Wedding Wednesday - Bridesmaid DIY

For this edition of Wednesday, a look back at one of the many DIY projects I took on. To ask some of my favorite ladies to be in the wedding, I wanted to do something special. Being in a wedding is a big commitment. You have to buy a dress you don't get to pick out, dedicate several weekends to wedding festivities, try to make awkward small talk with the bride's relatives while also trying not to swear. It's not easy! So, to bribe my soon-to-be bridesmaids, I figured baked goods were the way to go.

The original project can be found at Marry This! They do a good job at walking you through it so I'll save you the details and just tell you about the tips I picked up and issues I ran into that almost made me have a meltdown...

I was happily surprised that almost all the supplies that I didn't already have could be found at Wal-Mart. This helped keep the cost down a little. Which was good because I ended up having to buy certain things multiple times...Most notably, the fabric transfers (in the bottom left). I cannot stress to you how important it is to read the package carefully. I bought the wrong kind twice and didn't flip the image the second time I printed it. Also, instead of trying to find the exact size labels for the lid, I bought the full page labels and cut them out. 

As 1 a.m. quickly approached and I still wasn't done, multitasking became really important. While the cupcakes were baking and then cooling, I worked on the napkins. 

I had some problems with the iron ons curling a little around the  edges. Use caution obviously, but get the iron as hot as you possibly can and press down hard around the edges, going over them several times. 

The template for the napkins at Marry This! says, "Will you be my bridesmaid?" I decided I hadn't spent enough time on this project yet and needed a special one for my maids of honor and set out to edit the image. Luckily, the font is a free download you can get here. I don't have any photo editors at home so I alternate between Gimp and Sumo Paint for simple edits.

I had to do some surgery on the cupcakes so that they would lay flat in the jar and you couldn't see the brown parts. After a couple of failed techniques, I found that putting the base of the cupcake in first, then slicing the muffin top part into strips and kind of mashing it around the edge of the jar seemed to work the best. There is no easy way to do the frosting. It will get all over the top and sides of the jar. I just wiped it off with a paper towel the best I could. 

Here are the finished products! As you can see, they're not perfect but I do have to say, they're pretty cute. And my girls loved them! Plus, sugar. 

So, what more can you really ask?