I’m SO excited to finally share my “Will you be my bridesmaid gifts” that I made for my girls! I knew immediately that I wanted to do something special for my special ladies but I wasn’t sure what exactly that should be. So like any other new bride-to-be I went to Pinterest! I swear that thing can answer any DIY, craft, food, fashion, etc question! There were lots of cute cards and package ideas and after just a bit of searching and a combination of things I decided on doing a personalized bridesmaid box for each girl that included some information about the day, their roles and their dresses. I thought this would be much more fun than opening an email with all the details (and plus, I had the BEST time putting these together and definitely better than writing an email!).
Here are the supplies you need:
Supplies
(Inspired by Wedding Chicks. Makes 7 Bridesmaid Boxes. All materials bought from local craft store with an exception for the Hankie.)
- Small cardboard boxes
- Stencil
- Foam stencil brush
- Wood cut-out shapes for 4 piece garland
- Wood cut-out shapes for top of box (I used a rectangle with a heart on top)
- Thick lace ribbon (for outside of box)
- Thin ribbon (for garland and tying together photos, color swatches, etc.)
- Colored sharpie pens that work on wood surface
- Felt (for felt flowers)
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
- Patterned scissors
- Hard stock printer paper (resume paper worked great)
There are a lot of components involved here but if you take them one by one it’s much easier and even better, seeing/hearing everyone’s reactions has been completely worth every minute! I started with the painting. I used a stencil for the top of the boxes and decided on a coral color to match one of our wedding colors that I talked about last week. You can hold the stencil in place or tape the stencil to the top of the box and then blot away with your foam stencil brush.
If your stencil doesn’t cover the top surface of your box completely, no problem! Do one section, move the stencil over, realign and finish blotting.
Don’t mind some of my air bubbles. You can always go back and smooth those out or leave them.
While the paint dries on the top of the boxes, paint the wood cut-out shapes. I used circles for my garland and a rectangle with a heart on top for the top of the boxes.
The heart was glued to the rectangle and then square letters were glued onto the heart with each girl’s initials. Or in the case of my mom, I used “mom”! My mom and I are incredibly close, like we talk every day on the phone close, and it was an automatic decision for me to ask her to be my maid of honor! Thankfully, she also had an automatic answer of YES!
On the outside border of the bottom half of the boxes, I glued thick lace ribbon.
When each girl opened their box they were greeted with a big felt flower that I made. I used white felt that had some sparkle and shimmer to it. You can make the felt flowers by just cutting out 4-5 big flowers of different shapes and sizes and gluing them one on top of the other to make a layered, full effect. Hot glue a button in the center to make the center of your flower.
The flowers are glued with skinny coral ribbon to the circular wood shapes to create a garland. As you pull up on the flower, the garland reads:
- “We’re Getting Married!”
- “It’s going to be the BEST day ever!”
- “Only if it includes…”
- “YOU”
On the back of each shape I added our initials J+H with the wedding date.
After the garland is pulled up, you get to my FAVORITE part! The “Will you be my” Hankie! I found these on Wedding Chicks and they just had to be included. They were the official way that I asked each girl to be my bridesmaid after the garland said that the day had to include them. The colors in the flowers happened to match perfectly with our wedding colors and they were too sweet to not use. In the box they went!
Under the Hankies I included all the information that I had for my girls at this point. I printed a few pictures of the dress styles I am leaning towards, a few pictures of our venue, paint swatches of our wedding colors and then a short little packet of more detailed information.
I included a little write up on our big day, the role of my girls, a little sentence on how special each girl is to me and then a little more on their dresses. I used the patterned scissors to scallop the top of the pages and more ribbon to secure them all together.
Putting the boxes together was so much fun. But the best part was watching everyone open their box and/or hearing their reactions! Climbs the “favorite moment” list!
Right after we got engaged we went full speed into wedding planning and booking all of the main vendors: venue, food, photographer, day of coordinator, etc. Things and people were booking so fast we knew we just had to power through. It was after the crazy planning phase that I finally got to sit down and put these together and really think about the day and what it would mean to have all of these ladies by my side. I’ve known some of them since seventh grade! I can still remember passing notes and giggling about boys like it was just a few years ago, not 14! I grew up with these ladies, they can say they knew me when, and they are each a part of so many wonderful childhood memories that I wouldn’t change for the world. Now, we get to add getting married to the memory list! For now, those are my Will you by my bridesmaid DIY gifts…in the shell of a nut!
