Moneysaving wedding craft ideas receptacle- post your ideas here!!

Miss_Communicate

Hi guys,
I am being quite the crafty so and so and thought I would share some of my moneysaving wedding craft ideas. Please also post your own ideas so we can build up a range of ideas.

1) Decorated frosted tealight holders.
Basically I brought a load of frosted tealight holders from both ikea and secondhand from a wedding forum (cost 20-25p each). Some are black and white (my wedding colours). Anyhow I have brought a load of vinyl sticker paper from eBay and using craft punches of my choice (fleur de lis or butterfly- still deciding!), I am cutting out stickers to stick around the outside of the glass. They look really professional and not home-made at all (even if I do say so myself!) my camera is not working at the minute otherwise I would try and post a photo but an example of something that looks similar but with shamrocks is:
http://www.discountcandleshop.com/images/sans/shamrock%20holders3.jpg
I suppose I am at an advantage because we are not having proper candles (venue won't allow them) so I don't have to worry about possible fire risk which if you are having proper candles you might.

2) Virtually free quirky vases
My next master plan is I have got a load of clear old fashioned beer bottles (so still look quite cool and not wino like!) I just kept getting Mr C to drink lots of beer which he liked! Anyhow I washed all the labels off etc. and I intend to paint on with black glass paint a pretty baroque type pattern.

3) Wedding postbox
My work gets loads of deliveries of paper that come in these strong lidded boxes so I am going to get an A3 one of those and wrap it up in a baroque wallpaper I have found and then edge it will black ribbon. Far cheaper than spending £30 on one! (The wallpaper was £12.99 but I am also going to use it as backing for my tableplan and as a table covering for the back of the bar area.)

4) Seed favours as messages in bottles
This hasn't been quite as cheap although still not too bad. I brought 100 mini corked bottles for £25 (2nd hand bargain from bride who changed her mind). Brought 1500 sweetpea seeds from eBay- 15 seeds per bottle. Designed the "message for the bottle" which was seed planting instructions and a poem thing. Rolled it up tight and secured it with a mini black elastic band (usually for dreadlocks!) and popped it inside the bottle. Then in the top of the cork I pierced it through and put a mini closed paper rose so it looks like it is growing out of the bottle. They look really cute.

5) Mini envelopes for table trivia/love quotes
I brought a load of mini envelopes from ebay and I intend to make mini cards to go in them with either a love quote or some table trivia, just to scatter about the tables for the guests to play with. (Or I may attach them somehow to the seed favours and have them as place settings)

6) Love Origami
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/150/398420467_a455413f76_o.jpg
I mocked my own design up using a guide from the web. Going to get them printed off and folded up and should be another fun thing for guests to do.

7) Butterfly strings
We brought a load of white net curtains from Ikea (£2.99 for 2 MASSIVE ones). I will then use a large butterfly craft punch to make loads of butterflys that I will either just pin straight to the net or hang down on strings and make 3d.

Have got loads more ideas but I probably should be writing my essay for my masters instead of procrastinating on here! Hope it helps someone and please post any more ideas.
Cheers
Miss. C.

carole.uk

wow all these ideas are brilliant well done

wordwizard

Those ideas are great. I've not really tried to do crafts for a long time now and i'm thinking about maybe doing my own invitations etc to save money, we're getting married in Aug 09 and i'm def interested in a thread like this, its a great idea. Please keep it going or others to add to. Many thanks

paddingtondoo

I was shocked to see how much wedding guest books and photo albums cost so came up with this idea.

I wanted one with a spiral binding so went into the local pound shop and bought an artists sketch pad.
I removed the cover and made a new one which attaches to the back of the pad and folds right over the spiral binding.
Stamped the words guest book onto an offcut and decorated the new cover.

Cost:
Sketch pad £1.00
2 sheets A4 card - 20p
Decorations £1.50 (cannibalised a me to you wedding card to match cake decoration)

Total cost £2.70 and an hours worth of my time on a very boring Sunday afternoon.

I'm really pleased with it and found an old card box and some tissue to store it in. Shame I can't post a picture of it I'm that pleased with it!

MsChazzer

Bunting

We viewed a venue on Friday and if we go for it we'd like to make bunting for the garden outside (probably guaranteeing it will rain). I'll buy some white sheeting or muslin, in whatever way's cheapest (sheet from charity shop or Ikea or something), make a triangle template then cut a load out, go round with pinking shears then sew onto ribbon or make a seam at the top that strong/ribbon can go through. There are instructions at Activity Village.

I'm also planning on knitting myself a shawl/wrap, it may end up not being especially money-saving but I love knitting and want to do it. I got a book out of the library about knitting flowers but I can see that would drive me mad, plus I would rather have real flowers!

SallyUK

I'm doing the decorations and invitations for my friend's wedding in November. She lives quite far from me and I've not seen the venue yet (might not see it until the night before the wedding! LOL)

I like the idea of bunting too, but how do you work out how much you need?

Sal
x

Lemon_Tree

paddingtondoo wrote: »

I was shocked to see how much wedding guest books and photo albums cost so came up with this idea.

I wanted one with a spiral binding so went into the local pound shop and bought an artists sketch pad.
I removed the cover and made a new one which attaches to the back of the pad and folds right over the spiral binding.
Stamped the words guest book onto an offcut and decorated the new cover.

Cost:
Sketch pad £1.00
2 sheets A4 card - 20p
Decorations £1.50 (cannibalised a me to you wedding card to match cake decoration)

Total cost £2.70 and an hours worth of my time on a very boring Sunday afternoon.

I'm really pleased with it and found an old card box and some tissue to store it in. Shame I can't post a picture of it I'm that pleased with it!

thanks hope you don't mind if i nick sorry borrow this idea i'd love it for my guest book.
thank you

paddingtondoo

Lemon_Tree wrote: »

thanks hope you don't mind if i nick sorry borrow this idea i'd love it for my guest book.
thank you

Not at all. That's exactly why I posted it. The most expensive bit was the me to you card which I cut up to decorate it.

If you PM me your email address I'll send you a photo.

riddlesticks

Gosh I wish I was that clever. They all sound fab! Might need to get my creative hat on!

Alleycat

^^^^ Spam. Post reported.

MsChazzer

Since this thread has been bumped up (even if by yucky spam), I'll share an idea I saw in a Waitrose leaflet. I think there's a couple of people going for a country-fair type look and this would be ideal. Save and clean old tin cans and then stick a band of fabric around (not to hide the whole tin though) and then tie some ribbon on top of that. Then you can use them for flowers.

I wrote about my shawl further up the post, it's about half done, going slowly now I'm on 400 stitches per row. I'm currently doing some charity knitting so haven't got time to work on it but will be back with it in the new year. Here's a photo of it, although I have progressed further since taking it.