How to REuse a Playing Card to make a Wedding Boutonniere.

1.  Find a King card.  Cut a circle around the king’s head.  Take another card and cut a long petal shape from it.

2.  Turn the petal card so the back side is showing and glue the king to it.  You can glue it anywhere you like!

3.  Cut two different sized circles from a piece of fabric (one larger than the other).  For this example, the larger circle is about 1.5 inches in diameter.

4.  Find a button you like to place in the center of the two circles.

5.  Glue everything together in your own way or how it is shown here.

6.  Flip your new boutonniere over and tape a pin to it.  It is ready to be worn!

Other great resources for inspiration when brainstorming your creative REuse and upcycled boutonniere:

• Fabric Scrap Flower Boutonniere.

• Funky DIY Burlap Button Boutonniere.

• REuse Pantyhose to make a floral inspired boutonniere.

What would you upcycled into a wedding boutonniere?

Related posts:

1. How to Reuse a blouse to make a wedding hairpin.
2. Creative REuse Wedding Centerpiece.

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Eco-frienldy, DIY, and Creative REuse Wedding Centerpiece ideas:

Decorate with your face. Gather up your favorite photos of you and your husband and your family from super young to the day you met and so forth.  Shop at garage sales, thrift shops, etc. for cheap photo frames.  Place them back to back in the center of your table for guests to giggle at, remember fondly and take the one they choose at the end of the night.  No need to make 1 per guest; I made around 15 or so for my wedding of 65 guests and that was plenty.

REuse Wine bottles for candles or flowers

photo courtesy of this is glamorous.

Spaghetti jars as flower vases or candle vases.

I am not sure if you can purchase Classico brand spaghetti sauce where you are, but I can and I did for my centerpiece.  My husband and I eat plenty of Italian food, so we had no problem using up a good number of jars to use as our wild flower vases for our centerpiece.  Super cheap and delicious way to create a vase! 

Grow an herb garden. If you have a good amount of time before your wedding, consider growing your own centerpiece!  An herb garden can serve several purposes on your big day.  The smell is fantastic, herbs make a wonderfully subtle centerpiece AND you can give it away to your guests.

photo courtesy of greening your children.

For the artist in all of us. Grab a little inspiration from Andy Warhol and create classic, simple, and fun wheatgrass Campbell’s soup can centerpieces.

photo courtesy of family chic.

Put the cupcakes on double duty. Save yourself some time and money and have your cupcakes act as centerpieces while folks are mingling and enjoying their dinner.  By the time dessert is eaten at a reception, nobody is discussing the decor.  Trust me.

photo courtesy of here comes the guide.

If you are in the mood to make your own cupcakes AND your own centerpiece, check out this tutorial on how to make your own rose cupcake centerpiece care of The Frugal Girls.

Origami. This is another two-for-one deal in that you can give these centerpieces away at the end of the night as favors!  Origami is so wonderfully complex and subtle at the same moment.  This would be a challenge to learn to do, but hey, if you are up for it, try to create your own origami wedding centerpieces!  Here’s a bit of inspiration for you.

photo courtesy of airstrip.

Here’ another version of a flower.  I have shared a video in a past post on how to make these yourself.  Check it out HERE.

photo courtesy of Michelle Mathis.

What other ways have you found to REuse stuff to make a centerpiece?  Or, did you have a DIY wedding – what did you do for your centerpiece?  Leave a comment or contact me to share your experiences and ideas.  I would love to hear them!

Related posts:

1. How to Reuse a blouse to make a wedding hairpin.

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My dear long time friend is getting married on Saturday.  She’s the chick with the awesome shades in the photo.  Doesn’t this look the front of our 1980s CD or how ’bout a television show?  We’d make a great team.

In celebration of my friend’s nuptials I am dedicating this week’s blog posts to Weddings!  So, if you are looking for inspiring ideas for Do-it-yourself, creative reuse and eco-friendly wedding ideas, look no further than the next 4 days here on How to Reuse it Creatively.  I will be covering ideas for boutonnieres, bouquets, centerpieces, and wedding favors.  If you are planning to tie the knot anytime soon, or not, or are like me and married and still get a kick out of clever and cute wedding decor, than stay tuned.  I hope to inspire the creativity in all of us to have an eco-friendly wedding.

To start the week right, here is a quick and easy tutorial on how to reuse old blouses to make a wedding hairpin.  Add this pin to an up do or down do for just a wee bit extra awesomeness.

How to REuse Old Blouses to make a Wedding Hairpin:

What I used:

One shirt with some stretch to it
One shirt with nice beading
Two buttons
Thread
Scissors
Bobby Pin

1. Cut 2 different sized circles from the 2 shirts. Make the stretchy fabric the larger circle. To give you an idea about size, my larger circle is about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.

2. Sew around the edge of your stretchy circle. Gently pull the fabric towards you as you sew to create the wavy look.

3. Place the smaller circle inside the larger one and stack the 2 buttons on top of one another.

4. Sew the buttons to the 2 circles.

5. Slide a bobby pin through the thread on the back of the hairpin.

And there you go. An easy, simple, classic wedding hair pin that is an easy do-it-yourself wedding craft. Have fun!

Do you have any do-it-yourself, eco-friendly, creative reuse wedding ideas and tutorials you would like to share this week? Leave a comment or send them my way!

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Here are a few ways to have an eco-friendly wedding:

Digital Announcements/Save the Dates. Usually the first thing that is sent out when a couple gets engaged is an announcement and/or a Save the Date card.  Why not design your own digital card and send them out via email?  I know not everyone has an email account, so only order paper cards for those folks and send emails to the rest.  You will cut down on costs and paper waste!

Paperless RSVP. I think the world is ready for an email, website, or phone RSVP.  I don’t know about other married couples, but I had to make several calls to my invited guests in order to get an official yes or no.  If people aren’t going to RSVP via those cute small paper RSVPs then what’s the point in sending them?  Ask for RSVPs via phone, email, text, website, facebook, whatever.  Just start a spreadsheet and keep track right from the beginning.  Again, you will save money (No stamps!) and paper waste.

Recycled Invitations. The invitation is one of my favorite parts of a wedding.  They set the tone and mood for the wedding day.  They let your guests anticipate what to expect.  If you are having a company make them for you ask for 100% post-consumer recycled paper.  That is the best “recycled-type” paper you can get.  It means that the paper was used, recycled and then re-made into new paper.  When something only says “recycled” that can mean several things.  Most of the time it means that it has not been used by a customer, but was picked up from the paper factory floor and added back into the paper making cycled.  Still good, but post-consumer is even better.

Make your own paper. I had so much fun designing my wedding invitations and making the paper for them.  The best part was that I took old letters, cards, etc. from the guests that would be attending the wedding and used that paper to make new paper for the invitations.  I got to decide on the color, size, shape, everything.  It was hard work, but worth it in the end!

Local/Organic Flowers. If you are against dried and fake flowers and want fresh flowers on your wedding day buy them from a flower shop that grows them locally and organically.  The problem with fresh cut flowers is not that flowers are bad for the environment; it is that they come from miles and miles away.  Think of the amount of carbon emissions it takes to fly or drive a flower from somewhere in South America to your city (if you don’t live somewhere in South America (: – I think you get my point).  If you do use flowers, think of eco-friendly ways to display them.  Save some jars and use them as vases; wine bottles work well too!

Non-floral center pieces. Non-floral doesn’t mean no flowers.  Buy flowers in a pot so they can be planted after the wedding.  Or use dried/paper flowers.  I have seen center pieces with edible fruit, cactus, photographs in repurposed frames, candles, and so much more.  You can get really creative with center pieces when you think outside the flower box.

Recycled/Soy Candles. Candles make a great alternative centerpiece!  Companies are starting to jump on the eco-friendly band wagon which makes it easy for folks like us to get what we want.  Companies that re-melt and reuse old candle wax are starting to pop up everywhere.  Also, get soy candles whenever you can, they let out less toxins then regular wax.

Don’t throw those center pieces away. The last thing you want to do is use something for about 5 hours.  Concentrate on making your centerpieces something you can give away to your guests that they can enjoy for even just a bit longer.  Plants are great for that, framed photos, and vases too!

Local/Organic Catering. The caterer for our wedding was so understanding about my eco-friendly needs.  We discussed the food being locally grown and organic.  Ask your caterer what they do with leftover food.  Do they donate it?  Do they compost it?

Bring your own Food! This is ambitious, but possible.  If you are having a morning wedding and are serving brunch type food, check out your local stores for organic and local pasteries.  A cocktail hour reception would allow you to do the same thing.  This gives you control over what companies you are purchasing your food from.

Avoid Disposables and Plastics. Use glass dishware and silverware whenever you can.  If you are getting married outside in a park or on the beach and aren’t allowed to use glass, try acrylic dishware.  If you have to use disposable, make sure it is made from compostable material.

Eco-Friendly Wedding Dress. Check out this one from treehugger.com. Now, I know this isn’t for everyone.  But, there are new options for eco-friendly wedding dresses.  You can buy a dress made from organic materials.  An example can be found at treadheadcreations.com.

Reuse a wedding dress! I was so happy when my mom agreed to let me wear her wedding dress!  There was no other dress that compared.  I altered it a bit, but the main part of the dress stayed the same.  I hope some day my daughter will want to wear (:

Other ways to upcycled a wedding dress are to shop at second hand stores or make your own from recycled fabric!

There are many small steps and big steps you can take to have an eco-friendly wedding.  You just have to be willing to think creatively and sometimes spend a little bit more money (food, invitations…).  But, where you spend more on local and organic food and flowers you will save by sending paperless announcements and RSVPs!  And, just think how happy you will feel leaving only small traces after your wedding ceremony and reception.  I know it made me feel great to consider the environment when I planned my wedding.

Any other tips I missed?  Tell me!

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CasaSugar has a great DIY instructional for wine cork place card holders.
CLICK HERE to visit the site.

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I recently married the love of my life and received dozens of thoughtful cards of congratulations in the mail.  I love mail!  BUT, I live in a one bedroom apartment and am on a purging kick, so it’s time to either recycle them or do something with them.

So, I’m in the process of scanning in the wonderful well wishes we received into my computer and making other items with the images from the cards.

First up, I’ve Reused Wedding Greeting Cards to make a decorative mat for a photo frame.

Here’s How:

1.  Pick a few of your favorite card images and cut them away from the rest of the card.

2.  Arrange each card on your mat to your liking.

3.  Use Modge Podge or one of your favorite craft glues to glue the cards to the mat.

4.  After the glue dries, trim away any excess card with an X-acto knife.

5.  Now it’s time to pick your favorite photo to put inside!

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