Wedding wish jars tutorial

For the wedding my niece wanted wish jars, the idea was that everyone would write a wish and place it in a jar hanging from a tree.  We tried ribbons and silk flowers but the jars were cute but not what the bride wanted,  So we tried wire wrapping.  The first one I tried making a canning jar type of wrap but that took to long and was overly complex.  So I went back to try again and this is what we decided on.

Image Nixon Wong Photography

How to wire wrap a jar.

Finished jar.

Step 1: Take a piece of wire, I used 20 gauge Zebra wire.  Start with pliers and bend the wire around one arm of the pliers creaing a loop.  Work off the spool to save wire.

Step 2 : Keep wrapping a spiral with the pliers or change to a wire straighting tool.  The straightening tool won't leave marks on the spiral. Keep wrapping the spiral, until it is one quarter to one third the size of the bottom of the jar.  But make it large enough to hold the jar inside the wire wrapping.

Making the spiral

Finished spiral.

Step 3: Now bend the wire nearly straight up.  Hold the spiral to the bottom of the jar and start bending the wire around the jar.  Keep wrapping until the wire is to the edge of the jar lid.  Wrap the wire half way around the jar edge.  This will give the wrap stability.

Wrapping wire around jar.

Wrap at edge of jar lid.

Step 4: Bend wire at straight up from the jar edge.  Take time now to make sure that the wrapping is tight and that the spiral is supporting the jar bottom.

Make hanging loop.

Step 5: Bend wire into loop to hang the bottle from. leave about three inches of wire below the loop. This is for closing the loop with a wrap.  Cut wire.  If you want a charm on the wire wrap add it to the loop.

Cut wire with charm added.

Step 6:  Bend the cut wire end 90 degrees.  Hold the two wires together with pliers and then wrap the cut end around the bottom of the loop wire.  At this point it is easier to wrap without the jar.  Also be careful not to drop any charms while closing the loop.

Starting the wire end wrap.

Finished closure.

Step 7:  Place the jar back ino the wire wrap, it may need to be tightened again.  Hang the bottle on a tree like we did or if you make a small loop it would make a nice pendent.

Wish jars on tree for wedding guests.

If you found this interesting lease leave me some feedback.

Snow

Two days after I arrived I woke up to a blanket of white fluffy snow.  I went out immediately and took pictures from the front stairs.  I only started looking at the pictures today and found one to be a shot of a lifetime.  These pictures have only been reduced in size, no other editing was done.

I love this picture the stark snow and the bright flag, definitely a once in a lifetime shot!

Back from the trenches

After recovering from carpel tunnel we started in on the wedding,  Of course by this time I had gone to the dollar store in Solvang five or six times buying fabric.  I purchased nearly thirty yards of white crepe, twenty yards of purple satin, fifty yards of purple tule and a bolt of purple satin that was a gift from a friend and some odds and ends.  So we were ready fabric wise anyway. The bride didn't want anyone to know what the wedding was to look like so she asked us not to post images online.  She did get married Saturday April 21st.

At first the bride wanted a nice wedding without flowers.  They went with the "journey" theme.  Starting out on the great adventure that is marriage.  They decided on a 1940's look to the event, so a train theme emerged.  So the invitations were tickets one for the wedding and the other for the reception.  They were designed by my niece and my sister bought lovely purple folders to send them in.  That took several days to finish up mostly because of the lack of time for the ceremony.  We worked all weekend putting the invitations together.  Many thanks to everyone for their hard work.  The total for the invitations including the postage was less than a dollar each.  About 200 were mailed.

Invitations

At this point we had less than three week to pull a wedding together!  I was really worried that no one would come because of the late invitations and the bride's cousin was getting married the day before.  Keep reading the blog to see if we survived!