Category — reception decor

I love when I hear that my tutorial helped someone, and I love it even more when I get to see the outcome!

Laurel sent me these pictures and told me a little about the baby shower she threw:
“The shower was hosted at a pool-side cafe inside a Las Vegas resort hotel. We ended up using a few of the flower balls as table centerpieces, which I think worked out well. The shower theme was pink elephants with zebra print accents. The handmade invitation  featured a cute little elephant cut-out and the same zebra print ribbon we used to hang the flower balls. The theme also carried over with the cupcakes and cupcake toppers. I was originally going to only do dark pink & light pink flower balls, but ended making the orange ones to tie in the color scheme of the restaurant. So glad I did because the overall event looked so much more complete.”

Thanks for sharing Laurel!  I love the colors, zebra print and those elephants! So adorable!!

Well lovely readers, we signed the lease for our new place!  Goodbye 1 bedroom Mission Viejo complex apartment, hello 2 bedroom Capistrano Beach duplex apartment! We are so excited!  And it definitely needs some love, so expect more than a few before and afters and a whole lot of inspiration searching here. (Um, taupe walls and dark chocolate carpet… I will need to consult my new domino book!)

This weekend brings the Getty Villa and The Vintage. A nice way to relax before the craziness of moving really sets in.

And because every post needs a pretty picture:

(shot by the very talented Matthew Morgan)

We decided to go with a framed poster for our guestbook:

I bought the poster from etsy seller SparklePower, though I can’t seem to find her now! (Thanks Laura!) We bought the frame at Ikea and took the whole thing to Michael’s to get a custom matte made for $20.

We came to the conclusion that since we were on a budget, giving out favors was simply not necessary. We thought about making homemade cookies to package up for people to take with them, but decided against it as it would have had to been done in the few days before the wedding, and I really didn’t want to have to do anything on those days!  So what we decided on doing was to give away the flowers from the centerpieces.

I posted about making these bags here.

We also made little tags asking people to take the flowers but leave the jars, since they were part of our personal collection.

Going this route for the favors saved us a lot of time and money, and no one seemed to care. (Not that they would come up asking for their favor… but still!)

Images from Studio 7 Photography.

The kid’s table was a huge hit! By the end of the party there were untangled Slinkies, colored coloring books and devoured candy everywhere!

I included:
a craft paper table cloth (using this roll of paper from Ikea)
Slinkies (from the dollar bins at Target)
little wind mills (also from the dollar bins at Target)
crayons and colored pencils (placed in paper cups from Ikea and Target)
mixed candy (also placed in paper cups from Ikea and Target)
the Activity Books I made
paper napkins (from Ikea)

Kids were more than welcome at our wedding, and I wanted to provide them with something to do so that they could have fun too!  They were all old enough to be left alone by their parents at the table and to eat the food that the adults were eating.  They loved it, and I was so happy to see them all having a good time!

Images by  Studio 7 Photography

Update: I added a few food pictures. It was mmm mmm good!

I am going to start with something totally off topic: it is WAY too hot for the end of September. Seriously.

Ok, so our reception! It was fun, went by way too fast, and even though I did everything I could to eat I still left hungry! We had a lunch time cocktail and appetizer reception at Cannons Seafood and Grill in Dana Point, California.

Our reception turned out just how I had hoped it would. It was relaxed, there was great food, flowing alcohol, a fun place for the kids (to come in a later post), and an amazing view!  Suzy was amazing to work with as their event coordinator. She took care of everything, was super laid back and was just good at what she does. I really can’t recommend Cannons enough. Although having an evening event there can be a little pricy (renting out the restaurant), they are closed at lunch so the prices are very reasonable. I will do a post on food and cakes later The view is what sold us, and lucky for us July 18th was a clear and gorgeous day! And didn’t the balls turn out great!?  I was so happy that Christa agreed to set everything up for us, she really pulled the whole look off! I of course supplied her with pictures and lists and diagrams… but she followed them excellently!

Tips: Think outside of the box when it comes to reception venues.  I actually found Cannons on The Knot. I had never eaten there and really hadn’t thought of it as an option.  Of course, once I realized that was an option I started thinking outside of the box a little bit more. “well if Cannons is a venue, maybe the Ocean Institute is too?!” (It is, it is just more expensive)  Really think outside of your ‘wedding venue’ box. You would be surprised where you can throw a party! (and remember, that is all you are doing. Throwing a party.)

If you are on a budget, seriously consider doing a lunch time reception. You save so much money, it is ridiculous.

Remember, your guests are there to see you get married. Everything after the ceremony is a bonus. Back in the day, cake and punch receptions were the norm.  I feel like weddings have gotten so huge, and yes, it is ok to want the big party, to want to dance the night away and have your names projected on the dance floor and an ice sculpture replica of your dress (ok… that was taking it too far. sorry). If that is what you want, then by all means, it is your wedding. But if you don’t want all of that, if you just want to get married to the one you love and have a little celebration afterwards, then do it!  I know that we were extremely blessed to have my parents pay for the wedding and only pull the “I am paying so I get my way” card once or twice, and that not everyone can just do whatever they want while having someone else pay…  but… um… (sometimes I wish I was better at putting my thoughts into written words)

All I want  you to know is that you shouldn’t worry about what your guests will think, want, desire… They are just happy to see you tie the knot. And if you feed them something and hang out for a bit, then that is cool too. Just… just do what you want to do!  It is your day! You are getting married to the one you love! Yay!

I’ll get off my soap box now!

Oh and for those who asked, I got the H & B letters at Michael’s… I think!  They were white and Bryan painted them!

All images thanks to Miah and Mike from Studio 7.

update: ok, now it is fixed!

(update: apparently wordpress doesn’t like it when I title my posts with just numbers, which is why you haven’t been able to comment. It is all fixed now!)

All my to-do’s are done. I may make a ‘just married’ sign tonight, maybe.

2 days to go.

Here are the last few things to get done:

Putting the programs in their box. (And a few kids activity books for the really young kids)

A mock up of the kids table to show my florist turned set up person

Pen jar for the ‘guestbook’

Hair trial! She fixed the dark pieces (yay!) and did a gorgeous up-do!  However, I am very simple and wear my hair straight all of the time, so I said for the big day I would like it with a little less volume

Ok, now I am really going!  We aren’t leaving for our honeymoon until Monday, so I may post a teaser before that, but I am not making any promises!

With one month left I am quickly checking things off the list.

Gocco’d napkins… check.

Cake descriptions and bar menu (frames from ikea)… done.

Up next: programs and rehearsal dinner menu’s.

Also, I had one reader (hello!) ask about my shower thank you cards.  Both the ‘thank you’ and the little kitchen icons at the bottom are fonts that I found at dafont.com.  They have every type of font you could want, including lots of dingbats (the icons) and a lot of them are free. I hit up dafont before every project!  I also have a photo printer, which allows me to print border less (although I did not need it for those cards) and I bought the paper (pure white 4 bar) at Paper Source.  Being crafty is something that I got from my mother and I say that even if you didn’t grow up in a crafty household, you can do it too! Take classes (Michael’s offers them, as well as Paper Source and I am sure other places do too) buy craft books like Martha’s new one and just practice

1 month left people.

Aaaand, my little sister graduates from high school today!

Aaaaaaand we are going to get our marriage license this afternoon!

Aaaaaaaaaaand I need to make one of these, among other things.

… 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!

I have made 108 tissue paper flowers.

I have 4 medium sized styrofoam balls.

I have 4 small styrofoam balls.

4 medium @ 18 flowers each = 72

4 small @ 15 flowers each = 60

Total flowers needed: 132

Total flowers I will make, just to be sure =150

Flowers needed: 42

Totally doable.