If you’re inclined to indulge your most narcissistic fantasies on your wedding day, M&M’s has something sweet in store for you!

You’ve probably known about custom M&M’s candies where you can place nearly any text on them for a while. Now M&M’s has gone craaaaazy with candy printing technology that allows you to place pictures on their yummy little candies. I know! Genius!

I’m thinking that, in place of a photo, you could substitute a great graphic – like your monogram or custom logo – for an ultra-cool, ultra-customized favor. Neat!

Do check out the site and their printing “dos and don’ts” page before you buy. See the M&M’s site here.

No related posts.

Please check out other projects from DIY Bride in past issues of Modern Bride: August/September 08 and June/July 08.

{Editing to add: How pretty is that cover? Love it!}

No related posts.

One of my favorite craft projects is coming up with favor and gift packaging. (I especially love the holidays just because I can make and wrap boxes. It’s sick, I know.)

Finding nice favor packaging that’s not generic and that doesn’t cost more than the gift itself can be the Holy Grail of wedding favors, can’t it?

Well, dear readers, I have an easy-yet-beautiful favor packaging that won’t break the bank.

We’re going to make favor bags out of … ribbon! All you need is some yummy ribbon, scissors, and a glue gun.

For this example, I’m using chopsticks as the favor and a beautiful 1.5″ double-faced satin ribbon as the bag. (Candy cane sticks work great, too, for you last-minute holiday craft makers.)

Supplies Needed

• 1.5″ satin ribbon
• Scissors
• Glue gun
• 1/8″ ribbon for the tie

Directions

1. Plug in your glue gun and let it start heating.
2. Measure the length of the item you’ll be putting in the bag and add an inch*. My chopsticks are 11″. I measured out 12″.
3. Cut the ribbon to length.
4. Fold the ribbon in half.
5. With the glue gun, draw a thin line of glue down the inside of one of the inner edges of the ribbon. Line up the top and bottom edges of the ribbon. Seal the side shut. (Be careful! The glue will be hot enough to give you a nasty burn.)
6. Now do the same for the other side. That’s it. You’ve created a bag.
7. To make it all pretty,  trim the top of the finished bag to clean up any frayed edges. Tie the 1/8″ ribbon around the outside.

You can use nearly any width of ribbon that’ll accommodate the width of your favor. I’ve seen gorgeous ribbons up to 4″ wide.  For the alternate example below, I used a 2″ width and that’s great for jelly beans or other candies.

Tips & Hints:

• Hot glue is HOT and can give you serious burns. Keep a bowl of ice water nearby while you’re working.
• Also, keep a damp paper towel on your work surface to protect your work surface. Whenever you put the glue gun down, set the tip over the paper towel to catch any drippings.
• The heavier the ribbon, the better.
• Sheer ribbons don’t work well for this project because the glue tends to show through. That’s not very pretty.
• Use only fabric ribbon: silk, satin, poly-blends, cotton. Plastic-y ribbons will melt under the heat of the hot glue.

No related posts.

Vintage crafts and craft techniques are rocking my holiday gift-giving world this year. I’ve been having fun resurrecting things I made as a not-so-crafty kid and giving them a modern update.

Just in time for holiday gift-giving I rediscovered baking bread in a glass jar and thought that it’d make an awesomely fun wedding favor. The DIY Bride version replaces bread with the ever-popular cupcake.

We’re going to bake cupcakes in glass jars! It’s perfectly safe and the jar serves double duty as a baking vessel and ultra-cool packaging.

And if you’re looking for a neat edible gift for the holidays, this is a winner.

There are lots of notes for this project so be sure to read all the way to the bottom before you attempt.

Supplies Needed:

• 1/2 pint wide-mouth canning jars with lids
• Baking sheet
• Silpat fiberglass mat or parchment paper
• Batch of your favorite cake batter
• Shortening
• Flour
• Paper towels
• 8.5” x 11” (or larger) cardstock or decorative paper
• Ribbon
• Paper cutter
• Circle cutter
• Double-sided tape

Directions:

1. The first step is to sterilize the jars and lids. If you have a sanitation cycle in your dishwasher, run your lids and jars through a full cycle. Otherwise you’ll need to boil the jars and lids for about 15 mintues in a pot of water. This will kill any bacteria or other contaminants that may be clinging to your jars.
2. Heat oven to 325 degrees. (Do not bake jars at a higher temperature even if your recipe calls for it. This is for your safety. Glass jars may shatter at high oven temps. That’s a very bad thing.)
3. Make your favorite cake batter. I’m using a yummy mint chocolate cake here because it shows up nicely in the pictures. You can use any flavor you’d like.
4. Take the jars out of the boiling water. Dry them with a clean, dry towel (or a paper towel).
5. Next, grease and flour the inside of the jar to prevent sticking cakes. Using a paper towel, scoop up some shortening and smear it on the inside of each jar in a thin, even layer. Now put a scoop of all purpose flour inside of each jar. Turn the jar on its side and rotate the jar to disperse the flour over the shortening. Shake the excess flour out of the jar.
6. Using a ladel or measuring cup, fill each jar about half-way. For these jars, it takes just under 1/2 cup. (Note about the picture: I overfilled the jar. The cupcakes got too big when baking this particular recipe.)
7. Place filled jars on a baking sheet. I put a silicone Silpat mat underneath my jars to catch any spills and to help heat the jars evenly. You don’t need a Silpat but, if you don’t use one, I do reccomend putting a layer of parchment paper underneath the jars for easy cleanup if spills happen.
8. Place sheet of jars in the oven. Bake. This recipe took about 22 minutes. I recommend starting to check your recipe at about 15 minutes and then every 5 minutes or so thereafter.
9. Pull baking sheet out of the oven and set it on a rack to cool. Beware here: the glass jars are HOT. Like sear-your-skin-right-off HOT. I bumped one with my thumb. It hurts very much.
10. Once your jars o’ cake are cool, you’re free to frost them. I reccomend a nice buttercream. If you want, you can remove the cakes and wipe out the jar to make them look cleaner. They should just fall out if you turn them upside down.
11. Take your lids and lid rings out of the water. Dry them with a clean towel. Put them on the jars. Now you’re free to decorate the jars.
12. I used a paper belly band around the jar and a length of 1/4” grosgrain ribbon around the lid. I measured around the width of the jar and cut thin strips of cardstock to fit around it. Mine was 10” with an 1/4” for overlap. (10.25” total) For the top, I used a Fiskar’s circle cutter to cut a circle (2.5”) and secured it down with double-sided tape. On top of that, I used a decorative punch, decorated with a rubber stamp and glitter glue, to create a label.

Notes:

1. These jars I used are Kerr brand and were $9.99 for 12 at my local supermarket.
2. When sealed properly, these cakes will stay moist and yummy for several days. Some people will say even weeks but I wouldn’t push it for more than 5 days, max. If you use a buttercream recipe that uses milk, I’d only go about couple of days.
3. Whatever size jar you use needs to be wide-mouthed for best results. Don’t bake more than 1 cup of batter in any jar because the batter likely won’t cook evenly or all the way through. That’s bad. Uncooked batter = food poisoning.
4. Before you bake an entire batch of these, do a test run with a single jar to get a feel for how much batter and baking time you need.
5. I overfilled my jars for this project shoot. The cake was poufing up over the tops of the jars. To fix them, while the cakes were still hot, I used a serrated knife to trim off the excess. As the cakes cooled they shrunk to just the right size. You’ll want about 1/8” – 1/4” of space between the top of the cake and the top of the jar to allow for precious frosting space.
6. Store your finished cakes in a cool, dry place.
7. Because the jars slightly taper down from top to bottom, they were a pain in the butt to wrap with a belly band. Through trial and error, I came up with a template that would conform to the curvature of the jar.
8. Looking for fun, unique, and utterly fabulous cupcake recipes? These are my favorite spots for cupcakey goodness:
   

• BakeSpace
• Cupcake Bakeshop by Chocklit
• Cupcakes Take The Cake
• Couture Cupcakes
• Cupcake Recipes

	1/2 pint jars
	so you can get an idea of the scale
	boiling the lids to sterilize them (or to make lid soup)
	after greasing the jars, add a generous amount of flour
	turn the jar on its side and turn to disperse the flour inside
	floured jar
	jars filled with batter … I should’ve used less batter in each jar
	just-baked cupcake … I trimmed the top of this down before frosting (see notes)
	creme de menthe frosting. delicious!
	circle cutter (for lid decoration)
	decorated lid combining my love of scalloped paper punches and glitter glue
	finished product

No related posts.

As the recipient of many, many, many wedding and shower favors, I feel the need to speak up about the bad ones. Don’t get me wrong here – I’m not being ungrateful for the sentiment of thanks that a favor represents. What I’m talking about is when the favor is poorly executed or that feels so much like an afterthought that it’s offensive (i.e. “Thanks for coming. Here’s an after dinner mint for your trouble.”). Some favors are just way overdone. Some have dubious legal origins. Some are just destined to end up in the garbage.

My Top 10:

1. Jordan almonds (especially wrapped in tulle). I know these have long been traditional wedding favors because of the bitter-sweet symbolism. I can dig that. However, the truth about Jordan almonds is they’re horrible. I have never, ever in my life heard of anyone saying “Oh man, I just got the worst craving for Jordan almonds.” The teeth-shattering pastel-colored coating isn’t tasty. The almonds are merely “eh”. Why bother when there are 10 million other sweet treats that are far more yummy? Plus, lots of people are allergic to tree nuts.

2. CD favors. I get the appeal. You have the music. They’re easy DIY projects. You wanna share your favorite looooove songs. Rock on. However, the legal foo surrounding unauthorized distribution of music is troublesome. But what really bugs me is crappy song selection. Sure, you love these songs but it’s unlikely that your 100+ guests will share your exact taste in music. Of the 6+ wedding favor CDs I’ve received, I’ve only kept 1. The others got a one-way pass to Garbage Can City, baby. That’s a lot of work, money and materials to just be thrown away.

3. Spoons with chocolate. There are two types of these. The first is spoons dipped in melted chocolate. The other, is a Hershey’s kiss placed in the bowl of the spoon, wrapped in tulle with a cutesy poem. About the dipped spoons: I guess they’re ok for the guests that drink coffee and want chocolate in it. For the rest of us, sucking on plastic spoons to get some chocolate isn’t all that interesting or appetizing. About the Kiss spoons: Just give me the candy. Don’t put more unused plastic products into the universe and, pleasefortheloveofjeebus, stop it with the cutesy poems!

4. Bubbles. They’re waaaaaay overdone, messy, and not all that fun. Can you think of any better way to thank your guests? No? Just skip the favors, then.

5. Seeds and plants. I want to love these. Truly, I do. For green or garden weddings, I think they’d be awesome. Why don’t I ever want to see them again? Like many guests, I will never plant the seeds and I will likely kill the plants. You just wasted a couple of dollars and perfectly good seeds/plants.

6. Framed pictures of the bride and groom. I’m not sure what to think of couples that do this. Narcissistic? Overbought on their engagement shot package and trying to find ways to get rid of the extras? For guests that know you REALLY well (re: your immediate circle of friends and family), this is probably ok. For the rest of us, what the heck are we supposed to do with your picture because it’s sure not going to be displayed in our home or office?

7. Scented candles. I loves me some candle-y goodness (Illumination$ is my friend in a big way) but, like most people, I’m pretty particular about the scents I like. (Lavender, I kid you not, makes me hostile.) Sitting in a reception hall with 150+ highly scented candles (of any flavor) is nauseating and I’m not all that sensitive to that kind of stuff. If you’re gonna do candles, go unscented. Gracias.

8. Bath salts/bath bombs/handmade soaps. Completely inappropriate for a wedding favor and kind of offensive. (Not to mention the scent-factor.) Toiletries are best suited as personal gifts or as shower favors unless your wedding guests are particularly stinky and need a really big hint to wash themselves.

9. Lottery tickets. Ugh! A waste of paper and your hard-earned dollars.

10. Edibles of poor quality. I adore edible favors. They’re one of the best favors you can give – if the quality is good. If you’re going to make edibles, please use ingredients that are at least of passable quality. If you’re giving pre-made goodies, give stuff that’s actually tasty. Your local supermarket likely has fresh, quality ingredients and goodies if you can’t afford artisanal products. Always check expiration dates. And, please, be sure to taste your favors before you decide to give them away. In recent years I’ve received waxy, bland chocolate truffles, cookies that were sickeningly salty and infused olive oil that was rancid. Ewwwww! A little quality control goes a long way.

No related posts.