This post is part of our on-going repurposed wedding decor series.
Remember this awesome widely-circulated Pinterest image…
I loved it and we made some similar lights for our wedding in our color, lime green. We had a “wedding stuffmaking” party where some people tore fabric, some tied it to lights, some helped with the invitations, and so on. The lights were BEAUTIFUL.
Now it’s the holidays, and we celebrate Christmas. I was sad at the thought of taking apart our beautiful light strands to turn back into icicle lights (plus, it sounded like a lot of work), so I decided since they were green I’d use them for our holiday lights anyhow!
I simply added some red bows for the outside decorations.
Watch this apartment decorate itself for the holidays
Remember Offbeat Homie Kat with the punky artsy studio and the shark-themed bathroom? She sent us a little holiday greeting in the form of an... Read more
I added red ornaments and our stockings (and puppy stockings) to the indoor ones.
We’ve gotten TONS of compliments from the neighbors already… and little do they know that these lights, which we’ll likely use for many holiday seasons to come, were part of our wedding decor! Save money, recycle, WIN!
We’d LOVE to see more of your repurposed wedding decor, that means we need YOU to submit ’em to us!
Great article the lights look really festive and it is fantastic when things can be repurposed. We didn’t use lights at our wedding but we did have bright coloured paper lanterns all over the ceiling and those have made an appearance at many a party winter and summer since the wedding. We also pull out the dishes we used at our wedding every time we have a bunch of people over. My Mom picked up orange, fuschia and bright blue picnic plates really inexpensively for our wedding, they store away easily and we just keep using them for all the parties, we have even had people borrow them for their parties when they need a bunch of dishes. Use those wedding items as much as possible, put them to work for you.
I had half a mile of ribbon leftover after my wedding. I have repurposed it into:
-Christmas tree decorations
-Ribbon to wrap gifts
-A DIY table runner, given as a gift
-Curtain tie backs
-Clothing (hair ribbons, belts, jewelry)
-Handles for DIY bags (bonus points if the bag is made from old tshirts!)
For the holidays we’ve recycled our green acorns and green ribbons from our wedding. I have to admit that the acorns are used for just about every occasion!
http://thehappyheathen.com/wp-content/gallery/yule2012/ornaments2c.jpg
http://thehappyheathen.com/wp-content/gallery/yule2012/peppermintplacemat3.jpg
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I’d be interested to see how this can go the other way — with holiday stuff about to go on sale for way cheap, what would be useful for wedding decorations? (Other than these lovely lights.)
We had a mid-December wedding, and because I believe extreme thriftiness is a virtue (or maybe I’m just cheap), we got all our wedding decorations 75-90% off the year prior. Oddly, this didn’t include lights. We got swirly silver and white napkins/plates/tableware, etc., along with bulbs and greenery. We used boxed Christmas cards as our thank-you cards. Little gift boxes for wedding favors, bows, ribbons…there’s a fair bit out there to be repurposed. Especially since Christmas colors now go beyond the traditional red, white, and green. The great thing is that we really didn’t need to buy much to decorate our home–just opened up the wedding boxes!
We’re not having a holiday wedding, but fall decorations work the same way. We went and picked up garlands of autumn leaves from the craft store on super sale right before they put out the winter stuff.
Our Unity Sandworm got into the season (he’s now a centerpiece that get’s moved to the end table from time to time):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91228521@N08/8292019019/
We have quite a few reception ornaments that made their way onto the tree.
Alas, much of our leftover wedding stuff is in storage while we live in a tiny apartment for the winter (while hunting for a house), but I did have all of my leftover RSVP cards on hand. These had some words, but also large blank areas with leaves and a scrolly background. While wrapping Christmas gifts, I realized that I forgot to grab gift tags, so I used the RSVP cards. I could cut three gift tags from the blank spaces on each card. Voila!
Inversely: Pre-cycle your wedding swag to be Holiday Decor: We had a “decorate an ornament” Table instead of a guestbook, which filled out our shared tree (Somhow to me, holiday decorations are the very essence of domesticity, woo-hoo symbolism!) And it allows us to enjoy our ‘guestbook’ occasionally without having it cluttering up a coffee table.
I’m seriously considering turning my wedding dress into a tree skirt, I’m a little afraid though, cause once it’s done, it’s done. Maybe in a couple more years when its not as fresh…
Provided you have the length, you could trim the bottom or train of the dress’ skirt off for the tree skirt, and use the top half of the dress as an awesome party dress!
Actually, part of the reason I went with a bouquet made out of brooches was because of the fact that I could keep it afterwards, and it’d be much sturdier than traditional flowers that were dried out. Currently it’s sitting in a vase in our living room, looking lovely as ever. 😉 No holiday needed!