Posts from — May 2009

… but barely

I spent a lot of nights making tissue paper flowers. 

I thought I made enough of them.

I didn’t. 

So my mom was a champ and spent an entire day making enough with me. 

And now they are done! And pretty!  And I love them!  Here is how you can make your own.

I followed Martha’s how-to, but hers leaves a lot to the imagination so i thought i would fill in some blanks for you Here is how i made my pom poms, step by step.

Step 1. Gather your supplies. Cut your tissue paper into 5″x10″ rectangles.  Martha says to use a special covered wire, I just used the silver kind, worked out fine. I got it at Michael’s. Scissors.  What you will also need are the styrofoam balls. You can get these at most craft stores. I bought mine in LA at this huge craft store so they were pretty cheap, which was nice. That was also where I found the marigold tissue paper, which I was having a hard time finding in stores.

Step 2. Fold. Fold the paper 4 sheets at a time, in 5′8ths of an inch folds. (Does that make sense? Fold it a little less than an inch thick) Do your best to be precise and fold it the same the entire way. Sometimes at the end I had to trim a little off for it to be even.

3. Check. (This isn’t really a step, more of a “this is what it should look like now” picture )

Step 4. Attach the wire and round the edges.  I cut my wire into 4″ to 5″ strips.  I then folded it at the center over the tissue paper and then twisted it all the way down, pretty tightly. You will cut the twisted wire later to about a half inch length, but it is easier to work with when it is long, and wire is cheap I then rounded the edges of the paper. You can do it rounded or pointy, it is up to you!

Step 5. Separate.  Carefully separate the 4 pieces from one side and then the other (rather than alternating sides)  It is ok it if tears once in a while, you won’t be able to tell once they are all close together on the ball. Just an FYI, for a few of the balls we had to use fuchsia tissue paper from Paper Source, and it was much thicker paper and more difficult to separate. 

Step 6. Prep the ball.  I took another 5″ piece of wire, wrapped it around my finger and twisted the ends together. (Actually, my bridesmaid Natalie made the hoops Thanks Lie!) I then put a little hot glue on it and stuck it all the way into the ball. This will be what we wrap the ribbon around later.

Step 7. Prep the flowers. I am not certain that hot glue is necessary, but we made these 2 months in advance and did not want any flowers falling out. Put a dab of hot glue right on the base of the flower, where the wire meets the paper.

Step 8. Place the flowers. You can see in this picture how short I cut the wire.  If you leave it too long it will bend when you try to put it in and that is no bueno. Place the flowers into the ball, close together. This is where I miscalculated. I had originally thought that it would take 18 flowers to cover one of the larger balls, but once I made sure there were no bald spots and they were nice and full it was more like 30. Better safe then sorry, make a lot of flowers!

Step 9. Attach ribbon and enjoy!  I bought two kinds of pink ribbon and alternated. We decided we will hang them in clumps of three, two clumps over the cake table and one clump over the guest book table. (Don’t hold me to that!)  We weren’t sure how long we needed the ribbon to be so we made it really long just in case. You could use any kind of ribbon, twine, shoelaces, whatever! We were thinking of using fishing wire to make them look suspended but thought that may look too modern for our space

I hope this helps some of you out there to do your own!  Although folding all the flowers got pretty tedious, I am so happy with the end result!  They were very easy to put together and will add a big pop of color without taking a lot of money from our wallets!

This dress is perfection.

Our favors serve two purposes. One: for people to take flowers home and Two: for people to not take our mason jars home.

I bought cello baggies at Target.

Designed and printed out labels using labels from Stuck.

The finished project We will put a few under each centerpiece for people to take flowers home after the reception, and to discourage them from walking out with our collection of mason jars (which started waaaay before any wedding talks )

This came in the mail today!

I’m not gonna lie, it is extremely sheer.  But I love it and can’t wait to wear it while getting ready!  Get yours (Or your bridesmaids) here.

Lacrosse.

Wine and cheese.

Favor bags.

The beginnings of a veil.

Realizing I severely miscalculated the number of flowers I needed.

Finishing 9 pom poms (9 hours later)

Mother of the Bride dress shopping (found one).

Whew.

I never did understand why peacocks were in zoos. Why? Because my grandparents raised them, in their backyard. Heck. Yes.  You want proof?

So when I got my bridal shower invite in the mail and it was peacock themed, well, I was excited to say the least  My mom and sister handmade these. Now you see where I get my creativity from!

The awesome stamps.

Thanks mom! Thanks Sam!  I can’t wait!!

PS they also had chickens and sheep  It’s kind of hard to see but that is my mom feeding the sheep in the lower right corner.

The cellar is a semi-new wine bar in San Clemente and it is one of our favorite new places. It serves delicious tapas style food, serves its water from glass bottles and poured into mason jars.

They also have an awesome looking menu.

The menu changes every few months and during the day they sell cheeses and wine out of the front of the place.  They have live piano every night and stay open late, which in San Clemente means anything open after 9pm I would totally recommend it for a small daytime reception or rehearsal lunch. The place is gorgeous, the food is delicious… it really is a win win.

This past week was full of packages arriving

My hair pieces from handle & spout:

Our labels from Stuck, to be used on our favor bags:

And our “guestbook frame” print from Sparkle Power. Why is it in my cubicle? Because I didn’t measure the frame we are putting it in and thought that the 8.5″x11″ would be perfect, but really we need the 11″x17″. I just ordered the new one today. Good thing they are cheap!

I also went by the post office for some 44¢ stamps and picked myself up some of these lovelies.  I only wish they were each 22¢ so I could use them together!

Shopping for wedding stuff is fun!

I sent out our rehearsal “invites” today! I say “invites” because the only people at the rehearsal will be the people who are in the wedding so they can’t really turn down the invitation  I kept it in the colors of the wedding but changed up the font and had a little fun with it

Is it weird that I am nervous to put these out here, for all to see?  I hope you guys like these as much as I do!  Here is everything, well, everything but the directions card. It wasn’t very interesting anyways  Everything was designed by me and printed here at my home. All paper was bought at Paper Source and the ribbon is from this etsy seller.  

The first picture was taken a little while ago and unfortunately I don’t have another label to reshoot with.  It is a boring picture but I wanted to show you how the front of the envelope looked.

Well, there you go!  I absolutely love how they came out.  I am proud of them, and am happy that I was able to save us a TON of money by doing these ourselves.  

Be sure to keep coming by this week. I will be posting our rehearsal invitations, the bridal shower invitations my mom and sister made as well as a little details about my love-hate relationship with those wrap around labels  I hope you enjoyed your weekend!