My parents’ house has recently become the go-to landing spot for out of town friends and family. Between friends coming back to town to visit, family passing through, and them graciously hosting our friends for us (since our tiny home is way too small for any visitors!), it seems like they always have an extra houseguest or two. We’ve been joking that they need to print review cards for their guests to fill out at the end of their stay!
With my dad’s birthday coming up, and knowing his love of hosting and entertaining, I thought—why not?? Why not give their little “Gardner Hotel” (as we’ve been calling it) an official name, along with some classic and nostalgic motel items? The original idea stemmed from a video I saw of a girl making custom matchbooks for her friends’ houses for their birthdays. I LOVED this idea and thought they needed a little bowl of matches for their guests. But why stop there?!
And so was born this adorable motel basket, complete with the cutest nostalgic branded items, just for their home! This was SO incredibly easy to put together and turned out absolutely perfect. Follow along through this and my next few blog posts for a step-by-step tutorial on creating these cute custom takeaways!
First up, the idea that inspired it all—MATCHBOOKS.
Okay, so I definitely went the more “DIY” route on these. The tutorial I found originally involved designing a cute brand for your home, and then ordering these adorable custom matchbooks, delivered perfectly complete to your door. Super easy—but also, like, $60+. And really, my budget for this entire project was about $30!
Soooooo back to the same question I always ask—how could I make this myself?
Typically when I ask myself this question, I consider 3 key points:
1. WILL IT COST LESS?
2. WILL IT TAKE A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME?
3. WILL IT LOOK SUPER HANDMADE?
To be honest, the answer to the first two questions are usually no, but as long question 3 has a resounding YES, I plow ahead anyways. It was a nice surprise to find that I was able to actually tick off all three boxes in this instance! YES it was cheap, YES it was quick and easy, and YES they look a-freaking-dorable.
This was honestly so easy but—I’m gonna be honest—it helps if you have a husband who majored in graphic design. He whipped up this cutie little “Gardner Motel” logo for me in a flash! However, if you don’t have a standing designer on hand, I would say check out Canva for designing an easy logo. It could definitely be as simple as picking a few cute fonts and typing out what you want it to say!
After getting the logo done, it was suuuuper easy to put these together!
YOU’LL NEED:
- Blank matchbooks – I used these
- Clear sticker sheets, like this
- Logo or image you’ve created
- Printer
- Scissors
All in, for 50 matches, was less than $20! And even lower if you’re a label hoarder like me and have an excessive amount of random Avery labels lying around. You’re sure to have ones that wil work! You could definitely use plain white labels, but the clear ones really created the effect of it being printed directly on the matchbook.
First, I formatted my logo image to be the correct size for the matchbook—mine ended up being about 0.75” tall x 1.25” wide. Duplicate this in what ever program you use to print from, in order to fill the page with as many of the logo as possible.
Print and cut out logos. Stick them on the matchbooks and you’re DONE.
I think they look pretty darn close to the professional ones! I am SO happy with the way they turned out!
Make sure you catch the next two parts of this series to finish out your guest welcome basket!
We were created to be creative, friends—so get creating!
