Wednesday, February 1, 2012

more battling of the birthday blues



Getting ready for Natalie's 2nd birthday party continues to distract me from the fact that my itty-bitty-baby is growing up.  I thought I'd share my go-to crafty decoration, which is pretty much the easiest little pretty thing you can whip up to beautify an event (seriously, I work with middle school students, and they can crank these babies out no problem--they are easy-peasy):  tissue paper flowers!  There is a great little tutorial here on how to make them, which includes step-by-step instructions.

 
My general technique is to stick with tissue paper cut on a pretty small scale--like 5" or 6" squares.  You can of course make them as big, bright, unmatching, or subtle as you'd like, but I tend to go with all one color per flower, or light tones within the same family.  It's a really simple process of fan-folding a few pieces of equally sized tissue paper and then fluffing them out to make a pretty blossom.  I use pipe cleaners for the stems, and for Natalie's birthday I twisted the stems together to make a long garland of alternating blue and white flowers.  They kind of remind me of sea anemones or water lilies because they are so soft and muted.  I love them.  The technique is really similar to making big old tissue paper pomanders, which I have also gotten ready for Natalie's party.  My plan is to hang blue balloons and streamers from the ceiling (ideas stolen from Pinterest--here & here) and have a few blue poms interspersed up there as well, mimicking that same sea anemone feel.  I'm hoping it will look a little like the party is actually taking place under water.

 
Do you have a go-to craft like this, that you always seem to put together for any event?  This one is seriously my favorite.  I have made bouquets of the flowers for centerpieces, long garlands like this one to string around doorways, random blooms to have poking out on a food table or in my not-yet-blooming flower pots, and more.

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