If any of you former brides out there are like me, you still have a ton of wedding stuff left over from your big day (even over a year later…).  Some things are ok to part with (we have several large glass jars from our cookie bar we had!), but other things just need to be repurposed (like our mini-chalkboards we had at the wedding!).  But some things are just too sentimental to throw away… like your wedding invitations!  Some of you may have had grand ideas for a scrapbook or maybe even putting an invite into a frame with one of your wedding pictures.  Both are still fabulous ideas, but since scrapbooking and I aren’t on the best of terms, I wanted something else fun and creative to do with these extra invitations that are just laying around.

Last year, I remember seeing somewhere on the interwebs a picture of an ornament that someone had put their wedding invitation into!  They had cut it up into slips, curled them, and stuffed them into a clear glass ornament!  I thought it was the PERFECT thing to do since we got married in early November and we’d be seeing our parents over Christmas.  Well, by the time we got back from our honeymoon and I had my head on straight again, I couldn’t find clear glass ornaments ANYWHERE.  Come to find out (after asking someone at Hobby Lobby this year), they’re in the craft section where other crafty class jars are.  I really think they should be with the REST of the Christmas stuff, but maybe that’s just me.

SO!  FINALLY I got to try out this little idea of a craft and I love it.  Just love it.  So, I thought I’d do a step by step blog post about it :-)

You’ll need just a few things for this project… your extra wedding invites (please be sure to save at least ONE whole one!), glass ornaments (be sure they don’t have that rainbow reflection thing on them, I made that mistake the first time and all I saw were colors when I would look at the curled up paper inside!), ribbon of your choice, a cutting board (unless you have a REALLY steady hand and can use scissors!), and a pen or pencil.

I LOVED our wedding invitations.  We had an antique European/old world theme and when I saw this globe with
“Love Makes the World Go Around” wrapped around it, I snatched it up from Etsy and a dear friend designed and printed the invites for us!

As you slice your invite, the width may vary depending on your font size and how thick or thin you’d like the strips to be.  Just remember, they can’t be wider than the top of the ornament!

Once you’ve sliced and diced, begin wrapping the strips around your pen or pencil.  I did them at an angle for longer curly cues, but you can play with it and find what you like best!

Once they’re all curled, you can begin putting them into the ornament.
I liked the look better when I slid the curls into the top, like a screw.  It kept the pieces longer instead of being in a small roll.

You may need to use your pen at some point to create a tad more room to get those last few rolls in.

Don’t you love it??  Sorry, but the you’re on your own with the bow… all I know about tying bows is to do everything “backwards” so that it comes out right.
And yes, that’s a macro filter that the ornament is sitting on.  It was too top heavy to stand up on its own!

The best part about this, is that you can use ANY kind of paper!  For those extra ornaments I ended up with, I bought a small pad of scrapbook paper (with a Parisian theme, of course) to slice up and stick inside.  How fun is that??

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday!