A Strong Home

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Frugal Bride – DIY Aisle Chair Decor

Photo by: Nichol Davis

I loved making these decorations because they were so easy and very inexpensive.  Since I used artificial flowers, I was able to make these ahead of time and concentrate on other details. If you really want to use fresh flowers, that will work, too.

Here is what you will need:

  • A container with handles (or you can drill holes in the sides)
  • Floral foam, trimmed to fit snuggly
  • Rope or ribbon to go with the look you want
  • Artificial flowers

I found the floral foam and the copper containers at Dollar Tree, the rope from Home Depot, and the flowers from Michael’s. I also used fall-specific pieces like stems of leaves and pine cones.

You’ll want a large area to work on. First, create your bouquets. Push the floral foam pieces into your containers, trimming if needed to fit. The artificial flowers come in bunches, so you’ll need to clip each stem off the bunch to allow you to mix lots of different flowers into each arrangement. Start by creating a bouquet in your hand and then push them into floral foam in the containers. Make sure your bouquet is nice and full so you don’t see any gaps from the top or sides.

When you’re happy with your arrangement, tie your rope or ribbon to the handles of your container. I used a rope to give more of a rustic feel, but you can use anything that will hold. Make the loops long enough so that the container will hang the way you want.

Tips:
If you’re getting married in the fall next year, gather your fall decorations at the end of this fall season when they go on sale. This is the same with other seasons/holidays if you’re weaving that into your theme.
Go to the dollar store early and often to stock up on your wedding supplies.

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Frugal Bride – DIY Wedding Signs

There are some really great ideas out there for rustic weddings.  One that I just had to do myself was the weathered wooden sign.  I made a few different signs from a bunch of old wooden planks that were sitting in a friend’s backyard.

Since our wedding was very informal, we didn’t have assigned seating for the ceremony or reception.  It had a very backyard picnic feel, which I loved.  To let our guests know that there was no assigned seating, we posted a sign at the entrance to the ceremony area.  These were just three pieces of wood planks screwed to a wooden post.

We had a ring bearer and a sign holder to announce the bride’s entrance.  Our “Here Comes the Bride Sign” was also just two wooden planks.  My husband attached them together with two galvanized straps.  He also added handles to the back to make it easier to hold.

These were really easy to make and added to the rustic feel of our wedding.  Keep it simple with black painted letters or add some color and stenciled designs.  Like the choice of wedding themes, the possibilities are endless!
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Frugal Bride – DIY Make-Ahead Boutonnieres

Besides the caterer, the most expensive vendor at a wedding is usually the florist.  You can save some money by making your own boutonnieres, and you can save time by making them ahead.  Fresh floral boutonnieres will need to be made the morning of the wedding to keep them looking fresh, but if you use dried or silk flowers, you can make them as far ahead as you want.  With a Fall themed wedding, dried flowers made the most sense for me.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Dried or silk flowers or plants
  • Scissors and wire cutters
  • Floral tape
  • Ribbon
  • Boutonniere pins

I used eucalyptus stems as my background or base and built out from it.  Unlike a bouquet, with a boutonniere, you build forward from instead of around the base flowers (or stems or feather).

The process for assembling dried or silk flowers for a boutonniere is probably the most simple out of the other options.  Trim the stems to a manageable length, about three inches.  When you’ve decided how you want the arrangement to look, start taping stems together.  I only had a few stems I was working with, so I did it all in one shot, but if you have multiple stems it is best to start with two and add on.  Start wrapping the tape around from the top toward the end, stopping about half an inch from the end.  It should look like this:

You’re almost done!  Trim the stems to the desired length, usually about 2 – 2/12 inches.  Now you’ll use your ribbon to finish it off.  This time, you’ll start at the bottom.  About a quarter to half of an inch from the bottom, place your ribbon down the length of the stems and pull it down and around, then up the other side.

Start wrapping at the bottom, going around the stem and the small piece of ribbon.  This is to give the bottom a finished look.  If you need to, use a dab of hot glue to help hold the ribbon in place while you’re wrapping.  I didn’t need it, but you might if your ribbon is really slippery.  When you get to the top, weave the end of the ribbon under the last wrapped strand of ribbon and pull.  I also made a knot at the top and cut the end of the ribbon in a V-shape.

Now you can store these until your wedding and move on to the next wedding project!

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Frugal Bride – DIY Wedding Favors

DIY Wedding Favor Bags

Wedding favors can add up pretty quickly and sometimes the DIY route can seem overwhelming.  This easy option can help maintain your sanity during those busy weeks leading up to your wedding.


What you’ll need:
Muslin bags (I used 3×4 inch bags)
Stamps
Ink pad for fabric (like VersaCraft Ink Pad or Hobby Lobby’s Specialty Fabric Ink Pad)

I purchased these muslin bags online at $6.58 for 24, but you may be able to find better prices with some searching.  Keep in mind that buying the same bags stamped for you from a specialty bridal favor company will cost about $35.00 for 25.  

The “Fall in Love” stamp and date stamp were created using the Martha Stewart kit.  This kit is great for making custom stamps and is a good idea to get if you’ll be customizing other things like your invitations or other stationary.  You can even create a monogram stamp.  I used a fall leaf design for the center stamp with a dark brown ink pad.  Keep in mind, if you use anything other than fabric ink, the design will fade away in just a few days.

The muslin bags go well with my rustic fall theme.  You can really put anything in the bags.  We filled them with fall wrapped candy – Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses and other mini fall chocolates.
Wedding Favor Bag

Be sure to plan out your design before you start and practice a couple times on plain paper or practice fabric.  Instead of pressing the stamp into the ink pad, you’ll need to tap the stamp onto the pad until it is fully covered in ink.  The Martha Stewart stamps don’t stick out very much from the base, so you may need to wipe excess ink off of the surrounding areas around the stamp design so it doesn’t get on your fabric.  

You can heat set the bags if you want to preserve the design, but this is normally done if you’re going to be washing the fabric later.  I didn’t do this because of lack of time and I didn’t really mind if they lasted for years.  I may heat set one now for a keepsake.

So, there ya go!  Hope this helps you save some money on your wedding so you can put it towards other things!

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{DIY} Heat Embossing

Ever try to find the perfect cards, thank you notes, or invitations to go with your theme or your personality?  If you’ve ever dabbled in card making but you just aren’t creative enough (like me) to make a professional looking card that doesn’t take an hour to create, maybe you should check out heat embossing.  This is really fun and simple – I wouldn’t have made 50+ wedding invitations by hand if it wasn’t simple!

Heat embossing is a technique using embossing powder and heat to create a raised design on cards.  It sounds like some complicated sort of science experiment, but really it’s not.  This is what you’ll need:

  • card stock (I like to use pre-cut and pre-folded cards)
  • stamps
  • embossing pad (I used Top Boss tinted embossing pad)
  • embossing powder
  • heat embossing tool (I haven’t tried it, but a hair dryer may work just as well)
  • newspaper
  • very fine paint brush

When you’re shopping for stamps, you can find them at a craft store or even the dollar bins at Target.  If you’re making note cards, you can go with a monogram design or just a fun single design on the front like a flower or a leaf.  Here, I made thank you notes with a thank you stamp and a leaf stamp to go with my rustic fall wedding theme.  The embossing powder I used is copper to give a nice shine to my design.

Step 1: Lay out your tools and cover your work area with newspaper.  I like to use a small piece of paper on top of the newspaper so I can dump the leftover embossing powder back in the container.

Step 2: Figure out where you want to place your design on the card.  If you’re not sure, you can try out a few different ways.  That’s the fun of this – everyone’s card can be different!

Step 3: Press your stamp onto the embossing pad and stamp the card stock.  Sprinkle the embossing powder on top of the card stock and be sure to cover the design area.  Then slide the loose powder off the card and tap the back of the card lightly.

Step 4: You may have a few powder stragglers still on your card.  That’s what the fine paint brush is for.  Very carefully, brush off any excess powder from the card.  Any bits that are left on in odd places will get stuck there.

Step 5: Once you’re happy with the design and your powder is where it should be, take your heat embossing tool, turn it on and hold it about 2 inches above your design.  Swirl the tool in slow circular motions over each section of the design until the embossing powder is melted evenly.  This should take about 20 seconds for a small design.

That’s it!  Just let it dry for a few hours and you’re ready to use it.

Check out more from my Frugal Bride series!

Linking up with:
Mad Skills Tutorial Link Party @ Mad In Crafts
Sweet Sharing Monday @ Say Not Sweet Anne
Craft-O-Maniac Monday Link Party @ Craft-O-Maniac
Monday Funday @ Lines Across

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