No more Jordan almonds – creative wedding favors

Over at Etsy, Vanessa has posted a new article in their “Handmade Wedding” series on wedding favors. She’s shown some amazing Etsy finds as favors, all of them way better than those jordan almonds that no-one seems to actually like.

It reminded me of the wedding favors we handed out at our wedding. We still get compliments on them almost ten years later.

We had many people at our wedding who had never met before and decided to do something that would work as an ice breaker. Each guest received a small box with a plate of steel inside it (approximately 2” x 3”) and a custom bit of magnetic poetry attached. We purchased several boxes of magnetic poetry and had a lot of fun spending several hours making up one-liners for each gift.

At the wedding, guests who didn’t know each other had a great way to break the ice, asking each other to read their poetry and exchanging words to make new lines. It was a lot of fun. And each guest took a completely personalized gift home with them.

Making scratch paper

Despite my best efforts, as a graphic designer, I print – a lot. If the papers I print don't have proprietary information, then I add it to my “stack” of paper to be used as a “blotter” when I'm glueing items. Great for a gluestick/PVA junkie like me. But lately my stack is getting a bit tall, so I've been looking for alternative uses.

I came up with a stack of scratch paper for notes, figures, lists, etc. Cutting a standard letter-size piece of paper into quarters gives a good size for scratch paper. But, I really didn't like just having a stack o' paper sitting on my desk, so I made a container. It's made of mat board and covered with a burgandy red paper and lined with black. I then made a collage of words cut out of magazines to cover the back panel, which will slowly reveal themselves as I use the stack of paper.

Dryer balls actually work

I'll be honest, making and using wool dryer balls was more of an experiment than something I thought would work to get rid of static cling, but they do. Creating these felted wool dryer balls to use in lieu of dryer sheets or fabric softener was really easy. I just keep the basket on top of my dryer and toss one in with each load of laundry going into the dryer.

And I've made a couple of sets for gifts; inexpensive, and they look great in a small basket or crate.

Thanks to How to Make Do for the instructions.