My DIY Coffee Filter Bouquet

Today I'm bringing you a DIY tutorial from my amazing Matron of Honor! I thought it would be best to share this before I got into recaps. You see, at my bridal shower MOH N was hoping to make me a traditional ribbon bouquet to use for my rehearsal, but only one gift was wrapped with ribbon. The rest were cards or gift bags. My wonderful MOH decided that just wouldn't do! She took it upon herself to make me a bouquet for my rehearsal out of coffee filters. I loved it and I asked if she would share her tutorial with the hive! So here it is from MOH N!

The finished coffee filter bouquet!

First Gather your supplies!

-Coffee Filters
-Water
-Acrylic Paint (How ever many colors you want. I used orange and blue)
-Straws
-Green electrical or masking tape
-Blow Dryer (optional but it helps)
-Ribbon
-Pearl Pins

The supplies. (Minus the wooden dowels. Didn't end up needing those)

The first step is to put some paint in a bowl and add water.  

When you add the water you want to make it the consistency of milk.

Next you start dying the filters! You can soak up to 20 filters at a time. Just make sure the paint has soaked through to all the filters.

After you have throughly soaked the filters, wring them out in an extra bowl or over the sink. If the color has turned out darker than you had wanted you can rinse it out a bit under cold water. 

Next you want to separate all the filters and lay them out to air dry.

Once I had finished dyeing all the filters I used the blow dryer to speed up the drying process.

Once they have dried you cut a spiral into each filter.

     You can cut about three at a time.

After you cut your spiral you pull out a strip of your green tape. Beginning with the center of your spiral start sticking it to the tape. You need to bunch and fold the filter while sticking it to the tape. The bunching and folding help to make the flowers look a lot fuller. 

Sticking the filter onto the tape

Soon it will look like a flower!

Next take the beginning of the tape and attach it to the straw. You make the flower by rolling the tape onto the straw. You'll see in my pictures that I did not continue the tape down the straw. This was because I wanted to leave a little bit of the pink visible, but if you wanted to hide the straw color you could continue the tape further down.

Finished flower after rolling it onto the straw

After you've made all your flowers you can start arranging them. Once you've arranged them the way you like wrap a strip of tape around the straw bunch to hold them in place. Then you'll want to cut the straws at the bottom to make them flush with each other. After you've cut the bottom of the straws, add tape all the way down to give the bouquet some strength. 

Next you can add your decorative ribbon and pearl pins. 

I added two extra pins at the top to hold the ribbon in place.

 Adding more pins along the front 

The finished bouquet from the top

The bouquet in action at the rehearsal! 

Thanks MOH N for the great tutorial and for making me such a special bouquet for the rehearsal! 

What about you hive? Did you/will you have the traditional ribbon bouquet for your rehearsal or something different?

All photos are personal

The Castle Invites!

Invitations are out! RSVP's are coming in! And that means that I can finally show them off!

Personal Photos / Putting the invites in the mail. The second photo is my "artsy" shot... or just my crummy cell phone shot...

First let me tell you how we found these beauties. After hours of searching on the inter-web, I decided to narrow down my search by using words that fit our "theme." I used, "Broadway," "Playbill," "art deco," and "theater," as my key words while searching on Etsy. It was very helpful to use these key words, and it lead me to a little shop called, Little Owl Lettterpress.

Image via Littleowlletterpress.com 

When we first started looking at invitations, Mr. Castle kept saying, "I really like the look of letterpress invitations." I thought, yeah don't we all... I kindly explained to him that letterpress invitations can be very expensive. I tried to squash the idea from his brain, but I couldn't ignore that fact that I was drawn to them as well. When I found Little Owl Letterpress I decided why not check out their website. They awesomely list their prices on their website (A big plus in my book), and while more than I wanted to spend on invitations, it was not to far off. I contacted them and got the ball rolling. They were AMAZING to work with, so friendly and accommodating. When the invites finally arrived at our door I was blown away. I never thought I would LOVE our wedding invitations this much. I thought I would just settle for something that looked nice and move on. I had no idea that they would turn out to be so beautiful! I was afraid to put them in the mail for fear of them getting beat up! But a Bride's gotta do what a Bride's gotta do...  So with out further ado, here they are!

 Our Invitations! Sorry for the blurring, have to keep some level of mystery....

Our Post Card RSVP 

We added this little "website" card

The full set!

We have gotten such amazing feedback about our invitations. In fact we even got a wedding crasher! OK only semi-serious, a friend's husband can't attend and when a mutual friend saw the invite asked if he could be her date. Lol. He was really impressed by our invitations. 

What about you? Did you fall in love with your invitations once you had them in your hands?

My next DIY ambition

I'm getting ready to tackle my next DIY project! I'm very optimistic about this one, but also nervous that I will screw it up! I have been scouring pinterest and etsy looking at ideas for how to display escort cards. We know that we want to make theater "ticket" escort cards, but how shall we display them? Since they are tickets they will be flat, unlike the folded cards that can stand up on their own. I would like to find a way to prop them up somehow so it's clear what they are. Most weddings in my family don't have assigned seating so some of our guests won't be looking for them. We need something that will make sure they are seen. Of course there are a ton of ideas out there.

We could pin them on a cork board.

 Image via weddingchicks.com / Photography by She Wanders 

Or we could use a holder that props them up. This one can be hidden under rose petals or fabric.

Images via Etsy/ Seller SpottedInkShop

This magnetic board for displaying escort cards is quite lovely.

Image via Etsy / Seller ShugabeeLane

These seem to be propped up by stones in a box. Super cute, and so neatly organized. 

Image via stylemepretty.com / Photography by John Schnack / Designed/Coordinated by 
Amorology Weddings 

We could make a simple alphabetical list and hang it on something like this old window 

pane. 

Image via theknot.com / Photography by Ksenija Savic Photography

While all of these ideas are awesome, they tend to be a bit pricy. We don't want to 
spend a hundred dollars on something we will never use again. When I show Mr. Castle
pictures he often responds with, "Can't we just lay them out on the table?"
To which I respond a big, "No that's boring! We need something interesting!" 
Luckily I stumbled upon this: 

Image via Etsy/ Seller JulieHananDesign

Image via marthastewart.com

I was pretty excited because when I showed Mr. Castle he actually liked it. AND we can make them 

ourselves. It doesn't seem like it should be too hard... I hope.  Martha Stewart gives a pretty

straight forward how-to on her website so I'll probably use that as a guide. I think this is the best

option for us. Our venue provides us with a round table for the cards and this is a perfect

alternative to just laying them on the table. It'll look nice and it won't be too expensive! Score!

So stay tuned to see how it turns out! Hopefully it won't be too difficult!
Are you doing anything different to display your escort cards?