Missy's Homestead: Recycled Decorations

Planting!

Last weekend I threw a baby shower for one of my sister-in-laws.  I had never thrown a baby shower before and wanted to do a good job.  For the past several months I have been planning out how I could make everything cute and adorable without breaking the bank and be a good steward of the earth.  So I decided that I would challenge myself to make or source all of the decorations in a recycled manor.  This way I could save money and feel good about helping the environment.

"Flowers"

Gourds!

Instead of buying flowers or arrangements I cleaned off the labels of wine and beer bottles and arranged them with foliage that all came from my backyard.  Rosemary cuttings combined with berries from my tree made a beautiful fall decoration and large sprigs of heather added some great greenery to my tables.

Heather from my garden

A couple months ago I went to another party where my friend opened a bunch of gifts.  Instead of throwing all the tissue paper away I saved it and made colorful paper flags that I able to hang all over the front and inside of the house.  I was also able to make recycled tissue paper balls to hang on the outside of the fence to the shower, this saved me from buying balloons and actually looked even better.

For favors I found a bunch of free terra cotta pots at a garage sale and over several weeks I made cuttings from all of my succulent plants. I planted them with dirt from my yard and gave each lady who attending the party one as a reminder of the new growing life.

For the entranceway I really wanted to do something cute and flashy so I found some old gourds from craigslist for a total of 12 bucks and painted them with spray paint.  I made some lettering and paired them with some jars and "flowers" and made an arrangement to spell out "Baby G" in honor of my sister-in-law.  I also have a lot of mason jars that I use as cups etc. around my house, so I brought those to be decorations around and combined them with various baby pictures that I borrowed from the couple.  I was also able to use some beautiful mason jars that I received from my friends wedding center pieces earlier in the year.

I know that some of these items may sound cheesy but I have to say I am so proud of myself for making all of my own decorations and using sourced items.  The only stuff I bought new was the spray paint.  Everything else was recycled and or reused.  Unfortunatly if you needed decoration items immediately this method would not be as effective, as I spent over 2 months collecting all of my recycled materials and waiting for certain items.  But if you can learn to think slightly out of the box when it comes to sourcing used materials you might be surprised at what you can make and find.  I have never done something like this before with so many recycled items. And I plan on saving a lot of my materials for the next time I need to throw a party.  Maybe I can even get a few more uses out of all my hard work.

Well that is all for now.  Until next time: Consume More, Buy Less, Reuse.

Cheers!
Missy