Last Minute Wedding DIYs with Cricut | Name Cards, Bar Menus & an Emotional Bridal Breakdown

What's up? Welcome to vlog. If you guys are new here, my name is Sonali. I am 29 years old. So freaking close to, wow, 30 because next month is my birthday and next month is in a few days. And I'm also getting married in a few days, literally less than two weeks. I think we leave. No, it's less than seven days till we leave to go to Cabo. And I think it might be like 10 days till we get married. Oh my God. You guys. It's been crazy. It's been freaking nuts because F1 just happened here in Austin and it was bigger and better than ever. Like, holy ----. I had never really gotten invited to F1 events. Maybe I got invited to like one or two, but usually in September I'm at a wedding. I think that's why I had never really experienced it. But I noticed that so many more brands are coming during F1. So it was absolutely nuts. Like I feel like every single day for at least five days, there was an event and there was no time to do like. All of the things I needed to do for my wedding. So I've just been pushing it off, procrastinating. Truly, I think I work better under pressure. So, you know, it's not the best, but I do feel like that's true. Gosh, I feel like I have so much to catch you guys up on because I wasn't really like chatting too much in the F1 vlog, which I don't even know if I can edit it. Like I... I'm really struggling with what to prioritize right now because like there's just so much to do. Luckily I finally closed out of my business for a couple of weeks. I think like until November 16th I'm done. I'm still gonna like book here and there because I am like open for business November 16th week so I'll probably be like slow to respond on our mini moon but I'm a photographer here in Austin and I'm very very grateful especially during this wedding planning season. To be self-employed, holy crap, like I could not have done this if I had a full-time job, like God bless the people who also like plan their whole wedding because we do have a full service planner and I'm still, you know, making all the decisions and my dad has been helping out so much, not even just helping out, everyone's joking, it's like his wedding, which I love honestly, like we joke that he's the bridezilla, but. in the best way possible like he's making it all happen and we need someone like him because especially you know going back and forth with negotiations for vendors and just like through the planner me and Ryan aren't super confrontational so very grateful that we have him throughout this whole process he loves to throw events he loves to host so this is like his bread and better I feel like he might have more of the wedding blues than me honestly i've been feeling like i really don't want to leave my house because of all those events like I just feel like I need to like be here and I feel guilty even leaving my house but there is one brand dinner tonight for First Aid Beauty at Guest House which is a really good restaurant here in Austin. Funny thing I went to F1 with Meta which freaking insane. I don't even know if I like debriefed that with you guys but yeah your girl was chosen. They took four creators on Sunday to the actual race day and I was one of them like What the hell is my life? On race day, we were in the guest house experience and honestly the food was like not great because it was catered. You know, like what do you expect really? But I obviously didn't pay for it. I felt bad for like people who were paying for it because like they didn't do a great job even decorating the place. It was like worse than dorm furniture if we're being totally honest here. Like if you're paying for this exclusive Premium experience, like it should look like one. So I was really like thrown off by that. I heard it was a newer thing. So maybe they just need to like work on that next year. I don't know. But we also waited for our food for like almost no more, definitely more than an hour. But yeah so anyways f1 was really fun though and like it was a really cool experience. i did low-key feel guilty because i didn't really know much about f1. actually i didn't know literally anything besides that kim kardashian is dating one of the drivers. um but you know i learned a lot. one thing i'm already regretting you guys is not packing already. like even my mom's like kind of started packing. my sister definitely has. like i I have not started packing and I'm kind of freaking out. I think it's because I'm like trying to procrastinate in my mind because I know that's going to be the death of me. Because literally for a weekend trip, like two-day trip, I will take 24 hours to pack. I don't know what's wrong with me. Like I know that's not normal. So I'm just like a whole week away for my wedding. Yeah, I'm gonna really need to start getting out that suitcase today. Also, we need to figure out if we need to buy more checked bags. We only have four checked bags here, so we need to decide if we need to buy more. I already asked my friend if she had extras that we could just borrow, because I don't know if we'll, like, really ever need, you know, six checked bags, and, like, they're already all in our garage, and our storage is just, like, very minimal in there. Well, I guess not in general, but, you know, with all of our ---- in there. It's minimal. Today, I've been trying to work on some DIYs. I finished my sewing project for my bridesmaids. I'm so excited for them to see it. I made the Japanese knot bags in my last vlog. I took like a whole sewing class. I literally learned how to sew for this. I mean, I knew kind of the basics, definitely not how to like sew a whole Japanese knot bag and like add fringe and feathers to it. So that was a really cool thing to learn. I've definitely became a serial hobbyist throughout this wedding planning bridal era because I got the Cricut, printer like I did all the things and I'm walking out of this with no regrets because now I have all these skills that I could hopefully help out my friends with parties in the future. I think my sister already called dibs on me for a party that she's throwing in the spring which I totally don't mind and I feel like I'm going to like want things to do after the wedding. Like I can already imagine like I'm gonna be so bored in the best way possible. Like I will be chilling after this. It's gonna be amazing. Okay, let's go call my Uber slash Lyft. I think they gave me a transportation code, which is so amazing when brands do this. So I'm gonna go call it. I really went for like a casual look today just because I really do not feel like dressing up. But like this top is really nice. It's from Dish. It's just like looking a little big on me, but I feel like where we're going is a dark place. So you really won't be able to tell. Bangles are Amazon. Thank Earrings are Amazon. And then I did not feel like doing my hair. So I went with an updo, which I didn't even look Look at the back. Is it shitty? You guys can't really even tell me so hopefully it's not shitty. But I just braided it and tried to bun it up somehow and then curled the front two pieces and I think it looks pretty cute. It's our first time you. at Alston as a brand. I wish I was here for longer but I'll need to come back. We recently just launched our practice safe skin campaign. I wish I was here for longer, but I'll need to come back. We recently just launched our Practice Safe Skin campaign. Hello, you guys. I'm not even gonna lie and say it's the morning right now because it's not. It's 2 p.m. But I will say that I got like a big thing done off of my wedding to-do list. It wasn't like a technically a DIY, but it was a video that I had to make and literally just go through years and years of footage. So I've been pretty much just doing that this whole entire morning. So I'm glad I got that finished. It's not like completely done It should be done because I want to add maybe a couple of clips to it. When we get to Cabo, but you'll see what I'm talking about when you see all the videos. And we were supposed to have a call with my dad actually like just now, but he had a last minute. business calls so we're delaying that for now. Every day I'm like no no I'm gonna pack today swear it's gonna happen. Oh my god like it's at least been three days of me like seriously saying that and it's not happened. Like what am I waiting for? I know that it's just gonna be more stressful but like I don't know there's just Other things that I feel like I need to prioritize, but also packing is very important and I think it's the one thing that's stressing me out the most. But also all of my outfits are technically planned, so it's not like I have to just hang out in my closet and try to style a bunch of different outfits. Maybe I do need to do that with accessories for some of the outfits, but two, maybe actually three are coming in today. I did some last minute shopping. I'm stopping. On baby boo, so hopefully those work out. I actually saw one of my influencer friends wearing one of the dresses Um on like last saturday in brown and I mean she does have fake boobs not to call her out They looked amazing. So I don't know if my boobs are gonna look that great But that's what boob tape is for and I got it in white. So hopefully that works out and I just want to like make sure I have You know, comfy options, like I obviously don't want to be uncomfortable the whole weekend and a lot of my outfits are like corset vibes, so, you know, that's not going to be super comfortable. I'm just hoping that when I get to Cabo, I will be as cool as a cucumber, like I'm going to be chilling. Right now, not so much, not going to lie. Also, last minute when I was putting together this freaking video, I was just sobbing. sobbing. and then this morning i sobbed. it's like every other hour i'm just crying. it's not like bad. it's not really even like stress tears to be honest. it could be maybe subconsciously. but it's more like wow i can't believe this is really happening. like how is this already here? how are me and ryan getting married after so long? and just like the fact that like i was watching videos from maybe like three, no our third year anniversary. And I was like saying how I was really old at that time and I'm just like looking back and I'm like oh my god we're not old but like we're older we're like freaking 10 years older 10 plus years older than that and I'm saying we were old then we're just weird like time flies you know like Funny story to lighten up the mood, like last week I was trying to finalize some playlists for our wedding and literally half the time I was like plugging my nose because it was like helping me to not cry. Like I would just hear literally like songs from John Summit. It wasn't even anything sappy, like the whole wedding weekend is going to be very hype, like great music and I was sitting there like needing to cry hearing those songs. It is the weirdest thing. I feel so emotional right Right now, but also. Yes, I am getting my period today, so that would make sense, that would make sense, okay. At least I can have something to justify it, because I feel like an absolute lunatic, like wanting to cry every single second, because like usually on my period, like I'm not this emotional, like yes, I'm a little emotional. But I can't really tell, you know, randomly I was going to like curl my hair to make me feel better because like I've been in bed all day and I just feel, you know, a little not great about myself. So I was like, oh, let me just do my hair, make me feel a little bit better to like vlog and just be in content. But I am actually getting a facial in like two hours. So I couldn't even put on makeup. And then tomorrow I'm working out like super hard. So I'm going to wash my hair. I'm, like, curling. My hair is actually the dumbest waste of time. And there is really, truly no time to waste right now. Like, my gosh, I still have some DIYs to do. So, let me, like, walk you through my DIYs. I need to do our bar menus, which I've also been putting off. But I have a feeling, like, it's going to be really easy. I just, like, need to design the paper that's actually sitting in the bar menu. If that doesn't work out, like, we really don't even need it. Like, I don't give a ---- at this point. Like. It's just a trendy thing, and I doubt people are going to be like, ooh, let me see what I can order. People already know what they want. Like, it's... Most of the time, it's like a freaking skinny margarita or a tequila soda. No one's ordering these elaborate drinks at weddings when I'm at the bar and I'm hearing them. But I do want to finish my aprons that I'm embroidering our crest on, and then our server napkins, which I did finish, but I wanted to add a logo, so if I have time, I will add another one of our crests on there. And really that's like, um, all I have to do DIY wise, but there are a bunch of other tasks. I want to write some cards and like just random little things like that. But obviously the DIY stuff I need to be taking place in my home while I have all the materials around me. So I actually did start to make the name cards yesterday. I think I put it in a video of that and I Literally asked chat to like create this like shell cutout. I stuck it into Cricut Design Space and I'm just gonna like have my Cricut write out their names but this is the first time I'm successfully using that pen tool on my Cricut. So last night I actually overnighted some thicker pens because it was coming out to be really streaky and I didn't love the look of it so I'm really hoping that this thicker pen will help that because everyone online like theirs is filled in So nice and like really really white but mine is like Like not that white. So I don't know if it was just like that one pen that I was using, cause I hadn't used it in so long or what. So hopefully this works and we can just like knock out these name cards. Let's go see. It's funny cause it looks so good on the camera, but it just like looks a little bit streaky, you know, up close and personal. But this is the Jelly Roll pen that I originally was using. So it says eight right here. And I thought I could try out the 10. I'm really hoping this works you guys. If you do have a Cricut, I highly recommend this pen adapter. I did try it without it and it does not work, so pop it in there. You want it to be a little bit higher than the paper, not hitting it all the way. I also heard you can put quarters to like map out exactly what the perfect height is for it, but let's try. I feel like that's too high. There we go. Let's try that. So much better. I don't think it really actually did that much better. Okay this is the one I just did and now it looks a little bit like smushed and not as clean. So actually I think there was a couple of offsets that I added to this one. Maybe I'll just take them away. All right guys I think I did it. I mean that's probably the best it's gonna look at least for now. So it was a point no negative 0.015 offset inside. The lettering, if you guys were curious if you guys have a Cricut, maybe you would know what that means. The little black lines inside are filling it in and since it is a bigger pen than the first one I used. It works a little bit better to fill it in. So I now have to do that for 140 something names, which is going to be super fun, but we'll get it done. I'm going to walk you through exactly how I made these named shell cards. So first you're going to go into chat and have it create this PNG image for the base of the shell. So you can just remove the background in Canva, or there's also a way that you can remove the background. in the Cricut Design Space. upload that image and then we're going to duplicate the shell as many times as you want. i tried to fit as many as i could on this 12x12 paper. it should default to print then cut but you need to change it to just a basic cut. you're going to pick your font and then place it right inside the shell and while you have it selected make sure you go up to the top left corner and change it to pen. you'll see that it's just an outline and we want it to be completely filled in with our gel pen. So we're going to have to create an offset. Definitely make sure it's a negative number. I tried negative 0.009. I tried negative 0.015. And both of them kind of like worked differently. When I had like longer names and I had to make them a little bit smaller so just kind of play around with it. You can also add multiple offsets if your font is a lot bigger and you need it to be filled in more. Just make sure you are selecting the original draw layer of the text. When you are creating another offset, each shell should have three layers. At least for me, I have the offset, the original text layer, and the shell. You're going to select all three at one time and then press attach at the bottom. And then you'll select each shell as a whole and attach all of them. This is going to make sure that the placement of the shells you created doesn't move. Once you're done, just hit make and then put them. paper on your mat and send it into the Cricut and let it do its thing. But now I'm going to show you how I had to do this all for 140 something guests. So I first went in and detached all of the shells. Then I deleted all of the offsets and then I referenced the seating chart to get the names right because I'm just doing it by tables. Once I changed all of the names, I went back in and added all of the offsets and then I just reattached all of the shells together so again Again, they stay on the same page. I'm selecting medium cardstock and make sure you press more for your pressure. All right, I've done many trials. I think I'm ready to do the real thing. Hope that it goes well. Okay, let's see. Oh my gosh. I mean, the white writing already looks so much better. Let's do the final reveal. Oh no. I just hope these are easy to like. Get out because I actually redid the PNG to make there be a lot less cutouts and like thicker brown edges because if it's too thin. Shut up you guys. I cannot believe I did this to be honest. I mean you know with the help of chat of course but like oh I need to not bend them. Let me just bend this. Oh my gosh so much easier. They look so good. I'm freaking out. Okay this is I need like a trash can right under me because it's gonna get real messy. I don't know if it was out of focus this whole time but it's on a dark brown paper. I got the paper sourced from the paper mill. I'll try to remember to put the paper link in the description box if you guys want to buy it. It does look really black and dark but I swear in person it's like a dark. Really nice brown cardstock. It isn't like super thick. Like I'll try to bend it so you guys can see, but it obviously is, you know, a little bit thicker than regular printer paper. So I'm fine with that, but like seriously so happy about the pen writing. I finally figured it out. What I'm going to do is go table by table and already on this one I had 10 people. 10 people is at every table. There are serpentine tables, so I don't know how we're gonna, you know, divide and conquer, But anyways, I think I have like... 15, 17 tables. I need to check, but we got a long ways to go, but I'm so happy with the design. I think they turned out really nice. Let's get vulnerable, shall we? You guys, this is my office right now. It's horrible. It's a mess. My mind is a mess. It just sucks because I wish it was clean and then maybe I would feel better but nothing in me like wants to clean has time to clean and I'm just like I need this space to like, you know do my arts and crafts like I need the space so Hopefully later tonight. I can try to clean up a little bit more in that way I'll be a little less stressed out, but I mean, you guys, I'm so excited about these name cards. They look so good. The con about these is that I think that one page took over 15 minutes to do, and that is also why I did less cutouts on the shelves, because I thought it would cut down on time, but honestly... I don't think it was by much so tonight I'm planning on doing those and maybe trying to multitask and also do embroidery because embroidery you kind of have to like let it do its thing for again like multiple minutes like some designs take 18 minutes to do the server napkins took like an hour to do was it an hour or 35 minutes I can't really remember the aprons are 18 minutes but like that is so much longer than I ever thought embroidery took and I am doing it on a single needle machine, so maybe that's why. But I can officially just switch over to embroidery because I'm done with the sewing. Did I show it in this last vlog? I can't remember. Let me show you. I mean, how cute! You guys, like, I sewed these with my hands. Shout out to my embroidery and sewing teacher, Kara. She's in Austin. You can find her at All Brand Sewing, and it is the best money I've ever spent because now I can be able to sew. And, like, I guess I'll probably, I would love to take more classes with her and like sew more things. Definitely after the wedding, I think I'm going to take up that and really get into that. I just think it's really cool to like be able to like sew your own things and like imagine creating like a topper dress. That would be so sick. So now that I got this down, like I feel like the world is my oyster because these were not super simple. Like obviously the last, the last three that I did, I got in the groove and I was like, okay, I got this. The first four. Mm-mm. Like it was scary, it was scary times. I ruined at least three. Like I literally got all the way, maybe 80% and realized I did the whole thing wrong. And I was like. Cool. So we scrapped those, but I'm just so happy with the way they've turned out and I hope my bridesmaids love them. I'm actually headed out to get a facial at my favorite place, Skin Farm. I go to the original one here in Austin, which is in Bee Caves. I totally forgot that I scheduled it during traffic hours, so I probably should leave a little bit early and bring a snack for the road because I need to eat something. I think I need a little snacky. A couple blogs back, I told you guys everything I did to my face. For like Botox and I also did a microneedling session for the first time ever and it was very interesting It actually had like a lot more downtime than I personally would like Because like I think it took me a week to feel finally like I can go makeup less But this is what my skin looks like right now Like it's not horrible, but it definitely feels like dry and just I want a little glow to it. So I think we're gonna do Crap I forgot what the facial is. I'm going to save it and do like a whole skin prep, beauty prep video for YouTube. So don't worry, I got you. I'm going to tell you everything. But for Botox, I got like a Nefertiti necklace just so that jawline really shows through. I got forehead Botox, which was perfect because I feel like it's like now hitting. We kind of wanted to schedule that out so that it would be a little bit after peak. For the Botox so that I could kind of still feel that movement in my eyebrows like I didn't want to not be able to make my facial expressions. I feel like I am very expressive with my eyebrows usually so I just didn't want to feel frozen. Like I honestly the first few times I got Botox I did not like the feeling but I love the way it looks. Like, hello, my forehead looks so shiny and I do have some wrinkles, honestly, when it wears off, like I'm getting those lines in my forehead. Honestly, in my eyes, it's just because my skin's really, really dry. But yeah, so let's go get our facial and relax a little bit because I'm a little on edge today. Like. But I told you guys I'm getting my period so we're just gonna blame it all on mother nature. I have not even left my house today. It's almost 4 p.m. That's weird because I always usually go to the gym in the morning so at least I feel like you know I did something in the morning. Today I was just like I need a little rest day. I'm gonna work out tomorrow though. I didn't even realize it was raining all today. So good thing I didn't curl my hair. I would have been pissed. There was like no reason to curl it and it would have just gotten rained on. We're gonna do a Wedding, golden fusion today for Sonali. I'm so excited. We're gonna make you glowy and hydrated for your wedding. I need that. I feel like ever since the temperature dropped, it's been- Oh, dry skin. Yes. And I already have such dry skin. We are gonna make you glowy and hydrated. Thank you. Exciting. Your setup is insane. I'm obsessed. Sometimes I'm, like, so embarrassed because I'm just like, this is a lot. I like it better than his, like, tux. Love. And are you spending a lot of time in Cabo after? Are you going on a honeymoon? Just two days. Okay. We're just doing a two-day honeymoon and then coming back. I just feel like it's going to be a lot. Or are you going on Tuesday and then leaving the next Wednesday? Okay. Like, there's so many, like, little events that my dad planned. A couple hours later and I'm fully not numb. It's just such a like uncomfortable, like feeling your whole face is numb. And she did do my neck, which feels very nice, but that was also numb. So glad I'm back to normal. But like, look at this glow. That's insane. She told me not to wash my face tonight. Just put on like the recovery lotion. So I'm about to do that. And I'm still doing a lot of DIYs. I probably won't be in bed for another two hours. It's like already 10 30, but. You know, trying to get it all done. Time to show you guys how I made these incredible bar menus. I first created this whole wallpaper-like graphic in ChatGPT. We went back and forth. I kind of gave them my colors and the vibes that I wanted. It's very White Lotus-y. I love it. These are all my printer settings. I will link my Cricut and my printer in the description if you guys are curious about my model. I'm printing on a very large-sized paper, but always make sure it's on the borderless option. And then I click fill entire paper. And then here are the other settings. I also print from my Mac's preview. I've tried to print from Adobe Acrobat, but sometimes it just does not work out the way I need it to. This is the paper we're printing on today. It is a printable canvas. There's a white side and then an off-white side, and the off-white side is the one you want facing up so that your printer prints. the pattern on it. it is so high quality. the look and the feel, it feels exactly like fabric. once that's printed out, you'll move into Cricut Design Space to cut out your chipboard. i'm also going to link the chipboard that i used because i bought the wrong one at first and i wanted it to be a lot thicker so that the bar menu was able to stand up on its own. you can read on the screen my dimensions. you can make these as large or small as you want. once you click make at the top right corner, i would highly recommend to bring this whole chipboard layout down. oh i I also attached all three of these like I did the shells. So yeah, I just bring it down into the middle because this is such a thick material. It will sometimes just cut a little bit off if it's really close to the side. I used a strong grip mat and I also put masking tape around the chipboard. And then I just sent that through my Cricut. I did put a different blade in here. I believe it was the knife blade, but your Cricut will tell you which one you need. It says it was going to do 12 passes of cuts. but it only got to eight and then it gave me an error which was weird but fine because it worked anyways and it popped right out. take your printable canvas and then fold it right in half. this is the glue i used. it's like a book binding glue. i put it right in the center crease and then put the smallest little chipboard piece right on that glue. i did use my stacked weights to weigh these down but you can use whatever you need. just put a little pressure on it. for the two chipboards on the sides you want to make sure there's a little bit of space between the middle and the The sideboards, this way the book can actually fold in half. cut a good amount of extra fabric off on the sides and then i cut all the corners so that it folds really nicely. make sure the chipboards are perfectly in the middle horizontally so that there's enough room on each top and bottom to fold over the fabric. then we're taking a second sheet of that patterned printable canvas and i'm being really picky because i want the middle to line up. perfectly. i was using a rotary knife because i thought it'd be faster but honestly it kind of looked a little janky on the sides because i could not get the line straight so i highly recommend to just cut it out with some scissors. if your pattern is not symmetrical it shouldn't be that hard to like line up everything. now for the cardstock inside of the bar menu, i love this textured paper. i used it on so many of my bachelorette diys. i used chat and canva to help me map out what it was going to say and to also make a cartoon character of my dog. it was so cute. And this is super easy. You're going to do. Do print then cut on your Cricut and it just cuts it out in a perfect rectangle and then just glue down both of the sides. To make it look extra fancy, you can add these metal corners. I highly recommend to not glue the corners of the paper down until you do this step. I did it the wrong way and it kind of looked wonky and I ended up having to use hot glue just to make sure that they stuck. Here's the final product of the bar menus. In a perfect world, I would have put like a gold foiling on the front that says like our last name or something, but I think they turned out really great and I will of course link all of the DIY materials in the description box. I hope you guys enjoyed this vlog and we are in Cabo. As you can see, we're at our hotel room, so I'm getting ready to celebrate some of the first events. Definitely look out for content on Instagram and TikTok. Go follow me over there and I'll see you guys in my next video. Bye.