How to Throw a Shower on a Budget: Step #4

4. Make Things Yourself

Making the food will save you money, but it goes much farther than that.

I ending up making everything for my shower. I‘m just a make it myself person. I enjoy it, and I can’t stand to buy something that I can make myself. It just kills me. Absolutely KILLS me.

Plus, making everything myself I was able to keep the color scheme going. I used the same paisley paper from invites all the way to tray liners for food. You can really customize things that way.


Invitations



I used card stock that I already had on hand for the actual card part. I bought an adorable stamp with a cake and "Love in Bloom" on it for $4.50 (40% off), paisley paper for $.50, and ribbon for $1.00. That is a total of $6.00.

To buy 24 invites it would have cost me $15.00 at Target, on the low end. Plus…I can reuse my stamp. Use a stamp you already have and it becomes dirt cheap.




Love in Bloom Banner




I love searching etsy for ideas. I found some adorable banners, but for a one time use I didn’t want to swing $20-$30. I made mine for $2.50 and it was super easy to do. I don’t feel so bad pitching a banner that only cost me a few bucks.




Tissue Pom Flowers



I also found these on Etsy, but then I found a tutorial from Martha Stewart. Jackpot. Each pom takes 8 sheets of tissue paper, but they make HUGE poms. After making two I decided to revamp the plan and make smaller sized ones. I got about 25 poms pom flowers for $7! There were so many of them, that I didn’t need any other decorations.

I had them hanging in every room on the first floor.



Favors



After much debating I settled on homemade marshmallows for my favors. This was my first time making them, but they were a lot of fun to make. I already had the bags so for a total of about $3, I was able to make a pan of marshmallows and bag them up with some cute ribbon I picked up. That is about as cheap as favors come.