The Final Countdown

Ok, so this afternoon I finally finished all my big wedding projects. Yay! And they look... well, I'll let you judge for yourselves, but I'm pretty proud of them.

First, here's the whole ensemble that I've been working on. I've already showed you the flower girl dresses. I also did the baskets and the ring bearer pillow. The headbands I threw in because I happened upon some DIY headbands when I was at the craft store and figured it would be a cute and simple way for our flower girls to do their hair.

Here's a closeup of the girls' accessories:

I was on the lookout for baskets for a while, but everything I was finding was either the wrong shape or size or super expensive. Who knew baskets would cost so much? I was thinking that maybe I ought to enroll in a basket weaving class when I found the perfect ones in the Target dollar section. Ok, they actually cost $2.50 each, but still... It was way better than spending 4x that much on something I was going to cover in satin anyway. Thank heavens Target had started putting their Easter stuff out right after Valentine's Day.

Wrapping those basket was a bit challenging. Waaaaay different than wrapping a Christmas present. Satin is less forgiving than paper. Hands down! But they still turned out and that's all that matters.

The headbands were fun and easy and I actually need to credit my friend Aly for inspiring me on these. Thanks! (You should check out her awesome craft blog, ladies!) I wanted to make Aly's rosettes for everything, but I couldn't get mine to work, so I made up something that ended up resembling a carnation. Oh well.

And for the record, there were two of everything I had to do for the flower girls. Thank heavens only two!

Then there's the ringbearer's pillow:

This one I did in one afternoon. I mean, I'd do a tutorial or something, but I didn't take pictures and, honestly, when are you ever going to need to make one on a whim? It was fun and I kind of winged it as I went along, but I'm really pleased with the end product. I had tons of ideas for what I could do with it, but discarded them all because, let's face it, I was running low on time and felt like simplicity would look best anyway.

So, now my wedding projects are out of the way. The wedding is next week and we leave for Utah tomorrow. I'm still gonna be super busy though. There's a bridal shower I still have to throw and I've got to pack and drive (alone, with three young children).

By the way, I never did show how the invitations so perfectly turned out (but that's because I didn't get to see the fabulous finished product till I got mine in the mail).

Aren't Kristen and Keith so cute together it makes you wanna hug a pillow pet?

Anyway, I'm very excited for my BFF, my baby sister, to get married. Keith is everything she had been looking for and I know they'll be happy together.

I also look forward to relaxing after the wedding is over. Boy, being a Grand Dame of Honor is tiring!