Wedding Favor Redux

While I do the pro-pic wait, let's do some more projects, shall we? Projects are fun.

We'll start with favors for our fast-approaching second reception. There's just something about personalized favors that I love. Sure, they are by no-means necessary, but they can be so fun to make, give, and receive. It must be some side effect of that paraphernalia-collecting disease I'm afflicted with.

Anyway, we needed something usable, Chinese restaurant-appropriate, and of course something that can embody the saka-spirit.

Tea favors it is - now off we go!

To start off, we ordered a bunch of metal tins from SKS Bottle.

Then we picked up several different kinds of tea from our local Asian grocery store, and sampled them all. We chose green, genmai, jasmine and chrysanthemum - since they were available in big packs and not sketchy like oolong.

After designing a tea packet template, I doodled all over it. Sak suppressed a smile and tried to tell me they were too weird. Of course they are weird. We printed them out on recycled printer paper to ease a little bit of the guilt of using way too much paper. Sorry trees!

We cut them out and folded them into little pockets.

Here's the four different designs, along with their inner flaps:

After we folded 600 pieces of paper, we took a break to staple on new tags over the existing tea tags. Rebranding!

Then we stuffed the bag into the folded packet, and finished by tucking in the last flap.

Going back to the tins now, we put two almond cookies in the bottom of each. Who doesn't like some munchies with their tea?

In went one packet of each flavor. I didn't size the packets quite right though, so there was a little squashing involved to get them to fit in the tin.

We cut out some tags in black and white cardstock, and prepared to do the stamp-emboss. I custom ordered the 1" stamp from here. Obscure aside - can anyone name the anime the design was derived from?

After embossing, we punched some holes and cut some ribbon to wrap around our tin.

Here, have a tea favor!

And 149 more!

What's your favorite type of tea? Or are you like Sak, on team hot-choco-would-be-better?

Cometa Ribbon

Once upon a time, I fell in love with a little organza bag that was out of stock. Well, it miraculously repopulated, and I snatched some up! Thanks to you readers, I learned that they are of Italian origin, called cometa ribbons.

(source)

But then I needed some sort of candy to put in the bags. It was made for jordan almonds, but due to their jaw-breaking quality, I didn't really want to go for the hard sugar coated rocks. I tried all sorts of different candies - Mike and Ike, M&M's, mints - pretty much anything round and small. But nothing worked. It just didn't look like a flower. So I went back and ordered the almonds. Oh well. They may be a little cliche, but they do make for a very pretty flower. And the taste isn't that bad either, if you don't mind the crunch.

So here we go, let's stuff the cometa ribbon!

We started with five almonds and a ribbon. The actual ribbon itself doesn't seem so hard to make, but as the price wasn't bad (and I don't have time anymore), buying seem justifable. There was also a silly little tag on each bag, which we removed.

Next, we shoved an almond into every other pocket. It helps if they are all roughly the same sized almonds, since it makes the flower "petals" look more even.


Now, we cinch up the strings!

And finally, we tie up the ends.

Cute!

Since the plan is to place one flower at each table setting, we had about 125 flowers to make. My grandmother took half, and Sak and I finished the other half. We knocked our half out in only a couple evenings, so I'd say it was a pretty easy little project!

Ready for shipping!


Jordan almonds. Love them or hate them? And do they really last forever?

Bag "Bliss - Step 3

Dun, Dun, Dun...and now, the final chapter in the epic bag-blitz!

(Catch up with Step 1 and Step 2 if need be!)

We printed, we sewed, and now it's time for drawstrings - so grab your materials and let's go!

In addition to the assembled bag, we'll need string

and some eyelets/eyelet-setter.

(I'll be using a Crop-A-Dile, which I looove)

Now remember how I said we'd stick the eyelets in before sewing the bag all the way around? Well, if we didn't do it that way, I wouldn't be able to fit the Crop-o-dile in to punch the holes! So start with the unsewn bag, and mark off where you want to put your eyelets. They should be towards the bottom of the bag, on either edge of the side that rests against your back. We'll be using two eyelets per side, since these particular eyelets are too small to fit two strands of string in one.

We measured down 18" to the point where the ruler hit the curved line we drew.

Then we went 1.5" up from that point and made our first position marking.

Repeat on the other side, then lay the ruler between the two points.

Measure 3/8" (3 ticks on a inch ruler) inwards, and make second position marks on each side.

Now we're ready for eyelet setting.

Punch out holes where you made your position markings. Make sure you only punch through one layer of the fabric!

Insert an eyelet to the hole, with the finished side facing the "right-side" of the bag.

Now Squash the eyelet down with your setter. (a.k.a., the "fun" part!)

Here's what it should look like on the "wrong-side" (inside) of the bag.

And again, on the "right-side" (outside)

Now put the bag down for a moment and grab your string. You'll need two equal lengthed pieces of your size preference. We used 72" pieces that we bought from Home Depot. Melt down the ends of the string to prevent fraying (only if you're using synthetic ropes! Natural fibers will go up in flames!)

We used a piece of wire to help guide the strings through the flaps.





With the bag right-side out, thread the strings through the eyelet holes.

Tie an overhand knot to secure the strings.


And D O N E spells done!




Logistics -
163 bags total - 157 good bags, and 6 fail-bags, so that's a yield of about 96%.

Cost Breakdown
fabric = $1.84/bag
eyelets = $0.15/bag
string = $1.04/bag
Emulsion and ink: $0.21/bag
Capital cost for Crop-A-Dile, YUDU, screens: $283
Total Project Cost (material + capital) = $810.52 total, $5.16 per good bag.
Total Project Cost (material only) = $527.52 total, $3.36 per good bag.

...Which, if we ignore any operating costs (free labor!), falls below the $5/chair I was quoted for chair cover rentals. Huzzah! :D

Now, if only I knew how to fit them all into my suitcase...

What's the first thing you did after finishing a major project? Take a relaxation break, or jump right into something else?

Bag "Bliss" - Step 2

Continuing on with the next installment of the big-bag-adventure (Step 1 is here), we have the sewing!

At about 100 inches of sewing per bag, this adds up to roughly 1,000 feet of "mileage" on my little sewing machine. Good thing we bought those giant spools of thread!

We start with our printed sheet of fabric, which is a 18" x 47" size. This is a tad larger than the average backpack, since it was meant to fit the reception chairs, so if you want to make your own for non-chair use, I suggest making it a couple inches shorter in length.

Next I sewed over the top edge and 3-4 inches down each side. I tried to make this fold as small as possible, since the only purpose it serves is to hide the raw edges.

Now, fold over the top about an inch, and crease the fabric. If your fabric isn't easily creased, use pins. Make sure the fold is as straight as possible. I used "Duck" fabric, which is an amazing canvas material that creases and sews very easily.

Sew the fold down, leaving plenty of space to shove the drawstrings through later. Repeat on the opposite end of the fabric.

Now when we fold our fabric in half, we should have two holes/tubes along the top edge to put our drawstrings in.
Depending on whether you want a straight bag or a round bag, this step could be skipped, but in our case we wanted to match the curvature of the chair, so we made a template to trace onto the folded fabric. (Note - this is all done with the reverse side of the fabric showing.)

We added our eyelets (which I'll cover in the last post of this series), and then sewed around the edges to seal our bag.

Finally, we cut off the unnecessary fabric (in this case, our corners).

Here we go!

And turning the whole thing inside out..

Sewing complete! Last step to come is the drawstring attachment!

Anyone else breaking out the sewing machine for their wedding?