One thing I know for sure is that everybody likes a present! Being new to the world of traditional weddings when I began planning mine, I was shocked to learn that it is a tradition to give each of one's guests a little take-home memento of the day. I was even more shocked when I looked up the commercially available wedding guests gifts selections, and learned that they range in average cost from $2 to $10 EACH, and the $2 gifts are so lame they practically scream out "put me in the landfill as soon as you get home!" With over 100 guests coming and a diminishing budget to keep in mind, I had to immediately cross the over priced baubles off my list.
Still, I really love giving gifts in general. I like whole idea behind it, the give and take nature of the universe being reflected in gift exchange, the spirit of sharing and bounty that gift giving implies, and I enjoy the act of handing out something that makes the receiver smile. Also, I did ask a lot of my guests, from making them hike all over a hilly park, to making them sit on the ground in their pretty clothes, to asking some of them to bring food as well as a wedding gift (all facets that everyone loved, but that might feel a little tiring overall), so I felt extra attached to making sure that when they left for home at the end of the day, they departed feeling as full of energy and cool stuff as they had when they showed up that morning. My obvious solution? Hand made take-home gifts, of course!
For our large body of attending friends and family, I came up with a guest-grab-bag that was filled with a delightful collection of lasting and useful memorabilia that reflected the day itself and the ideals Josh and I share for the kind of world we want to live in. It was sort of a "green" wedding gift for our "green" wedding, though I found that purchasing things with that particular buzz word attached can cost you even more cash, which makes no sense at all to me. I even managed to package them up in such a way that they were adorable to look at, tempting to grab extras on the way out, and even served as added decoration at the reception by virtue of their multitude and cuteness!
Because I had a crew of about 20 friends and family members who really did contribute heavily to making the day happen, mostly with their time and muscle power for set-up on the day of the event, and with their afore-mentioned food donations, I made 20 extra special gift bags for them. While the regular guest bags were small paper creations with tiny birdhouses and other gifts inside, the upgraded versions for the work crew were large hand-made muslin bags to be re-used later for shopping, and were filled with larger versions of their smaller cousins-- giant birdhouses and more verbose cards, for example.
These two projects took a little time, but overall they weren't too hard, were fun to make and assemble, and were a big hit at the party! Not only did my friends love them (I still see their birdhouses displayed and even inhabited when I visit), the whole sha-bang cost me about $200 rather than the $500 I could have spent, and out-cooled anything I could have purchased from a store by THIS much-- (I'm holding my arms apart as wide as they will go here). Ready to make some fabulous take-home wedding gifts for your awesome and deserving guests? Let's do it!
DIY Gift Bags for Guests Who've Been Naughty or Nice
Step 1: First, do a little shopping at your favorite dollar bins, whether those are found in a craft shop, a Dollar General, or a fabric store. Find some item that costs a dollar but manages not to look cheap, and that also reflects you as a couple or some theme of your event. Our wedding was in the spring, so I considered cute little garden trowels, pre-seeded tiny plant pots, etc. But I've seen plenty of items in these bins that I think would fit the bill nicely depending on you and your scene-- slinky's, picture frames, travel games, etc... I went with these tiny wooden birdhouses that were so adorable and detailed I felt like I was ripping off the store buying out their entire inventory. I also found some small wind chimes at only .50 cents a piece, so I bought 100 of those to go with my 100 birdhouses. I should add here that while I had closer to 200 guests, many of them were couples or families, so I estimated that 100 was plenty to send home one per household, and that worked out fine with a couple of left over bags I got to keep myself at the end. I later mailed these to people who wanted to come but couldn't, so the number was perfect. Buying your main gift before you start the rest of your project is important since it would really be a bummer to make a bunch of beautiful gift bags and then discover that what you want to give won't fit inside them!
Step 2: Now that you have your primary gifts rounded up, it's time to do the real work. Go to your nearest seller of brown paper bags, the kind your mom (if she was anything like mine) put your lunch in when you were a kid and you wished she'd just give you money for the hot lunch like all the other kids. I found mine at Target, but I'm hoping they're easily available at any grocery store, since they're so handy for so many things. Buy a pack that supplies as many as you need. I bought a pack of 100, which cost me one whole dollar.
Next, round up:
a bottle of white acrylic paint, an additional accent paint color of your choice, and a paintbrush
a big bundle of sticks from the nearest tree
a hot glue gun
a black Sharpie marker
a few different patterned rolls of wired ribbon
a hole punch
and a bunch of tiny stickers picturing flowers or bugs or some such cute thing.
Phew! Got it all? Actually you should have almost all of this sitting around from our previous projects, so the list shouldn't be as daunting as it first sounds!
Step 3: Time to get dirty! You will need a large uncluttered space for this first step that can sit uninterrupted by pets or kids or really handsy adults for a good hour or two. First, lay out each of your paper bags flat in a line or large square, until all your bags are displayed with their face up, and folded bag bottom behind. With a cup full of white paint and a nice wide paint brush, begin painting your bags. You are simply making a white rectangle in the bottom half or third of your bag, and the edges don't even need to be neat or well defined, so try to go through this part quickly so you can move on to the fun stuff. I actually had my art class of 10 year olds do this part for me, if that tells you how much you don't need to be a perfectionist here. When all your white rectangles are in place, pull out your accent paint color put in in a cup and add a little water (just enough to make it slightly less thick and easier to fling). Dip your big paint brush into the accent color, and with a fully loaded brush, starting flinging the paint across your field of paper bags, giving each bag a nice LIGHT splattering of color.
Step 4: While you're waiting for your paint to dry, cut your ribbon into lengths of about a foot a piece, and set aside.
Step 5: Your paint is probably still wet, so go ahead and chop up those sticks you collected earlier. They will serve as a little picture frame for your white rectangle, so they need to be cut into stacks of two equal lengths, one longer for the long sides of the rectangle, and one shorter for the shorter sides. Pick a uniform length for the long and short sides to be, something close to the average rectangle size you've painted, and start cutting your sticks with a pair of old scissors. Again, this process doesn't have to be perfect, some of your sticks will be fat, some skinny, some of your stick frames will be smaller than your white rectangle, and some bigger. This only adds to the charm at the end, so don't worry about it, just chop up your pile of uniform long and short sticks, and think about how pretty you'll look in your dress.
Step 6: When your paint is fully dry, grab your Sharpie marker and start writing. I wrote "Thank You!" on each of my bags in the center of the white paint rectangle, but you can certainly print out anything you want to say to your guests here, as long as you keep it brief! Something like "True Love," of "Happily Ever After" would be great.
Step 7: Make those stick frames! This is the most tedious part of the job, as hot glue guns make annoying stringy things that muck up your process, but it's still a fun and easy job, so just enjoy the process! With your long and short stick-stacks and your heated up hot glue gun, begin gluing the rectangle stick frames down around each white triangle, until all your bags are framed. A little time consuming, but so worth it when you're done-- this is the most memorable part of your decorated bag!
Step 8: Slap on your stickers! This part is so gratifying, because all the hard stuff is now over, and the stickers are nothing but cute, easy, and fun! I used little honey bees for my sticker choice, so i also used my black Sharpie to draw in little buzz-y flying lines behind their little bee butts.
Step 9: It's bag filling time. Definitely my favorite part because I felt like a rich and benevolent gift giver plunging birdhouses and wind chimes into 100 lovely paper pic nic bags. I should note here that I also included a few tiny extras into my packages, which added interest and fun to their opening with pretty much no extra cost to me. I found little brown paper packages (about 4x4 inches) at Hobby Lobby, 100 for $2. I stamped each one of them with a rubber stamp and ink pad I had laying around that said "Love Grows," filled them with a tablespoon each of wild flower seeds, and stapled them shut. I also cut out strips of paper, folded them over, stamped them with another rubber stamp of a flying bee that said "Bee Well," and signed them inside with love from Mr. and Mrs. Stone. So when I stuffed my pic nic bags, each one ended up holding 1 birdhouse, 1 wind chime, 1 stamped seed packet, and 1 card.
Step 10: Almost done! Now that your bags are looking fat and frisky, fold each one over on top with the fold toward the back, and use your hole punch to punch two holes, about an inch apart, into the middle of the fold. Using the ribbon you cut earlier, thread a piece from front to back through one hole, then from back to front through the other. Tie your ribbon into a pretty bow and reapeat on each paper bag.
Now take a breath and step back to survey your fabulousity! Your guests are about to have the best time ever and you are the one making it happen! Yay for inexpensive extra fun gift bags!