Wedding Gifts

My cousin Kati and her fiance (now husband!!!) Ulysses got married on Saturday, May 19.  I was disappointed that we couldn't be there, but I had my gifts ready to go early so that I could send them with my parents, who visited Pittsburgh at the beginning of May.  I wanted to make them a family wall canvas like I have made for other people, but I also wanted to get some stuff that they wanted from their registry.  I have seen people do towel and utensil arrangements almost like diaper cakes and took my inspiration from that.  The arrangement that I ended up doing is more of a bouquet, since an entire "cake" out of towels and utensils would likely cost me a small fortune!  Sorry guys, I love you, but a small fortune I do not have.  So, without further ado, here is the utensil bouquet and their family name canvas:

The utensil "bouquet" consisted of two spoons and a spatula, wrapped in two kitchen towels, all of which was from their registry.  I tied a set of nesting heart cookie cutters from Wilton (not on their registry, but I wanted something cute to go with the love theme and color scheme) around the utensils, and around the outside of the towels I tied a "Recipe For Love" poem that I found online.  I did feel weird taking the packaging off of the cooking utensils and cookie cutters, but it was the only way to display it like this.

The family name canvas was inspired by their wedding invitations.  The yellow and white floral paper in the background of this canvas was the outside of their invitation, and as soon as I received it in the mail, I put it aside in a safe place (ahem, where small hands wouldn't crumple it!), knowing I wanted to incorporate it into a crafty gift of some sort.  I like that the use of the invitation card stock in this project makes it more personalized than any of the other canvases I have done in the past.  To make this I painted the 8"x10" canvas with dark gray craft paint, used Mod Podge to adhere the card stock from their invitation, then adhered the letters the same way, and finished with a final coat or two of Mod Podge.  The letters are all cut with the Cricut.  Their name and the year were cut with the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge, and "family" was cut using the Opposites attract cartridge.  In hindsight, I think this would have looked better with "family" in the darker gray, because it is hard to see, but then again, their name is the important part of this project.  In person, "family" is slightly more visible than this picture shows.  In any case, I hope they find a special place in their home to put this and that they remember their special day when they see their invitation paper!