My message-in-a- bottle wedding invitations!

I know that I haven't been posting much, but I have been incredibly busy planning my wedding! I want to show you my invitations. Yes, I made each and every one of these and I am very proud of them and I have been receiving tons of compliments on them.



I am not the most crafty person. When I saw message-in-a-bottle wedding invites, I wanted them immediately. I started looking at companies that sell them pre-made and they were way to pricey. Then, I began looking at do-it-yourself kits and these were rather pricey too. I happened to find a friend of my fiance's whose band drank beer that was in clear bottles. He started saving all the bottles for me. I love the bottles too because they are engraved and say "The one and only" and it completely fit.  I removed the labels and the adhesive residue and then started washing the bottles by hand. After hand-washing the bottles, I put them in the dishwasher for a cycle. I allowed the bottles to dry for a few days and places a few drops of ocean breeze scented oil in each. I purchase parchment paper from Office Depot and printed my invitations at home. My fiance and I hand-burnt the edges of each invitation to give them an antique look. We had to let the invitations sit out for a few days so the smoke smell would go away.

After the invitations we smoke-free, we rolled them up and tied them with raffia and left extra raffia hanging. My son was my little helper. He began putting sand in each bottle and then the shells. After the shells, I put the rolled up invitations in the bottle, left a little extra raffia hanging inside the bottle, sealed them with a cork and used the excess raffia to tie around the bottle and make a bow. We tied them so when guests open the invitation, they are able to easily remove the invite by pulling the excess raffia. I purchased adorable labels from zazzle.com and placed those on the bottles, added an extra dot of ocean breeze oil on the corks, and they were complete!

We had a lot of fun as a family putting these together.  The project went much smoother than I had presumed and I am very happy with the way they turned out.  So what do you think?  Comment!  I love to hear from my readers!