I’ve been M.I.A. lately, but not for lack of things to talk about, it’s actually been quite the opposite.  We’re less than two months away from the wedding and I’ve been crazy busy making things, buying things, and planning things.  This past year of our engagement has absolutely flown by and as much as I’ve enjoyed preparing for our wedding, I’m ready to get this show on the road.  Here’s a quick snapshot of how I’ve been spending some of my time.

One of the first things I made was this yarn wrapped letter.  I thought it would look nice on the guest table next to the sign-in book and then we could display it in our home after the wedding.  It proved to be an easy, low-key DIY project.

I’ve read several blogs about making yarn balls and the different techniques to make them successfully as they can be pretty messy and not dry properly.  My sister and I decided to give it a try and for our first attempt it couldn’t have gone much better.  My fiance, roommate and I made another one tonight which didn’t go quite as smoothly, but we won’t know for a day or two if it was as successful.  Here’s a photo of the first one my sister and I made a few weeks ago.

We’ve chosen to forgo the tradition of tossing the garter and bouquet, but I’d still like to wear a garter.  I searched around Etsy and checked out the ones available at the local shops but didn’t see anything that I really liked that didn’t cost a fortune, so this morning, while watching church online, I sewed a piece of lace together and added an embellishment (the same style I used on the “B” above).  An odd thing to be doing while listening to a church service, right?

Throughout the past year I’ve been gathering lace, ribbon and fabric to create two backdrops.  One really large backdrop will be used to block a door at the end of the aisle where we’ll be standing for the ceremony and the other, much smaller and more colorful one, will be hung behind the candy buffet table to make it a bit more festive.  This looks fun and festive, right?

Then…there are the macarons.  I’ve been talking about them for months.  You’re probably as sick of reading about them as I am of making them with no success.  They’ve been haunting me for months.  I’ve made 5 batches, using 3 different recipes.  I’m to the point where I don’t even care if they are at the wedding (the illogical me thinks they don’t deserve to be at the wedding for the hassle they’ve given me), but I’m so darn stubborn, I’m determined to figure them out.  Here’s the batch I made last weekend, pre-oven.

Here’s that same batch, post-oven.  I nearly threw them across the kitchen when I saw them.  The recipe I tried was from Stella at BraveTart.  She’s got these things down and gives the best instructions I’ve found online, yet I botched the recipe.  Stella is so fabulous that you can tweet her a photo and she can often tell you where you went wrong.  She informed me that I likely undermixed them.  So the next day, I made them again and I’m pretty sure I overmixed them.  I just can’t win.

Running short on weekends to attempt these, I decide to resort back to the first recipe I ever tried and stick with it since I had gotten the best results from it months ago. So, I aged some eggs and went in for Attempt #5 today.  Here’s the batch, pre-oven.  I knew when I was piping them that I whipped the eggs too long.  I suppose that’s progress – I’m starting to understand where I’m going wrong.

I was right about them not coming out well.  Here’s that same batch, post-oven.  They look hideous, but that’s peanut butter buttercream and dark chocolate peanut butter buttercream inside, so I resisted throwing them across the kitchen.  The next time you need buttercream, you’ve got to try this recipe.  It’s definitely not your standard buttercream frosting that I usually scrape off cake before eating – this is to die for!

The next DIY wedding snapshot will include a bouquet charm on my brooch bouquet, centerpieces, boutonnieres, and a few other things.  Were you a DIY bride?  What was your favorite thing to make?