Tuesday Tip: Washi Tape Tea Lights

For this week’s Tuesday Tip, here is something simple you can do to add a cute, easy, (and cheap!) finishing touch to your wedding tables, bridal shower, or party decor.

You will need a few simple items:

• tea light candles
• washi tape
• scissors

All of these items are available at your local craft store, Walmart, or best of all…Dollar Tree!

The tea lights I used here are leftover from a wedding, and they are a little short. If your tape ends up being wider than your candles, just make sure to wrap the tape where the excess is at the bottom. That way there is no chance of the tape catching on fire. Also, you can always trim the tape to fit the width of the tea light.

Wrap the tape around the tea lights, and clip in excess.

That’s it! Super simple!

Tuesday Tip: Crystal Wedding Hairpin Hack

Looking for that extra little touch for you updo? Here’s a little tip for you that is cheap, takes zero crafty skills, and is oh-so-gorgeous!

All you need is a hairpin and a crystal (or any other type) of decorative button. Yes, button.

You can find these in fabric stores or inside craft stores in the sewing section. Usually there is a revolving stand with novelty buttons. While many of these are colorful, plastic, and/or tacky, you can find some really pretty crystal, pearl, and rhinestone ones.

See that little loop/hole on the back? Just take your hair pin and slide it through there.

And there you have  it…

 

Here are some examples of other buttons you could use. These are not our photos, they are from the Hobby Lobby website.  Search “shank buttons.”

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Tip: Printable Wedding Invitations

As mentioned in a previous post, printable invites can be big money savers. We wanted to take a moment to show you what exactly a printable invitation is and how it works. Today we are going to use our newest cherry blossom set to demonstrate.

A printable wedding invitation is one that you print and cut out yourself. We give you the completed design, but you do the rest of the work. Our invitations are formatted to be printed on standard letter size 8.5 x 11″ paper or card stock. You will be able to print them easily from your home printer or have them printed at a print lab. This particular set prints with one 5.5″ invitation and one 4.25 x 5.5″ RSVP card per sheet, and if you opt for the additional info cards, they print four 3.5×5″ cards per sheet. For printing at home, we recommend using coated card stock or premium presentation paper. If you decide to use the lighter weight presentation paper, you will want to mount it on card stock to give it that nice stiffness an invitation needs. You can buy card stock by the sheet in any color you desire (even glitter!) from your local craft store. You can created a colored border on your invitation by cutting the card stock mount a little larger than your invitation print. Just make sure you get all of your measurements correct. You wouldn’t want it to be too big to fit the envelope! (Tip: If you decide to mount your printed cards, use rubber cement. Water based glues tend to warp the paper, and may even cause ink bleeding on some lighter weight papers. Glue sticks tend not to hold well in the long term.)

If you don’t want to or are unable to print at home,  you can get prints from Office Max, Fedex Kinkos, or our personal favorite, OvernightPrints.com. If you use Overnight Prints for this invitation set, we recommend having them printed as 8.5 x 11″ notecards.

Once you have everything printed, you’ll need to cut it all out. You can use scissors, but the easiest way is by using a paper cutter. If you don’t have one, they are about $20 at your local craft store in the scrapbooking section. (Tip: Many craft stores have a weekly coupon for 40% or 50% off of one regular price item! We got ours for $12 each.)

Each card has a very thin, very light border so you can tell where to cut.

That’s all there is to it, pretty easy stuff!

If you have any other questions, feel free to leave a comment, or send us an email at hello@droplet-weddings.com.

DIY Clay Pendant Bridesmaids’ Gifts

As promised, today we’ll be sharing a tutorial on DIY clay pendants. Wait, wait, wait! Don’t leave! I know making anything with clay sounds like a daunting task, but believe it or not, these are really easy to make!

First, you’ll need a few things. You might already have some of these:

• rolling pin
• baking sheet
• wax paper
• aluminum foil
• cookie cutters or clay cutters
• rubber stamp of your choice
• sculpey polymer clay
• sculpey glaze (optional)
• acrylic paint (optional)
• paint brushes (optional)

If you don’t know about Sculpey, then this is going to blow your mind. Sculpey is an awesome clay that you can bake in your kitchen oven. No kiln needed! I don’t recommend making cups or pots or anything with it, but for smaller things that you aren’t going to eat off of, it’s perfect! My package of Sculpey shown is already open (sorry), and I’ve decided to use white for this demonstration so I can also show you what it looks like painted. Oh, did I mention this clay comes in about a million colors some of which are GLITTERY? Oh yes, my friends!

Ok, on to the good stuff!

• Lay out some wax paper. A 12″ piece should probably do it.
• Grab a chunk of clay. (Sculpey comes pre-sectioned kindof, so I start with 3 or 4 sections of the brick.) Knead it a little and roll it into a ball.

• Roll out your little clay ball. You don’t want it to be too thin. Of course, it doesn’t have to be exact or perfect. Roll it out to whatever thickness you feel appropriate for a pendant.
• Now you’ll need your cutters and your stamps. IMPORTANT: Stamp first, cut after. If you stamp after cutting the shapes out, they’ll squish and lose their form.
  

  

  
• After cutting, peel away the excess carefully.
  

  
• Next, spread aluminum foil over a baking sheet. This is to protect your pan from the clay.
• Carefully peel your clay pieces off of the wax paper and place them on the foil. (I suppose you could make this easier by rolling, stamping, and cutting on the foil, but I find that I end up ripping the foil and getting weird “crease wrinkles” in my clay. Wax paper is a nicer surface to work on, in my opinion. 😉
• Now, you need to poke holes if you’re wanting to use these as pendants. I used a straw here. With you pendants still laying flat, stick the straw through to the bottom and twist.
  

  

Time to bake!  Follow the instructions for baking found on the package. I’m not sure if it’s the same for the metallic or other brands. (Preheat your oven to 275. Bake for 15 minutes.)

After the pendants have cooled, you’ll be able to paint them if you like. I quite like them unpainted, but painting them is fun and can yield some cool looking results. When I paint my clay pieces, I like to do a faux ceramic look. For this you’ll need acrylic paint, brushes, and sculpey glaze. I like the high gloss glaze, but there is matte available as well.

To get a faux ceramic look, I paint into the recessed areas where I stamped, let it dry a little (not all the way!), and then wipe the excess paint with a wet paper towel.

painting into the recesses

a) painted b) after wiping

Next, you need to apply the high gloss glaze. It’s really very simple, just paint it on after the acrylic paint is completely dry. Reapply after 30 minutes until you get the look you want!