Escort Cards & Unity Candles - DIY

I bet you thought i was joking with all of these DIY projects huh? Nope I was not joking. I was serious about saving money by doing stuff myself. Since time is money, then I used my time instead of spending my money LOL.

So, I think that I explained in a previous post that one of my pet peeves is searching through tons of escort cards for my name. Her is my solution to that dilemma:

I found a few styrofoam boards, some wooden clothes pins and the escort cards. Then I alphabetized the escort cards by last name, and I attached the cards to the pins and stuck the pins into the sky painted styrofoam board. Get it "Ribbon in the Sky". Yay and voila, on theme, alphabetized escort cards. I have 3 boards that will say last name A-H, I-M, N-Z. This idea can work for just about any theme. I got my inspiration from one of my bridesmaids weddings. She had a beach theme and painted the styrofoam board with some kind of sandy paint and put the names on mini beach umbrellas. Super cute. 

The cardstock was $11.00 (which I used for my wedding programs as well so got double duty out of one package), ribbon (which I have been using for just about everything), the styrofoam, my stepfather had in the  basement and the pins were from another project and the paint was $.89/tube. So I spent about $5.00 for this project. 

Predesigned escort cards are about $15.00 on Amazon. Hey any savings is a good thing right? 

Ok on to the unity candles. Here is the finished product:

The only thing that I am not crazy about is the fact that the blues are off, but I am going to deal with it because I don't feel like designing another monogram. My buddy PJ designed this for our reply cards and so I took it and used it for this. But anyway, unity candles can get pretty expensive, but they are really easy to make. 

Two long candles - 2 for $1.00 at the Dollar Store

Middle Candle - $5.00 at Pat Catans

Ribbon - Left over from other projects

Paper Monogram - Free

Candle Holders (not pictured) - Borrowed from my aunt

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Total Price = $6.00

On average Unity Candles run about $30.00 on Amazon and can even cost more if you buy them in a store so I saved about $24.00. 

How to make:

Take some ribbon the color of your wedding and wrap it around the candle. Then take some straight pins and push them into the candle to attach the ribbon. The monogram is actually made of paper, but you could also use a clear label if your design does not have as much color as mine. You may need to pin that label to the candle as well if adhesive doesn't stick to the wax. Then just put it on your candle holders and there you go, a decorated unity candle set. 

Welp, two more projects almost done (still need to put together my last escort card board), and on to the last one, putting ribbon on the ceremony programs. I survived the DIY projects and saved some pennies along the way. 4 more days until the BIG DAY. Yay. I am now getting excited. LOL.