A Wedding Gift Card and reflections

I was blessed to see that they actually set my gift out on the table by the guest sign-in.

I used to have a closet in my house stocked with cheap gifts, or "extra gifts" that I could give when in a bind, for a party occassion, sometimes with money attached.  Like for a kid:  stuffed animal with little card and money attached to bow around neck, because often these invitations would come with out me having time to go to the store to shop, or.............. as in the case of a wedding,  "I don't know what they need or would like," so I wish to give money.  

Recently we had such  happy occasion of  daughter of  close friends, getting married.  I wanted to gift with money, and enjoy doing so in a creative way.  

So..... for fun, and because most women enjoy such sharing, I am going to share some pictures here, as well as reflections, and lastly details about how I made my crafty flowers and card.

The wedding party looked exquisite for my taste!  The bride's maids were dressed in feminine neutral fabric, except for the youngest who wore soft yellow with fabric rosettes around the neckline.  Carrying vibrant yellow bouquets tied in royal blue ribbon, it was PERFECT.

With the guys in jeans, vests, ties, I would call this a Texas style wedding.  Loved it !!!   The royal blue ties, and yellow rose and baby breath boutonnieres were  other PERFECT details.

Not the professional photographer, but neither one to pass up an opportunity to snap some shots at a WEDDING, here is the father walking the bride down the isle.  Her bouquet of more glorious yellow, tied in royal blue, was breath-taking, her dress was simple and elegant, and her smile told us all that she had no doubts about this!

Father giving her away.

The happy couple.  Both wrote, and recited their own vows, and the pastor complimented them on the content.  It was cool that this pastor has known the bride, ALL of her life.

Here they are, the Mr. & Mrs. ♡♡

A friend made the cakes as a gift.  As I assisted in serving, I noticed that her method of decorating these cakes actually including a hole cut in the center, in which to set flowers.  For the cake that she cut, she removed the flowers, set them aside and the shape left was similar to bundt cake, but really it was a multi-layer ROUND.

This couple was SMART and did not go for a high dollar wedding.  The reception was simple, beautifully coordinated, and food and cakes were EXCELLENT, made by friend and family.  (barbeque of course....)

Father/daughter dance.  This father is one of the nicest, best men that I have ever known in my life.

Below is the beautiful mother of the groom, dancing with her son.  She got very emotional and wiped a few tears.  I went up to her afterwards, and said, "I understand..... my son just got married in December."

This sweet couple purposely planned this wedding on a shoe-string budget, and in so doing, they will have more money to apply towards other goals that cost money !  Very smart!!  

May God richly bless them, and grow this family in His wisdom, love, and ways♡♡

......................................................

Which brings me back to my wedding gift, the money card attached to my crafty flowers.  The card was made from a photo, wrapped in tulle with hot glue dots to sealed edges appropriately, and then tied in to the bouquet, of three flowers with more tulle.  I love tulle!!  Keep your eye open in the craft section or craft store, and you can find it on sale, and use it in many ways. 

The flowers  (one large and two small) were made literally from a leftover cheap plastic table cloth, straws from the dollar store, and hot glue.   I studied methods on Pinterest, and then here is basically what I did.  I recommend that you try this, and have fun.  Personally, I find crafties to be therapeutic, with the wonderful bonus that  they may reap a special gift to give.

You will need: 

hot glue gun

scissors

straws

material for flower petals 

(I used leftover cheap table cloth for the rose inspired crafty flowers in the top featured photo, but below, I also share examples of tissue paper flowers)

Here, I go!  Supplies gathered, and basic flowers of different sizes are drawn on a piece of table cloth, folded to be 8 layers.

I cut them out with little care for being on the line.  Usually I cut inside the line, so the line was left on scraps.

Hot glue gun is hot.... paper plates used for crafting day before yesterday.

You can pinch one end of a straw to make it small to fit in the end of another, to make a longer stem.

Oh, I couldn't resist!  Inspired by the bride's flowers from yesterday, I got some yellow tissue paper and tried to make gladiola inspired paper/straw flowers:

I am working between my grand-daughter's table and the place across the room where my hot glue gun is.  I don't mind walking back and forth because I need to work off the peanut butter cookie that I told Bea the horse to please not eat.  (Daughter is making cookies while I do this, using recipe shared >here<.)

The gladiola being a stacked and delicate long stemmed flower, I made these blossom parts be only two tissue paper layers thick.  I just gathered the pieces and folded and arranged from a central point in the flower design, and used a tiny dot of hot glue on the paper to attach to the straw.  For the biggest gladiola, I did three blossoms with the biggest one about in the middle of the extra long straw stem.

The rose inspired, from the table cloth, is a bit more complicated to form, but honestly this medium is MUCH more forgiving than you might guess.  The process is basically this:

I gathered 7 layers:

2 BIG

3 medium

2 small

and I joined them largest on bottom to smallest on top, with a tiny dot of hot glue on top of paper plate, and then layer by layer: dot, layer, dot, layer, dot, layer, etc.

Then comes the fun part of pulling the layers up towards the center and securing towards the bottom with another tiny glue dot.

Now, it just looks like a dorky failure, but work with it, pulling and arranging petals with hot glue where needed towards the bottom to secure the petal in place.

Then I literally gather the flower in my hand and cut the paper base out.

I frayed a straw tip and spread it out and hot glued (just a little bit will do!!) to the tip.

For the card, just get your picture, and trim and hot glue edges as shown to make little money pocket.

Fold it in the tulle with loose edge at top and sides folded around and to the back, and use hot glue to seal. 

Happy crafting!  I hope you look around my blog and find encouragement and inspiration.  

May God grow the Sonshine in us all♡

Tammy @

Grandma Mary Martha💛