How To: Make A Birdcage Veil

And how to not mess it up. I had always wanted to wear a bircage veil for my wedding, but when I saw the cost of some of them I was blown away! I searched on etsy and found a few cheap ones but then I saw a tutorial on how to make one. I thought, easy enough, right? Eh....sort of. I should have chosen an earlier time to finish this but I finally got it finished 3 days before the wedding. Here goes the story......if you wanna read it move to the next paragraph, if not skip ahead to the pictures......

I went to JoAnns with mom and ended up buying some tulle, which is what I thought I needed for this project....silly me for not reading instructions first. About 2 weeks before the wedding I decide to really look at what I've gotten myself into and immeditaley realize that I have the wrong material!! Instead of freaking out at the first sign of something being wrong, like usual, I kept it cool and decided to see where I could find some French/Russian Netting. It is nowhere to be found in any stores!! You have to order the stuff online and, luckily, it's available on etsy. I found a wonderful seller, EmmieE who sells lots of different kinds of netting, and bought 1 yard of 18 inch French/Russian netting for $6 + $1.25 S&H. I received it a few days later a almost forgot about it I had so much going on! I ended up following this online tutorial, but made some adjustments of my own and failed :( I will explain after the pictures.

1 yard of 18 inch French/Russian Netting and the other necessary supplies: scissors, needle, thread, 1 haircomb, and ribbon (not shown).



After cutting to ensure there were no big 'lumps' in the netting once it was placed around my face.



Begining the 'netting' process




Before pulling it all together.









I used blue ribbon so I would have my something blue



After I had pulled it together and tried it on before knotting up the thread it seems to be too big to me. I wasn't going to be happy until it was perfectly sized to my head.....ugh. I didn't think of how I could have positioned it differently to fit how I would have liked. Well, I ended up trimming 2 inches off the top and readjusting the corners to be 6 inches diagonal again and it seemed perfect........until I tried it on. It wasn't horrible but the area that ran around my chin and ears was a little snug, other than that it was fine. I felt like I was trying not to pop out of my veil! So wrong. The wedding was at Eli's Aunt Debbie's house and her daughter - also named Kayla - had gotten married in May and moved to Germany with her husband who's in the Army. Luckily, she left her veil at Debbies and said I could use it! I ended up - painfully - taking the netting off the hair comb and hot glueing a faux white/fuschia peoni to it and wore that after the ceremony. It turned out well though....and I have almost a yard of netting to do.....something with.

Does anyone have any ideas for a craft or something to do with this netting?I really can't make another veil out of it! :)

Lesson of this story.....don't take 2 inches off of the netting! AND plan ahead for things like this. Lesson learned....for sure.
♥kayla