Monday, February 24, 2014

Review: Personalized Glass Charms From Everlasting Crafting

A Bride On A Budget received these items for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

I'm a big fan of personalized items. It just makes things more personalized.

I know, I know. That's like defining a word with the word. It doesn't make sense. But that sentence above, it really does.

It's like the difference between giving someone a gift card versus cash for a birthday. Cash seems like you totally forgot and just opened your wallet and threw what you had inside into a card. A gift card seems like you thought about the person and picked up a gift card to their favorite store.

Personalized items are the same. If I am giving you a gift with your name on it, it's because I bought it specifically for you (or you happen to have the same name as someone who I actually bought it for and this is a great coincidence).

So -- fair warning -- if you are in my bridal party: Stop reading. Or, if you continue on, act surprised when you see what will be waiting for you in a few months.

personalized-wine-charms

I was lucky to get a chance to check out personalized glass charms from Everlasting Crafting.

Our colors are eggplant, lilac, and silver, and Theresa was able to make these charms to exactly match our colors. The letters are silver as are the flowers, some of the girl's beads are a dark purple and some are light. If you look closely, the ribbon of the bag actually matches the beads on the charm.

The charms are only 99p if you are in the UK or $1.65 if you're in the US, plus postage. That includes the entire charm, regardless of how long someone's name is.

personalized-wine-charms

What I love is you can choose the shaped bead in either hearts, stars, or flowers. I figured hearts made sense for a wedding, but I wanted this to be something my bridesmaids could use at any time. I went with flowers and I couldn't be happier.

For the colors of the beads, you can choose from 20 color choices. And for the bags, you have a choice of 14 colors. You can check out the full color list here. A variety of choices will make it easy for you to match these to your wedding colors. And, if you don't like the silver letters, you can choose white ones instead.

The charms are gorgeous in person. The photo doesn't do them justice. All the beads are really shiny so they definitely pop. The wire the beads are on is sturdy, so you don't have to worry about it bending out of shape, but it's really flexible too so you are able to wrap the charm around a wine glass and close it with ease.

I actually did use these to designate my bridesmaids' wine glasses on the morning of our wedding at the morning mimosa bar I set up for them.

personalized-wine-charms

Charms are made to order and there's no minimum order -- and no maximum order either. At this price, you could actually purchase one for all your guests as their favors and have them at their seats.

Everlasting Crafting makes a few other items too, like charms for angel babies and christening bracelets. You can head to see the brand on Facebook to see additional photos of items she has made.

BRIDAL BABBLE: If you were to make these, what beads would you have selected?

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Review: Personalized Cutting Board From Urban Farmhouse

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

We cook all the time here. I don't mean dinner a few nights a week, I mean we make every meal at home. As I'm typing this, Pete is actually making smoothies in the blender.

Our registry was filled with a ton of kitchen items, everything from a blender/food processor to pepper grinders to a mortar and pestle.

We got the majority of what we asked for and something we didn't: bamboo cutting boards. We actually had two already so that's why we didn't register for any, but we got a three pack. Of course we kept it. Who doesn't love bamboo cutting boards?

We're actually sort of obsessed with them over here.

Speaking of bamboo cutting boards, we got a chance to check out a personalized bamboo cutting board from Urban Farmhouse.

bamboo cutting board

Urban Farmhouse will pretty much engrave everything. You can get personalized mason jar mugs, flasks, and baseball bats. You can also purchase a wooden guest book (which is gorgeous and I'm kind of obsessed with it).

If you head over to the Urban Farmhouse etsy page, you can see 20-something pages worth of items available for sale. But for now, we're going to focus on the personalized cutting board.

The board is great. You can choose two first names, one last name, and a date and they will be engraved onto the bamboo board. The date would be printed under the last name on the board. We went without a date and just one name, but if you were going for a wedding gift idea, two names and a wedding date would make sense.

bamboo cutting board

The board arrived and I immediately started looking at the engraving. There have been times I've ordered engraved items and they look "unfinished." There are splinters you have to pull off. This is not the case with the cutting board. Everything was engraved and cleaned up perfectly. There wasn't any splinters or sawdust to brush away.

The backside is blank except for the name of the company and its web address on the back. So, if you're worried about cutting in the engraving and ruining it, you can use the flat backside to chop and the engraved front side to display.

To be honest, I haven't chopped on this exact cutting board (it's a gift), but it feels like our other boards. You will end up with slice marks in them, so it won't look perfect forever. That's why I suggest using the backside, especially since you'll have this for a while. Bamboo is really sustainable, which is why we have so much of it in our kitchen. Plus, it just looks really nice.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What would you engrave on yours?

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Review: Wine Bottle Glasses From Refresh Glass

A Bride On A Budget received the items below for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. Probably more than one person should, but, arguably, probably less than most people do.

And what I see a lot of are wine bottle crafts. I've actually done a few wine bottle crafts myself. There was the glitter wine bottle centerpieces we used for our engagement party and the twine-wrapped wine bottles.

If I do a craft, I leave the wine bottle whole. I've seen the tutorial many times about how to cut a glass bottle with string, nail polish remover, and fire. I'm not MacGyver. I'm not trying that. But I love the way glasses from glass look.

If you're the same way, you're in luck.

refresh glass review

Refresh Glass will actually do this for you.

But not with some random bottles that someone picked from the trash at the local bar. No, you can actually have them make them from the wine bottles from your wedding reception.

How amazingly sweet is that?

refresh glass review

I don't even have the right words to explain how amazing I think that keepsake is.

The process is pretty simple. You purchase the Refresh Memories Kit, which includes: six Custom Etched – 12oz glasses; six Custom Etched – 16oz glasses; one Personalized Reusable Wooden Box. two Personalized Cork Key Chains; and any Salvageable Wine Labels.

After you purchase, you will receive the necessary packaging to mail 16 bottles to the company (personally, I would assign someone the task of accumulating the 16 bottles for you. I wouldn't want to grab a bottle of red wine in my white wedding dress ... only to find out someone left a sip inside, a sip that could fall onto your dress and ruin it).

When the bottles are received, they are turned into glasses, etched with whatever you would like them to say, paired with two cork keychains, and mailed back to you with a personalized wooden box.

refresh glass review

These came in the mail and I opened them and said, "Wow." Aloud. To myself. I was that impressed.

The glasses I received are beautiful. They have such character to them because they're not all exactly uniform. Since different wine bottles are different colors, your glasses will reflect that.

I ran my fingers around the edge and there aren't any sharp edges, so you don't have to worry about taking a sip and cutting your lip.

And you can sip anything in these. Sure, you can drink wine in them (but I don't think filling a 16oz. glass with wine is the best idea). You can use them for tea, water, cocktails, whatever you like. I would say these are dishwasher safe because they are made from glass, but I can't find that anywhere on the website, so use your best judgement.

refresh glass review

I'm absolutely in love with the idea that you can have this amazing keepsake from your wedding, and in such a classy way. If you told someone you wanted to save pieces of 12 wine bottles from your reception, they would call you a hoarder. But if you have a dozen glasses from that special day, that's a beautiful thing.

The Refresh Memories Kit is $350, which may not, however, fall into your budget if you are paying a bunch of deposits for every aspect of your wedding.

But what if you want these, but only because you don't want to make them from a Pinterest tutorial? What if you like them but your wedding has passed and you're not planning on stocking 16 empty wine bottles in the closet?

You can actually purchase the glasses starting at $24 (that's for the plain glasses that you can personalize. The limited edition mustache glasses start at $40 for a four pack).

refresh glass review

I know what you're thinking: What a great concept but what happens to the rest of the bottles? Do they become waste?

Absolutely not.

In fact, you can actually purchase tops and top accessories to mount them and turn them into candles. If you are interested in those other Pinterest projects, you can purchase a bag of 50 wine corks. You can purchase full bottles that have been split in half, bottles that have the tops turned inside and have been turned into planters, or carafes. 

There are a lot of products available, which just blows my mind. There was a time when people looked at wine bottles and saw a bottle that held your wine. And then there was a time the people at Refresh Glass looked at wine bottles and saw a world of possibilities.

BRIDAL BABBLE: What is your favorite wine-bottle craft item?