Love this winter wedding shot at The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge, where the cozy cabins and rustic setting make a great location for a wedding with a homespun feel.

The cozy parlour at Outlook Cabin at the Lodge

Wedding photo by Dave and Peggy Photography

We found this on the lovely Twig and Thistle blog — what a brilliant way to warm up the holidays! Change out the regular marshmallows for complementary colours, flavours and hand-cut gourmet stock for something even more personal.

“I wish I could take credit for this fun little kit but I actually spotted this while shopping at Packaging Specialties, my favorite packaging store here in Seattle. They used clear accetate boxes to wrap up all the necessities for homemade S’mores and I just added a bit of baker’s twine to finish it off. The two bottom boxes measure 3″x3″x2″ and the top one is 2″ square. These would make a sweet guest room gift at a wedding or a nice treat for house guests over the coming holidays. Simply add a coordinating ribbon, roast and enjoy!” Kathleen, Twig & Thistle

Even though none of us had much cookie decorating experience, we all left with three delightful seasonally inspired engagement cookies, a snow-couple’s engagement on a winter’s day, an announcement on a scroll and an engagement ring box, complete with sugar ‘diamond’ — each would work beautifully as a surprise engagement announcement, a save the date or a wedding announcement. We love the idea of leaving a pile of “we’re engaged” cookies out for family and friends to discover over the holidays (or anytime!)

Continue reading the post to get the DIY instruction and tools for your own cookie decorating.

Our tools included pre-baked sugar and gingerbread cookies which Jaclyn had already quickly filed with a zester to achieve straighter edges and a flat top, Royal Icing in both stiff and flood forms (flood just has a little extra water added to the mixture to make it runnier), and little balls of fondant -- we used fondant because we were short on time, but if you are making cookies at home, modelling chocolate tastes better. Also on the table were a rolling pin to flatten and smooth the fondant and two rulers each to put on either side of the fodent and to roll the pin over to achieve a uniform thickness, a small sharp knife for cutting the fondant and a small metal spatula for lifting our items and keeping them flat. Also available were edible sparkle dust and markers to put the final touches on the cookies.This is Karen's fondent rolled out and placed beneith her first sugar cookie, she's marking the four points where she wants to cut it to fit nicely on top, in a minute, she'll roll it into a scroll format and set it aside to dry

This is definitely Jaclyn's handiwork, her cookies were perfect to a T. Here she has outlined her sugar cookie in the stiff Royal icing - nice and steady lines are achieved by not touching the cookie much except to anchor the icing at the corners. She's used two different colours to outline the night sky and the snowy ground as well as her adorable couple. The top had is also made from stiff icing. She is now 'flooding' the back. She's keeping it nice and thick, avoiding the extreme edges which she will fix later by teasing the icing over with a toothpick and she's working fairly quickly. Ideally, she'd let her blue dry as much as possible before flooding with the white to avoid bleeding.

We added tiny drops of white flood to the still-very liquidy blue sky for snow and then used a toothpick to tease them into snowflakes

Carolyne very carefully adding her sugar crystal or "diamond ring" to the inside of the engagement ring box.

Adding the sugar crystal or 'diamond' to the ring.

Almost done! These are Catherine's cookies almost ready to go. At the bottom and the top she just needs to add her fondant banners (once she writes on them) and in the middle she's already finished her fondant, after allowing it to dry and glued it to the cookie by sticking it into the still-wet flood icing.

For a wedding, consider serving biscotti with coffee after dinner and perhaps leave a box at each table once dinner has finished for a little added decor.

The Biscotti Shoppe sells 12* biscotti for $35.00.

*earlier today we noted there were 24 cookies to a box, the total amount of each box hasn’t changed, they’ve just returned to making each cookie a little larger

We were there to see the space but we had also arranged for Fraser to demonstrate his essential bow, something we thought would come in very handy over the holidays. Especially if you’re a person who loves to wrap as much as you like to shop, this is a great DIY for the holidays but also for gift giving in general.

a) Hold the ribbon on the top centre of the gift box with a fish tail remaining long enough for one loop of the bow. Wrap the ribbon around the box, at the cross point turn the ribbon at a 90° angle. b) Wrap around the box bringing the ribbon back to the top of the box. c) Wrap the end of the ribbon over and under the result of (a+b) to form a cross. d) Tie the fish tails in either a loop bow or in a shoelace bow and garnish with trim. For added security, knot the ribbon prior to tying the bow.

Just finished reading Deirdre Kelly’s memoir where she recounts eight highly memorable trips she’s taken to Paris, the city she says has an “impenetrable aura of beauty.” The book is a great holiday read and a super gift for any Parisian-at-heart, especially one who’s engaged; in Fiancée, her sixth chapter, Kelly writes about introducing her beau to the city of light as a test, she writes for the “assurance that he was the One.”

These coffee jackets would also be a gorgeous detail at a wintery wedding, especially if some of your wedding day occurs outside in a snowy winter wonderland!

Materials

Cardstock paper
Printer
Scissors
Glue Gun
Coffee Jacket from local coffee shop
Takeout cups

Search the Internet for pictures of images you can manipulate in a photo-editing program; this project used jewellery but you can use your logo, a photo or your names and date – whatever suits your fancy! Reduce the image to a size no larger than 1.5” tall. Drag and drop to a new document (standard paper size) and place the image in the top centre using landscape layout. You can make two jackets per page by placing a second image about 5” below the first. Print!

Open the jacket from your local coffee shop and trace it over the cardstock with your selected image in the centre. Cut out new jacket and use a high heat glue gun to adhere the jacket together.

Utterly Engaged, issue 004

Links: Photography by Bonnie Tsang, Floral Design & Stylist Fleuretica,
Kelley Lee Gin of Picture Perfect Events, and Eva Chiou of Red Velvet Occasions

Many couples are incorporating handmade projects and touches into their wedding day, it’s a current trend and also a celebratory tradition to infuse one’s personal touch, background or creativity just as many people infuse the holidays with favourite recipes, decor and carefully planned gifts. So, to marry the two potentially stressful but wholly wonderful times, we’re dedicating this week to a handmade holiday wedding of sorts. We’ll have posts right up to, and including Friday that incorporate ideas for DIY projects that work for both Christmas and wedding celebrations, especially winter nuptials and a winter wedding scene from one of Canada’s most idyllic spots for the ultimate homespun winter wedding.

First up, Design*Sponge posted a how-to for these stunning wreaths last week. We think they’d make incredible decor for a winter wedding, both on walls and doors and set atop creamy white linens as seasonally-inspired centrepieces, especially because you can add so many different elements to each one from the succulents they’ve recommended to your flowers to holiday ornaments.