I love ribbon wands! They’re always such a fun touch at a wedding and I love how Mel made them her own! Here’s her tutorial for making your own ribbon wands!

What you need:
Dowel cut into 30cm lengths
Acrylic paint
Glue gun
Sandpaper
24mm wide stain backed ribbon in 3 different colours (I used 27 metres of each colour for 65 wands)

What to do:

Cut your dowel into 30cm lengths and sand the edges, then paint the dowels or just leave them as is. I painted mine ivory using kaisercraft acrylic paint.

Cut the ribbon into 40cm lengths and using the glue gun, attach three colours together at one end.

Apply glue to the dowel and wrap the ribbons around and secure with more glue.

To finish, heat-seal the edges of the ribbon so they don’t fray. To do this, carefully wave the edge near a candle flame so that the heat of the flame slightly melts, but doesn’t burn the ribbon.

Flatten with your fingers if it curls up.

For a touch of glam, add a little rhinestone to the top of the wand.

We’ll have even more of Mel’s fantastic Australian DIY projects in a few weeks, but in the mean time you can find our brilliant DIY’er at The Crafty DIY Bride and Paper & Ribbons! Thank you for sharing your brilliant projects with us Mel!

The lovely and talented Mel from The Crafty DIY Bride and Paper & Ribbons is back today with two more fantastic DIY projects she’s written herself. First up this morning is something that fits right into Mel’s quirky theme- her DIY Bird’s Nest Cake topper!

What you need:
Bird’s nest, or nest makings
Little birdies
Tiny paper flowers
A small piece of felt
PVA glue or glue gun
Dried moss

What to do:
Start by shaping the nest so that it is the right size for your cake and has enough space for your birdies to sit comfortably.

Start filling the nest with some dried moss and secure using PVA glue. Note: You can use a glue gun here, but I find the “glue strings” hard to avoid.

Once dried, sit your birdies in the nest. It’s up to you whether you glue them in or not.

Pretty the nest up with some tiny paper flowers and finish by gluing a piece of felt on the bottom of the nest to avoid sneaky bits of nest ending up on mum and dad’s piece of cake!

Mel will be back this afternoon with another of her DIY tutorials- this is one she tells me she’s already had requests for so I can’t wait to share it!

Katie and Morgan

I’m so excited today! I have Katie of A Little Bird Told Me. So. sharing her gorgeous engagement party photos with us! Katie and Morgan decided to have their engagement party in their backyard in Sydney and the details were so much fun, so thought out and so beautifully crafted I asked Katie if we could share them on Polka Dot Bride today!

There are so many fun details of this party, so let’s start at the beginning! Katie and Morgan made their invitations to fit with the relaxed and fun style they wanted.

Their words for their style?

“simple
a little country
picnic style
a red & orange colour theme
and a M+K= <3 theme (which many of our guests cleverly used too!)”

Katie and Morgan set up games around the yard with chalkboard signs.

Katie designed and made her own Twister game using fun and bright fabrics. The playing mat was actually a quilt- backed in squares of the same fabrics, Katie’s intention is to use the mat in the future for picnics together!

Amongst the other games were boules, a relationship quiz (written by Morgan) and hopscotch.

Instead of a traditional guest book, Katie and Morgan setup a guestbook display. Guests wrote messages on brightly coloured squares of paper and pegged them to string hung between two palm trees. Already pegged to the string were some of Katie and Morgan’s favourite shots from their engagement shoot.

Deciding to get in on the fun DIY guestbook trend, Katie headed to Spotlight and found some cheap and cheerful fabric. The fabric was hung and pinned between two tees and Katie made moustaches on sticks for guests to pose with.

The food! Katie and Morgan served chicken Caesar salad and lamb salad in paper noodle boxes. Guests were treated to homemade red punch, champagne, homemade lemonade and a tea & coffee bar. Jars tied with ribbon and a paper label were filled with lollies and strategically placed around the garden for guests to feast on.

Guests were invited to write their name on a paper flag to keep track of their drinks.

Clean jam jars made great glasses for the bride and groom!

Katie made over 200 cupcakes with her family in the days leading up to the party, Each was iced and decorated with red or yellow sprinkles. Homemade paper tokens with m+k+E> (In keeping with the rest of the stationery). Guests also enjoyed homemade peach and berry pies made by Morgan’s mother and fresh rockmelon and watermelon cut into stars and love hearts by Katie’s aunt.

Katie made the thank you notes with paper left over paper from the guestbook.

Visit Katie at A Little Bird Told Me. So to find out more of her plans as she goes along!

This afternoon, we have Mel’s sweet birdseed favors! Mel originally found these for sale on Etsy by a US seller, but knew they wouldn’t clear customs into Australia so she set out to make them herself!

I made these to use as wedding favours for my upcoming wedding. They’re super easy to make and super cheap!

What you’ll need:
Silicon molds (I used heart shaped cupcake molds)
Edible gelatine powder
Wild birdseed (Find a mix for your local birds – I used a mix for Aussie parrots)
Metal bowl
Twine and Scissors

What to do:

Boil up some water – put about 100mL in a metal bowl and sprinkle in 25g of gelatin and stir until it’s completely dissolved.

Let it cool for a few minutes (don’t let it set – if it does just heat it over the stove again) then mix through 400g of birdseed.

Press a heaped teaspoon of the mix in the mold and flatten.

Place a knotted loop of twine on so the loop sticks out the top and cover with more birdseed mix and press in to push out all the air bubbles.

Place in the fridge overnight to set, then carefully push out of the molds and hang in a dry place so the gelatin completely dries out and hardens. Whalla!

To display, hang some on a branch in a pot and bag the rest in little stamped muslin bags. Perfect!

Mel also made this sweet little sign for the favor table

Thank you for sharing your favors on Polka Dot Bride Mel! You can check out Mel’s blog The Crafty DIY Bride for more treats and her Etsy store Paper & Ribbons! Mel will be back to visit us again soon!