Easy Vellum Flower

I have been slaving away making flowers for my sister's wedding (it also helped pass the time while I was waiting for a replacement lens for my camera to arrive). As such, I was not really able to post in July, so I hope you all haven't been too mad at me. Fear not, the new lens has arrived and I am almost finished cutting out all of my sister's lovely wedding flowers.

While my sister decided on mainly paper roses, which can be found as part of my paper flower roundup post. I have come up with some cute and much easier flowers that can be used to fill in bouquets. A great thing about these flowers is that they work especially well with this great platinum vellum paper I found! Vellum doesn't like to be bent/shaped/hot glued the way copy weight papers do, so finding a simple flower with less fuss is a great way to use it. The shimmer of the paper also makes this simple flower look a bit more exciting. It's a win/win!

I started this flower by using the template from some of my tissue paper flowers, as shown above. I decided that cutting out 3 same sized petals, punching a small hole in the center, and arranging them around a simple bead on a wire looked simple and elegant, and was also pretty darn quick and easy! I used a tiny bit of glue between each petal to hold them in place. You could also cut out 3 petals of each size and make a larger, layered flower. I think a bouquet made entirely of these little beauties would be a great everyday centerpiece or table decoration!

I'll be posting again tomorrow to let you all in on my upcoming projects! If you can't stand the suspense, check out my July Newsletter! What have you all been up to during my unplanned break?

Polka Dot Table Runner

I've been trying to come up with ways to keep myself from turning my dining room table into a catch all. Every tie I clean it off, it seems within seconds to be covered again by mail, craft projects, to do lists and more. So far my best defense has been trying to keep some kind of decoration on it, but a centerpiece isn't always good enough. So the other day I thought up this table runner! It's so cheap and easy to do, that you could change it almost every day if you wanted. It would also be super cute as a party decoration!



To make your own all you need is:

Scrap book paper or Card stock (here I used card stock)
Large circle hole punch (you could use a fancier shaped punch if you prefer)

That's it! Two supplies! How great is that? I will also point out that as long as you don't feel the need to attach these to a backing of some sort, you can re-use your punch outs in several other crafts later on :)



I am addicted to ombre color schemes lately, so I chose several shades of orange for my runner, but you could use any combo of colors or patterns. Start by punching out your polka dots. I punched out about 3 12"x12" card stock sheets worth of dots for my table (53" in diameter). You could also arrange your dots in a sunburst pattern, in which case you'll likely need more dots. Experimentation is key here, and you can't mess up!



Once you have your dots punched out, arrange them as you see fit! I started with my white dots on one side spaced pretty far apart, and then went to light orange, orange and dark orange. PLay with your spacing and colors until you come up with what looks best for you and your table.



In the end, I couldn't resist adding my ombre pom pom centerpiece as well. Complimentary colors make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Ombre Pom Pom Centerpiece

I was browsing Pinterest the other day (shocker, I know!) and came across a centerpiece similar to this one that was made with white carnations. Since I am helping my sister with the flowers for her wedding, and we are making them all from paper, I decided to try out a version with tissue paper pom pom flowers. I also wanted to get a little extra fancy, so I did an ombre arrangement starting with a white flower at the top and moving down into a dark blue at the base. This is a pretty easy arrangement to make, and would look great not only at a wedding, but a baby shower or birthday party!

The base for the arrangement is simply a candlestick (I snagged mine at the dollar store!) and a styrofoam ball (mine is 4" in diameter).

You will also need a bunch of tissue paper pom pom flowers, with a wire stem long enough to poke into your styrofoam ball. My finished centerpiece has a total of 25 flowers on it, made from pieces of tissue paper that were 4"x6". I left about 2" of stem on each (to make your stems sturdier you may want to double them over and wrap them with floral tape). Depending on the size of your styrofoam ball, the size of your flowers, and how densely you want to place them, you may need more or less.

I decided I didn't want to glue my styrofoam to the candlestick, so I could use it again later if I wanted to for another project. So to start, I placed my darkest color blue flowers around the candlestick base to hold it in place. I fluffed up my flowers and then moved o the next color. I also placed my single white flower at the top as a reference point so that my flowers wouldn't get too crooked as I built upwards.

Continue placing flowers and fluffing until you are satisfied with your finished product! If you don't want these as a centerpiece they would also be great as decoration on a dessert table, and if you want a taller base you could easily use a tall slender vase instead of the candlestick. :)