DIY Doily Disaster

I've been wanting to do some sort of craft lately, so I figured I would do a trial of the canvas totes that I wanted to make for part of my bridesmaids gifts.

I have seen this project on SO many blogs lately, but I believe that this is the one where I first came across it.

I thought it seemed cute. I liked that I could still personalize it, and it seemed easy. So today I had the fiance drop me off at Michael's (I didn't make him go in as he has apparently reached his limit on the number of times he can suffer through a Michael's shopping trip with me) and I went in search of the items I needed. I already have lots of paintbrushes at home, so I bought one plain canvas tote, a bottle of brown fabric pain, some 10 inch doilies, and a can of spray adhesive. Thanks to a 40% Off One Item coupon, this cost me about $12.

So, I came home and attempted it. I had read on some blogs that people had had some problems getting the paint to look exactly right. It seems it often creeps under parts of the doily and then you don't get that tidy look that I was going for. Still... I figured I'd give it a shot.

Well.............. It didn't work out. The bag looked like a sad little doily disaster. I thought I did it all right too. I adhered my doily. I made sure it was firmly in place, but yet my paint still got into places I didn't want it to. I read on another blog (can't remember which one right now) about how she found out that if you use an Exacto knife and cut out a freezer paper stencil from the doily and then adhere that freezer paper stencil to your bag it comes out much more precise, but I'm lazy and dont feel like cutting out all those little tiny holes so the doily idea may have to just go into my "DIY Fail" file.

So, here I sat with a messy looking $4 canvas bag. I couldn't let that go to waste. I tried to figure out something else to do with it that would cover up the doily mistake and yet still look cute. I couldn't think of many easy things. I didn't feel like searching for a new project or stencil... so I decided to just wing it.

Here's what I came up with:

Yes, what started out as a bag for the bridesmaids ended up as a bag for me. Lol. Oh well... I had to figure something out to do with it. So I painted it with the brown fabric paint that I bought today and then used some left over acrylic paint I had around the house (after I googled to see if acrylic paint would be ok for fabric, and the general consensus seemed to be that it is... we'll see). I just freehanded the color blocks, then decided to try to freehand the "W". I drew the "W" on the bag first with a pencil and then painted over it.

It came out pretty good. I'm kinda proud of it for a project that wasn't planned and for not letting the "Doily Disaster" get me down.

I found some cheaper canvas bags online today from here. Even after shipping they still end up under $2 per bag.

I hope to still make some sort of bags for the bridesmaids.... just have to rethink my design (and figure out what to do with all my leftover doilies).

The Reception Site

We booked our reception site about a month ago. It's the Fairfield Banquet & Convention Center here in Cincinnati, OH. I'm actually very happy with it. It was the best price for all the things included. We are having our reception in the "Diamond Room" which is the smallest of the 3 banquet rooms they have, but is plenty big enough for us since we are hoping to keep our guest list around 100-125 people.

When I first went to visit and saw the room with one of my bridesmaids, Anna, I loved the room but hated the way it was painted and some of the decorations. It just looked a little dated. The walls were a pale peach color and the accents were a light green color. However, I was willing to deal with that for the price, all the things included, and the general facility was really quite nice. Weeks later I took my fiance back to see the place just to make sure he was ok with it too before I paid the deposit.... and SURPRISE! They had repainted everything. The room is all crisp and white. This was the best thing I could have hoped for. So, now I am quite excited.  Here's a picture from their website of our room.