Oprah is looking for you!

I ran across this casting call alert on Oprah's website and thought my budget brides could benefit.  If you do get to meet Oprah, tell her I'm a big fan.

Are you listed in our directory? It's free! List your blog and follow us and you could be featured in an upcoming post. Find the link at the top of our page.

Free grocery store checklist

Sure, you could keep using the envelope of a piece of junk mail but wouldn't grocery shopping be a little more fun and fancy if you had this awesome grocery store checklist?  It's from Seed to Sprout and it's 100% free.  Here's what I think I'm going to do, laminate it and reuse it with a wet or dry erase marker.  Maybe use a sharpie for items that I know I'll need every time, like milk and bread.

What about framing this, add that wet or dry erase marker, and give it as a gift to newlyweds for their new kitchen?  Or a Mother's Day gift or for a college kid... the list goes on and on.

Above is just a sample, click here for the free download.

Centerpiece Cents: Ice cream bucket

The idea for Centerpiece Cents, and really the blog in general, is to find the cheapest way to accomplish the beautiful wedding and reception you want.  Many people will say that a $500 wedding is impossible and that's not true.  You can do it, you just have to be open-minded and creative.  Now, most people will have more than $500 to plan their wedding but would still like to save as much money as they can, so these ideas can help everyone.

My project for today's quick project is converting an ice cream bucket into a centerpiece.  Using it as a bowl/vase, I painted the bucket a dark brown and filled it with greenery and flowers.  The flowers I used were fake (and I'd use real if you can because they smell so good, although fake flowers are completely fine) and I already had them.  My ice cream bucket and paint were things I already had too so this project was totally free (remember the rule is all centerpieces must cost less than $5.00 each).

Think about it like this too: When you're watching those home-improvement shows and they talk about home-sellers "staging" their home for an open house, it's all about appearances.  None of the furnishings are meant to last forever or be over-analyzed.  They are meant for the moment and so are these centerpieces. 

If you're on a budget and you need centerpieces for twenty tables, you need to get resourceful and think about how you can achieve the look for that one event.  Will this ice cream bucket last forever or be on display atop the mantle in your living room?  Nope, but it will make a wonderful centerpiece for the evening and no one will know.

Here's where it started.  In the freezer, hiding from me.

I ate the ice cream (like I do) and painted it with a thick glossy dark brown paint.
Two coats.

After it dried, I filled it with balled up plastic grocery bags as my base
for the floral arrangement.

I filled it with different flowers and greenery, a little moss on the bottom, and it's done.
With tea light candles surrounding it and the lights dimmed, who's going to say,
"Hey, didn't this used to be an ice cream pail?  I'm outta here."

Over at Cornflower Blue, Cortney has some great centerpiece ideas too, here's a picture from her guest blog post yesterday.  I like how she's picked one simple flower and used it for several different decorations.

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Don't miss our blog party! Every Wednesday with the highlights showcased on Saturday.

100% Free Invitations

You can have this invitation design absolutely
free if you want it.  Just send me an email!

I threw this together today as an example of how a bride on a budget can still have cute invitations.  I did this on my computer, just Microsoft Word.  If by chance you like this invitation, you can have it absolutely free.  Just email me your names, dates, etc. and I'll send it back to you ASAP and absolutely free.  (I'm not a graphic designer so I can't charge folks money like I am one can I?  Nope, I can't.) 

Now the next step might not be free, but you can still save a bunch of bucks.  Upload your design to 123print.com or any other online printer and scale it down to 5x7 or whatever size you'd like (I'd recommend the smallest size you're comfortable with since anything around 5x7 will cost you extra in postage) and order your prints.  You can usually get a deal on matching letterhead or postcards (which I'd highly recommend you use for thank-you notes) and make sure you check out any free shipping promotions they have going on as well.  I did a quick estimate on how much it would be if I ordered 50 of these in an approximate 4.5" by 5.5" size at $35.00.

Don't want to do your own design or you're looking for something even easier?  123print.com also has wedding templates where you simply type in the necessary information, verify the info, order your quantity, and you're done. Priced out, this option is cheaper too. You can get 50 invites for less than $30.00 and that includes free shipping.  Not bad at all.

Want a unique and cute invitation design but don't want to do it yourself?  Seed to Sprout has some great ideas with invitations starting at just $9.00.

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Entertain your out of town guests with hometown BINGO!

Need a free and fun activity to keep your guests (especially those from out town) busy while you're putting together those last minute wedding details?  Try Hometown Bingo.

It's easier than a scavenger hunt and really, all guests need is the game board and a vehicle.  So have your groups pile into Aunt Cathy's SUV and wish them luck!  Make sure to have a few prizes for the winners.

How to play:
Get "BINGO" by finding the hometown landmarks in the right BINGO formation.  Make sure everyone has a pen or crayon to mark their spots on the BINGO card.  First one to win and turn in the card gets a prize.  Take pictures to prove it!

Below are the BINGO cards, print them out and have fun!

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

20 things to do for spring break

My kids have been coming home for the past week telling me everything that their friends will be doing for spring break.  "My friend is going to horse camp!"  "My friend is going to Puerto Rico!"  Other kids were taking off for Mexico, Florida, and other fun trips.  We aren't going anywhere.  We are also on a tight budget right now so I couldn't just take everyone to the mall and go crazy.  We needed to get creative and decide what to do on a budget in a small town without a lot of activities.  I mapped out a plan that included a formula of one outing, one activity or craft, and one project (code word for chore) per day.  At the end of their break when they head back to school, they'd have some stories to tell, some art to show off, and a clean house to come home to.  Perfect!

Here's my game plan for the week:

Outings
Public Library
Matinee Movie (and yes, I sneak in my own fruit snacks)
Free concert at college
County History Museum
Humane Society
Mall of America (Free: window shopping and Lego World. Cheap: bead store and scoop of ice cream)
Movie theme night (Think "Bug's Life" with Dirt Dessert)
Hometown Bingo

Activities/Crafts
Make your own watercolors
Make a hand mold and remember this time
Have a homemade toy car race
Picasso Party (everyone gets a huge blank canvas, they draw their picture, then paint it!)
Make your own movie
Barbie doll fashion show with homemade dresses
Bleach-Pen T-shirts
Put on a puppet show with photo puppets

Projects
Organize closet, switch over clothes for new season
Match all socks
De-clutter dressers
Garbage hunt (everyone gets a Target bag and fills it up with any scraps of garbage, broken toys, junk mail, torn and damaged books, old magazines, etc.)
Everyone fills up one bag or box of toys, books, and clothes to donate to the thrift store

Want more craft ideas for kids? Click here!

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Make a Barbie dress from a sock

Not directly "wedding" related but pass this on to your sister so she can make one of these and keep your nieces happy at the wedding ceremony.  Hey, it's free to make, why not?

Leave it to a snow day to get me motivated to do a craft.  We got out the big basket of socks without a match.  We have a big basket full of these lonely socks who are without a mate.  Like the toddler socks version of a singles cruise.  So I grabbed a few and gave them a purpose.

Here's what you'll need:

1. Clean old child's sock
2. Scissors
3. Glue
4. Felt, ribbon, buttons, glitter glue (whatever you'd like to use for decorating your dress)

I cut the toe off of the sock

Then I tried it on the Barbie but realized that I didn't like the bottom hem.  So I took it off, folded the hem under, glued it down and made the bottom the top.

I glued on some details, just stuff I had, in this case green felt and then made a yellow flower for the belt.  I hot glued everything on, making sure it would come off and on the Barbie easily.

The finished product.  100% free and it took me ten minutes.  Doesn't get much easier than that.

Want more dress ideas for your Barbie?  Here's the link for Make a Barbie dress from a sock part 2.

Want more craft ideas for kids? Click here!Have an idea you want to share?  Email me or post your blog link below.

Easy entertainment idea for brides on a budget

I recently had a fellow blogger share her site with me and I discovered this great idea for keeping your guests entertained at the reception (especially if it's that awkward time between the ceremony and the dinner where the bridal party is taking pictures and the wedding guests don't know what to do).

Here's what you'll need:

• Giant bed sheet or solid color blanket
• Two tall ladders
• Box of props (hats, wigs, beads, etc.)
• Digital cameras (guests will bring their own)

Set up a homemade photo booth. Drape the giant bed sheet or blanket from two ladders and have some boxes filled with props like picture frames (minus the glass), hats, mustaches, giant jewelry, sunglasses, wigs, etc. Invite everyone to take pictures and share them on a wedding facebook page or have everyone email the pictures to you later and print them out when you have the time and money. Don't forget to mention on your invites that people should bring their cameras.  Great memory-maker!

My favorite prop ideas!

How cute are these?

See more pics of our new blog friend's photo booth below. This is another great free and easy idea for your wedding!

Genevieve's Wedding: Fauxtobooth Props: "A few weeks ago A month and a half ago I posted a handful of pictures from my fauxtobooth HERE. I know it was more like a photo op since I d..."

Have an idea or a blog you want to share? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Easy and CHEAP wedding decoration

This whole project took me ten minutes to do and I had everything I needed in my kitchen so it was 100% free.  Not too bad!  If I was going to do this over, especially if I was making more than one, I would tweak a few things.

First, buy some inexpensive forks at a thrift store (don't use your own actual forks for this) because you're going to need to bend the prongs.

Second, I would paint the pot instead of cover in fabric.  Fabric is absolutely fine but it would be a little tedious to do this same thing in fabric 50 times if you planned on using this idea as placeholders for your wedding dinner.  Plus, painting makes it look a little more polished.  I've posted samples of both.

Third, I'd consider getting those fancy silver disposable forks or the white ones and spray painting them black, something like that.  The actual forks are great but are a little tall.  If you get the plastic kind, you could cut a bit off of the bottom.  This would be a cheaper way too, buying a box of 50 plastic forks versus 50 regular forks, even if you bought the real ones at a thrift store.

You'll need fabric or paint, a small pot, some floral grass, ribbon, clay (I used play dough), and forks.  Scissors, paint brush, and glue too.

I stuffed the pot halfway with the play dough and tested out the fork to make sure that the pot and dough would hold it.  Here's where that plastic fork may be better since it wouldn't be as heavy.

I measured out what I needed to cover the pot in fabric, I used white felt for this pot.  After I glued on the felt, I glued on the two different colors of ribbon.

Next, you'll need the craft grass.

I added the craft grass, put the fork back in, and picked out a picture.  The picture may bend a little in the fork so I'd suggest not using the originals of your pictures.  Make photocopies (black and white would look cute) and mount them on stock or scrapbook paper.

For painting, I used regular acrylic poster paint in black and white.

Added a ribbon and a place card and voila!  You're done.

It got me thinking too, could you buy blocks of Styrofoam, stick the fork in, glue the base and cover the foam in a pretty fabric?  This way it's smaller, easier, cheaper and could fit on all of the tables.  Maybe even placeholders for those sitting at the head table.

I stumbled upon this beautiful photo holder on another blog and thought it would be great for a centerpiece at a wedding reception or maybe at the entrance to the dinner, by the guest book maybe?  The forks make it a natural fit for a sit-down formal wedding dinner and it's really cute and inexpensive to make.

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.

Paper petals

This blog is brought to you by a busy mom living in Minnesota where we "enjoy" winter for about 9 months of the year. Fresh flowers and plants are wonderful but hard to grow indoors. My good friend Nikki received an awesome gift from a friend and I thought I'd share it as it could be a fun (and likely FREE) centerpiece idea for your tables at the reception. Not fancy enough? What about for the kids' table?

The Lovely Residence: Paper Poinsettia: "Not having my decor in order for this year's Christmas Season, I was elated when my friend gave me this cheery house warming gift, a ho..."

Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.
Want more craft ideas for kids? Click here!

How to make a cover for your Kindle

Ok, so I know this blog is dedicated to saving money on your wedding but I did this project on Wednesday and I was super excited that I had accomplished the entire project before I went to bed and it cost me ZERO dollars. Free! I gathered up stuff I already had and I love my new kindle cover.

The back story- I am frugal to a fault. Come on, this can't be a shock to you, I've got a blog bragging up a $500 wedding. I do like to invest in something nice once in awhile and for Christmas this year, I wanted just one thing: An Amazon Kindle. My husband got it for me but because that was a splurge, no cover was included. I didn't care, who needs it? Well, after having it for a few months I realized that a cover is a good idea. For one thing, the amount of dust in our house is scary so if I put my kindle down (which you have to do once in awhile) it would get dusty almost immediately. Second, we have a lot of kids and I was always petrified that someone would spill something on it. Third, I needed a way to travel with it. What about roadtrips, airports, visiting relatives? I needed to keep this thing protected. But, we didn't have the extra bucks to buy the nice leather covers and protectors on Amazon so I winged it.

Supplies you'll need:

1. Old mouse pad
2. Some sturdy cardboard
3. Some material for the outside, stylish stuff! (About 3 yards, 14 inches wide)
4. Thick fleece (about 2 yards long, 12 inches wide)
5. A water-resistant material (I used a place mat cut in half, an old cloth shower curtain or table cloth would work here too.)
6. Needle and thread
7. A hair band
8. A button
9. Basic white glue
10. Scissors

Ok, I had this stuff around the house. None of it is unusual and if you do any crafts or have kids who have materials left over from a science project or a birthday party, you're probably set.

At first the idea was to cut the two place mats I had in half, sew them together to make a giant pocket, make a latch on the top. Since I can't use my sewing machine right now, I realized quick that this wouldn't work since I couldn't sew the material together by hand (it was way too thick for the needle I had).

So I went back to my original idea, use the place mat but as an inside protector. I only needed one, cut it in half and folded it around each of the mouse pad pieces (I had also cut the mouse pad in half) and the cardboard. Use your kindle or the half pieces of mouse pad as a template for how big the sturdy cardboard should be.

After these pieces were put together, I took the fleece and spread it out, put the two protector bundles on the fleece, folded it over so the fleece covered the protector bundles completely and sewed the fleece around these parts. Kind of like pillow cases except sewn all around the borders. Leave enough space between the two protectors so that it will fold easy, the kindle will slip in here, you don't want to squish it. You're not cutting the fleece either, you're sewing both protector bundles into the fleece. Sorry I don't have a picture of this but I do have a nice drawing for you below.

The pink part is the fleece, the brown squares are the protector bundles and the squiggly lines are where you should sew.  Just make sure you've already folded the fleece over the top of these protectors before you start sewing.

When the protector bundles are sewn inside the fleece, it should look like this.  All one piece that folds in the middle.  Again, that space in between the two bundles is important so that the Kindle isn't squished.

Next, I did something similar with the outer stylish fabric. Sewed up a giant long vertical pillow case, cut off about 6 inches from the top, then slipped the folded fleece protector panel in the long pillow case, then stuffed the extra material down inside the pocket. That 6 inches you cut off is then sewed to the top, folded into a triangle (kind of like you're wrapping a present), and used as the flap to wrap up the cover. I grabbed a hair band, tied it in the middle so it looked like a figure-8 and sewed the bottom loop under the flap and sewed the button to the middle of the cover. To secure the material that had been folded into the fleece protector, I used a little glue on the fleece and re-stuffed the material (this step isn't totally necessary so don't panic).

What's great is that it's a little wider than the kindle so there's plenty of room for the charger cord and owner's manual inside the case. Plus, if I put it in top first, I can still keep it in it's cover and charge it at the same time. I love it!

So again, not necessarily a wedding idea, but I'm all about saving money and do-it-yourself projects so I thought I'd share my tutorial with you. Good luck!

Heather at 500dollarwedding.blogspot.com





Have an idea? Share it here by posting a comment below. Let's all help each other out.