Tissue paper flowers. Everywhere.

I know, I know. I've been neglecting you, blog. But I've been trying to be a doer. You know, one who does. So, here is one of the things that I did:


There are tissue paper flowers taking over!


These are the Martha Stewart's poms that are absolutely every.where. Just google it - I promise, you'll find them. Instead of pulling them both ways to make a round pom, I just pull them up one way, and ta-daaaa: Flower. It's kind of the opposite of magic because it's so simple, but when you need to make a bunch of something, simple is good.

I'd say that most of these flowers made with tissue cut about 14 inches long and 6-8 inches wide. But I made some that were a bit bigger. None of this was very scientifically or exactly measured. I used between 5-7 sheets, most of the time. But if you want a more carnation-y look, use more. Be forwarned however - too many sheets of paper can make it very hard to to get a nice clean flower. Ditto if you make the flowers much smaller than 6 inches wide. A couple of them met the inside of my recycle bin for that reason.


Sometimes I rounded the edges. It makes for a more peony-looking flower.


Sometimes I made spikey edges, which makes them look more dahlia-like, which is really what my other flowers are going to be, so I probably should have stuck with that, but I liked the variety, and since I did this for 5 hours one day, I mixed it up a bit.


Yes. Five hours in a row. Now I'm going to have to figure out how to get rid of the tan lines on my shoulders because my dress is strapless. Oy. The good news is that the sun was out in Seattle, and while the rest of the country is experiencing a heat wave, we're having a very lackluster summer here. So, if the rest of the country wants to come cool off, it might be time to come visit Seattle!

Ok, focus. Here we go. My pile eventually grew from this:


to this:


Which I thought would be enough. But it wasn't. So I had to make a few more. In the end, I had enough to make plenty of bouquets of flowers.




And what will I be doing with these, you ask?

Well, these puppies will be holding up the table numbers. Like this.



And this.


Then there will be some real dahlias hanging out with them as well and hopefully each table will have one tissue and two "real" arrangements, 0r something along those lines. That will cut down on cost, and also on the time it will take to make the arrangements the day before. Yes, I know I'm crazy, but there will be a number of us hopefully just squishing the dahlias into the vases the day before. I'm not going to be too picky about it, and it should go pretty smoothly. Don't worry, I have a couple of plan B's - or is that a Plan B and a Plan C? It'll all work out, I'm sure.

Rings

Not the jewelry kind, but rather the napkin kind. A lot of them!


I covered a whole bunch of buttons with scraps from other projects, as you already know.





Then I threaded them onto this lovely dupioni silk ribbon.


The ribbon frayed just a tad, but I decided to go with it.

My napkins will be white, but the tablecloths will be the color of the napkin rings, so I think it'll all blend quite nicely. Must.mock.up.table!


Great, right?

Divine!

So, of course, I love me some baker's twine. It's used by bakers. I heart bakers. And it's twine, so it also parallels my love of ribbon. I mean, obviously it was going to be a perfect match.


And when a certain someone told me about Divine Twine, which comes in a variety of lovely lovely colors, I jumped and immediately purchased a roll from WhiskerGraphics.


I love it. I'm imagining all of the uses for this goodness, and boy do they abound! I will be using the twine to tie the tags to the vintage skeleton keys for the place cards at the wedding. Yes, I will.

And you know how I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I love packaging? Well, Divine Twine did a fabby job of packaging this baby. Look at the adorable bird on the back...I mean, seriously!


And check out all the other little goodies that came in the mail with the twine!



A cute little thank you pouch with a sticker, samples of all the Divine Twine colors, some birdie stickers (!) and a business card, you know, for future purchases. How fun!

Shutter! (Not shudder)

Remember these shutters I found? Turns out they couldn't ship them. But this is one of those rare "ask and ye shall receive" moments.

Guess what my aunt had hanging out in her garage!?


Pretty, right?


I'm going to add either some hooks or small nails to hang place cards with skeleton keys. See? Kinda like this...


except different. But you get the idea! How lucky am I!? And $0 fits my budget so perfectly!

I will have a chandelier!

I'm clearly obsessed. I love them all. Here are some of my fav DIY chandeliers:

This one, of course, that I found here on 100 Layer Cake.


This one from here on Design*Sponge:


And now, this one from Snippet & Ink, found here.


I kind of want them all. But no matter what, I will be married under some chandelier-type loveliness because I loves.

Fluffy Letters Tutorial!

Well, I've survived Christmas, and I'm only slightly traumatized. If I ever start blogging about my family, you all would understand. I suppose I just have to mention "family" and many of you are already nodding your heads...or banging them against the wall. Just me? Ok, then.

So, I'm back to wedding crafting and I still think it's about the best thing I can do with my time. Surprised? Me neither.

I love monograms. I see them all over weddings nowadays. Like these from Martha:


And, of course, I love these fabric poms:


I wanted to combine these two loves into ruffley monograms. I managed to do so, although I'm not sure that I'm madly in love with the results. I wanted to be madly in love with the results, but these things happen.


These ruffled letters are certainly cute enough to make their way onto a dessert table or a guest book table, where they will happily show off their ruffleosity and announce that this is, indeed, Chris and Kerissa's wedding.

For this project you will need:
* Wooden letters (I purchased mine at Michael's. They were painted white, which helped because I knew I would be covering them in a cream colored fabric, so they would blend well. They are approx. six inches tall.)
* Fabric (I used inexpensive cotton)
* Hot glue/gun
* Circle Cutter (Optional)
* Scissors

Here are the letters pre-fluffiness:


I knew that the fabric ruffles had to be short enough that you would still be able to tell that it was a "K" at the end of the project. So, I took my circle cutter and cut out a one-inch circle out of paper to use as my template. You could certainly freehand this as the circles do not have to be perfect.


Then, I cut some inexpensive cotton into a zillion teensy circles.


Next, I put a dot of hot glue in the center of the circle like so (but hopefully with a hand that was more steady than mine when I took this blurry photo):


and stuck it to the letter.

Repeat 50-hundred times. :)

To give it the ruffled look, I stuck each circle up tight to the one before so that it would fold the edges of the other circle up in random spots.




Sometimes the cat helps. But she looks irritated when you explain to her that she cannot nestle in that fabric. See the look?


Here are my tips, also known as "what I would do differently next time":

(1) I ruffled the whole letter. This probably isn't necessary but I thought perhaps I would hang them, so I wanted ruffles all around. However, I think I liked the less cluttered look of the letter when only the front was ruffled, like this:


The fabric was able to hang over the side and look gently ruffled. But, then I ruffled the sides and it looked like this, which I wasn't as thrilled with:


(2) So, if you do want to ruffle the whole thing, I learned that it is best to start with the back and sides first. I ended up flipping the "C" over and using the back as the front (thank goodness it was a symmetrical letter!) and making the ruffles a tad less crowded on that side. As you can see, I had perfected my ability to use a little less fabric and make it a little less ruffly by the time I got to the "K."


(3) I also trimmed the edges of the ruffles in the center of the letter to make sure that the edges were still defined and the "K" was identifiable, instead of a ruffled blob. :)

I do love me some ruffles!

These are the smallest letters I've purchased, so some ginormous monograms are certain to follow.

My 12 Homemade Gifts of Christmas...a tad late.

Here are the gifts I made for Christmas 2010 in song form, of course. I know it's January 10th, but sometimes life happens and you finish some of your Christmas crafting projects on January 9th. Right? (I'm looking for some validation here...) :)

On the first day of Christmas I made for a friend: a ruffly cotton garland for a tree*

(*Ok, so it's not for a tree. I'm going for effect, here.)


On the second day of Christmas I very carefully sewed: two stuffed pigs

and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the third day of Christmas I made all by hand: three pretty tutus,

two stuffed pigs, and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the fourth day of Christmas I cut out and sewed: four heart-felt bags,

three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the fifth day of Christmas I made on my own: five flower headbands,

four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the sixth day of Christmas I made lots of these: six shapes of press cookies,

five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.

On the seventh day of Christmas I stayed up to make: seven hundred PB blossoms,

six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the eighth day of Christmas I didn't sleep to make: eight pounds of peppermint bark,

seven hundred PB blossoms, six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the ninth day of Christmas I stayed up to late to wrap: nine(ty) lovely presents,

(the gifts that were shipped)

(the gifts that "stayed home")

eight pounds of peppermint bark, seven hundred PB blossoms, six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the tenth day of Christmas I whipped up late one night: ten homemade marshmallows,

nine(ty) lovely presents, eight pounds of peppermint bark, seven hundred PB blossoms, six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the eleventh day of Christmas I may have eaten up: eleven vegan sugar cookies,

ten homemade marshmallows, nine(ty) lovely presents, eight pounds of peppermint bark, seven hundred PB blossoms, six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.


On the twelfth day of Christmas I finally gave away: Twelve pumpkin cupcakes,

eleven vegan sugar cookies, ten homemade marshmallows, nine(ty) lovely presents, eight pounds of peppermint bark, seven hundred PB blossoms, six shapes of press cookies, five flower headbands, four heart-felt bags, three pretty tutus, two stuffed pigs and a ruffly cotton garland for a tree.

I didn't even post about the fudge (which I forgot to photograph), or the two apple pies (complete with star and Christmas tree cutouts)!


I need a nap!

Stay tuned as we get back to our regularly scheduled programming of wedding crafting. :)

Sources:

• Ruffle Garland from Ruffled Blog.
• Stuffed Pigs from Martha Stewart.
• Tutu tutorial on YouTube.
• Heart-Felt Bags from Martha Stewart.
• Braided Headband from this website and flower tutorial from 100 Layer Cake. (Stay tuned for an upcoming guest blog with a tutorial for making these!)
• Almond Press Cookie recipe from Martha Stewart, but I added almond extract as well.
• This is the recipe I use for Peanut Butter Blossoms. It doesn't use shortening or milk. Except I bake at 375 not 275...I assume that's a typo.
• I didn't have a recipe for the peppermint bark. I made that recipe up. :)
• Homemade Marshmallows from here, however I did not coconut-ify them, but don't think I wasn't tempted to do that! Coconut = yumminess!
• Vegan Sugar Cookie recipe found here. (Amazing.)
• The vegan pumpkin cupcakes were a mixture of the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World, which can be found here (I didn't add the chocolate chips), and the spices from Smitten Kitchen's pumpkin cupcake recipe from here. These qualify as the most amazing vegan thing I've ever baked.