Good Night Irene (but not for me)!

Irene, a name that has been in the news lately and will be remembered by many here in New York. New York, the city that never sleeps, except when Irene came to town!! Everything closed down and we all prepared for the worst. I think we were very lucky that it wasn't as bad as predicted but will always remember Irene!

While listening to the forecasts of the arrival of Hurricane Irene all I could think of was my niece Irene. Every time the name was mentioned instead of getting super nervous, like I usually am, all I could picture in my head was my Irene and it gave me great comfort.

Irene was my first niece and I awaited her arrival with so much excitement. My family was still all here in New York at that time and til she was about 5 or so, pretty much every Sunday we were all together at my parent's house for dinner. They were wonderful times.

Last year Irene got married. It's so hard to believe it still. I just can't get that little girl I knew out of my heart and mind.

For Irene's bridal shower her mom had bought some invitations that didn't have anything but a picture on them and I filled in the information (name, date, place of shower) but used those invitations to create favors for her party. First I switched the girl's head on the invitation to Irene's. As you can see in the picture below, the invitations are kind of like a cartoon or colored pencil drawing so I played with color saturation on my photo program and got a picture of Irene that matched the invitation. I also have a cousin who is a very good artist and she copied the chandelier and bridal cake from the original invitations so I could use it for my project. I made wine bottles, chocolate bars, thank you cards, table seating cards, everything matched and more important, my Irene loved it.

I did have some better pictures of all the things I made but can't find them in my pile of discs and pictures, I have to get more organized!!!

Below is a picture of some of the work I did for the party. The wine bottles are easy to do, just use a glue stick to paste the labels on the bottle. These wine bottles are plastic and the label that comes on them is very easy to peal off. I've used some glass bottles in the past but those labels are not so easy to peal off so I just pasted my labels on top. I use brochure paper for an ink jet printer and it's a thicker paper that will completely cover the label on the glass bottles if you're using them.
There are so many different kinds of wine and different colored tops you can match your wine bottle to the colors you're using. The chocolate bars are crimped at the edges, I used a ribbon crimper which you can purchase at any craft store, very easy and looks more professional on the final product. The thank you cards were postcards and I put them in a see-through paint can which I bought at Michael's. Michael's craft store is a great store!!! I can spend a day in Michael's and not buy a thing but come home with more ideas for future projects.

These favors do take some time. I did wine bottles for a wedding last year and cutting and pasting the labels for 150 bottles took many hours of work but in the end I think it's worth it. They are personalized, they are made with love and it shows.