I am pregnant and have decided to go on maternity leave after photographing a lovely wedding this week until the beginning of next year. I am due Oct. 22nd so shooting a wedding 9 months pregnant would not be easy or probably safe! Then having a newborn and being sleep deprived for the first month or two will be hard to keep from leaving all my gear in the bathroom of a venue. So with those conclusions I have decided that I will start sharing fun DIY projects that I find on Pinterest with you all in my blog world. If you don’t have a Pinterest account BEWARE it is EXTREMELY addictive! Thus the reason for me being up at 2:30 am doing this post, well that and the baby is keeping me up with all her dancing! So here are some gems that I have pinned ….
1. I thought these would be fun to do for wedding favors for a smaller wedding and you could change what it says to anything you want… found at younghouselove.com
2. Flavored cupcakes, you could get a bunch of friends together to make them, ask a grandmother (or other relative itching to help) to make them, or you could order them from a cupcake place in town (here in Austin, Fine Arts Bakery is awesome!) if you are looking for different flavors check out this pin board with over 100 pins so far of different cupcakes.. http://pinterest.com/pattiwright/cupcakes/. But this particular cupcake is a Coca-Cola Cupcake with Salted Peanut Butter Frosting
3. This one isn’t so much DIY as just thinking outside the box for your little guy. He doesn’t HAVE to MATCH the groom you can put him in a super hero outfit or this little number below from… www.greenweddingshoes.com
4. For this project get sand that coordinates with your wedding colors/theme. If kids are attending probably be a good idea to buy the fake cactus to put in the bowls. Then find clear bowls from Ikea or Target. Using a pencil or stick draw lines in the sand maybe even make a sign that says “Relax, have a drink, draw in the sand….” or something like that. Then you can use the mini gardens as centerpieces. I found the beautiful mini zen gardens here… http://plentyofcolour.com/2012/03/25/modern-zen-gardens-objects-of-desire/
5. Preserve your bouquet- So I did the whole, hang your bouquet upside down to dry it out. And after a couple of years I got tired of moving it to our different apartments and ended up chucking it 
. I wish that I would have pressed some of the flowers so that I could have made a more portable and beautiful display of my bouquet. Ask your maid of honor or equally responsible bridesmaid to take home your bouquet after the wedding and press some of the flowers. How do you do that? Basically you place flowers in between two sheets of paper and put something SUPER heavy on top of them for a week or two. Keep in mind that how you press them is how they will turn out so if you press them with the petals closed it may not be as pretty as if you were to fan the petals open and press. The artist below has also combined some paper too. So get creative! You can see her work here… http://www.designworklife.com/2011/10/07/luci-everett-new-works/
6. Make fabric flowers; then attach them to pins for bridesmaid’s hair, or hairbands for flowergirls or even ribbons and wrap around the waist of bridesmaids and or flower girls. The options are endless! Again you may be able to delegate this task to a friend or family member who is not in the wedding that is wanting to help and knows how to sew, don’t feel like you or your bridesmaids HAVE to do EVERY project and TRY to let your inner perfectionist go, it probably won’t be “perfect” but it will be done and you will be able to sleep the night before instead of stressing about finishing these puppies up at 2am, think of it this way it is handmade so handmade is NEVER perfect and who is really going to sit there and critque a headband, if they do say something like “Oh you know how to sew? You should have told me and you could have helped.”
…. See the tutorial here…
7. Guestbook puzzle- you can either buy this beautiful wood puzzle or for a cheaper DIY version you could even get a regular puzzle and flip the pieces over and have guests write on the back of the cardboard puzzle.
8. You could do your own bouquet and bridesmaid bouquet the directions are on green wedding shoes, BUT I will pre-warn that it is a little tricky to do thus the reason the florist will charge you what she does. ALSO it does take a lot of time so if you don’t have time the day before to wrap bouquets and don’t have a large refrigerator that is able to store the wrapped bouquet I HIGHLY suggest hiring a florist! If you are in Austin check out Visual Lyrics or Wild Poppy.
9. I found this one not in the “wedding” section. This tutorial shows you how to transfer printed words onto wood. Do you not have the best penmen ship? Or do you have a specific font for your wedding? Now you can still have fun wooden signs for your wedding. Check out the tutorial here…
10. Have a coffee bar set up with fun coffee related treats instead of a candy bar. Make cute little signs to go along with each “treat”. Ask your caterer to keep the coffee filled. If you don’t have a caterer check out Catering with a Twist. But if you can’t afford to hire someone again ask a friend or family member that loves coffee to “restock” the bar. Make sure it is someone who loves coffee as they will most likely WANT to check up on the table. See more from this beautiful wedding photographed by Caroline Tran here…
11. So this one isn’t so much a DIY as a tip. You don’t HAVE to pick out your linens and table accesories from a rental company you could go to Anthropologie (check their sale section a lot of times they have SUPER fun stuff esp. home stuff on sale), Target or Ikea for table runners, napkin holders etc. Also if you didn’t know Catering with a Twist offers a Vintage plate catering option where they include vintage plates in your package. And check out Vintque rentals for fun “lounge area” vintage chairs or a dresser for your sign in table, or check out Thou Shall Craigslist (if you are in Austin) for fun vintage pieces then you get to keep them for your new “nest”. Just keep in mind of your budget, number of tables, number of guests, adding another table isn’t as easy as it sounds because you have to add more linens,more plates, glasses, utensils… etc. So sometimes it does end up being cheaper to rent things like plates, cups and utensils no one needs 150 plates 
unless you are wanting to become a caterer yourself.
12. This is so brilliant! Use large used wine bottles (maybe ask a local italian restaurant if you can have their empties at the end of a friday night, make sure it is after you go for a BIG dinner, scratch their back they will scratch yours) and check out how to cut glass here, to make these candles in a bottle, you will want to cut the bottoms of the bottles. This is sooooo genius in windy weather! At our wedding we bought at least 200 tea light votive holders and NONE of them would light since it was sooooo windy! But if you don’t have time to make them you can buy these exact ones here… or you could check Hobby Lobby or other craft stores.
13. Do you want a photobooth? You should! They are fun easy way to get photos of just about everyone having a good time instead of just going around to each table and this way it gives you a fun background instead of the back of someone’s head standing behind you. So here is one photobooth idea that would be super fun! Found this fun backdrop here… Keep in mind you can use the colors of your wedding.Pretty much you just need to get a piece of plywood and put a ton of holes in it and tie the balloons at varying heights, or if you have a floor and not outside tape the balloons to the floor at varying heights. Again maybe delegate this to a friend who wants to help but all the bridesmaid positions are filled.
14. You could have your fun flavored cupcakes packaged and give out as a late night snack. Ask the person who is making the cupcakes to package them for you like this. Looks pretty easy, put them in little clear cups and surround with a bag, tie with a coordinating ribbon. You could add a little tag that coordinates with your decor that says “thanks for coming, your so sweet” or something else clever. The awesome part of this is that it will make it a LOT easier to transport these little guys. JUST make sure you don’t put anything on top of them otherwise not so pretty anymore.
I hope you enjoyed some of the ideas that I have shared. I will do my best to share more over the next couple of months. Until the next one check out my Pinterest boards here. I went to bed and came back to finish, so off to work more on editing a wedding and prepping for the wedding this weekend. Hope you have a fabulous week!
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