Budget Breakdown: Ring Bearer Pillow

So we all love cost analysis, right? Since this wedding is primarily about staying on budget (and as small a budget as possible if I can) the $20 that ring bearer pillow's run at Michael's or Joann's is just OUTRAGEOUS. Outrageous to me I guess. I'm sure some people don't have any issue forking over the money, but for me $20 for a very plain pillow with no personal touches wasn't what I wanted.

My sister did the actual project with my Grandma and since I wasn't there I didn't get pictures :( but I can share with you all. I based it off a tutorial on Weddingbee which you can find here <-- clicky. I "tweaked" it a little but stayed pretty true to the actual idea.

Our wedding colors are red and brown and the flower girl baskets are white and red, so I wanted to coordinate them. I opted for a red taffeta that most closely matches the red satin ribbon I'm using for the baskets and other aspects (invites, centerpieces, etc). She took the fabric and cut it into two 9x9 pieces and sewed them together to make the pillow. I found the lace I liked best to run along either side of the center of the pillow, then a wide brown ribbon to run at the center to hide where the two sides of lace meet, so it looks like one big piece rather than 3 separate pieces. We took apart 2 of the flowers from the bunch and took some of the petals from each and rearranged them so the flower was more open and full for the purpose of the project. She sewed the petals together and then sewed the rhinestone to the center of the flower. Then we took the thin brown ribbon and hot glued it to the bottom of the flower, that is what will tie the "rings" to the pillow to keep them safe. She was originally going to sew the flower to the pillow too but it wouldn't go through all the layers, so last thing she did was hot glue the flower to the pillow. Viola!

*Now....cost analysis budget breakdown.

Red taffeta: 1.50
Flowers: .47
Lace: 1.49
Thick ribbon: .99
Thin ribbon: .24
Rhinestone: .70
TOTAL: $5.39

Remember: I took the price of everything divided by 2 because we have leftover materials for EVERYTHING we purchased, easily can make one mmmmmmmaybe two, but at least one and some of the items I will be able to use for other projects so I didn't think it was really fair to include the whole upfront cost of the items. Pretty darn good if you ask me, a custom pillow could cost you anywhere from $20-$50 easily, and this is a beautiful custom pillow for less than $10. It feels good.

What have you been able to save money on here and there?