With Gra-TEA-tude Thank You Cards

The Project:  Thank You Cards - With Gra-TEA-tude

The Cost: ~ 30.00$ if you dont have anything but since I had most of the stuff it only cost me ~12.00 (This depends on how much paper you already have so price may be lower or higher)This price also includes the black cards and envelopes, labels, and tea bags.

The Story:
This story is actually alittle outrageous and weird. Im not one to do things late so I knew I wanted to have my thank you cards done before the party so that right after the party, I could send them out asap. The last thing I wanted was for people to think we were ungrateful. Sooo, I started looking up Thank You ideas months ago. I started saving the ones I wanted but nothing was really doing it for me. I must have looked up so much stuff one day because one night when I went to bed, I had several dreams about making cards! One of which was the one I created. I woke up I thought I mustve seen this somewhere, theres no way I drempt this. I looked up every possible variation of my card and couldnt find anything! Im sure its out there and someone came up with it before me, but for me, I actually came up with this card in my dreams!! So weird! Anyway, I had used a "gratitude" stamp for a previous card and came up with the "Gra-TEA-tude one for this card enclosing in the card some tea-bags! I thought they were silly but cute so I hope you do too!

First Things First:
1. Figure out how many people you need to send thank you cards to. We needed to make 26.
2. Pick your colors. We kept with the theme of black,white and red.
3. Dont cut or glue your inside thank you until after the party because you obviously dont know what youll get- when you do though, make your notes specific to that person and personal! Dont go the easy route with a generic thank you for all. If you have time to make the cards do them right.
4. Decide the orientation of your card and how it will open. This will you decide how to make your card if you dont want to do it the way I did mine.

What You Will Need:

1. Blank cards with envelopes (Michaels has these in sets of 25 in black and cream. If you get them on sale they are 2/5$. I got 2 packs in black for us)
2. Labels from staples. (I had these already from making the first invites so I didnt need to buy these but you can get them at staples for like 7$ or less with rebate)
3. Plain paper in your color choice (I used red and white)
4. Computer and Printer
5. Tea Bags (We went to the Asian store to keep with our theme and got 50 bags for like 7$)
6. Glue Runner
7. "Handmade with Love" Stamp

Step By Step Directions:
1. Take your designed paper (in my case it was the same black and white we've been using) and cut it so that you can see a 1/4 inch of the black card on every side. So if your card size is 4x6, your base paper will be 3.5x5.5.

2. Do this as many times as you need. We did 26.

3. Turn that paper upside down and take your glue runner to create a square border of glue.

4. Glue it onto the blank card.

5. Do this as many times as you need to.

Its now time to make your "with gratitute" saying and backing. Pick a base color, I chose red and choose a prining paper, we chose white.

1. Choose a size for your backing paper. I think we used 2-2.5 inches.
2. Cut your paper into those 2-2.5inch strips

3. Position your backing paper onto your card and see where you think youll like it. We put ours in the middle.
4. Glue the back of the paper and attach it to the card. Do this as many times as you need to.

Next, go to your computer to make your sayings. Make sure you make them fit into and onto your backing paper. If your backing paper is 2 inches, your saying paper should be 1.5. Do a test copy first on a scrap paper to make sure its to your liking. When you get it to the right size, print on the real paper.

1. Write "With Gra-TEA-tude" in a Word Document. You can do yours any way you want but we did it on two lines and changed the colors around. Play with it and see what you like.

2. Make a sample copy to check its how you want it. Id put the words centered if I were you to make it easier to cut later on.
3. Play with the font and color, then print out.
4. Use your cutter to cut your paper at the size you need (~1.5-2 inches depending)

5. Glue the back of the saying paper

6. Attach it to the backing paper

The front is done! Now for the inside.

1. Choose a backing paper color. We chose white but you can do another color or dont do one at all.
2. Cut the white paper to the size you want
3. Glue run the back and attach to the inside of the card.

4. After your party, whatever kind it may be, then you can continue onto the actual thank you note.
5. Go back into word and set up a text box that is the size of the paper you want to be on the inside. (If your inside backing paper was 3.5x5.5 then your saying paper would be 3x5 or whatever you choose)

6. Type in your thank you note into that size text box.
7. Do this as many times as needed and make it personal!
8. Print
9. Cut
10. Glue run the backs and place them into the inside of your cards.

Insides are almost done! but before we put the tea bags on, you should stamp the back of your card. If you do the tea bags first, the stamp will be harder to do because it wont be a flat surface anymore.

11. Stamp your "handmade with love" or whatever stamp you have

12. Go back to the insides and start gluing in your tea-bags. We did two per thank you.

There you have it! A cute, fun way to say thanks! We used these for engagement thank yous but you can make these for any occasion and in any color. Very versatile!

Hope you enjoyed this project! If anyone makes these, let me know how you liked them or how to improve upon my card! Id love to hear from you!!

Thanks for reading! Keep checking back for future postings as we keep DIYing toward the Aisle <3

Fortune Cookie Place Settings

The Project: Large Paper Fortune Cookie Place Settings as well as smaller paper table decoration paper cookies.

The Cost: ~10.00 or maybe less if you already have the paper as we did. We used left over paper from our engagement invites to make these. We got 12x12 black and white paper from Michaels, originally 20.00 with a 50% coupon, got it for the 10$

The Story:
Seeing as how our engagement invites were origiami styled, my fiance and I thought it would be nice to continue that theme and to always create some type of origami something for each event that we do. For the party, I originally wanted to make lotus flower origami and place them on each setting but then when I researched it, it was alot of work! I was looking for something simpler. I then leaned more toward ordering custom fortune cookies from a store when It hit me, DUH! fortune cookies made out of paper! How hard could that be. I went on youtube and looked it up and sure enough, it was so simple! I decided to make them custom on my own by creating individual Love Fortune sayings such as: Live, Love, Laugh...Love is two people looking in the same direction...Love makes the world go round...etc...

First Things First:
1. Decide how you are using them. Place settings? Table Decorations? Both?
2. Decide on your sizes. For place settings, go big! For decoration, vary up your sizes.
3. Pick a color theme or type of paper you would like to use.
4. Be creative! Its your creation so put whatever you want on the fortune itself. It can be a saying, a word, a symbol, a joke, or just their names.
5. Count how many people are coming. If you have 50 guests, youll need 50 settings and 50 sayings if you are not repeating them

What You Will Need:

1. Paper for the cookie
2. Circle cutter or anything circular that you can trace (CD, cup, etc)
3. Krazy Glue! Not any glue will work.
4. Paper for the fortune
5.Computer and Printer
6. Scissors







Step By Step Directions:
1. Start by making your circles. Get as many circles on a paper as possible, so if your largest circle is of CD size and you can fit only 3 big ones but it looks like you could fit 2 smaller circles on it, do that! You can use the other ones as decoration later on.

2. Trace all your circles on all your paper, large medium and small sized then cut them out. (If you have a circle cutter, use that for the smaller decorative ones, its easier than cutting. If you dont want to spend the $ though, just cut away!)

3. Seperate the circles in size order. I did this because it made it easier for me but you can skip this step.

4. Take your circle and begin to fold it evenly onto itself without creasing the middle line. If you crease the middle, it wont fold right.

5. Press your finger into the middle of the bent part to form a slight indent. This will help you when youre folding

6. Place your pointer finger into that fold while at the same time, using your thumb on one side and your middle finger on the other to pull the sides together.

7. The paper will automatcally fold a certain way when you do this, forming the cookie.

8. Sometimes the fold is not perfect and the cookie parts are uneven, if this is the case you can actually tug at the one side and move the paper to where you want it but dont force it if its not working.
9. At this point it probably looks like a pac-man because its not glued yet. Close the cookie to see where the middle touches, this is where you will place the glue.
10. Place the crazy glue onto that area and quickly close the cookie.

11. Press and hold it together for about 10 seconds or until glue adheres. If you let go too soon, itll pop open. This part can take some time.
12. Do this to all your circle, large and small. Place your setting cookies aside though so you know which ones get the fortunes and which do not.

The next part with the fortunes can be done at two seperate points depending on what you want to do. I made my cookies first and then put the fortunes in but you can also choose to put the fortunes in prior to folding the cookie.

*I learned this the hard way, try to pick shorter sayings! If your sayings are too long, they look funny coming out of the cookie*

Fortune cookie sayings

1. Either create your own on the computer or google sayings and copy and paste

2. Either way, put your sayings into a Word Doc., one saying per line! and skip a space for cutting.

3. Change your font and color if you choose. (We did red paper so I had to use black)

4. Load your paper into the printer and print.

5. Cut your sayings out and get ready to put them into the cookies.

6. Slide them into one side of the cookie and then press the ends of the cookie together so it forms kind of a seal that will keep the saying inside.

7. If this doesnt work and the saying keeps slipping out, use some glue on it but not much bc your guests will be taking them out.

8. Sit back and enjoy the coversations that go on over this project and what their sayings actually say. Its funny to see if people think whats written in it applies to their life!

* The ones that will not have sayings in them, you create just the same, just dont put the sayings in them*

Hope you enjoyed this project! It was fun to do and a pleasure to see everyones responses. Let me know how yours come out!

Happy Crafting! Check out my next post for some fun Thank You cards!

Sushi Cupcakes!

The Project: Sushi Cupcakes...and they are oh so good!

The Cost: ~ 30.00$ (Boxes of cake mix at shoprite 2 for 5$, Icing 2/5$, Fruit by the foot from Costco 8-10$, gummy candies of all kinds ~3$)

The Story:
Seeing as I am a DIY bride, I thought it was only suiting to do the cake myself as well! I originally was going to make a cake but since they were favors, I thought cupcakes would be cute. I googled "asian style cake" and scrolled through all the images when I came across a cupcake that looked like a sushi roll. I immediately knew I had to do it. I youtubed how to make one and to my surprise there are alot of videos on this. I got my ideas and headed off to the food store to do a trial bake. My MOH came to help me and we were on our way to our first batch of sushi cakes. Needless to say, it was a good thing we did a trial run because we did not do so well! I was so upset that they came out so badly but I calculated my mistakes, thought of a new plan, got some new materials and I knew I could do a better job on the final run, which I did. Loved these! They were a hit!!

First Things First:
1. Decide on a size you want the cupcake to be and how many you need. Depending on how many you need to make will depend on how many boxes you use. I used 4 boxes and got 48 cupcakes out of it. Too big of a cupcake and it looks not so realistic but too small and it becomes difficult to get all the candy in. I used a 3-3.5" circle cutter.
2. Get a cutter!- I had one, lost it, and thought using a cup would be good but it wasnt! The cake got stuck inside and it made a mess. I had to go and get a new cutter and it made all the difference (I found the other cutter the next day, figures! lol)

What You'll Need:

1. Cake mix, preferabally something not dark so no chocolate or red velvet, just vanilla is good.
2. Icing, make sure its white
3. Fruit by the foot *Dont get the ones with the cut designs in them, they fall apart. It must be solid!*
4. Gummy candies red, pink, white, yellow or anything that can be sushi colored like red would be the "salmon" etc..
5. Cupcake caddy
6. Smaller circle cutter for inside of the cupcake. This makes it easier to apply the center candy. If you dont use one, when you press in the candy you risk ruining the cupcake itself because of all the pressure you add.
7. Wax paper
8. White sprinkles (ordered them off amazon) or coconut but I didnt like the coconut.
9. Scissors and Knife
10. Circle cutter

Step by Step Directions:
1. Make your cake mix by following the recipe on the back. Do this as many times as you need depending on how many cupcakes you make and what size. We used 4 boxes. We also did 2 boxes at a time just in case as to not waste any cake if we really didnt need it.

*Fill the pan only half way through! The cake should not be larger than the fruit rollup which is really not that thick* This is important!

2. When cake is done and taken out of the over, let it cool fully.
*This may not seem important but I got too excited once and tried to pull the cake out before it was cooled and it literally crumpled in my hands...sooo mad*
3. Lay wax paper on the table to help the cake not stick.
4. Flip cake over onto the wax paper.
5. Take your cutter and start at the very edge of the cake as to not waste any and get as many cuts as you can. Start cutting away!
6. Place cakes to the side as you poke them out.

7. When you made all you need, take the middle cutter and cut out part of the cupcake. This is where your candy will go.

8. Take your icing and ice only the tops of the cakes, including the center hole so candies stick and stay. Do this as many times as you need

9. Place iced tops into a plate of white sprinkles.

10. Place candies in the centers in any way you want and any colors.

11. Once completed, take your fruit by the foot and before taking it off the paper, wrap it around a cupcake to see how big you need it.

11. Leave a little overlap so you can stick the candy to itself to stay better.
12. Cut your candy strip

*Do this each and every time to every cupcake. I know it sounds dumb but you have to because each cut is alittle different in size and if you cut first you may have cut wrong*
13. Before taking the fruit by the foot off its paper, lay it down with the fruit side facing up.
14. Take a knife and ice the whole strip.

15. Take the strip off the paper.
16. Wrap the strip around the cupcake. Make sure its up pretty high because you dont want it sticking out the top. Everything is suppose to look flush. Sometimes its impossible but try.

17. Do this as many times as you need to and store in the caddy in the refrigerator.

If you are doing this for fun, than def. just roll with it and have a good time but if you are making these for an event or a party, definitely do a trial run. Itll be well worth it in the end. Also, give yourself enough time. When all is said and done, it takes several hours to do these (Well it did for us because we did 48 of them letting them sit in the refrigerator for half hours at a time to keep icing from melting)

Hope you enjoyed this cupcake. It was alot of work but like I said, it was well receieved and well worth it!

Because these were our favors, we then added these to our lined takeout boxes. See the post before this for project ideas. Heres a pic of the open boxes and the doily inside as well as some pics from our first trial run!