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Friday, June 4, 2010

DIY: birds nest ring pillow

To continue on with the DIY projects, I also recently finished our ring pillow. And when I sat down to write this post, I realized that I've posted absolutely nothing about the inspiration for our ring pillow. How crumby of me.

We've known for months what we'd like to do for the ring pillow, so I guess it's about time I share it.

I've got two words for you: birds nest. Um, actually, that might be one word. But either way, you get the idea. Ever since I saw the idea on Etsy (which has tons of sellers making these beauties), I fell in love with it. But I had absolutely no desire to pay upwards of $20 if I thought I could make it myself.

Of course, this meant a stop at my favorite place in the world, Michaels. Turns out, they have pre-made nests which would have been perfect for this project, but they were slightly too small. Our ring bearer is going on 10 years old, so we wanted him to carry something of more substance than what you'd give 2 year old.

So we opted for a simple pre-made wreath instead. With that, we bought some pre-bagged moss (who knew there was such a thing, by the way), some bird eggs and some cork board purchased from the dollar store. Because the wreath is... well, a wreath, it obviously has no bottom. So I glued a sheet of cork to the bottom and trimmed off the excess with a craft knife.


Now that it actually had a bottom, I glued some ribbon to the cork where I wanted the rings to be centered. Then I proceeded to fill it with moss. Sorry, what I meant to say is that I proceeded to fill it with some of the worst smelling moss in the world. When I opened that bag I bought from Michaels, I was not impressed. I did not want a smelly ring pillow, but the moss definitely stunk.

Thankfully, it just needed to be aired out. Once that was done, I glued a ton of moss in while I held the ribbon vertical so it wouldn't get stuck under the glued moss. Easy peasy.


After that, all it needed was some willows and bird eggs. We originally had purchased a bird as well, but it ended up being too large for the nest, so it looked too awkward to use. I'm not 100% sold on the eggs, but Mr. FP loves them, so they're staying put.



Like the cake topper, this project was exceedingly cheap:

  • wreath: $1.29
  • moss: $4 (after 40% off coupon)
  • willows and eggs: $4
  • ribbon: free, because I already had it

Um, $9.29? Perfection as far as the budget goes.

And since it only took 20 minutes of my time, I'll consider it another success on the DIY front.

4 comments:

Amy said...

Turned out perfect! I love it!

Ms. Bunny said...

You're like a DIY queen. Again, another success. Looks great!

Leigh said...

It turned out really well!

Lisa said...

beautiful! I love your DIY posts. you are so crafty!

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