Wedding Supplies

One of the most important days in a person’s life is their wedding day. A lot of time and money is spent to plan this festive event. Wedding supplies can range from being extravagant, costing thousands of dollars, to extremely simple and unique.

Some wedding supplies that are essential for this memorable day include guest books, ring pillows, flower baskets, and wedding favor boxes. To truly make your wedding unique, you should concentrate on the little details. For example, you can embellish the wedding favor boxes by tying a sheer or satin ribbon around them. If favor boxes are not your style, you can purchase organza, silk, or lace favor bags instead. Another idea is to decorate the flower basket yourself. You can use ribbons, artificial butterflies, tulle, and other crafts material to create a one-of-a-kind flower girl basket.

It is truly possible to find beautiful wedding supplies on a tight budget. Being creative is the key in these situations. By purchasing wedding supplies at wholesale prices and then embellishing them yourself, you can save a lot of money.

Making a bunny with plastic shopping bags

While plastic shopping bags may not seem like the best material for an arts and crafts project, they have several advantages that makes them so. First, plastic bags can be found easily; in fact, they are almost impossible to avoid. Second, they usually cost little or no money at all. Lastly, by using plastic bags for crafts project, you are essentially recycling them which is helpful for the environment.

The following is a tutorial on creating a bunny using a plastic grocery bag. This is a great activity do with your kids during Easter. Since it is fairly easy to do and only takes few minutes, you can get young kids (toddler age) to do them as well. The final product looks very cute and you can put these bunnies around the house as decoration.

Materials:

A plastic bag with handles (preferably a t shirt bag)
Filler – you can use shredded paper or cotton
2 rubber bands
Sharpie marker

Instructions:

1. Stuff the plastic bag with the filler
2. Tie a knot at the top of the bag with the handles. These should make your bunny ears.
3. Tie a rubber band around the bottom of the plastic bag to make the tail.
4. Using the sharpie marker, draw facial features like the bunny’s eyes, nose and mouth.
5. You should now have your bunny!

Presenting home baked goods in coffee bags

With money being tight for most people these days, you want to try to save in as many areas as you can. The holidays are a time when you can use your baking talents to show your appreciation to your loved ones. Everyone loves home baked goods. Giving packages of cookies, brownies, rice-krispie treats, and other baked goods are very popular during this time. When you gift these goodies through, it’s important to present them in a creative and special way. One way to do that is by using empty coffee bags. Coffee bags will keep your baked goods fresh and will also give you the opportunity to decorate the gift packaging.

Once you have your freshly baked goods in the bag, you can seal it up with the tin ties. Use a bow of your choice to decorate the bag. You can go with curly bows, fabric bows, or even flair it up with some fancy bows. My personal favorite is the metallic bow-tie bow. It’s a small pull bow made from mirrorized poly. They come in Christmas colors – red and emerald green – so you can use it for the holiday season. A combination of using an empty coffee bag with a beautiful bow is the best choice for presenting your baked goods to friends and family.

Bubble mailers for an Online Business

When you own a business that ships products out to customers, shipping costs can become pretty expensive. One way to reduce costs is by using light-weight shipping envelopes such as the popular bubble mailers. These nifty little mailers come in all different sizes to accommodate various products.

My friend who sells jewelry through eBay uses these padded bubble mailers all the time. They protect the jewelry from damage and also help to keep the shipping costs low. This is a win-win situation for both him, as a business owner, and the customer.

I personally use bubble mailers to ship out used books that I sell on Amazon. Of course I can send it in a box or a large envelope but I know this will not keep the books safe during shipping. Packages are often thrown about carelessly and as a good seller, you need to take precaution when you ship products to your customer. A damaged item could result in negative reviews in you seller’s account or the customer may ask that you replace the item. So save yourself the headache of dealing with return transactions or bad reviews, and go with bubble mailers for all your secure shipping needs.

Bubble Wrap Indian Corn

As a child, many of us found bubble wrap to provide mindless entertainment. Popping bubble wrap was a fun activity that could be enjoyed while watching a movie or laying out in the sun. Little did we know that bubble wrap could be used for a variety of other activities including arts and crafts projects.

One creative way to use bubble wrap is for making Indian corn. This is a great activity do with your child for Thanksgiving and only requires some simple supplies.

Materials:

Bubble wrap
Scissors
Raffia
Hole puncher
Small paint brush
Yellow, tan, rust, black and red paint

Instructions:

1. Print out a corn pattern online. Just do a simple Google search and you’ll be able to find one easily.

2. Cut the bubble wrap into the shape of corn using the printed pattern. Cut out 3 corn shapes.

3. Paint the 3 corn shapes three different colors: yellow, tan, and rust.

4. Once the paint has dried, use the paintbrush to paint some of the kernels red and black. This will make it look like Indian corn.

4. Glue the painted corn onto card-stock backings. Punch a hole on the top of each of the corn and tie all three together with raffia.

5. Hang the corn on a door knob or use it to decorate the table for a Thanksgiving meal.

Frankenstein Take Out Box

While take out boxes are used primarily for carrying restaurant food home, they are also perfect for crafts projects and as favor boxes for any party. Think of one of the most celebrated holidays in the U.S. – Halloween. There’s a simple and creative arts and crafts project that can be done with Chinese take out boxes. First you will need a green colored Chinese take out box or if you have a white one, just paint it pale green. Go into any crafts store and purchase the following supplies: black and white felt, black permanent marker, wiggly eyes, brads, glue, and scissors. Once you have all the materials, begin by cutting out the black felt in a zig zag shape and glue the felt on to the top portion of the box, making it look like Frankenstein’s hair. Then glue on the two wiggly eyes. Use the brad as Frankenstein’s nose and draw his features (mouth, scar, ears) using the permanent marker. You can also cut out little teeth with the white felt and glue it on to the drawn mouth. Fill the take out box with candy and other Halloween treats. Then hand them out to anyone special in your life or as a Halloween party favor.

Cardboard Box Shape Sorter

Imagine this – you just moved into a new place and unpacked all your stuff but you’re left with a massive amount of empty cardboard boxes. What can you do with them? Well for one thing, you can give them away to someone else that needs them or let your cat enjoy a game of hide-and-seek. If you have a toddler though, one neat project is to turn a large cardboard box into a shape sorter using materials that are easily available at home.

First you will need a large box, approximately 18x18x18 inches. Draw different shapes on all six sides of the box using a compass, ruler, and pencil. Rectangles, diamonds, circles, and hexagons are just some ideas. Cut out the shapes using an X-Acto knife. Trace each of the cutout circles with contact paper and then use a compass to draw a circle around it that is an inch bigger in diameter. Cut out the ring and paste it onto the corresponding circle on the box. Repeat the process for all shapes. It might be easier to use strips of colored masking tape for rectangles and squares. The final step is to use a hot-glue gun to seal the cardboard box firmly on both ends. Hand your toddler some play balls and toys to put through the holes for hours of fun.