How to Make Unique Wedding Favors

When it was my turn to get married, I wanted give-aways that were not usually seen in display shelves of party shops. We wanted something unique, but we didn't want to spend a lot of money.

So my then fiancé and I decided to make our own souvenirs. About three months before the wedding, we shopped around for one-of-a-kind items that we could just decorate and put our names on. It took a number of experiments to get the look that we wanted, but the outcome was beautiful.

In one of the department stores, we found star-shaped bottles about 4 inches tall, with an opening on one side. They were on sale because the original trimmings already looked old. We thought that we could just take out all its decors and put in our own design. We bought everything that was available, which numbered to 100. It was actually enough for our number of guests.

When we took the bottles home, we took off the trimmings and poured out the contents. There was nothing that we could do with them anyway, so we just discarded them.

The question next was what to fill the bottle with. I first thought of plastic beads that were colored red and gold, which was our color motif for the wedding. It will be topped with a cut up piece of red tulle, fastened together with a red ribbon, and attached with our "thank you" card that was tied to the ribbon with a golden string. It turned out that the plastic beads would cost a lot because each bottle would contain at least half a pack of beads. So instead we looked for a cheaper and bulkier alternative. What we found are potpourri that were colored red and yellow.

Here's what I did: