The Changing Room: Wedding Shower

Last Saturday, my sisters, Mom and I were invited to a wedding shower/brunch for a family friend. My Mom asked me if I was willing to put together a little something for the table centerpiece. The shower was to be held at a local restaurant, (Salt & Pepper-fabulous!) so we didn't need to do much. The decor, atmosphere and food there is already yummy so I would only need a few small things to make it feel more festive. My inspiration came from a photo online that I stumbled across in which the hostess used wrapping paper as the table runner. I had a stock of black and white, but really wanted something a little brighter and more whimsical. I also had these white pillow box favor boxes that I bought last year at Target. They came in a package of 50 marked down to $3.00. I've made these boxes before too with a pattern I found in a book and you can personalize them with stamps, stickers, paint, or in this case, wrapping paper.

I found some teal/white wrapping paper at Don's downtown Zeeland and some matching ribbon at Big Lots, (which was in the Christmas clearance for 75% off). I also had lots of glass jars on display around my house that I had filled with all kinds of faux green fruit...mini apples, pears, etc. I thought that putting them together as a collection might look nice with the bright blue paper.

I used my new favorite crafting glue (spray adhesive) to attach a square of the wrapping paper to the pillow box to use a favors at each place settting. This gives it a nice flat finish without bubbles or lumps.

I wanted to fill most of the favor box with some kind of filling so I didn't have to spend as much on candy. (I know...I know...I'm way too cheap). I thought of raffia, but didn't have any budget for this project, so I turned to another favorite crafting tool....

My $8.00 paper shredder that I found while garage sale-ing in Saugatuck this past summer. I had wanted a paper shredder, but didn't know if I would use it enough to warrant buying a new one, so imagine my surprise and delight to find an almost-new one for $8.00!

With the paper shredder, I used an old piano book of love songs that I also bought at a garage sale. I like really old and yellowed pages, but they don't slide as well through the shredder, so opted for this book. I used the strips of music to stuff the pillow boxes and then filled them with chocolate hearts from The Dollar General- (another great addition to our fair city that I couldn't live without now).

Oh, so sorry this picture is so bright. I took a picture of the nametags that I made using a circle cutter but the flash reflected off the wapping paper. The circle was adhered with a glue stick to the plain white labels and names were written to the right of the circles. Just another way to tie in a little more of the wrapping paper's color and design.

This is a new font that I fun printing out and cutting a stencil for. I used it on the side table and printed another one to be put in a frame and displayed with the glass jars as centerpieces.

I had just bought this vertical frame when we went to Shipshewaunee last month. I had bought a horizontal one the year before and have used it on so many different applications, not just to hold pictures, but to print out different sayings. Here, I used a vintage flashcard to use for the middle of the table as well.

A close-up pic of the pillowbox against white table settings.

And, true to my nature...running 100 miles an hour in the wrong direction...I forgot my camera that day to take pictures of how it all came together. So, I recreated the display on my own table at home. It looked much nicer with the S&P decor and set up, but you can get the idea.

Or course, white cloth napkins, pretty flatware, lots more ribbon tied around wine glass stems, and some presents wrapped in the same paper and you could use really dress it up even more! Think baby showers, high school graduation (with different color candies in the glass jar) and even wedding banquet tables.