Before settling on our wedding favours, I spent quite a lot of time researching various different homemade options, out there on the world wide web…

I’ve got to say, there is a lot of amazing inspiration out there. So I thought I’d share my round up of the top five ideas I came across.

 1. Fruit gin

This was actually our very first plan for favours: we were going to make up a batch of sloe gin and then put a small bottle out in everyone’s place. (I had great plans for Alice in Wonderland style labels reading “Drink me”…)

But then my sister got married four months before me and they had the same idea for their wedding. Drat!

She has a tutorial on her blog, though, with lovely pictures too, so head over there if you like the sound of the idea: homemade fruit gin.

 2. Hand stamped drawstring bags

So this was the idea we went with in the end and actually, given the number of kids, pregnant people or people looking after kids, this was probably better than super strong booze anyway.

I found variations on this theme all over the place: bags filled with lavender, filled with sweets, filled with seeds, buttons, cookies… …the list is pretty much endless. We followed a Martha Stewart version that gave our guests sweets and used a stamp that said, “Snacks for the road.”

Take a look at my tutorial for supplies and a step-by-step: homemade wedding favours.

3. Rubber stamped cookies

You know me, I simply cannot resist hand stamped things. And then I came across hand stamped cookies. Cookies, I tell you! That you can eat and everything!

I was really, really, really tempted to re-use my stamp from the favour bags with some edible ink on the top of cookies as well. But we ran out of time, in the end, which perhaps was no bad thing since I’m not quite sure how I would have removed all the fabric ink first.

There’s a brilliant tutorial at cake central: rubber stamp iced cookies

4. Tote bags

This was another Martha Stewart idea that very nearly made the cut. Tote bags printed up with some relevant personal message. There is a (very) succinct tutorial on Martha Stewart weddings: tote bag favours. But if you need a bit more info than that, take a look at my tutorial for using iron-on transfer paper. Just replace the T-shirt with a bag and you could easily transfer any picture or writing you like…

The main reason we decided against this one, in the end, was that the cost of enough totes for our 140 guests would have become a little prohibitive. This is definitely one for a smaller wedding party (or a deeper pocketed host!)

Incidentally, if you’re looking for more inspiration than I’m giving you with just my top five ideas, then I have to suggest a visit to the Martha Stewart Wedding site, which has just about every idea ever conceived. Take a start with their 50 great wedding favours.

5. Screen printed wedding tea towels

Oh, I could have another four weddings just to be able to make all of these favours!  Each new one I write about, I’ve been thinking, “Oh yes, that was my favourite” and once again I’m thinking the same about this idea. The bonus of a tea towel is that it would be genuinely useful to the guests once they’d left. Everyone uses tea towels…

You can buy beautifully designed wedding favour tea towels from all sorts of places (if you would rather buy them than make them, take a look at Brian Franks Tea Towels who designed the one above (www.bryanfranksteatowels.co.uk) and who will print to your design) but you could also screen print some yourself.

Just get hold of some cheap white linen tea towels and have a look at this easy and simple screen printing tutorial from the Art of Doing Stuff: how to screen print at home.

There you have it, five (ever-so-slightly) different ideas that are all, in my humble opinion, blinking fantastic.

Inspired? Or feeling there is something seriously awesome that I’ve missed off? Do let me know in the comments below…

Related articles:

• It’s nuptials central on the blog at the moment, so take a look at some photos of our wedding, my tips on how to arrange your own wedding flowers or (if you didn’t head over there already) my tutorial for homemade wedding favours.