Be my Bridesmaid?

Alright, so here's some news - I'm getting married!! So, expect a slew of wedding related crafts within the next year, starting with this one. First step - ask your bridesmaids to be in your wedding. While I don't think that social convention dictates that you give a gift to ask a bridesmaid to stand up in your wedding, I thought this was a great way to take on a new fun project.

As you may have seen in one of my previous posts, I stained a few wine crates to give as gifts. Well, these are the gifts I was referring to. I will have 2 bridesmaids plus a maid of honor. While I realize gifting wine is to bridesmaids is a little trendy right now, I feel my gift has a little more meaning than most - we are getting married at a winery! So, I am gifting wine from the actual winery, which I think it kinda cool.

Materials used: burgundy burlap, hemp cord, dark green excelsior, and decorative gift fill (that is unfortunately purchased at Hobby Lobby since I had a gift card, but I certainly don't recommend shopping there if you support women's rights)

I usually don't go into projects knowing exactly how I am going to put them together, I just collected these items because they all went with the rustic/wine theme I was going for.

Items that would go in the wine crates were tailored to each girl receiving one. Murrieta's Well wine, black stallion cabernet sauvignon chocolate sauce (can unfortunately only be purchased at the winery in Napa!), leaf wine charms, heart wine stopper, vacu vin wine preserver, uncorked champage candle.

The completed wine crates. Links for the specific sizes can be found in my previous blog post. The larger crate is for my MOH, and the 2 smaller ones are for my bridesmaids.

In order to prevent the filler material from falling through the slats at the bottom of each crate, I put a layer of the burgundy burlap down on the bottom of the crates. This could also be accomplished with just a piece of paper or card stock.

I decided to wrap each of the gift items in burlap and tie them with the hemp string. This drew more attention to the wine, which was the feature of the gift. I think all the crates came out really well. I hope the girls like them!

In MOH's crate: The Whip and The Spur wine (white & red), heart bottle stopper, cab sauv chocolate sauce, uncorked candle.

In bridesmaid's crate: The Whip wine (white), vacu vin wine preserver.

In bridesmaid's crate: The Whip wine (white), leaf wine charms.

Happy Asking!

Rustic Wine Crates

We bought a bunch of these unstained, unsanded wine crates from Home Depot not long ago and were using them to store things like wine (go figure), extra blankets, etc. Finally I decided I wanted them to look nicer, so I bought some walnut stain and an orbital sander and got to it! As you may have guessed, it was not my idea to buy a power tool, but I have to admit it made all the difference. It's a relatively safe power tool to use and it makes the sanding so much easier. We plan to stain 9 crates altogether, so sanding by hand would be a pretty hefty task.

Most of the crates we were staining were what I would consider to be the average size. They're relatively cheap, too! Find them here. We also were staining a medium sized crate and 2 smaller crates that were going to be used for gifts - stay tuned for another post on those :).

I really got the hang of the orbital sander. Wear safety glasses while using an orbital sander - no, seriously, trust me. 

We stained the crates using a foam brush, which turned out to be not the greatest idea. If i had to do this again I would use a rag or a regular paint brush. We ended up using way too much stain. 

We really had our hands full with this many crates. We ended up doing 4 of them within a few hours.

You can tell that the stain was put on too thick. If this happens, the stain not only ends up extremely dark, but it's also sticky even when it's dry! To fix this, I just sanded the area that was splotchy/sticky. 

What a difference! 

Overall I would say this was a very positive experience! By over staining the wooden crates, I ended up having to sand them down after the stain was put on. When you do this, it gives the crate a more rustic and nonuniform look which is what I was going for to begin with! This is such an easy project to have such a cool piece in your home. I guarantee you will get compliments on these crates.

Happy Staining!