{DIY} Ruffled Ombre Wedding Card Box

These are the first set of photos I've posted since switching to a Mac, so pardon the bad lighting in the photos. I used to use Photoshop to clean them up, but for this post I just used the editing functions on the Mac and I clearly have no idea what I'm doing.

Once all the bridal shower craziness was done with, I got to working on the wedding card box and table assignments for Michelle and Allen's wedding.

This was such a labour of love. It took me way longer than I expected but I loved it in the end. And now it'll just sit in Michelle's closet until it collects too much dust and will need to be thrown out!

My inspiration came from this wedding featured on Style Me Pretty with the cake by Cake Coquette.

For the ombre effect I was able to find two different shades of coral/pink streamers that worked well together and I picked up white as well. The other supplies I used included two recycled boxes (plus some cardboard pieces to lift the lid of the green box higher, otherwise the base of the "cake" would be really short), white glue, a glue gun, white spray paint (so the green and brown would be less noticeable under the streamers), and a sewing machine.

I thought I took pictures of the boxes with the hole cut in the green lid and everything pieced together, but apparently I failed to do so.

I'll have you know, I had not touched a sewing machine since the 8th grade where one of our projects was to sew a pair of boxer shorts. I never even finished mine because the school year ended halfway through my shorts so my mom finished sewing them. Basically I have no skills with a sewing machine.

I started sewing as centered as I could down the streamers. I did the dark coral first and the white last, but I wish I had done it in the opposite order because the dark coral streamers were much more delicate than the white ones. Starting with the thicker streamers would've been better to ease back into sewing!

This is how I kept the streamers as I was sewing - chopstick right in the middle of the roll of streamers and then placed in the well of the sewing machine's lid. It was a lot easier as the streamers then wouldn't get tangled as I was sewing.

For the most part I was able to stay centered, but after a while I would daydream and the stitches would get reeeeaaaally close to the edge.

First roll of 4 done! To make the ruffles I just held onto one thread (the bottom stitch) and pulled the streamers down with the second (top) thread. This took waaaay too long, but watching TV while you're doing it helps. I've seen instructions for making ruffled streamers where you set the tension high and something or other so that it'll ruffle as you sew, but that was method was way too complicated for me.

Bottom layers are done!

I just put a line of white glue and glued the top half of the streamers down.

After a million years of sewing and ruffling, gluing was a piece of cake! (Pun not intended). I even made roses out of the streamers to dress it up a bit.

I hadn't thought about the placement of the card slot until I had to glue the streamers down and this was the best I could come up with. It might've been better to put the card slot on the side of the box because you had to shake the box every so often when people were putting cards in because they would stay standing up instead of laying flat at the bottom.

I maybe should have put more light pink layers at the base of the top tier... This looks more like colour blocking than ombre.

Below is a little photo heavy with the details.

So if you're wondering what I did during my summer, this took up a good 3 weeks of it (at least)!

Total cost? Maybe $10, if even? Mainly for the streamers and spray paint (which I plan to use for other stuff). Since I had the boxes, I didn't have to buy any from the dollar store, otherwise it'd be $20 maybe? (Large boxes were around $6.)

It was easy enough to get the cards out too as I didn't glue the box closed. The green lid came off as usual, which just meant when carrying it you had to carry it from the bottom.

And for the table assignments, I turned two of these framed posters:

Into this:

I just found some wrapping paper at Hallmark and used black pens and sharpies to do the table numbers and guests. Easy peasy!
(Actually, not too easy taking the frame apart since it was meant to just buy and hang. The backing was not removeable to I had to be careful peeling the backing off and taking the photo mat out.)

Anyways, the wedding turned out great! We weren't as hurried as I expected for the tea ceremony or bridal party photos, but everything after the wedding ceremony is a complete blur! I honestly have no idea what happened during the reception...