I have to say that I might have had my bridal shower/bachelorette party a bit early - full 3 months before the wedding. At least I thought that it's early, but no one was really surprised, so I guess it's not that uncommon. The other option was to have it right before the wedding, but that seemed like a call for trouble. Not that we got all crazy for it at the end, but just in case we did I didn't want to be all tired for the wedding :).

My maid of honor M. arrived from Maryland on Thursday, and on Friday after work we met up for a Michaels shopping spree. A few years ago M. and I stopped by Beadworks, a store in Harvard Square that sells beads, stones and everything else you need to make your own jewelry. We picked up some stones, made ourselves two necklaces, and started on earrings for me. Next day we had to return to finish making me earrings. And just like that, M. got herself a new hobby. She went back to Maryland, went online, stacked up on the semiprecious stones and started making jewelry. When we were thinking about the bridal shower favors the idea that M. would make for each of the girls a necklace seemed only natural. The week of the bridal shower M. ordered a box of beads online. We decided that a heart necklace would be a very appropriate shower gift and were waiting in anticipation for the box to arrive. It didn't. On Friday, with the shower planned for Saturday it became apparent that we need another plan. This is where Michaels came in. On Friday night we went there after work and after 2 hours we had all we needed to make 10 necklaces. Thank God for Michaels's beads department!

[caption id="attachment_189" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Our shopping cart at Michaels. No, we did not buy the nurse hat, but it was perfect to keep the glass pendants while we were shopping. :)"][][][/caption]

After we got home from Michaels, M. proceeded to make the necklaces. I have to say she is solely responsible for making them and they turned out great! I just made the tags that we put on the pouches with the necklaces. Here are the pictures outlining the process of me making the tags. I did not take pictures of M. making the necklaces because I didn't want to interrupt the magic (or because I was lame - take your pick):

[caption id="attachment_192" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="I cut out a template from a cereal box and traced it repeatedly on a piece of card stock paper."][][][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_191" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I then cut the tags out and stamped them with the stamp I found at Michaels on sale for \$3.5 . In case you can't see, the tags were saying "Limited Edition by ...". I then wrote our names in. "][][][/caption]

The pouches happened to be in my favorite color - dark red, also from Michaels. Gotta love it when your favorite color is "in".

[caption id="attachment_194" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Favors fully assembled, tags and all. Can you see the necklaces inside??"][][][/caption]

By the way, the box with beads and glass hearts that M. ordered online did show up at my doorstep. On Tuesday, 3 days after my bridal shower! Since this meant that M. ended up with \~15 glass hearts she had no use for, we decided that it is a sign that M. should open an Etsy shop and start selling the heart necklaces. :)

Stay turned for the post about another small DIY (another acronym that stands for Do-It-Yourself) project I did for the bridal shower and for the post about the bridal shower followed by bachelorette party extravaganza!

[]: http://ksusha.org/wp-uploads/2010/07/bridal_shower14.jpg []: http://ksusha.org/wp-uploads/2010/07/bridal_shower11.jpg []: http://ksusha.org/wp-uploads/2010/07/bridal_shower12.jpg []: http://ksusha.org/wp-uploads/2010/07/bridal_shower206.jpg