Weddings Archives - Yearning to Create

How to Use Household Items as Wedding Decor

With seven daughters, we often get comments like “Hope you’re saving up for those weddings!” Well I am here to tell you that you can still have a beautiful wedding without spending a fortune. I was able to find some great deals in thrift stores and off the local buy and sell, and with a little paint and effort and imagination, turn some things into wedding worthy items. Add a few borrowed items, and items from around the house and voila, the decorating is done!

Here are a few things I found . . .

First item:

This little bench came from our local Facebook Buy and Sell group. The bottom part was all dark burgundy so all it needed was some paint in the right colour (Grey Morning – leftover from my laundry room). I left the top natural, just the way it was. Her colours were teal, lime and light yellow, with lots of earth tones thrown in too.

See it there peeking out behind the flowers? We placed the bench up on the food table, with the lamp on it to help illuminate the food. Three beverage dispensers were on one side, and the platters of food were on the other. It divided up the 18 foot long table (three six foot tables) very nicely! I had a 19 foot lace tablecloth that was from my little sisters wedding that I just kept packed away because we all figured we would have the next wedding in the family – and we did. Speaking of the tables, notice how one is taller than the other? There was no way we could get those tables even, so we had to put a little block under the leg of the bench and place that brown tile in front of it. The tile was a gift to the bride and groom from their stake president.

Choose your Love – Love your Choice.

The big flower arrangement also came from the Buy and Sell. I just took out the coloured flowers that didn’t match and rearranged what was left.

Our second reception had a slightly different arrangement, with my Willowtree figurine added in, and some Scrabble tile messages – check that out here. The lamps belong to the bride and there were four of them used in various locations at the reception.

Next item:

This little bench seat with the lift up seat also came from the Buy and Sell.

My original plan was to paint it white and antique it, but I literally ran out of time. From the time the ring was on her finger, we only five weeks and six days til the wedding day!!! Lucky for us, the groom asked our permission about a month before that, so we were already working on things before the official engagement. So all we had time to do with the bench was give it a good clean and re-upholster the seat in a matching wedding colour (fabric came from a thrift store!). Our bride said she was perfectly happy with it in its natural colour, and besides, it was going in the hallway!

This is how it ended up looking. The teal blanket came from my living room and the Mr. & Mrs. pillows came from my bedroom (check them out here). The little chest and flowers came from Michaels – always with a 40% or 50% off coupon. The little chest was on the end of season clearance shelves and cost me something like $1.77. My favourite little white ampersand came from Walmart, but I already had that too!

The bench greeted you as you came down the hall. To the left was a spot for gifts, and to the right was the entrance into the reception. I made those spindles from old stair railings. They were perfect for directing “traffic” – just like what you’d see in a bank or movie lineups, only prettier!

The gift area, featuring the first gift, and a handmade quilt by Aunt Diana over the couch. The bench did its job well and maybe I’ll tackle painting it this summer – then for sure it will be ready for our next wedding!!!

Last item:

I didn’t take a before shot of this radish picture in an ugly reddish brown frame that I found in a thrift store – but trust me, it wasn’t a pretty picture! I dismantled the picture and tossed the poor radish. Painted it, using my leftover Grey Morning paint again, then sanded and distressed the edges. We printed a favourite photo in black and white, and that was it. The perfect picture to hang over their favors table. We wanted a matted picture so the bride could write a message on it.

Here’s the wedding favors table. The table came from my dad – he used to have it in his storage room and they were shocked that we made it wedding worthy! The table runner and baby’s breath came from the thrift store. The green, yellow and blue baskets were already owned by the bride, and the wreath and holder were from my dining room – check the wreath out here.

The finished frame – so much better than radishes! The happy couple now have this hanging in their apartment, without the words though. Pictures are a great way to decorate – prints are very inexpensive and it’s amazing what you can do with old frames and spray paint.

Hope this has given you some ideas! If only I knew what colour schemes our next six weddings will be!!! In the meantime, I’ll keep my eyes open for any other treasures that could become wedding worthy!

Scrabble Tiles for Wedding Decorating

I saw this idea on Pinterest using Scrabble tiles as a wedding decor.

Check out the image I pinned here.

Elle liked the idea and so we decided to do it at her wedding.

Our church Cultural Hall has four little white shelves on the walls – they’re for holding hymn books. To decorate them we used a mason jar with a gold chair sash tucked inside it with the edges hanging out. The four bouquets from the bride and bridesmaids worked perfectly in the jars, and the Scrabble tiles sent out perfect little loving messages. We left the unlit tealight candle out in front and turned them on before the reception started and tucked it into the mason jar.

With the candle in place – they were adorable!

We made two sets of Time and Eternity and two of Together Forever.

(Yes, we had to borrow another Scrabble game!)

J-L, our photographer, played around with the tiles and took some cute ring shots too!

At our second reception, we didn’t have the little white shelves on the walls, so we simply put our Scrabble tiles on white routered pieces of wood and placed them in various places . . .

. . . photo display table,

. . . wedding favors table,

. . . food table.

This display was on our long food table, separating the drinks from the food.

We loved our Scrabble messages! And so did the guests – we received some rave reviews on such a simple little added touch!

How to Make a Chalkboard from a Cupboard Door

Before my daughters wedding, I was scrounging around in the garage, looking for stuff that we might be able to up-cycle into something wedding worthy. Well, I found a cupboard door!

I painted the outside edge in my leftover laundry room paint (Grey Morning by Behr), which happened to match her wedding colours perfectly! I sanded the edges a little and distressed them with my tube of Burnt Umber Oil Colour (best and easiest way to distress anything!)

The middle part I painted with chalkboard paint – two coats. Super easy!

The result was a chalkboard!!!

This was the perfect way to greet our wedding guests as they came through the doors. And it was perfect for pointing out which way they should go.

This was our practice set-up at home in our unfinished basement. Looking at it now, I realize it was quite the recycling project – old cupboard door, old chair, old topiary, old spindles – all up-cycled to become . . .

. . . the perfect wedding entryway!

Now my plan is to either hang it horizontally above a window or door in my house, or vertically on a narrow wall. Since it’s a chalkboard, I can make it say anything I want! And I can take it down and use it again as a welcome sign. It’s already had “Welcome to New Beginnings” written on it. It also fits very well in a small easel – the kind you would use to hold a 12 x 12 tile – which is how we propped the chalkboard up for New Beginnings.

I think this old cupboard door is loving it’s new life!!!

Wedding Decorations – An Evening Garden

My friend Heather had a son get married and I was able to help her decorate (she planned everything, I just helped with setting things up and taking things down). I love helping to decorate because I love to see the transformation of a gym to something beautiful. Anyway, for this reception, the church gym was transformed into An Evening Garden and it was so pretty!

Branches spray painted white with flowers glued on. They were used first without the flowers at a winter themed wedding.

The little gazebo where the bride and groom stood during the receiving line.

Mostly decorated but still missing centerpieces and a few other things.

Each table had a different colour flower tucked in the bow that was tied to the chair – I loved this!

Such pretty chairs!

See, I really loved them!

More trees and flowers set up near the gazebo.

The Mason jars filled with rocks and a tealight candle added a lovely romantic evening effect.

It was such soft pretty lighting.

And there are the centerpieces. The bride collects tea cups so tea lights glowing inside tea cups on the table added a pretty effect.

And the cake made by the grooms 16 year old sister.

It really did turn out like An Evening Garden!

Now, who’s wedding can I help at next? Gotta get lots of ideas for our seven daughters’ weddings!!!

Photo Display

My daughter wanted a photo display area at her wedding reception. After checking out Pinterest, we thought this wooden frame was super cute (check out our inspiration here).

My guy whipped it up out of 2 x 4’s and then drilled four holes in each side. I took care of staining it and threading the jute through the holes. I just used a knot at each end to keep the jute from slipping back through the holes.

The most time consuming part of this project was choosing the pictures!

But we got lucky . . . we had pictures of them the same ages doing the same sorts of things – like Baptism at age 8, sports pictures at age 10 and in high school, each devouring cake on their first birthdays, and my favourite, the super happy two-year-old photo!

We attached the photos to the string with mid size clothespins. We painted the top side of the clothespin in a wedding colour, and added a little punched out tag that briefly described the pictures. (Age 2) for example. We chose to put all the pictures in chronological order.

The lamp was the perfect addition to make the photos visible. We also had Christmas lights around the branches in the old crate.

It worked out perfectly!!!

And now I have a cute display stand to hold, oh . . . my three-year olds artwork . . . or Christmas cards . . . or messages to family members . . .

One Huge Frame

I found a treasure – big old ugly brown frame at our band garage sale for about $0.25. I just knew I’d be able to get a lot off use out of this frame once it was prettied up!

It looked so cute after a few coats of spray paint. I believe the colour was Ocean Breeze by Krylon.

The first time we used it was part of a photo wall at Grad . . .

. . . it’s the big one with the blue couple inside it.

Then we used it during engagement photo’s for my daughter.

I love the sky, the wheat, the frame, the couple!!!

And finally, we turned it into a chalkboard for their wedding!

My guy cut me a piece of 1/8″ melamine in whatever measurement the back of my frame was. Then I gave it two coats of chalkboard paint. Now this was the hard part – attaching the chalkboard to the back of the frame. I used duct tape and taped it on!!! That way I can easily take it out when I just want a frame again.

We simply wrote their Love Story on the chalkboard and propped it up in a corner.

It’s sooo romantic!!!

I think this frame is having so much more fun now than whatever it did in it’s former life!

Oh, and if you read the Love Story, don’t worry, he works at the jail!

Marriage Advice Wedding Photo

I have a plaque on my wall that’s full of advice to married couples, and I love it! I refer to it often. So when my daughter got married, I wanted to give her something similar. Then I had the brilliant idea to put the marriage advice on a wedding photo!!!

My niece JL took the perfect picture for this project. The bride and groom had just come out of the temple doors to greet all the guests who were waiting outside. They had that indescribable just-married-and-so-happy-and-in-love glow, because just moments before they had been married for time and all eternity in the Holy Temple. I remember what complete joy I felt on my wedding day, and it was so so wonderful to know my little girl was feeling that way too.

I took JL’s photo and played around on Picmonkey with it. I did some stuff to the picture – like contrast or something (yeah, helpful I know!!!). I wanted the picture to be clearly visible, but it was the words that I wanted to really stand out. Once I had the picture the way I wanted it, I started adding the text, alternating fonts, sizes and colours, until I was pleased with how it looked. Then I simply ordered the photo and put it in a frame.

Pretty cool how I was able to frame the picture yet still keep the frame in it’s protective cardboard corners eh? I still had to wrap it and give it to them, then they had to transport it, so just ignore the corners!!!

Here’s the complete picture and words so you can clearly see the marriage advice . . .

I love it!!!

Some of the advice, like “Find time to be alone together”, might not seem too relevant now, but in the future, when there are children around and life is crazy busy, we all need to remember that one!!!

And “Hold hands whenever you can” is placed by their clasped hands – how cute is that?

If you look closely, you will notice that the photo is not matted. I actually had to put it on top of the matte rather than under the matte, otherwise some of the picture and words wouldn’t show. I had to print it at a size that they don’t usually make frames for just to get the whole picture. But it all worked out just fine in the end.

Now I want one for myself!!!

Lighted Picture Frame Centerpieces

My oldest daughter got married a few months ago and this is what we made for her centerpieces . . .

In our search to find the perfect centerpiece, we had a few parameters we had to meet:

– The tables were round so we didn’t want anything too big or tall – we wanted guests to be able to see everyone sitting at the table with them.

– We wanted something that would give off a little light, to add some warmth to the late October day.

– We wanted something flowery yet personal.

– We wanted something that we could do ourselves!!!

While searching for ideas on Pinterest {how did one plan a wedding before Pinterest? lol} we found the idea for our perfect centerpieces by Martha Stewart – just needed some tweaking to make it our own. Sorry, the link doesn’t work anymore, but the picture is still on my Pinterest Wedding board.

So how did we make them? Get wooden picture frames in multiples of three (Ikea, Dollar stores) in your choice of size and paint them. I painted three frames each a different colour so we could determine which we liked best. We ended up using a chocolate brown paint and the helpful groom did all the painting. Lightly sanding the edges finished it nicely.

The pictures are simply printed off the computer onto vellum paper (it’s translucent and we wanted the candle to glow through). Just have the glass and vellum in your frame, no backing cardboard – unless you aren’t using a candle.

To assemble them, we simply taped them together with a piece of duct tape. Use a colour of tape that won’t show through any cracks that might be there – we used black. We transported them flat and did the final assembly while setting up. We lay the third piece of tape half over one edge and then stood the frames up and pressed from the top and bottom to adhere it to the other frame.

Now – very important – we used battery operated tea light candles – no real flame (but I know you’re all smart enough to know that already). We used flowers to cover the tops of our frames, which is why we didn’t need to paint the inside of the frames. Martha may have done it differently, but this worked for us! I cut triangles of cardboard (out of cereal boxes) in the right size to nicely sit on top of the frames. I glued leaves to all the edges of the cardboard first so no Rice Krispie pictures would show through the flowers! To attach the flowers, I actually poked the two biggest ones through the cardboard and glued them in place. They provided an anchor for me to hot glue all the other flowers up against.

We set our tealight on a block of wood to make it a little higher inside the frames. We chose to make wood bases because we already had the wood. We just needed to cut it and router the edges and then paint, sand and distress the edges.

The bride painting bases, while watching a movie. Not sure why she has a jug of milk there! The family room was a mess of projects for a long time and that plastic was always nearby for painting jobs!

The little doily was the finishing touch! We also tried tying jute around the bottom, about a third of the way up, and it looked cute, but for the wedding, we liked it better without it.

On the head table we used 5×7 frames, and all the rest were 4×6. We used different photo combinations in each as well so no two centerpieces were the same.

The same picture – lit and unlit.Before the first reception – the centerpieces aren’t even glowing yet and we still have some florescent lights on. When all the lights were on the way we planned, the centerpieces looked lovely glowing on every table.The second reception – and again, the centerpieces aren’t glowing yet. But it was so pretty!!!

Another thing I like about these centerpieces is that they pack away so nicely when you open up one side and lay them flat.

They were perfect!!!