Askin' my maids!

Although I have been rather silent lately about our wedding planning, the plans are in full swing around these parts! Sometimes it's so excited, and sometimes it's super terrifying thinking of all that I still have left to do! Maybe some seasoned wedding planners, or freshly married brides, will stumble along this post and offer some advice to me.

On my ever growing list of 'to-dos' has been a clever way to ask my bridesmaids to, well, be my bridesmaids. side note: I have very few close friends, (woe is me!) and only a few girl relatives, so coming up with the 4 bridesmaids I did was a feat in itself. It makes these boxes look like a  piece of cake!  I wanted it to be special, encompass the overall feel of our wedding, and be handmade. So naturally, when I saw this DIY right before we got engaged and couldn't shake it from my mind. I knew I wanted to ask my own bridesmaids this very way! 

When I found these boxes at Hobby Lobby, I thought they would be perfect for what I was trying to achieve, not to mention they were 40% off already! They were just plain cardboard, so I wanted to paint them a color from our wedding. -- Something you should know about me, and is very prominent in the creating of these boxes....I am terribly impatient. -- So, I bought these boxes and a tube of Martha Stewart paint in buttermilk yellow and set off to painting. After two coats looking like I had barely even painted, I gave up and told Bean to spray paint them. At 10 o'clock that night. Bless his little heart, he did, but since it was so dark and we only have a very tiny porch light, there were a few runs. I tried to spray paint over them, but well, you can see they are still there. Handmade imperfections are the best right?! (At least that's what I'm trying to sell! ;) Also, since I'm putting it all out there, and should you choose to do this for your one day wedding; I would like to politely suggest that you buy the wooden boxes. If you choose to paint them, or not because they are charming in the light wood!, the whole look will be a lot more pretty, put together and smooth. My impatientness took over here too, because instead of coming back a few different times, with individual coupons + wooden boxes, I needed to have the boxes right away. So I settled for these.

After the boxes were finished, I set out to collecting, making, and printing the contents. This was the fun part! I picked up paint chips in our wedding colors. I printed pictures from my pinterest board that showed the theme of our wedding. I added random instax pictures of Bean + I to the boxes from different times in our relationship. I made little flags, resembling these just because! I typed up little info cards, just like she did, because I wanted the bridesmaids to know what the day was going to be about, what they should expect, and how important they are to me! My favorite part of the boxes though, are the matching hankies that I found on my trip to Thomasville. I also really love these cards that I got at a local bookstore, in Thomasville as well.

 The boxes were complete on the inside, all I needed to do was add something to the lids. I picked out a few of  favorite fancy scrapbook papers at Hobby Lobby, ones that reminded me of our theme, and mod podged them to the tops of the lids. As far as the inside, I planned on writing "Be My Maid" or something like that on the inside, but when I opened up the boxes and saw the plain brown cardboard I had a much better idea! I painted the insides with the same color as the outsides, again, feverishly because I knew it was going to be covered up. I wrote the names of the girls on paper doilies and mod podged them to the inside just around the center.

I am SO happy with this project and the way they turned out. I've had them sitting basically finished in my craft room for going on two months, and it wasn't until last night that I took the time to type out the info and really complete the boxes. I sure hope that all my other wedding crafts don't take me as long as these did! I don't think they will though, because I made it mandatory that every bridesmaid attend a craft night in prep for the wedding! ;)

I'm so happy to be crossing this off of my to-do list, and adding it to my done list. I have about a million and one other projects I'd like to see magically move over to the done list! When is the proper amount of time before to start actually making things for the wedding? I have such a hard time making things for a space just from memory. I need to see and feel the space and make it accordingly. I guess I need to get over that hill though. Happy Tuesday! xo, Meghan