Everyday I'm Rufflin': Part 2

Before we started the wedding planning process, I introduced Julie to the greatness that is The Inspiration Board. I spent hours pulling images from the internet to create inspo boards and color schemes for every event for Julie so she could see what I envisioned all these years for her entire wedding weekend.  Luckily, she trusted me.  She knows I am all about the details.  And, luckily, she loved everything.  When we started out, Julie didn't know what an inspo board was.  At the end of it all, she has recommended it to all her friends that are planning their own weddings. Me so proud.  

When I think of Spain, I think ruffles, lace and wrought iron.  I wanted to keep to a literal translation of Spain because it was an Indian event.  I figured if I didn't go all in-your-face Espana, then the whole Spanish theme that Julie wanted would have gotten lost in the sea of salwars and punjabs.  I also wanted a touch of a rustic look since that was the on-going theme of Julie's entire weekend.

The details for the mehndi were pretty fab if I do say so myself. I, once again, convinced my dear friend Mandy to do some dirty work. I really don't know what I'd do without Mandy. Between Julie, myself and Mandy, we knocked this party of out the ballpark.

The location was a spot I'd been to for a friend's sangeet/mehndi night over 6 years ago. It is an old city hall and fire station in a cute part of town.  I saved it in my mental Julie file specifically for her mehdni.  But, I had forgotten about it until Julie started asking me for ideas for spots because she needed a place close to all her events.  Luckily her questions jogged my memory because it was kind of perfect.  Very charming.

After we sent out the invitations, the first order of business was the backdrop, which you've seen already.

I worked on the backdrop when I wasn't working on other things with Julie and Mandy.

The second order of business was the centerpieces.  I fell in love with this photo shoot back in 2010 when Merci featured a tablescape by Rock Paper Scissors.  I'd tucked the idea away for an event, so I selfishly pressured Julie into letting me do this for the mehndi.  Imagine how thrilled I was when I discovered Rock Paper Scissors posted a tutorial on them.  Best.Day.Ever.  Julie wasn't totally convinced because she knew it was going to be very labor intensive, but since cost was a big factor, I talked her into it.  I also was thrilled because even though I'd loved the idea from the get-go, it was a huge coincidence that their photo shoot decor was for a Spanish modern event.  It was meant to be.  Love when that happens.  

I caught a sale at Hobby Lobby and bought all the paper in different shades of oranges, yellows, and red.  I also pulled from my own stash of cardstock leftover from my wedding.  Mandy was our designated tracer.  I had planned for only 50 of them, but Mandy squeezed in an additional 18.  68 in total.  And since I am all about 'more is more', I was ecstatic.

I know Julie felt that her time was best spent on other things than cutting paper, so I only made her cut about a third of them so she could see them at the event and know it was all worth it.

Between Mandy and I, we assembled them all.

Julie and Mr. Bean kept telling me that even though I kept the costs down, I have to look at what our time was worth.  But the impact was pretty amazing.  It was worth it to me.  And I think Mandy agrees.

I had them placed everywhere I could in the space. Every where there was a table, I made sure there were flowers.

The third order of business was the food table.

Since the night was supposed to be an informal event, I didn't spend a lot of time on the banners, but the crafter in me definitely wanted to include a big welcome for everyone that came into the space.  Unfortunately, there was not a good place to hang it, so I had it hung on the food table.  I was hesitant to keep all the banners in Spanish since it was an Indian function, but Julie said to keep it authentic and even came up with the idea of saying "Bienvenidos" instead of just "Welcome".  Too cute.

I stitched rolls of yellow and red crepe paper on my sewing machine to resemble ruffles to use as decor anywhere I could on the food and dessert table.

All the wrought iron decor was literally taken off my sister's walls and off her shelves at home. I literally walked around her house one weekend and took pics of her inventory.  Lucky for me, she could see my vision for everything.  I kept it simple for the most part and excluded any glass so nothing was broken.  She and my BIL were kind enough to drive it down 5 hours for the event.  There is nothing like free decor.  If she hadn't been so sweet as to let me borrow it for this event, some of it might not have made it back.....just sayin'.

I had the paper flowers placed all over the food table and included my new favorite decor item.  A roll of burlap ribbon.  I'm kind of obsessed with burlap anything, so it had to make the table.   

I have a wine crate obsession.  I begged, borrowed, and stole 5 wine crates for this event.  I am not proud of myself.  OK, maybe I am.  

The food table was really festive looking.  I wish I could have decorated it with everything I wanted to, but ultimately, I kept it simple and nothing of my sister's was broken so I can't complain.

Last, but definitely not least, was the last order of business: the dessert table.  I envisioned this dessert table when I was raiding my sister's house.  I am proud to say it looked even cuter than I imagined.

Priti wowed everyone again with her cake-abilities and made some dulce de leche flavored cake pops in red, yellow, and orange for the event.  She's great at creating some insane flavors and colors to coordinate with your event.  These were amazing.  As usual.   If you are in the Dallas/Frisco area, hit me up.  I can  put you in touch with her.  She'll be glad to work on your event with you.  You can see more of her work here and here.  

I used wine crates to give the cake pops some height so they could really show off their cuteness.  I just think food tastes better when it is presented well.  Not that I had anything to do with how good these cake pops were.  :)  

I definitely wanted to include the ruffled crepe paper on the cake pop display.  That was actually why I spent the time to ruffle crepe paper.  The bins for the utensils and the front of the food table was just bonus.

For the banners, I cut the tops of some red heart paper doilies and attached them to jute twine.  Instead of food labels, I made miniature banners to match the other banners and attached them to twine as well.

I don't have a better close up of it, but I draped some rope around the wrought iron.  You can see it here.  It is actually old sari fabric that was made into a rope.  I bought these at the Quilt Festival last year specifically for Julie's mehndi.  I had the color scheme already in my head even then.  

I included some flowers where I could.  You can see the food label banners here as well.  

Again, here was another banner and the sari rope.  Postres in Spanish means desserts.

We included some mango and pineapple empanadas from a local bakery on the dessert table as well as churros.  If you've been to Spain, you know churros y chocolate are a must.

I kept the actual food labels simple with some cardstock left over from the invitations and used the scraps left over from the red paper heart doilies to embellish it.

Unfortunately, I never got a shot of the favors at the event, but I will include a post on all the gift wrapping for the wedding shortly.

All in all, I was extremely proud of this event.  I am usually second guessing myself on every detail and I have to bug my friends and my Seester about everything I am unsure about - which is everything.  I constantly berate myself and constantly worry what people will think.  If it will look cheesy.  Or cheap.  But this time I think I was too busy with all the other details of the wedding to bother myself with second guessing.  So I am proud that I just did it.  It wasn't until the night before the mehndi as I was packing it all up that I thought to myself, "Oh, sh*t.  What am I doing?  Is it enough?"  It was probably the largest event I've styled on the smallest budget.  And besides the money talk, I put a lot of work into making this an event people would be talking about.  And they did.  The biggest compliment I heard was from a friend of the groom that said, "This is not a typical mehndi party.  Nothing about this is typical." That's exactly what I wanted to give Julie.

If you are still with me after this long post, here is the thank you portion of my post.....I can't get by without thanking everyone that helped me.

Thank you, Sarah, for taking pics of all the details you know I wanted.  You're awesome.

Thank you, Julie, for trusting me to pull off an event like this. Your mehndi.  For your wedding.  Crazy.    Also, thanks for sticking it out and cutting those petals.  I purposely didn't give you a ton to do because I was afraid you'd call the whole idea off :) but glad you didn't.  I hope you see it was all worth it.

Thank you, Bhavik, for all your work. Not just that night but all week.  I know it sucks to be a brother when your sister is getting married because you get stuck with so much of the grunt work, but you are awesome for putting up with all of us.  Thank you for always having kind words for me.  I'm sorry I always cry, but you and your family mean the world to me.  Thanks for letting me be a part of it all.  Love you.

Thank you, Seester, for helping me set up and keep sane.  I know we were under a time crunch - which I don't always handle well - but you kept me focused and kept me from losing it.  You are always the best at making me laugh at myself.  And thank you for letting me raid your house for your decor.  You really should just let me keep it all....for my next event.  :)

Thank you, Priti.  You are crazier than I am. :)  Thanks for helping me set up while I was frantic. Thanks for trusting me to display your work. Your cake pops were amazing.  As usual.  We make a good team, me and you. :)

Thank you, Mandy.   I secretly call you for help to get a chance to see you.  I know you stretch yourself thin with all your activities, but you always manage to squeeze in time for some hard core craft labor when I ask it of you.  And you always stay enthusiastic about it - which even I have a hard time doing sometimes.  I really don't know what I'd do without you. 

Turning Neon

I want you to meet my friend Sarah.  She's kind of a big deal.  We met, oh, 23 years ago?  She was 9.  I was 11.  She and her sister Kelly had a collection of Keds any kid would die for. And don't get me started on their school supplies.  They were the envy of the school, I tell you.  Well, maybe not the entire school, but after seeing Kelly whip out the most awesome pencil case we'd ever seen, me and my seester pretty much knew we'd all be friends for life.  

Sarah is always armed with amazing ideas.  Her creativity astounds me.  She and I tend to egg each other on when it comes to the "more is more" quotient, so when I was crying about not having time to do anything for the shower, she offered to help me.  And I couldn't love her more for it.  When I told her I was thinking of doing a neon color scheme, she jumped on board with lots of office supplies in hand.  Literally.  She flew from Seattle with a basically a carry-on of goodies for the shower.  

Julie wanted a shower that was "fun" and not ultra feminine, I took advantage since I've always wanted to throw a party filled with stuff from Confetti System. Luckily, Sarah loves them, too.  I say 'luckily' because she and Kelly spent a quite a few hours making CS style tassels for the party.  Sarah and I share a passion for large balloons, Geronimo style so that was a must at this party.  And we were also in love with this photo shoot.  So, put them together, add Sarah, and this is what happens.... 

The dessert bar.  You didn't think I'd have a party and not involve Priti, did you?  Yes, my friends, Priti put on another insane display of desserts. O.M.G.  The things this woman can do with desserts makes me speechless. And if you know me, you know that hardly ever happens.   If you need to take a moment please do. And take your time. The backdrop was pretty fantastic.  When we put it up, we all sort of got giddy.  

The champagne bar.  Julie loves champagne cocktails so this was a DIY champagne bar. Check out the detail over the windows if you can get beyond the sunlight.  Sarah's idea.  Looks like the invites.  She's a clever one, that Sarah.  So we took it to the tables as well.  More is more.  

The food table.  Sarah made the awesome artwork with artist's tape.

The whole set up.  I'm still giddy.    

The balloons.  I can't take it.  They are too cute. 

A full shot of the dessert bar.  Look at all the color!

And another shot of the dessert table.  Priti, me love you long time.  

Pink velvet cake push pops.  Seriously.  And chocolate bark.  And don't forget the chocolate cake shooters there on the bottom right.  Can dessert get any cuter than this??

Brownies and Prit's famous cake pops.  I'm going to need to get a napkin.  I'm drooling again. Pretty soon, I'm going to start drooling everytime I see Priti.  

Let's get a better look at those cake pops.  Peanut butter chocolate chip.  Would it be cheesy to say 'amaze balls'?    

Petits fours.  Need I say more?  I've always wanted to attend a party where they serve things on little spoons.  I can check that off my bucket list.  

It's never truly a party without food labels. 

It's never truly a party without wrapped plasticware.  Martha would be proud. 

The decor outside. She texted me a picture of these while she was at Home Depot and asked, "Am I crazy?"  I was like "Crazy awesome!!!"   These are neon flags that you might typically see on construction sites.  Just not as cute.  But for this party, it lined the pathway to awesomeness.  

We couldn't leave the living room untouched.  Sarah came up with this awesome idea to cover up Kelly's existing artwork and make something that fit our color scheme a bit better. Too cute.  

Closeup of the fireplace.  Love. 

My seester was in charge of getting flowers for the event.  And, yeah, they were kind of awesome.  

We decorated the dining table with flowers, paper rosettes and streamers.  Once again, my friend Mandy was involved in the labor portion of this as well. I'm pretty sure between her and Sarah, if they never see another score board again, they could die happy.  

Kelly has a beautiful buffet, so this was our ode to the post-it note wall.  This is also where we kept the favors and prizes for games.  Julie is hardly ever seen without a shawl, so for the prizes, I bought some brightly colored shawls that went with the color scheme.  

The favors.  Julie is always all about her lip balm, so we packaged up some lip balm for everyone to take home. 

The photobooth.  Julie is the queen of the camera.  She is known for her love of taking pictures.  So we had to include a photo booth.  Sarah spotted this fabric that I had in my archives stash and it was kind of perfect for the backdrop.  Sometimes you need a second set of eyes to help you see that you have a fabulous party in the making with stuff you already have around the house.  

Go on over to Sarah's blog to get the nitty gritty on all the supplies! 

I can't forget to thank my seester.  She always has to hear my woes and insecurities and everything else that goes with the pressure of planning an event.  So, thanks for always listening to me, Seester.  And thanks for the awesome flowers and staying up later than you probably wanted to help us set up.  You are my better half.  

Thanks again, Mandy.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to overstay my welcome with your craft labor pretty soon.  But, I hope it's not until after the wedding.  

HUGE props to Kelly for letting us take over her house.  She was a good sport about us taking over her living room and dining room and kitchen and office and making tassels and cutting tape and well, she was a good sport about everything.. And she was 7 months pregnant at the time. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, Kelly.  You are a rockstar in my book.  

Thank you, Priti.  You really outdid yourself with this one.  I always love working with you on parties because I know that you care about the little things just as much as I do.  And whether you can make amazing cake balls or not, that puts you on my top 10 list of favorite people ever.  But the cake balls help.  Just sayin'.  ;)    If you happen to be in the Dallas area and you want to make your party fabulous, contact me and I'll put you in touch with Priti.  She does more than just desserts.  I think her work speaks for itself.  

Thank you, Sarah.  I cannot really tell you how much I appreciate how much you helped me.  I kind of owe you my life.  Or at least my craft room.  You started out as just being Kelly's little sister, but over the years I feel like you've turned into my little sister.  Love you.  When are you moving back home?  We could make beautiful parties together....

Engaged in the details

I have some fun stuff to show you today.  I was trusted to design and create almost everything for my friend Julie's brother's chai pani (engagement).  He's become sort of a little brother to me so I was happy to do it. I love weddings and all that they entail, but mostly I love the details. I'm sure you've noticed that by now. 

Bhavik is one of the most fashionable guys I know.  He's the kind of guy you want to dress, only he can probably dress himself better than you could.  So, as far as design, I wanted things to look clean, modern, and...am I aging myself here?....hip.

Since it was an engagement and not an actual wedding, I could take some liberties and veer away from the traditional Indian aesthetic.  Julie and her sister wanted to use fall colors for the event, but since I wanted to keep it fresh, I came up with a color palette that was sort of a modern take on fall colors.  I chose a modern font, and, since I've been obsessed with stripes lately, I incorporated it into the look and designed a striped pattern that would pretty much go on everything.  Overall, the combo really fit the vibe I was after and showed a bit of Bhavik's personality. 

I started with the itineraries.  I wanted something that didn't waste a lot of paper, was unique looking, and was, of course, functional.  Each itinerary was 1/3 of an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.

I made the itineraries into a fold down card using the striped pattern I designed and took that as an opportunity to put some color on the front.  The front side was folded shorter to reveal 1" of the inside of the card.  On this reveal, I included a message from the family saying 'thank you'. 

They were all attached to the white welcome boxes (I love gable boxes and loved that Julie let me buy them for this event) using a clothespin (I love clothespins and use them whenever and wherever I can.  It's sort of my thing now). 

When choosing favors, I like to go with the edible variety unless there is something you can find that really fits the couples personality.  Most people toss the favors at some point anyway.  For this event, the bride loves yogurt covered pretzels and Bhavik loves the color orange, so Julie and I packaged the pretzels with orange gummy bears.  While we were packaging everything, my house smelled like a dreamsicle.  :) 

The tags I made were simple.  I think it goes without saying, I used up a printer cartridge or two, but totally worth it.

We used small cellophane bags and attached each tag with a mini stapler.  Above is a close up of the favors when we finished. 

And here they are all ready to go.

And here they are in action.   They looked sooooo cute on the tables. In hindsight I probably should have take a snap of the entire table so you can see how cute they were. But, oh well. 

One other detail that Julie requested was signs to put at each event.  On Saturday, there was a cocktail hour and dinner.  Sunday was a breakfast and then lunch following the chai pani ceremony.

This was the one thing I was a little afraid of making because of the size of it - something about the size intimidated me - but Staples came to my rescue and printed the signs I designed and had them ready within 24 hours. Very simple.  And it was a nice touch to each event.  I felt like it personalized it a bit more.

I am pretty angry with myself that I did not get a picture of the guest book I made.  It was pretty cute, but you'll have to take my word for it.  I just might email the bride to see if she'll send me a pic of it at the risk of sounding crazy.

My next duties were centerpieces.  We hired a florist for Sunday's lunch following the ceremony, but we wanted something simple and cost effective for Saturday.  Something I've realized about myself is that flowers make me happy.  So, I almost see it as a must at these types of events.  Luckily, Central Market carries an awesome variety, so I bought a few stems and placed them around the bar tables at the cocktail hour and the other round tables.  

This is one of my favorite flowers ever.  I am not big on sunflowers unless they are the giant ones, but these colored ones just make me smile every time I look at them.  It fit our color scheme and make such a statement as just one bloom since the bar tables had black linens on them. 

Since the sunflowers were a bit pricier than other flowers, I also bought these spider mums to put at the other round tables that were there that were going to have white linens.  The cocktail hour was supposed to be outside by the pool area, but unfortunately we got rained out - hence the wet centerpieces - so we had to move everything inside into the hotel restaurant.  My centerpieces were too small and simple to make an impact in such a dark, large area, so they were basically non existent. :(  That was upsetting, but I guess that's what I get for not thinking of a plan B.  At least I got some snaps of them before they were moved, though.  These centerpieces were reused for the breakfast.  Nice call, Julie. 

The next centerpiece I put together was for the welcome dinner on Saturday night. 

Again, we wanted something simple and cost effective, so I stuck to just one bloom per table.  I scored some orchids from the florist, so I included those as well.  For more color, I used some sashes that my mom and grandmother made for my wedding as a table runner.   And don't be fooled by the rocks that I got.....I'm still Pintobean from the block.  Yeah.....Mr. Bean got sick of me saying that over and over again.

Moving on....I miscounted the number of tables I had to put blooms on - I am still confused as to how I did that - but the orchids came out to play and pretty much made it look like they always meant to be included.

I was also able to work with a florist for the lunch on Sunday.  I was able to do what I wanted here as well.  My friend's family really trusts me!!  Ha!   I tossed out my ideas for the centerpieces and, man, did the florist deliver.  I've worked with her before, so when I got the preview she said in her South African accent, "I know what you like.  You like 'different'."  Yes, I do.  In fact, I love 'different'.  :)

The first centerpiece was small.  I wanted to incorporate moss, unique flowers, and lots of color. 

The second centerpiece threw me for a loop.  I wanted just small, short vases with moss, rocks and a floating flower.  The florist surprised me with this.  Love. 

The third centerpiece I wanted square moss boxes and orchids.  Since the florist was working within our budget, she gave me this.  And I couldn't be more pleased.  This centerpiece was my favorite one.  Love. Love. Love.  

No, my friends, my duties didn't end there.  I also needed to decorate the basket that was going to be given to the bride.  Much like the basket I made for Bhavik's chandlo.  Only this time, the family wanted the basket to be open, so my options were limited.  I decided to keep the basket simple so it wouldn't clash or compete with the items inside.

I added a layer of glitter onto the basket using mod podge for some subtle bling.  Over the glitter layer, I rubbed on antique gold acrylic paint.  It really added a sheen to the basket that I did not expect.  The pics don't do it justice.  Finally, I added some trim from India. Thanks, Sharmee.  It was hard to let go of the trim because I intended on keeping it in my archives, but it pretty much made the basket and the items inside it come together.  Definitely worth the sacrifice.

Here is the finished product.  I think it looks pretty amazing.  The antique gold paint really highlighted the antique gold in the outfits. And the trim highlighted the border on the sari, the shoes, and the purse.  It really came together nicely. 

Julie's sister Alpa and I worked on the linens together, but Alpa really put her a lot of work into the backdrop. My only input was to add the orange to it instead of it being all that mulberry color.  Alpa had the decorator add some crystals for some bling and it looked really amazing.  Awesome job, Alpa. 

You'll see the bags I made at the front of the stage here.  I was really, really disappointed that they chose to turn the hand painted fronts away and show off the plain, unpainted backs.  But, what to do? 

Here is their close up.  Disappointing.  But it was cool to see them being passed out to the 11 people they were intended for.  Hopefully the photographer got a couple of snaps of them facing forward.  :(

Overall, the entire weekend went really well.  I was pleased with how everything looked and grateful that everyone seemed to enjoy it all.  I cannot tell you how cute this couple is together.  I swear they could be the stars of a Bollywood movie.  They are pretty awesome people so I can't wait for the wedding and to see their future babies.  They will be so beautiful.  :) Congrats, Bhavik and Asmini!!