DIY With Love!

Happy Wednesday friends!  I haven't been able to get in my "art closet," per say, any this week due to many DIY projects for other things!  One project I want to share with you is a project filled with lots of love!  I have a young friend at work who is getting married and I found myself over decorations for the wedding shower we are giving her and so after much internet searching, I came up with some real cutsie things that I want to share!

My young friend's wedding theme is books!  I love that idea as I am an avid reader myself.  If fact, that is one of the many things she and I have in common.  She's young enough to be my daughter, but somehow we just connected on so many levels.  Isn't that funny?  So I wanted to do something really sweet for her decorations.  Most of the following are things I saw on Pinterest or the internet somewhere, so I really can't take credit for any of it except that I made it!  So if you see this and it was originally your idea, THANK YOU! LOL!!

Book Centerpiece

One thing I knew I wanted to do was a cute centerpiece and so when I saw this idea, I thought it was perfect.  In the south, not sure of anywhere else, we love our flea markets and antique markets. So I hit one of flea markets that I knew had an old books booth and stocked up!  I lucked up and found two books right off the bat and one was simply called "Love Stories," and the other was called "Husband Habits!"  How cool is that?  So I snatched them both up, knowing I was going to rip the books apart, so the content didn't really matter much except that it had those titles on the spine and the top of the pages!  The "Love Stories" is the book you see here that I made this really cute centerpiece out of.  I simply took three or four pages and folded them over and used Aleene's to glue them down.  I then went on the internet and downloaded book covers (hope I'm not breaking the law..LOL) for some of her favorite books and printed them out and glued them on lilac (the color in her wedding) construction paper and glued them in the book at various spots.  I finished it off with glueing down some lilac glitter here and there.  Turned out really cute! 

Table Runner

I then took the other book "Husband Habits" and made a runner for the food table and sign in book table.  I ripped out enough pages that I could tape two side by side and then used one of my Fiskars punches and punched the sides all the way down.  I made sure to measure the centerpiece because I ended up having two title pages in this book and I made sure one was on one side of the center piece and the other was on the other side of the center piece.   I thought that was a cute idea...it made me giggle knowing she will soon find out ALL his habits.....more than she may want to know!! LOL!!  I was happy at how that turned out!

Gift Book

Gift Book

The next thing I wanted to work on was the sign in table.  As a past bride, I know when you are opening gifts things get fun and everyone's talking and oohing and ahhing, so often who brought what get's misplaced.  So I found this idea of a gift book that I thought was great.  She's a big Harry Potter fan and we found this old photo album that kind of reminded me of the Monster Book on Harry Potter and I found these cute library card sleeves that were decorative and glued them into the album.  As I couldn't find any old library cards, I went to Office Depot and got some shipping tags and white washed them and them printed on them with one of my fabulous Inkadinkado script stamps. The tags will go in the sleeves and as guests come in, they will sign on the back of the tag their name and what they brought and then the bride or someone else doesn't have to keep up with who brought what and everyone can just enjoy a good time!  How cute is that, right?

Little things!

Then as just some fluff here and there I bought extra books to stack up and put these cute candles on top that I made out of small mason jars.  I just took the book page and drew a heart on it and cut it to a strip sized for the jar and just tied a burlap bow around it.  I had an old frame lying around and decided just to take another book page and white wash it and stamped her name and date of the wedding on it using Tim Holtz's Worn Text Alphabet Stamp Set.  I also used a Unity Stamp sentiment "Love, Cherish and Embrace."  I also made another book page runner for that table as well. Simple things but effective!

One thing I have found as a Christian is that it is so wonderful to bless others!  I am such a blessed person in ALL that God chooses to bless me with, that I want to make sure that I use my blessings to bless others!  God's Word says "I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you...and you will be a blessing to others." (Gen. 12:2)  When we bless others, we can be sure that God will take care of our needs!  I don't bless to "get," I bless because He blesses me!!  It's a matter of the heart!  Our blessing to others will come back to us because God's heart is that He will continue give to us so that we can continue to give to others!

Look, we can't out give God!  His blessings are eternal!  But He wants us to keep a humble heart before Him.  One that is pliable and something He can work with!  If we have that kind of heart before Him, He can do mighty things!!  I want to know that I made myself available to bless another. I want to be a mighty instrument of His love and blessings!  What about you?

No matter the blessing, no matter how great or small, just "give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you!" (Luke 6:38)

Be blessed as you DYI with LOVE! :)