PDS 8: Will you be my bridesmaid??

It was definitely a crafty sort of day, and the weather outside made it even nicer to be warm and toasty in my sweater, inside, with the heat on, Pandora playing, and a nice cup of hot coffee.  So, like I promised yesterday, today's blog would bring back Project Do Something and tie in some fun wedding stuff as well, which is how Bacheegs and Love originally got started.

So, ever since Eric proposed back in April of 2010, I've been thinking about my bridesmaids. I am very fortunate to have some very lovely ladies in my life, and I wanted to ask them in a very special way to make this a fun experience for  us all.  I looked around online and got inspired by this blog post on Wedding Chicks. I loved that it made asking the girls something special, but since I didn't have the details to write about yet (I have yet to pick out dresses and shoes, etc.), I wasn't sure what to put inside the box.  So I just decided to get started and go with it. Soon enough, I thought, "Why not give each girl a "bridesmaid" shirt?" I'm still not sure when we'll all wear it (I suppose when we go dress shopping, or maybe on the day-of, when we're getting ready?), but I thought it was super cute.

Here's what I did to make a special treat for my girls!

The supplies.  Everything sort of evolved out of several trips to Michael's and the paint came from our paint drawer here at home. The box idea was mainly from the previous blog - and such a good deal at Michael's. The hard part was finding enough good quality boxes (sometimes they don't open/close just right) for all my girls - and I don't even have that many! I did a smaller version of this box for my lovely cousin Madi, who will be my Jr. Bridesmaid.

So basically there's the box, some white and purple paper for the interior, paint and brushes, the shirts (courtesy of the amazing Terri and her Etsy Shop Rhine Designs!), some sparkly lettering (also from Michael's, and then embellishments. I used purple and white flowers and yellow gold tinted sticky pearls, as well as purple and white glittery dots.

Step 1: Painting

I went with purple because I am hoping this will be the color of my 'maid's dresses (like I said, we're still looking!). The bracket design was traced from a stencil, and I hand painted it in. 

Step 2: The outside

I was able to ask my first few girls right around Valentine's day, so I thought I would surprise them and play up the whole Valentine theme. It totally worked! Some of the girls just thought the inside would just say "Valentine!" Mission Accomplished!

Most of the embellishments are stick-on so there was minimal glue required for the outside (YAY!). I just went with what I thought looked best!

Step 3: The inside and putting it all together!

I lined the inside top and bottom with a textured purple paper, and then re-traced the bracket design on the inside on a textured cream paper and glued that in. Using the same embellishments and letters, I finished the inside.  Once folded and wrapped in tissue paper, the shirts actually fit perfectly into the boxes. I bought some pearly white stationary and wrote each girl a special note about our friendship and asking them to be in my wedding, Sealed it up and placed it inside of the box.

It was absolutely so much fun watching (or hearing) everyone's reaction as they opened up the box. One of my best friend's was living in San Francisco at the time, so I had to mail her package up and told her something was coming, but that she couldn't open it til I was on the phone with her. It took about a day's coordination after it arrived, but it was so awesome. It's such a neat feeling to know your friends are excited to be there to support you on your big day.

To all the brides-to-be out there, I totally urge you to be crafty and do something special for your girls, it makes the memories even more exciting to make and they will be cherished forever!  What other ideas have you seen out there? What are you planning on doing?