But Will Gramma Like It?

My wedding is just days away and I really miss my blog!  I just don't have an ounce of free time!  But I thought I'd take a quick minute to share another of my favorite wedding DIY projects.

I was visiting my Grampa one day.  My Gram passed away in 2008 and left behind a box that said, "Do Not Touch", which, of course we've all touched since then.  I was digging through the box MAD because some dirty rat took her wedding dress out of the box.  I loved it and always thought that if I got married, I'd love to copy it. She and Grampa married in 1955 and the full skirt and sweetheart necklines were popular then.  I love that look.  Plus that dress looked perfect on her and I have her figure so, surely, it'd look perfect on me. 

So I was talking out loud to my late grandmother, telling her how mad I was that her dress was gone when I stumbled upon this:

I may not have my Gram's dress...but I do have some of her wedding pictures and I recognized this instantly.  It was her cake topper!!  But remember how I said that she was married way back in 1955...

....yea.  The thing was pretty nasty.

Ew!  The base was plaster and must've sat right on the cake.  It was all brown and there were clumps that I could scrape off of the bottom - either 57 year old cake crumbs or 57 year old plaster bits.  I couldn't even tell which.  And the lace and flowers had yellowed as well.  Who'd want to eat cake with that on top? 

And yet, I  loved the idea of incorporating something of my grandmother's.  I decided to try and pop the wirework off of the plaster base, spray paint it white,and glue it onto a new base made out of a food-safe item, like a saucer or something. 

But with one twist of the wire....


Oh no!  The base cracked.  I could almost hear my gramma cursing, "Pshah clef, helety poss koodney!" in Polish.  Well, now I had to get creative.  In the meantime, The Conductor and I firmed up our cake choice which included a very teeny tiny cake - way too small for a topper of this height and size.

And yet...it was hers...and I still wanted it in my wedding somehow.  Time went by and I realized I hadn't yet made a ringbearer pillow. 

Crud!  After five months of sewing muslins, the dress, the underlining, the petticoat, and fitting and refitting....the thought of sewing a simple pillow was just too much.  That's when it hit me!!   The doves on Gramma's cake topper are holding rings in their beaks.  Why not convert the cake topper into our ring bearer's presentation piece.  Who says you need a pillow? 

I drilled a hole in a dowel rod and painted it white. 

I took the wirework and soaked the lace and flower parts in a tub of OxyClean.   (That stuff gets the stains out of anything!).  I rested it atop a ceramic elephant to keep the metal on the rings from being exposed to the soaps.

Don't threy look like they're swimming on his back?

Then I attached it to the dowel with wire and covered up all the wire with some ribbons and wha-la:

I just have to tell our ringbearer, Q-boy, to hold it up high like a staff so his Great Gramma in Heaven can see what became of her cake topper.  I hope she likes it. 

In an added burst of coolness, we're working our grandparents into the whole weddiing tradition of...
Something Old - The Conductor will be using his grandfather's cufflinks
Something New - This "new" ring presentation that I made from my maternal Gram's cake topper
Something Borrowed - A pin belonging to The Conductor's Grandmother
Something Blue - A rosery & pouch from my paternal Grandmother

How cool is that??