you can’t pronounce it. (When we hire new staff, the first thing we tell them is how to pronounce phalaenopsis and ranunculus – not many of us came in knowing!)  Try finding some pictures online of bouquets that look like something you want.  When you looked for style, maybe some of those bouquets had flowers that you loved.  You can match the look of the flower online at a flower site, or in a store.  It doesn’t have to be exact…lots of flowers have similar shapes.  For instance, a rose has a similar shape to a ranunculus, but they have different looks.  Both are round with multiple petal layers, but roses are a more classic choice.  Both orchids and delphiniums are tall flowers, but they have different petal structures.

Afloral feature image 3 Expert advice from Afloral: Buried in flower choices

Ranunculus (left) vs. Roses (right)

Tools – Now that you’ve picked out your flowers, you’re going to need some tools to work with them. For artificial flowers, you will need a good set of wire cutters so that you can trim the stems down to size.  Stemwrap is the green tape that you will use to wrap your stems and hold them together.  You may need some hot glue to re-attach flower heads or add accents, as well.  Don’t forget your finishing touches!  Choose from ribbon, pins, bouquet wraps, raffia, or another custom choice such as a scarf or lace doily or handkerchief to finish your bouquet.

Afloral feature image 4 Expert advice from Afloral: Buried in flower choices

Assembly – Putting together a basic bouquet isn’t as hard as you would think!  Many places have online resources complete with how-to videos to get you going.  Take it one step at a time, and remember…this is your custom bouquet!  You can add or take away whatever you want to make this DIY project a one-of-a-kind creation that will add to the magic of your special day.

Happy Bouquet Building!

 

This expert advice from Afloral is just one example of why we love them so much!  At Afloral.com, you’ll find an amazing selection of flower choices at affordable prices, and loads of inspiration and helpful tips for DIYers.   If you’re planning a DIY wedding and you want to make your own bouquets, working with Afloral will be a great benefit to you, without breaking the budget!


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May

15

Elegant DIY Wedding Centerpiece: How-To from Blooms by the Box

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This guest blog is courtesy of our featured vendor, Blooms by the Box – a fabulous resource for DIY flower projects.  Diana from Blooms by the Box has been kind enough to provide this lovely DIY tutorial for an elegant wedding centerpiece with a how-to video, too!

Feature post 1 Elegant DIY Wedding Centerpiece: How To from Blooms by the Box

Here is the exclusive how-to video, just for DIY Bride readers: Elegant DIY Wedding Centerpiece

Many brides think that they need to be some kind of professional to pull of this elegant wedding look. The truth is, you can do this yourself, even if you are not “artsy” or the “DIY it all” type. The fact is buying wholesale flowers to DIY can save you money so you can splurge in other areas. Maybe you get a wedding video made, add extra guests, or splurge on a honeymoon with the savings you can incur by doing-it-yourself!

Feature post 2 Elegant DIY Wedding Centerpiece: How To from Blooms by the Box

Flowers in this arrangement:

  1. Vendela Roses
  2. Cream Spray Roses
  3. Dendrobium Orchids Bombay
  4. Dendrobium Orchids (White)
  5. Snap Dragons (White)
  6. Wax Flower (White)
  7. Eucalyptus
  8. Israeli Ruscus
  9. Tree Fern

 Feature post 3 Elegant DIY Wedding Centerpiece: How To from Blooms by the Box

 The vase is a white plastic urn. This urn looks classic and expensive but in fact is very inexpensive and can be purchased in bulk.

Watch the video to learn how you can make this look all your very own! Use your creativity by using a different color scheme with the same basic flowers or add some interesting textures! To save money on a look like this eliminate orchids and purchase more snap dragons, larkspur, or stock to contribute to the height of the arrangement. Another way to cut the cost of is to fill with greenery that will still give you the full look you need with less

I hope the video has been helpful in teaching you how to make your own elegant yet unique centerpieces! If you have any questions feel free to visit our Facebook to ask our flower expert any type of questions about DIY wedding flowers!! Also for more direction download our free DIY Wedding Flower Guide!

 

Learn more about Blooms by the Box in the DIY Bride Vendor Showcase.

 


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May

04

Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas

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Like many of you, I’m a huge fan of Amy Atlas. Her ability to pull together a wide array of tasty desserts, beautiful linens, cool graphic designs, and perfectly-styled details is truly inspirational. From the email we’re getting from you, our readers, we know you’re keen on getting how-to advice and tutorials for creating your own Amy Atlas-inspired tables at your weddings and celebrations.

Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas

 

You’ll be delighted to know that you can now go directly to the source for your most pressing how-to questions because Amy has just released her first book Sweet Designs: Bake it, Craft it, Style it!. And, friends, it is gorgeous!

Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas

 

Sweet Designs is 15 chapters of Amy Atlas awesomeness. Each chapter begins with a fully-styled themed dessert table and within the pages of each chapters, Amy shows you how to create the desserts and crafts shown in the chapter opener. It’s a great approach to a craft book.  The project instructions and recipes are clear and concise with many how-to photos. To help readers get the most out of her projects, she’s included a ton of tips for customizing the projects to fit their unique themes and lots of suggestions for displaying your clever creations. What I love about this book is that it’s so beginner-friendly! Amy’s guidance puts these delightful creations within reach of nearly any would-be or hardcore crafter.

 

Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas

 

It’s a big book – over 350 pages – and well worth the investment. This is something you’ll be referencing for years all sorts of celebrations from birthdays to showers to holidays and anniversaries.

Sweet Designs by Amy Atlas


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Mar

14

Cricut Paper Bouquet

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Paper bouquets are among our most-requested projects these days – and with good reason. They’re trendy, fun, beautiful, inexpensive, versatile (limited only by your paper), and fairly easy to make. What’s not to love, right? Well, they are very labor-intensive and many of you are short on free time for crafting.

If you don’t have the time (or simply want a shortcut) to spend days cutting individual flowers by hand, an electronic die cutter such as the Cricut Expression® 2, is your go-to tool of choice. Our friends at Provo Craft, makers of the Cricut, have shared the tutorial for making this oh-so-pretty paper bouquet.

What You’ll Need:

Provo Craft Supplies

·       Cricut Expression® 2 Personal Electronic Cutter
·       Cricut® Flower Shoppe cartridge
·       Cartridge Cuts:
·       Flower Shoppe
·       Flower centers  3 ½”, 2 ½”
·       Flowers  2”, 2 ½”, 3 ¾”, 4 ½”

                  

Other Materials:

·       Cardstock:  pink, yellow
·       Patterned paper:  3-4 coordinating papers
·       Styrofoam ball
·       Bridal Bouquet holder
·       Ribbon:  green
·       Pearls:  on wire
·       Brown ink
·       Dabber
·       Dowels
·       Pins
·       Scissors
·       Glue gun
·       Glue sticks
·       Glue dots
·       Foam squares
·       Pencil
·       Quilling pen                      

 
Instructions For Assembling The Bouquet:

1.     After you’ve cut the flowers, ink the edges with a dauber and brown ink.
2.     When layering flowers, use foam squares in between the bottom two layers.
3.     Before you adhere a flower layer, roll petal over a pencil.  This will create the flower to lay better without creasing.
4.     Layer all pieces of the flower.
5.     Using glue gun adhere the dowel to the bottom of flower.  Dowel length’s 2 ½”, per flower.
6.     Insert flowers into Styrofoam ball.  Start with large flowers, fill in with small flowers.
7.     Cut ribbon in pieces of 3 ½

If you liked this project, we have more Cricut projects coming up as well as a review of the Cricut Mini!

 

 



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Mar

13

Inspired By: Pamela + Salvatore

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Sometimes we receive short and sweet submissions from couples that showcase a project or specific element of their wedding. We like to call these “Inspired By” posts because, well, they do inspire us!

Today’s inspired shot of DIY ribbon wands comes from Pamela and Salvatore’s wedding.

“I hope you like our homemade wedding wands. Please see the attached images. My mom and I just took wooden dowels and some white satin ribbon and we created the perfect exit! The church wouldn’t allow bubbles, birdseed, confetti, or anything else so this was our only option. The kids loved it and guests were waving their wands for the whole reception.”

So pretty!

 

 


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Mar

06

Swarovski Wedding Princess Comb

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It’s no secret that we go weak in the knees over glittery, sparkly projects here at the DIY Bride offices. Among our favorite ways to bring in a bit of sparkle and romance is to add crystals and, of course, no mention of crystals is complete without giving a shout-out to Swarovski. If you’re not familiar, Swarovski® is the manufacturer of the world’s most-recognized and respected brands of crystals. Their products? Luxe. Gorgeous.

We’re excited to share this Wedding Princess Comb from the Love is in the Air by SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS.


(Scroll down to download the PDF instructions.)



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Mar

04

Kids Table Activity

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We receive a lot of requests for activities and child-appropriate gifts for kids at weddings. Though we have a number of coloring/activity books in our downloads section, we’re always happy to share fun DIY things to keep the little ones occupied.  (As a mother of a 3 year old, these dilemmas are cropping up in my everyday life, too!)

From my favorite rubber stamping queen comes this super cute coloring book page and heart crayon project. I’m thinking this could also double as a “will you be my flower girl / ring bearer?” card or transformed into a save-the-date or valentine’s card with a more sophisticated rubber stamp design.

 

Supplies Needed

  • Crayons, assorted colors. Check out your local dollar-type stores for cheapy crayons or ask friends with kids to donate their broken ones to your worthy cause.
  • Muffin tin
  • Cupcake liners
  • Skewer or chopstick for stirring the crayon mix
  • Oven
  • Heart-shaped candy mold. (Or any shape you so desire.)
  • Rubber stamp with open artwork that can be colored
  • Permanent ink
  • 1 piece of white cardstock trimmed to 4″ x 5 1/4″
  • 1 piece of colored cardstock trimmed to 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″
  • Double-sided tape

Instructions

1. Place cupcake liners into the muffin tin cavities.

2. Remove paper labels from crayons and break the sticks up into small chunks. Place the broken crayons into the muffin tins. It’s best to sort by color, otherwise the crayons will melt into each other and the results usually aren’t very pretty. You can do a single color or a color family (reds and pinks, for example) for best results. If you want to swirl colors, do that in the mold.

3. Place muffin tin into a 250 degree oven and bake the crayons, stirring occasionally, until melted which should be about 20 minutes.

4. Once your crayons have turned into liquid, you’re ready to pour the wax into the molds. You can use a spoon to ladle the wax into the mold cavities or you can carefully pick up one of the cupcake liners and pour from it into a mold. Careful here: the wax is HOT and will burn you. The wax also hardens quickly so move fast.

Kids Table Activity

 

5. Put the full mold to the side to let the crayons cool and harden.

6. While your custom crayons are hardening, go ahead and make your cards. Using permanent ink (pigment or alcohol ink), stamp your image onto the piece of white cardstock. Adhere the stamped image onto the piece of colored cardstock using double-sided tape.

7. When your crayons are cool, pop them out of the mold and present them with your sweet little card. Voila!

Kids Table Activity

 

Kids Table Activity



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Feb

15

Afloral.com shares DIY inspiration and how-to videos for wedding flowers

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DIY wedding flowers are trending for 2012, and with little or no experience at all brides can create simply stunning bouquets and centerpieces for their wedding decor with Afloral’s help. Not only does Afloral provide amazing stems and supplies for DIY brides, they also share flower inspiration boards (via the blog), wedding design ideas, and how-to videos(via YouTube). The customer support team is also happy to assist with product or design questions.

The team of super-friendly DIY flower experts at Afloral.com has shared this lovely inspiration board.

Afloral image for post Afloral.com shares DIY inspiration and how to videos for wedding flowers

Afloral truly is a one-stop shop for DIY wedding flowers. If you are planning for DIY flowers in any element of your wedding day, you must check out Afloral’s website. Here are some of my favorite features:

  • The tutorials for any of the arrangements shown above can be found on the “Build a Bouquet” page. There are many color and style options, and you would never guess these are DIY!
  • Shop by color, find silk flowers, and see unique items like branches and garlands. They’ve got great containers too! Not sure how to put it all together? The how-to videos are going to help!
  • Prices are unbelievable! Right now, buy Gerber Daisies for $0.55 each! At this price, you can order all your flowers and supplies in one place and save on shipping.

Everything Afloral provides is designed for the DIYer. They leave the customization up to you. Your flowers can be as simple or elaborate as you want them. DIY flowers are a tricky project but more and more brides are saying they want DIY flowers at their wedding. Hiring a florist can be costly, but going DIY may not always save you money. More tips like can be found @ afloral.com – and the experts are always happy to answer your DIY questions.

Learn more about Afloral.com



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Jan

04

Blooms by the Box! The Wholesale Flower Superstore DIYers will love

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DIY Flower arrangements, like the ones pictured here, are a growing wedding trend that saves brides big money on table decorations, bouquets, and more. It’s not hard to make your own bouquet if you keep it simple. If you want a fancy bouquet, there can be many advantages to working with a florist but you will likely save money if you can do it yourself. Blooms by the Box is dedicated to helping brides with their DIY wedding flowers.

If you have zero experience, the helpful folks at Blooms by the Box will guide you through the process. Check out these step-by-step video guides and loads of DIY flower inspiration on their blog, You Tube channel, facebook, and twitter pages.

The best thing about Blooms by the Box is they have the supplies you need and the instruction. You can get the blooms you have been wanting by the stem, by the bunch, or by the box. And, you can have them delivered in as little as one day! Blooms by the Box gives brides the flexibility they need to order blooms for your bouquets, boutioneers, centerpieces, alter arrangements, and flower girls!

This site is truly a one-stop flower resource for DIY brides, regardless of who much (or little) you know! They have the hottest products for weddings blooms such as roses, orchids, freesia, hydrandeas, and snap dragons. All at a wholesale price. This wholesale flower superstore offers low minimum quantities so brides can get what they need, save money and minimize waste.

Learn more about Blooms by the Box.    



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Nov

09

Stamped Card With Sparkly Embossed Bag

The lovely Blythe shares with us this pretty project that’s perfect for holiday gift giving or, you know, a wedding.

501 Stamped Card With Sparkly Embossed Bag

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the project focus is on the sparkly-embossed organza bag, I think the card is the real showstopper here. How gorgeous would this be adapted into an invitation? And the bag? An excellent way to present favors.

SUPPLIES:
[Note: The numbers in parentheses refer to the item's current catalog number in the current Stampin' Up! Idea Book.)

  • Stamps: Medallion (115223) and Tiny Tags (118091) both by Stampin' Up!
  • Card Stock: Very Vanilla (101650) by Stampin' Up!
  • Ink: Old Olive Classic Ink (102277), Craft Stampin' Spots - Brights Collection (119718) by Stampin' Up!
  •  Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder (101930)
  • Heat Tool (100005), Powder Pals (102197)
  • Old Olive Satin Ribbon (117292)
  •  Jewelry Tag Punch (117190)
  • 1/16" Circle Punch (101227)
  • Linen Thread (104199)

INSTRUCTIONS

For The Bag:

  1. Cut a piece of card stock or thin cardboard slightly smaller than organza bag and insert it into the bag.  Lay the bag on a flat surface and smooth out any wrinkles.
  2. Ink the Medallion stamp well with Old Olive Craft Ink. Stamp on bag as desired.
  3. Sprinkle the stamped area generously with Iridescent Ice embossing powder. Shake off excess powder into a container (you can re-use any unheated embossing powder).
  4. Using even back and forth motions with the heat tool, melt the embossing powder. Be careful here; you'll want to heat only until the powder turns liquid. Overheating will pucker and melt the organza. (See below.)
  5. Remove card stock from bag. Insert your favor or gift.
502 Stamped Card With Sparkly Embossed Bag

Heating The Embossing Powder On The Bag

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For The Gift Note:

  1. Cut Very Vanilla card stock to 3″ x 6″, score at 3″ and fold in half to create card.
  2. Ink Medallion stamp with Old Olive Craft Ink and stamp image on card front.
  3. Sprinkle with Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder, shake off excess powder, and heat set using the Heat Tool.
  4. Tie Old Olive Satin Ribbon around card.
  5. Using Old Olive Classic Ink and the solid tag image from Tiny Tags, stamp off once onto scrap paper, and then stamp onto Very Vanilla card stock.
  6. Ink “merry” image with Old Olive Classic Ink and stamp over solid tag image. Punch out the image using the Jewelry Tag Punch.
  7. Punch a small hole in the Jewelry Tag using the Handheld Circle Punch (or use the Paper-Piercing Tool). Tie the Jewelry Tag to the Satin Ribbon using Linen Thread.

503 Stamped Card With Sparkly Embossed Bag
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Blythe:
Blythe Klipple is a demonstrator for Stampin’ Up!
Email: blythe@stampinwithblythe.com
Blog: http://www.stampinwithblythe.com
Stampin’ Up! website & Store:  http://blythestamps.stampinup.net


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