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. :)

DIY: Paint Chip Art Journal

I started a series on Art Journaling awhile ago. Then we moved into a new apartment and I kind of let that fade away without getting to some of the finer points. Consider this my attempt at trying to rectify that somewhat. Here you will see how you can turn a stack of just about anything (in this case, sample paint chips) into a bright shiny new art journal.

To make this style of journal you will need:

A stack of old paint chips, or any kind of old paper/cardstock (playing cards would work very well)
a hole punch
binder rings

That's it! Start by deciding where you want your holes punched, and use one card to make a template. You can use this for punching all of your holes in your cards in the same place, simply line up your template on top of your unpunched cards (I only do a few at a time) and punch your holes in the same spot as the original. Then, secure your book together with the binder rings. The thing I love about this style of journal is you can start small with smaller rings, and then if you decide to add more pages later, just graduate to a larger sized ring and add more pages as needed. It also makes it easy to remove a page without tearing anything out. Binder rings...another office supply I like way too much. :)

One great thing about paint chips, is if you are having some trouble thinking of something to draw/write/etc. in your journal, each color has some fancy name that you can use as a jumping off point. Maybe you will draw a tropical lagoon on the card aptly labeled "tropical lagoon", maybe you will decide to make a collage of items in a certain colorway on another page to match (or contrast!). Also, while you can find paint chips in many sizes, most are very manageable as far as fitting a finished book into your pocket or bag to carry around with you everywhere you go. :)


I save everything, so I had a large number of paint chips on hand. If you don't but would like to make this project, ask at a local hardware supply store if you can take some paint chip samples without buying paint. Other options you could use are: playing cards, the fronts of old greeting cards/thank you notes, scrap cardstock pieces from old projects, cut up cereal boxes, etc.

Food Craft: Lime Bars

Finally another food craft! These Lime Bars are not only super yummy, but super easy and are perfect to take to all your Summer get togethers! I made mine to take over to a friend's place for Gin and Tonic (G&T) night. Truth be told, I could have eaten the whole pan myself, they were that good. I am a very unselfish friend sometimes.

I found the original recipe at MarthaStewart.com but naturally tweaked it to my own personal taste, which my pals all seemed to agree with :) To make your own batch of tasty lime squares you will need:

For the crust:

half a sleeve of graham crackers (4.5-5 whole cracker "sheets"), about one cup
1/2 cup shelled pistachios
5 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup granulated sugar
zest of 2 limes


For the filling:

1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh lime juice*

*Feel free to substitute lemon or other citrus in this recipe

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 8"x8" pan. I sprayed some non stick spray on the bottom and lined mine with parchment paper.

In a food processor, combine your graham crackers, pistachios, sugar and lime zest until finely ground and well combined. I pulsed mine until the graham crackers were very fine, but I still had some larger chunks of pistachios. I love pistachios. Add in your melted butter, mix together well and pour the mixture into your prepared pan.

Press mixture into pan and up the sides slightly, bake about 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for about 30 minutes.

To make the filling, whisk together your sweetened condensed milk and egg yolks until well combined. Add your lime juice and whisk until smooth. Pour into cooled crust and spread evenly. Bake at 350 degrees about 15 minutes, until the filling has just set. Cool on cooling rack completely and refrigerate at least one hour before serving. I refrigerated mine overnight (it was a long night).

If you want to make a full 9"x13" pan of these (and why wouldn't you?), just double the recipe :)