DIY Green Wedding: Recycled Glass & Beeswax Candles

I’m getting more ideas for our wedding decor for our reception at the Glen Manor House in Portsmouth, RI which is only 9 months away! (Coming up in November 2012)

I love flowers very much, but I’m trying to keep things practical for the wedding. I love DIY wedding decorations and thought this idea might be nice. Instead of decking out the manor in large tall floral arrangements, I have decided to have the centerpieces be large recycled glass hurricane globes with beeswax pillar candles inside. Around the base of the hurricane globe, I want to put little tealights (also in recycled glass holders) and have some rose petals scattered lightly around the center of the table.

The best parts about this concept is that we can keep the costs down and keep it a little more green, all while making the Gilded Age style mansion even more beautiful with twinkling candlelit tables and fireplace mantles. This historic manor is so richly decorated that it doesn’t need much added to it, and thus we can get away with a bit less.

Checkout some of these links for where you can purchase recycled glass hurricane globes, votive & tea light holders. I have also provided links for you to purchase your own 100% beeswax candles with cotton wicks – much healthier for the air than those paraffin wax candles made in China.

1. Recycled glass holders at affordable price (Large one is $14.99).

Visit World Market to see the other recycled glass products and candle holders.

2. Beeswax pillars, tapers, tealights, votives, and more – range in price based on the size of the candle. They are a little more expensive than regular paraffin wax candles but, think of how much you would spend if you had a floral arrangement for your centerpiece? I found that Beelite Candles had reasonable prices of around $11-15 per large pillar.

Happy DIY wedding-planning to all the new crafty brides out there! 🙂

DIY: January 2012 Calendar

A new year calls for a new calendar. They are easy to make and cute to give as a Happy New Year gift. So far, I’ve only created one for January 2012, but I intend to make one for each month. I made a mini one using two 6 x 6″ card stock squares, but if you need one to write-in all those appointments and events to hang in your kitchen, you can do the same thing using 12 x 12″ card stock. To make the calendar extra sturdy, I used the cardboard from a recycled Fiber One bar box (this saved me from having to go and buy new 12 x 12 sheets of poster board).

The “January 2012″ words were free-hand drawn with pencil then cut out using an x-acto knife and the snowflakes were created using a paper punch (size x-small). The calendar grid was created simply using a ruler and dividing the space into a grid of 5 squares by 7 squares. I left about 1 cm on all sides to create a border and hand-wrote the numbers and days of the week.

You can create this simply by using 3 pieces of card stock 6″ x 6” each using any combination of a pattern and complementing solid color, as well as one neutral color. Then you just need a good x-acto knife (highly recommended) or scissors, adhesive, and a paper punch or other little decorative doodads if desired. And that’s it! It’s great to try and use up your left over scraps from other projects, if you can. Even though we’re all addicted to fun paper crafts, we have to try and be as green as possible whenever we can.

Happy January 2012! And Happy New Year!