Saturday, May 28, 2011

State Fair Bridal Shower - Name Tags



I think when you have a big bridal shower with several different "branches" of your family tree, it's always nice to have name tags. This shower involved the Bride's family from both her mother and father's sides, as well as friends from college and childhood, and there were so many guests it would have taken an hour to introduce everyone, so name tags were perfect. In keeping with the State Fair theme, I echoed the invitations with smaller rosette ribbons:

But THIS TIME instead of piecing them together, I cut them all out using my Cricut! I got one from my mother in law over a year ago, but haven't had much of a chance to use it until now, so I am having fun exploring the options. I have a hard time judging what each cartridge will do just from the pictures on the back of the boxes, but I just discovered if you go to the Cricut site you can click on each cartridge and many view the handbook in a PDF document, so you can see ALL the capabilities! Whoo hoo!

It was in searching like this that I came across the "Plantin Schoolbook" cartridge, and it's many award ribbon patterns. PERFECT!!!! Of course, this cartridge is not available for purchase and was only distributed as part of a bundle with the machine (and I wasn't buying another machine!). Ashttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif luck would have it, someone on my local Craigslist had one for sale, and I picked it up immediately!



I used a rainbow of papers from my existing stash and the Roly Poly setting, and cut 6 from each 12" x 12" sheet of paper. I used the same paper punch to cut the centers from white cardstock as I did for the invitations, and a glue stick to attach.



We laid them on a table in the entry way with markers and pins, and guests could choose their own color. We left one as an example so people would know to write their name AND relation to the bride, which really helps people to mingle and socialize. We even marked the back of two name tags with a star, and those guests won a door prize (pie!).



The Cupcake had so much fun she knocked herself out:



Click on the "StateFair" label to see more pics & posts about this party, and stay tuned for additional pics & projects!

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