Weddingbee

When budgeting for the wedding, Mr. Pom and I didn’t discuss what I intended to spend on gifts for my bridesmaids. We had decided that we would purchase gifts for each side of the bridal party respectively, and we would choose our own budgets. With six bridesmaids on my side and four groomsmen on his side, I had to be more frugal with my funds than he— but that didn’t stop me from attempting to maximize my monies! Of course, there was TONS of DIY involved—and a little DISE as well.

Image via ThingFling.com

Sorry bridesmaids, this is the only sneak peek you’ll get at your gifts! If you peek below the cut, you’re in BIG trouble!

I set myself a strict budget of $60 per bridesmaid, as we had already booked them all a room at our hotel for the night before the wedding. Therefore, the first of many DIY projects was unearthed while delving beneath the surface of the dollar bin at Michaels. I discovered some awesome black and white damask goodies, so I snapped up enough for each of the bridesmaids to enjoy. One of the packages contained some pretty black and white flocked note cards that I thought would look amazing if I could figure out how to personalized them.

I considered:

1. Embossing with a Heat Gun
2. Stamping
3. Alphabet Paper Punches

Fortunately, Mamita Pom came up with something better! She had this handy die cut machine that she uses for her scrapbooking ventures—it’s called a Squeeze QuickKutz Portable Personal Die Cutting System. You can purchase little metal cards in different fonts and shapes that you can then insert into the machine, and the machine yields a punched-out letter. Most often, one would use the punched-out letter atop a scrapbook page. In this case, we used the negative space to create the design.

Squeeze QuickKutz Portable Personal Die Cutting System
$80.99 at Joann’s

Mamita Pom’s extensive collection of QuickKutz Dies

Once we picked a font—I think it was called “Katie“, we tested out each letter on a piece of plain white paper to see where it would sit in relation to the edge. This helped us to be sure that our punches were not too high or too low on the cards. It also helped us decide where to place the punch on each card in relation to the design—we just held the punched plain paper over each card to test it out.

Punching plain white paper as a test

Once we had decided on the punching placement, we got to work. Mamita Pom punched out the letters, and I carefully popped the pieces out of the cards. Some of the pieces were easier to pop out than others, as the velvet flocking created really thick spongy surfaces to punch. I recommend using cards without embellishments or ones with a crisper finish for this reason.

A close up of a card after punching

I carefully pushed my fingernails against the edges and pried the punch out of the paper, in hopes that I wouldn’t tear the card.

A finished card

Some letters punched out easier than others, and we quickly learned that when we worked with the outline of a letter, some letters worked better than others, like K’s and C’s, as opposed to A’s, where the inside definition would be lost when we punched it out. I chose to use lower case letters for the A’s, as they were more prominent even without the missing center dot.

I chose damask cards for my four bridesmaids and butterfly cards for my two junior bridesmaids.

I love how they turned out! They were so simple, cheap, and easy to make—only $1 per set of 6 cards and envelopes. I was able to find matching tissues for each of the girls as well, for only another buck a piece (and a few other things as well). I’ll save the details on that for another post!

$2 down, $58 to go!

What was the cheapest and/or easiest DIY project you’ve done so far?

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