My inspirations for the shower are all on a convenient Bridal Shower Board:
http://pinterest.com/marlipaige/bridal-shower/
So, the first step to any great shower is a great invite. You have to make people really interested in coming. First, let's show one of the finished products:
Since Aliya had told me day one she wanted puzzle pieces incorporated I started cutting out millions of piece out of the spare scrapbook paper I had lying around. Her colors were dusty peachy/pink, spring green, and ivy green, and her flowers are cabbage roses, hydrangeas, and ivy so I was trying to find pieces that matched that. This is what I started with from my arsenal of leftover scrapbook pages.
I am a scrapbook page hoarder. When they're on clearance I BUY THEM. If Michael's has a pack of scrapbook paper (doesn't matter what the pack looks like), I buy it, because I WILL find a use for it. But if you're not a scrapbook page hoarder DO NOT FEAR!
On an average day, walking into your average craft store like Michaels, Joann, or Hobby Lobby a pack of scrapbook paper will run you $5-$10 for 50-100 pages of 6x6 paper, and $12-$20 for a 50-100 pages of 12x12 paper. The price variant really depends on the type/thickness of the paper, whether it's a solid or a design, if that design is in or out of season, and generally how the store is pricing things that day.
BUT if you look at the clearance aisle FIRST there is ALMOST ALWAYS at least one pack of scrapbook paper reduced to 50% off or more. That normally $20 pack of assorted designs of 100 scrapbook pages might be marked down to $3.99 because it's been in the store so long, or it's been opened and is missing a page or two. That's the first trick when doing things on a budget: shop the clearance aisle.
Second: Bring Coupons. Your store of choice will each have their own laws about coupons, but I can tell you from experience:
Michaels Coupons are all online and can be scanned from your smartphone. They will take multiples if they apply, and most of their coupons are not good on sale items (though occasionally there are % of total purchase which includes sale items, and this is the BEST time to shop)
JoAnn Fabric Coupons: JoAnn accepts all JoAnn fabric coupons and stacks them (including the ones on your smart phone) AND they take competitors coupons and stack them. So if you go to JoAnn and have a 40% off your total purchase including sale items code from them, and a 50% off one regular priced item from Michael's, they take both and stack. If you have a JoAnn near you they generally have the best coupons because they take competitors on top of their own.
Walmart: Walmart is a pain in the butt to deal with especially because in order to use coupons they have to be physical coupons and competitors coupons must be brought in with something that has the date on it, or they won't take them. HOWEVER, Walmart is notorious for never selling their craft supplies and having an all-craft clearance aisle. If you're willing to dig through the cans of beans and dvds that were mistakenly put on this rack, you can sometimes find craft gold buried under there. And because they take all competitors coupons when it had a date and generally have the lowest prices to start with (especially when it comes to that 97 cents clearance pack you just found), you can get the paper for essentially nothing.
Target: Target isn't as coupon happy as the others, but they do have a great clearance aisle and bargain bins right up front that oftentimes have hidden gems in them. I've found scrapbook paper, wrapping paper, fabric, cups, and all sorts of other things in target clearance aisles and bargain bins. Most of the bargain bins everything is $1 in, with the exception of the occasional $3 and $5 items.
Ok, so now that you've scoured the world for scrapbook paper and paid (I hope) next to nothing for it, if you're making the puzzle piece invites you basically just cut out puzzle piece shapes. I know that sounds stupid but honestly...I just cut out pieces that looked like puzzle pieces and winged it, and most of them turned out pretty good. The ones that didn't, I scrapped. And it got easier as you went because that knob you just cut out of the other piece became the hole in that piece. I just mixed it up. I put on my normal tv watching and just cut. It took several days to cut all of them out, and I ended up with more than I needed; but they were cute.
So next I had to make the actual invitations. I searched pinterest for cute invites. I found this pin ( http://pinterest.com/pin/141089400799060842/ ) for homre wedding invites.
http://www.weddingchicks.com/freebies/invitation-suites/free-printable-ombre-wedding-invitations/
Lots of great freebies on there. Made my life so easy. So I chose the two closest to her colors: Celedon and Peach Blossom. If you go to my bridal shower board you can see I played around with it half a dozen different ways, but the final decision was:
Peach Blossom top, celadon bottom, and names in peach blossom. Isn't that precious?
I could've just left them like that, but nope, not me. I had cut out all these damn piece of puzzles and they were going SOMEWHERE. So I began to post them on individual invites working around the wording and cutting off excess that hung over the edges. I simply sponged them with mod podge then applied them to the invites (printed on 6x8 cardstock), and if they started to come up I applied another coat of mod podge on top.
That's what they ended up looking like when everything was on top of them. They were quite cute. And once I finished all of them into the envelopes I bought with the cardstock sets they went. Generally you can find an "invitation" kit pretty easily and cheaply. If you can't, and you find the amount of cardstock you need just check all the major stores for card envelopes. The cardstock and envelopes ran me about $12
Cost Rundown:
Cardstock & Envelopes $12
Scrapbook Paper $3
(I already had it, but if you evened out what I originally paid for it by how many pieces I used)
Stamps $9.20
Invitation Cost: $24.20 for 20 invitations
I sent out a few more than 20, and the bride's mom paid for some of the stamps, but all in all, it wasn't a bad price for what I accomplished. So, there's $25 of your budget gone. Now what?
Additional money-saving ways:
Do an e-vite
Save on stamps? Printing? Paper? Just to an e-vite.
If you still want the aesthetic of the handmade invite without having to mail them all take a quality photograph of the invites you made and add it to your evite or facebook page. If you wanted to make some up as mementos for the guests who actually come, you can, and you'll save on stamps.
Everyone seems to be on facebook these days, and I just made a facebook event and made a copy of the invite to put on there to be cute. And I had everyone invited there so I could get a better rsvp count.
Also, there are sites like evite.com that let you send to email addresses, facebook, whatever. So if you wanted to create a fun online invite that was free (like the hombre hearts), save it to your computer, and upload it to sites and send the digital version only your invites just cost you $0!
Congrats, you're now a money saving machine.
