If you go into the woods today your sure of a big .... beautiful wedding! We hope you enjoyed this months woodland wedding ideas. Here are a few of our favourite finds this month to wrap things up.
We just fell in love with this picture from a real life whimsical woodland wedding, a bar in the middle of the forest and a stag lamp - awesome! Photo by Amore Studios. A black forest gateau just seems so fitting for a woodland wedding, pic by Katie Quinn Davies and a recipe can be found on Master Chef. A little red mushroom, and its a soap! Wouldn't it just make the cutest wedding favour? $6 each from Bubble Lane.

Next month on the blog... say cheers!

Pic via Green Wedding Shoes

The idea of just one wedding cake has been quickly taken over the last few years by the dessert bar. But for a more rustic approach, great for cooler months, how about a pie bar?

Offer guests a mouthwatering selection of homemade pies in lots of fun flavours. Mini pies even make lovely wedding favours wrapped in little boxes tied up with string. And don't forget to check out our previous post for DIY pies in jars - so cute!

Cakes via Once Wed

Your guests will totally trip out over a cake decorated with marzipan or meringue mushrooms!

Whether using store bought marzipan or making your own from scratch, it can easily be molded like play dough into little mushrooms. Start by making the stems - just a blob of marzipan rolled into shape. For the tops use a cookie cutter to make circles, not too thick, and with a skewer make little imprints all the way round for added effect. To decorate just dust with some dirt, ie coco powder, and even some grated chocolate. And for an extra touch of magic add a light dusting of ediable glitter.
Who knew fungus could be so much fun?

For a meringue methed check out this recipe from Martha Stewart.

Searching for the perfect woodland wedding centerpiece? Then look no further than a terrarium – a magical miniature landscape complete with living plants displayed in a glass container. This beautiful example above is from Make Something, and there are plenty of other great resources available on the internet to show you have to make your own, these are a couple of our favourites:

• Camera and Light have added cute toy deer and little pine cones to their wood themed terrarium
• Martha has some quick tips here

Pics via The Sweetest Occasion, Young House Love and Going Home to Roost.

There was a lot of interest last week in our printer to wood DIY project post, here. So I thought we'd take a look at a few other great ideas to turn an ordinary piece of wood into a wedding wonder!

1. Wood burning. A fantastic technique perfect for signs and table numbers, and if you are really keen - place cards! You will need to purchase a wood burning kit from a hardware store such as Bunnings or online. These cost around $30, so not too expensive and the effect is really gorgeous. See the step by step on The Sweetest Occasion.
2. Painted stencils. Great for table numbers this lovely idea from Young House Love is very simple. All you will need are some large numbers quickly printed up onto basic card stock, painters tape, a stanley knife and paint!
3. Trace and paint. A little more time consuming but you can achieve beautiful results with this lovely DIY project found on Going Home to Roost. 

Today we have a really lovely  real wedding to share and hopefully inspire you. Last post we had a little look at DIY firefly jars. A great idea if you don't actually have fireflies around. In this wedding, the bride Kathryn included firefly catching jars as wedding favours. "They were a major hit and I thought it was a super cute DIY idea." says photographer Crystal George.
Kathryn and Ben also chose one of our fingerprint trees as their wedding guest book. It's always amazing to see our work brought to life.

Thank you to Crystal George Studios for sharing these lovely images.

Pic: We heart it

Don't you just love it when something so pretty is so simple?  Just flick glow in the dark paint onto the insides of jars and recreate the magic of fireflies. A very clever idea from Chrisjob on Curbly.

Using mod podge, glue and a piece of paper this great step by step shows you how to transfer inkjet images from your home printer onto wood. Click here to see the tutorial from Matsutake. Place settings, table numbers, decorations, there are plenty of ways to use this technique.

Set the scene for a magical woodland wedding with this beautiful rustic range of printable wedding stationery. Pick from a selection of Aussie, US or European birds and animals, you can use one throughout the range or mix and match from the following: rabbit, kangaroo, deer, owl, butterfly, wolf, dingo, bear, koala, squirrel and kookaburra/kingfisher.

With a lovely faux wood design all part of the file - no special paper required - the range is shown here in blue but choose from a wide range of colour options. We've finished the look off by cutting our rounded corners with a paper punch.

All designs are supplied as printable PDF computer files for easy at home printing - or just take to your local print shop. Available from the i do it yourself shop.

If you're looking for free wedding downloads don't forget to check out our website idoityourself.com.au. These beautiful wood effect designs - or tree hearts - are available to download for free. With six tags, three green and three brown, each circle is 3inches across so they're easy to cut out with a circle punch. Here we have printed them out on a fairly thick card stock, punched a small hole and added some string so we can tie them to wedding favours.

Click here to visit the website and visit our FREEBIES section for more free wedding gift tag templates.

Forget sun damage, the winter can wreak havoc on your skin. Cold weather, strong winds and dry air from heaters can leave your skin dehydrated and damaged. Here are a few of our favourite winter skin saviours:

• Aveda Botanical Kinetics Hydrating Lotion $79.95
• Origins Drink Up 10 minute mask $45.00
• Jurlique Lavender Hydrating Mist $24.00
• U Little Beauty Drought Relief Hydrating Facial Mask $29.95

If natural DIY beauty is more your thing try these tips to exfoliate and moisturise in the winter months.

• Oats are not only good for a winter breakfast, they are a great beauty product too. Cook up some oats  and mix them with honey. Apply to your face and leave it on for 10 to 15 minutes. 
Using an old square of cotton, add a few spoonfuls of oats into the centre and tie it up. Put it in the bath under a running tap to soften the water and your skin. 
• Sliced tomatoes placed on the face tone and freshen the skin, and also help with acne. 
• A mashed papaya mask left of for 5 minutes will exfoliate.
• And of course we all know cucumber softens the skin and helps to minimise dark circles under the eyes. Mix grated cucumber with cool yogurt for inflamed skin. 

Photo by Stephanie Williams

While spring and summer are usually the seasons for love, winter weddings are an increasingly popular option and can help with the all important budget.

With the venue and catering taking up a whopping 50% of a couples average wedding budget, it certainly pays to shop around. It's generally easier to find a wedding venue in the slower winter season. And while we've seen a huge increase in the number of weekday weddings, if you're set on a certain venue on a Saturday, a winter wedding may provide you with more options. Other suppliers such as photographers and bands may also be far cheaper and more available.

There are plenty more ways to save with a winter wedding. Colder weather will mean comfort food which can often be cheaper but certainly no less appreciated by your guests. Consider a fun hot chocolate toast rather than a champagne toast - a wedding tradition that eats into the budget big time! Instead of one expensive wedding cake offer a selection of yummy pies. And as for the honeymoon, well winter here means summer there! Popular overseas honeymoon destinations like Hawaii are perfect this time of year. Happy planning.

Well I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but here its turned decidedly freezing! So as we rug up in our Aussie office and crack open the coco, this month we're going to take a look at a wintry woodland wedding.

Unleash your inner forest fairy with a dreamy look from Anthropologie. After an outdoor ceremony, move the reception indoors to a venue like this barn covered in beautiful fairy lights, via FizzyArtist.

Add some cute campsite inspiration with rustic table decorations, via Elizabeth Anne Designs. Or try a terrarium for a unique table talking point, via flickr. Kick off your wedding theme with woodland invitations from 'i do' it yourself. You can pick from a selection of Aussie, US and European woodland creatures, use one throughout the range or mix and match! Forget the cake and try a pie, warm up with this delicious blueberry and yogurt creation via Candy and Cake.  Beautiful birds nest ring bearer bowl from Cotton Bird Designs. And don't forget your furry friends, like this little deer ornament.

1. Fiskars Washed Ashore border punch - this craft punch is great for adding beautiful wave details for beach themed weddings. 
2. Pack of ten shipping tags - in pretty lime green perfect for decorating wedding favours. $2.50 from Kazu Online. 
3. The Tracer enlarges any design or pattern onto a wall from two to fourteen times the origins size. The projected image can be easily traced and coloured as desired. A help designing photo booth backdrops or interesting venue decorations. Available from Eckersley's Art and Craft.
4. Uni Ball Signo White Gel Pen - indispensable! Great for writing on dark paper. Great for place cards, signing fingerprint trees or addressing darker envelopes. $2.65
5. The Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper, $49.95.  Easily punch perfectly rounded corners to paper, cardstock, chipboard, leather, plastic, acrylic/poly and more. With two size options 1/4" and 1/2"

Be sure to save the date for next months Ultimate Wedding Planning Party! The beautiful Opera House Point Marquee will be transformed to host Sydney's most prestigious wedding event on 25th August, 6pm. With stunning fashions by Colette Dinnigan, live cake decorating demonstrations and beauty tips from Bobbi Brown - just to name a few of the fabulous events planned for the evening. Guests will even leave the event with a gift bag stuffed with over $500 worth of goodies! Tickets are on sale now so be sure to treat yourself and start planning your wedding in style!

Book now at the Ultimate Wedding Planning Party website