How to Make Great Gifts for Bridesmaids on a Budget!

   HEY: IF YOU ARE A BRIDESMAID OF MINE, PLEASE DON’T READ THIS. Everyone else: you’re good. :)

So as many of you know, I’m getting married in July, which is crazy and soon and exciting and aaaaah!! I’ve got 5 bridesmaids who are helping me so much in staying sane and keeping me organized and motivated to keep planning even though details are SO not my thing, and I’d much rather just show up on the day and hope that everything had sorted itself out on my own. They’re such amazing friends and family, and they are such a huge part of this amazing experience.

So, to thank them for everything they’ve done, my mom and I got together this weekend and made some gift baskets to give them at the wedding to say thank you for all of their work! And, of course, I thought I’d share with you all what we did! These baskets aren’t exclusively for bridesmaids, of course–they’d be perfect for any birthday/Christmas/just because gift!

The first thing we did was obviously take all of our craft things we had in the entire house and throw them all over the kitchen.

After the kitchen was suitably shameful, we got started!

I wanted to do something fun and girly, and my mom used to pretty much own her own at-home-Lush store, so we made a spa-in-a-box for each of my bridesmaids and then some smaller ones for the girls who will be helping us get ready in the morning!

We started with making some bath fizzies with Cocoa butter (We kind of improvised our recipe since my mom’s pretty great at these, but this is the closest one I could find!), and poured the mixture into these super cute little trays so we had turtles, shells, hearts, starfish, you name it! I think we easily made over 20 in less than 10 minutes!

Look how cute they are!

Then we made some brown sugar body scrub which was absolutely delicious. All it took was brown sugar, melted cocoa butter, almond oil, and some essential oils! We also added some vanilla to make it smell like happiness. :)

Unfortunately then we decided to add it to these really pretty clear glasses we had and realized that it looked… less than lovely in the shape that it took.

Thanks for being my bridesmaid! Have a jar full of… oh…

So we put them in completely opaque jars with pretty labels and that was that.

Of course, when my mom and I got started, we got lots more ideas as we went along, and made a few things for Connor and me to take on our honeymoon! (I have such a cool mom.) I took a few of the bath fizzies and some of the sugar scrubs, and we also made some massage oils. Spa-worthy massage oils are crazy easy to make–maybe I’ll write a post on relaxation recipes sometime soon.

About halfway through, my mom and I realized that we were missing about half of the ingredients for the other things we wanted to make, since we really just jumped into this with no preemptive planning. We had to run out to bulk barn, the dollar store, and Home Hardware (to get mason jars) for the rest, and picked up some really cute stuff for the girls there, too! It finished off the baskets very nicely!

Of course, in this picture they’re not finished yet. We still had to wrap them all up in really cute labels that we made :)

In the end, here’s the box!

I’m really happy with how they turned out!

So here’s a quick list of what we included:

1. Start with some pretty baskets

Even though these baskets are super cheap, and you can find really cute ones even at a dollar store, they make the whole gift look super classy! Plus, they’re a really great way to organize and store the items that you’re giving them if you keep them in a theme!

2. Add Something Fun in your Bridesmaids Gifts!

We found these great reusable face-masks as well as exfoliating microfiber facial wipes that can be just thrown in the wash and reused! Such a great alternative to disposable cotton swabs! We also saw the super colourful loofahs and just fell in love. But all of these items were still definitely under budget!

3. Make Something they can Treat Themselves With!

These girls are your best friends! They make you feel like a million bucks every day! So why not give them something to help them pamper themselves? :) We made brown sugar body scrubs, sea salt foot scrubs*, lip balms, and bath fizzies. I also added some home-made lavender soap that I made with mom last year since it was such a pretty purple colour and smells amazing! These things are so much fun, it’s like having a spa at home, and they are so quick and easy to make! I’m so sorry I don’t really have recipes for these things–I’ll have to do it again soon with my mom and post what we actually did!

Some reasons these bridesmaids gifts are great:

1. They help the girls relax
2. They contain reusable, sustainable products
3. All items are made from organic materials, so all of these fun spa things are completely harmful-chemical free!
4. They’re super fun to put together and make
5. They make you smell amazing. Seriously. My mom and I worked all day on these and we smell like cocoa butter and lavender.

To be honest, I’m so not a gift person. That’s why I love these–there’s something in it for everyone, and it’s easy and fun to make, not stressful like walking through the mall for hours seeing the price tags pile up. What kinds of things would you have added?

* didn’t add castile soap