table cards- wedding

Being that I had a year to plan my wedding, I wanted to do some DIY projects.  I decided to make table cards.  My hubby is a Marine, so I went with a military theme.  Each table will be a military letter (ie Alpha, Bravo, Charlie).   I am also really into bling, so to add girliness to the military theme, I did the words in rhinestones.

First, I went to my favorite place- Michaels- for card stock (4"x7" size) in an off white color.  I also bought stick on rhinestones in assorted sizes, clear.  I then printed in an almost not visible grey color each word on the center of the card in a pretty font.  Then, with much patience and many breaks, I put each stone one by one on each letter.

These are still a work in progress.  I bought snowflake stamps (having a winter white theme wedding, with a touch of Marines of course) and silver ink.  I plan on adding a few stamps to each to make more glitzy.

And how will I put these on the table you ask?  I bought card holders with snowflakes from a favor site.

Time: about an hour a day over a few weeks (I made 15 cards in about 4 weeks)
Cost: the pricey part of this project was the rhinestones.  Michaels sold them for about $6 a pack for 100 assorted sizes.  I had to buy a few packs.  The card stock pack was a few dollars.  The snowflake card holders were total $30 (for 20).

Finished product pictures to come.

Faux baking- cake pops

Cake pops- they're all the rage! But did I really want to bake a cake and do all the messy work? No! When I see other people create things, I think, how can I do that but in a more simpler/cheaper way. So while thinking of something to bring to my brothers engagement party, I thought of cake pops. But not having the time or energy, I needed to find a way to get them without baking or spending a lot of money.

So that's where Entenmann's Popems *popped* into my head. My trusty assistant Brandon and I got 2 boxes of Popems from the grocery store, and then headed to Michaels for cake decorating supplies- lolly pop sticks, sprinkles, and candy melts (chocolate chips that can be melted and remelted). We got white color, but they come in a whole range of colors.

*side note- we had purple but due to some trial and error, the purple had to be discarded. Lesson learned, do not ass water to melted chocolate to thin out, it will just get hard and clumpy.

So to start of poke a hole in the popem (make sure not to go all the way through). Then dab a little chocolate and stick in the hole. This will act as a glue to hold the popem on the stick. To speed up the dry time of the chocolate, we put the pops in the freezer for a few min.

While the pops are in the freezer, melt the chocolate (follow directions on the package). Once the pops are ready, roll and spread the chocolate on the pops. Chocolate might harden fast so decorating after dipping is ideal. After decorating, put in the fridge to harden and secure the decorations. Let sit overnight and they will be ready the next day. To display, we got a styrofoam disc.

Time: about an hour (took a little longer since it was our first time!)
Cost: less than $20