Furbabies Represent!

Last Christmas Mr. Honey bought me one of those flip-a-day calendars, 365 days of cat tips, advice and quotes. There was one recently that said this: "If you plan on having your cat play a role in your wedding, make sure you take her to the site so that she becomes familiar with the space". HA, yeah right. If you have ever travelled in a car with your cat, you know that they don't do well under stress. Needless to say, our kitties won't be with us on our wedding day. As you may or may not remember, our doggy Zeus, will be. We just bought a handsome new leash and his tie should be in any day. I first told you about all four of our furbabies a long time ago, but in light of this post, I will just say again that in addition to Zeus, our three kitties are super dooper special to us. They make us smile and laugh a thousand times a day. Since they can't be there physically I wanted to represent them in some way. Enter the adorable phenomenon that is custom cake toppers. Normally couples have themselves customized, but I skipped us and went straight for our pets.

I searched the holy grail of custom toppers, Etsy, and fell in love with too many shops. Most of them came with a high price tag to match, but I finally stumbled upon IttyBittyWoodShoppe and commissioned a topper of just animals for $40. I sent the owner pictures and placed my order. They arrived last week and I put some finishing touches on it and am ready to share!

In addition to the animals, I bought a base for $3, the pieces don't come attached as to avoid the risk of breaking in transit. The base comes in plain 'ol white, and of course I needed to add a little DIY flare to the project in the form of moss.

I picked up a bag of moss for two bucks at Wally World and went to work.

I decided to cover the whole base with moss first, and then attach the animals. No real strategy here, just add glue and stick moss. I did this over a two day period with drying times and filling in spots that seemed to just keep appearing.

After the base was all covered in moss, with as many holes filled in as possible (I swear the flash makes the white spots more obvious...) I used hot glue to attach the animals to the moss. I spent far too long positioning and re-positioning them on the base. I got to that point where I was agonizing over a hundredth of a centimeter because I was too focused on them being exactly perfect. You know that point, right? So I just went for it and the end result is just wonderful:

And I have to show you the backside, too. Zeus has a docked tail and Duke, the brown tabby is a manx. I just love that their little nubs are showcased!

I'm happy with the final product and love that all of our animals will be "with us" on our wedding day.

Now that I've shared the cuteness with you and expressed my happiness, I will tell you that it took awhile to get to this point. I placed my order in August and received them the first of December. The owner was upfront about August being busy, but I was glad I ordered them six months before I needed them. When I received the order, my heart sank; two of the four were painted the wrong color. I contacted the owner and he was super apologetic and promptly re-made the ones that were incorrect. What caused the wrong color? Monitor differences. When I look at the pictures I sent the shop owner, my pets look the correct color, but his monitor portrayed them differently. My advice to you is that if you commission any sort of custom work be specific, even if the creator doesn't request additional details. I was lucky to make my purchase from an understanding owner that ensured I was happy with his creation. That's my PSA for the day.

Our topper won't actually be used as a cake topper, moss in cake frosting isn't appealing to me. Instead, I will set them on the table with our rock guest book. Moss and rocks go together much better.

How are you representing your furbabies on your wedding day?