I wanted to make gifts for all of the guests attending my nephew’s wedding..
I bought the shadow box frame at Hobby Lobby. I couldn’t find my specific 11 x 14″ black frame on their website, but did find a similar 12 x 12 white frame. Here’s the link: https://tinyurl.com/y4wjuhfg   I thought it would be fun (since the wedding is in an aquarium,) to give the wedding couple wishes, and put them in little bottles (like a message in a bottle that you’d find at sea) and we’d put them in a shadow box. That way, they have a nice keepsake from their guests, and the guests get a personalized pen to keep.  The pen has the name of the bride and groom, the date of their wedding, and two entwined wedding rings engraved on the side…
I started by having my friend Sherry (from Canada) make the vinyl letters for the frame, and then another local friend, Cora, helped by adhering the vinyl for me. I wasn’t sure I could do that without ruining the project, and Cora has a lot of experience with vinyl…
I bought a lot of things from Aliexpress for this project, and I have the links listed below:
Crystal Diamond Confetti https://tinyurl.com/yy5qb25j I bought Teal, Light Blue and Turquoise, as well as Clear
Quilling Tool: https://tinyurl.com/y6bcvg8h
Personalized pens: https://tinyurl.com/y3hgubow These came so quickly, I was blown away.
Makeup Gold Colored Brush for blending: https://tinyurl.com/y3g25o8b

I started the project by having Rich use his computer to create a heart and write the words I wanted to attach to the front of my hearts. It says “Make a wish for Mike and Melly and put it in the blue bowl. The pen is yours to keep.” I used White Out to remove the black heart that surrounded the words as I couldn’t get the black heart out when using my dies.  I copied the words (without the heart) on Georgia Pacific cardstock. I had eight on each white sheet, and then I used a heart die (I couldn’t find a link to the die I bought) and cut out the hearts with my die cutting Vagabond. I used three different double sided designer papers (two were Stampin’ Up and the third was from Carta Bella and has also been discontinued.) I used a larger heart die to cut the patterned papers, and then took a gold makeup brush and used a Stampin’ Up ink called Crisp Cantaloupe (available on ebay, link: https://tinyurl.com/y66lrnqo) and distressed the ink around the edges of both the white cardstock and the designer papers. I glued them together with glue sticks from the Dollar Tree and then punched a hole near the white heart on the top left side with a 1/4″ round hole punch. I used pearls I bought at the Dollar Tree and colored them with an alcohol marker in blue to match the pens, then attached three in various spots on the white hearts near the words.. I used the extra white paper left from punching out the hearts to cut strips that were about 1/2″ wide and 8 1/2″ long with my paper trimmer. I stamped a peg stamp called Simple Solid Heart, link: https://tinyurl.com/yaur8bf6 with Crisp Cantaloupe ink on the end of the paper strip.
The pens came in a black pocket, and I slid the pen into the pocket with the clip still on the outside. I used the hole I’d punched on the hearts to slide through the clip to hold the heart in place, and slid the long paper strip behind the pen so people can pull the slip out and write their wishes on it for the bride and groom…Once they are done writing their wishes, we’ll use the quilling tool to wrap the strip into a tight circle, then use a Glue Dot to adhere the end to keep the strip in a tight circle. We’re then going to put the strip into the bottles I bought from Amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/y44lwqrj along with some small pieces of sea glass my friend Becky gave me. Once the bottles have a message inside, we’ll place them into the memory box and add more of the crystal diamond confetti around the bottles in the box, along with more sea shells I’ve bought at garage sales.   I think the memory box will make a great keepsake, and they can open each bottle at their leisure to read the wishes that their guests have left for them.  The guests will have a nice pen to remember the wedding as well..

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