My Knock-Off OOT Bags

OK, I had all these ideas for OOT bags. First, I thought I could do boxes, kinda like An Atlanta Bride had, but I wasn't quite groovin' on the fancy-schmanciness of a bowed and boxed vehicle for a bunch of snacks. Her boxes were more than lovely. That chickie has some serious classy style.

I really like the super-cute bags from Maptote, but I am pissed that they don't have Nashville. I mean, come on. They have Charlottesville, Virgina, but not Nashville? Please. Anyway, even if they did have Nashville, I wouldn't have paid the $15.00 per bag cost anyway. The point is moot, other than they are uber-cute, if you live in the cities of bags they offer.

A shout out to all my high school peeps in DC, yo. Source

So then I had this idea that The Candyman and I could hold a welcome sign, take a photo of ourselves and then I could print it on a sticker and put it on a bag. The Candyman was NOT down with that idea. Next!

I tossed around a few ideas and then I saw that The Wedding Chicks had a new store on their website with super-cute totes and t-shirts. Well, I kind of took their idea and made it my own! I'm not positive if I'm going to use this or not. I'd like some feedback as to whether it's neat-o-burrito or way lame because I totally knocked-off the super cool WC's with an uber-cheap Thirty-Something Bride version.

Here's the skinny:
I went to cheaptotes.com and ordered 1 canvas bag ($.99) and 1 sheet of iron-on tranfer paper ($.99). Shipping the things cost more the items themselves. However, it was still cheaper than buying a package of iron-on transfer paper from anywhere, even with my trusty coupons. I really just wanted to test it out.

So then I shared some ideas with The Candyman, who suddenly started paying attention and wanted to know what the hell an OOT bag was and that we most certainly did not need them, whatever they were.

So I just decided to go for the simple LOVE idea from the WC's. I downloaded a font called Egyptienne Zierinitialien. Yes, that is the font name and it is a pain in the ass to work with. For some reason it doesn't print O's. But then it does. But then it won't. I have no idea why, but I worked it out. I spelled out LOVE and underneath put our names and wedding date. For that, I appropriately used the font called Nashville. Both fonts I downloaded for FREE! Love that about the Internet.

I tried some different colorways and came up with this:

Of course, it has The Candyman's name and not TMC, although I think putting The Candyman would be hi-LAR-ious.

The trick for me and my non-graphic-designer-all-I-have-is-Microsoft-Paint self was to get a mirror image of this so I could print it onto the transfer paper. I figured it out with out too much hassle and printed it off and ironed it onto my cheap $.99 cotton tote.



So far, I've got the following goodies for the OOT bags: 2 bottles of water, small fruit chew things from Costco, Rice Krispie Treats, Blow Pops, pretzels, chips, mini chocolate bars (the Halloween candy size), gum and Lance's cheese and crackers. It all fills up the bag quite nicely. Can anyone think of anything else that should go in here? I was additionally thinking of loading up on that week's edition of The Nashville Scene (our local indie rag) and popping them into the totes.

What does everyone think? I probably need to just pull the trigger as the count down to The Big Show seems to be speeding quickly down to zero at break neck speed. Lord, help me.

I'm attempting a poll at the top right of the blog. Tell me your thoughts on the OOT bags!

Last, but not least. Anyone out there have time to find me an ivory flower girl dress that isn't nasty frilly polyester? Oh, and I need a Etsy flower hair clip - stat. Suggestions?