23. Do 5 craft projects from the internet

I've always had this dream that I would be crafty, that I could thrive in a homemade environment and rise to the occasion of making my own stuff.  I would look at all those people that would knit, sew and put things together, and wish I had more time to devote to hand-made endeavors.  But its just not working out the way I hoped it would.

Its not that I am not good with crafts.  After 7 years of architecture school, I am actually pretty daft at making wooden models, drawings, and small crafts.  I am pretty good, you might even say.  Its just that when push comes to shove, I just don't enjoy the process of handmade goods as much as I thought I would.  

I have a little scarf/blanket that I started to knit for my own baby, that remain largely unfinished.  Why couldn't I get into knitting more?  I was so excited when I first started...

However, I did manage to make lots of homemade items for our wedding, and many of the ideas came from the Internet, so I'll include those here:

1)  Guest Book Tree
http://www.mydiyweddingday.com/2009/04/real-wedding-inspiration-guest-book-tree.html

This one was really fun to make.  Basically, we didn't want just any old guest book that would cost over $35 bucks (because really, the ones that fit our aesthetics were about that price).  So we decided to go for the tree.  Found a glass vase, pebbles and cloth flowers at Hobby Lobby, got some pretty paper and thin ribbon. Then found branches literally in Angie's parking lot, then we just glued the little red and white flowers to the branches.  Much easier than purchasing cherry blossom branches, which were getting expensive and hard to find at just the size we wanted.  All in all, it was much cheaper, so much fun to make, and, in all honesty, looked beautiful.  

We gave instructions for guests to put their name on the tree along with advice for our marriage or funny anecdotes about us, and it was a wonderful surprise to see what people wrote.  It was much more rewarding than having a whole book where only the first three pages are filled out with signatures.

2)  Party favors - Homemade strawberry jam

http://www.intimateweddings.com/blog/how-to-make-raspberry-jam-ooooh-la-la-its-music-to-your-lips/

So on this one we kinda cheated a little bit.  My father made the jam.  He's been making strawberry jam since he was a little girl whenever strawberries start to go slightly out of season (they are cheaper then and mushier).  And since my father was struggling in figuring out how he could contribute to the wedding preparations, he was super excited to be asked to provide his famous jam / marmalade.  He made I three batches.  We had originally wanted larger jars, but then we would have had to make way too much jam, and it just wasn't practical.  

For the fabric coverings, I had some fabric samples from architecture vendors, so each jar had the same type of rough jute-like fabric but each was a unique color.  And we tied them together with twine.  I am a big fan of the combination of humble materials with elegant settings and/or craft, so this was totally up our alley.  For the label on top, we designed our own, based on a design that Nate's step-mom came up with, and simply printed it on paper, cut it and pasted.  

In the end, I am not sure we ended up saving THAT much money, considering strawberries can be on the pricey side.  But they looked so personalized, and mostly, WE made them and it was a joy to be able to share with our guests gifts that we made ourselves.