Here are some gift basket suggestions that are especially suitable for either the bride of the groom that you can make to give as wedding or bridal shower gifts. You can be smart and frugal like Martha Stewart and make your own wedding gifts. When you substitute items, as shown below, you can save money too and help make frugal wedding gifts on a budget.
Honeymoon Picnic Basket Spring Wedding Gift
Material needed to make the basket:
- 1 deep wicker basket or an actual picnic basket with a hinged lid
- 1 yard of red and white checked napkin fabric
- red plastic cutlery and plates
- Clear plastic champagne glasses
- Checkered paper napkins
- woven wicker paper plate holders
- raffia or red gingham ribbon
- strawflower or a silk flower
- romantic music CD
- a bottle of wine or sparkling cider or even sparkling water
- plastic bag filled with homemade caramel corn
- plastic bag of homemade cookies
- gourmet picnic items such as bagel chips, biscuits, beef stickers, summer sausage, sweet or Dijon mustard, pickled asparagus, cheese (preferably the kinds that don't have to be refrigerated), fudge, and candies
Once you have gathered all of the items you need to make up your basket, place the items in the basket in such a way that they seem to be bulging over the top. Decorate the handle of the basket with a raffia box and strawflower or red gingham ribbon and silk flower.
Honeymoon Beach Basket Spring Wedding Gift
Materials needed for your basket include:
- Use the same materials listed for the Honeymoon Picnic Basket above and add these items.
- Suntan lotion
- Small shovel and pail
- two beach pillows
- two beach towels
- Frisbee
- Sunglasses
The beach pillow is a project you can make on your own, just like Martha Stewart. Buy a yard of plastic fabric. Fold it in half and sew the sides together. Turn and then sew or glue Velcro across the top. Put a sheet of instructions inside of the pillow, explaining to the bride and groom that they are to put sand in the pillow when they go to the beach. This way they can just fill it when they are at the beach and be emptied and folded back into the basket when they leave the beach.
You can make inexpensive beach towels too by purchasing two 3-yards lengths of terry cloth that you finished on each end with Bias tape or by turning under and stitching the edges with our sewing machine or by hand.
Live or Silk Plant in a Basket Spring Wedding Gift
This is a simple wedding gift idea that makes for a very attractive party gift that everyone will "oooh" and "aaah" over. Take any live or silk plant you find on sale and nestle it down into a basket filled with tissue paper. Add a large raffia or crinkle ribbon and you will have a gift that definitely looks more expensive than the few dollars you have invested on it. If the plant is one especially selected for the yard or window box of the wedding couple's new home or apartment, you might want to add a garden trowel or a pair of colorful garden gloves.
Gardening Supplies Spring Wedding Gift Basket
If the engaged couple loves to garden and you know this for a fact, what could be more appropriate than a basket filled with gardening supplies?
Walk into any discount nursery and let your imagination run wild. In addition to the rowel and garden gloves mentioned above, how about seeds, fertilizer spikes, snail bait, rose spray, potting soils, or small garden tools, such as pruning shears? You might want to add a book on gardening in with your spring wedding gift basket.
Spring Love Wedding Gift Basket
Line a basket with a homemade bear rug and then fill the basket with massage lotions, bubble bath, scented candles, chocolates, and a CD with the couple's favorite romantic music.
You can make the bear rug out of ordinary velour or synthetic fake fur fabric. Cut a bear rug design out of the fabric and then hem the edges by hand or on your sewing machine. You probably want to make the rug large enough to roll out in front of the fireplace for the couple to lay on. Then you want to roll the rug up to insert into the basket.
Gourmet Coffee Spring Wedding Gift Basket
This is a perfect idea for the couple who is really into gourmet coffees. Shop for a variety of coffee beans on sale at Starbucks, Green Mountain Coffee shops, Dunkin Donuts, or you could even use Maxwell House or Folgers coffee. The cheaper brand come in so many flavors these days that they are almost gourmet themselves.
Purchase the coffee beans in bulk if possible and then bag them up in small plastic bags and tie computer-generated or hand written tags to them with the names of the coffees written on the tags.
Line the basket with a colorful napkin or placemat. If you feel like splurging a little or know of another guest who may want to go in on this gift with you, add an electric coffee bean grinder and a couple of coffee mugs. A coffee grinder usually costs about twenty dollars in a retail store but sometimes you can buy them online at Amazon.com much cheaper and get free shipping too.
Soup and Comfort Spring Wedding Gift Basket
Fill a napkin-lined basket with several packages of soup mixes, such as Mrs. Grass' Onion or Homestyle Vegetable or Campbell's Oriental Ramen Noodle Soup Mix and then add a couple of crockery soup mugs. You can get these at Bed, Bath and Beyond, Crate and Barrel, or also online at Amazon.com.
A clever trick is to purchase plastic packages of uncooked beans or split-peas right off your grocery store shelf, open them and re-package them into your own clear plastic bags. Label each bag and tie with raffia bows. Top them off with your own homemade soup recipe card. If you don't have a recipe you may find one on the package of beans and then you just have to recopy the recipe. Tie the recipe card to the neck of the bag.
One of the most colorful and interesting ideas for this comfort wedding gift basket is to buy the fifteen bean soup mix from the store and repackage it. It will look like you spent a lot of money but actually you were just being Martha Stewart again and being clever and frugal.