Gettin' Crafty: The Bachelorette Party

When I look back at the year 2013, it will without a doubt be remembered as the year that all of my friends decided to get married. I mean, I had a few people that I'm close with tie the knot in my early to mid twenties, but not nearly as many as some of my other friends it seems. I've seen planners with every summer weekend jam packed with showers, dress shopping trips, rehearsal dinners, bach. parties, ceremonies, and every other wedding related event you could imagine, but somehow I had managed to avoid the insanity. While everyone else I knew was getting fitted for tuxes and taffeta covered monstrosities, I was mostly just hanging out at my place having weekend long Battlestar Galactica marathons.


And loving every fracking second of it.

That's all ended now though. In the past year I've had 8 friends get engaged, been asked to stand up in 2 of the ceremonies, and been invited to join on one destination bachelor party (more on that to come).

Now don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled about all of these engagements, and I'm honored to be a part of the preparation and celebration in any way I'm needed...but, let's be real, I get exhausted if I have go to go the post office and the grocery store in the same day (I just did something, and now I have to do another thing?!). The responsibility of it all is making me seriously consider just not having friends anymore.

My first wedding related event was last weekend. I was invited to my friend, and old roommate, Amanda's bachelorette party. I was thrilled to be asked to join, and even more thrilled to be experiencing my first party bus (with a stripper pole...I mean come on)! It wasn't until about four days before the party, though, that I remembered bachelorette parties are gift events. I'm going to be expected to do more than show up and embarrass the family name (or make them proud, considering it's the "Roberts" family name that I carry).

I racked my brain trying to think of what I could bring. I've never been to one of these things, but from what I've seen on TV, something lacy, vibrating, or alcoholic is the standards gift. Other than my uncanny (and ultimately useless) talent for unhooking a bra through a shirt, I know nothing about lingerie, so that was out. I was pretty sure the vibrating gift was being handled by someone else, so that left booze (which is really more in my comfort zone anyway).

As I'm always now looking for ways to work my life into a blog post, I decided to do a bachelorette party gift on a budget post. I'd seen a Pinterest project that I'd been wanting to try that would be perfect, but it meant I'd be working with possibly the most volatile and dangerous of all craft supplies.

Glitter.

The instructions are fairly simple. Coat the base of the glass with Mod Podge, add glitter, allow to dry, spray on protective sealant. I decided to go with martini glasses (because it just seemed more bachelorette-y). I'd pair them up with a bottle of drink mix and a few little bottles of liquor. I originally planned to get the glasses from a thrift store, before I remembered that this wasn't a bachelorette party for a hobo (I totally plan on doing this again with some wine glasses for myself, and will be buying them from the thrift store, but it seemed super tacky for gifting purposes). I was going to do bright pink glitter, a bottle of cosmopolitan mix, and tiny bottles of Kinky pink vodka. 

As I was buying supplies is occurred to me that I was making these according to what I would want, and hadn't even bothered to check on Amanda's favorite color (bad friend). After a few text messages, the color was changed to lime green, the drink mix to appletini, but I already had bought the Kinky (so that color scheme was f#%!ed).

I was almost a little disappointed by how easy the whole process was. I'm concerned that people won't be interested in reading about my life if it's not a hot damn mess. Other than the fact that my kitchen is literally covered in green glitter (the box I used to contain the mess didn't do shit), it was a relatively painless process. I did one coat of Mod Podge and glitter, but it seemed to look a little patchy, so after it dried I added another which helped a lot.

I SUPER overestimated the amount of glitter I'd need.

The only hiccup I ran into was when applying the sealant. The instructions stressed the importance of doing this in a well ventilated open area. I considered taking it down to my parking lot, but then I thought of all of the trips I'd have to take up and down the stairs for the repeated coats and quickly decided against it. My stuffy tiny little kitchen would probably be fine if I lay down some garbage bags to protect the floor. I mean it's not like I have any solid evidence that the kitchen isn't well ventilated (oh yeah...). 

I survived with a few less brain cells and a hellvua headache, but it was worth it. How adorable are these things (the glass stems mimicking the shape of the drink mix was a super happy accident)?!

You may remember the original theme for this blog was going to be "Bachelorette party Gift on a budget," but I'm pretty sure I didn't save any money at all by the time I bought all the crap needed for this (holy cow glitter is expensive!). Now that I have all of the supplies for it though, I want to glitter the shit out of everything I own. My current idea is to do that Pinterest fan project where you paint each of the blades a primary color and then you have a rainbow fan when you turn it on, but I'd do it with glitter. The explosion of glitter that would no doubt happen every time the fan gets turned on is the only thing stopping me (and also the only thing fueling my obsession with the idea).



I had planned on doing a whole section on the events of the Bachelorette Party, but it can all really just be summed up by this picture (taken shockingly early in the night).

Shit, Becky.