Flower Power

Let's be real for a sec. Flowers are expensive! Not all of us have a huge budget for our big day. So we can't drape every inch of our day with beautiful, fresh, expertly arranged flowers. Does that mean you can have gorgeous flowers? No Way!!

Here's something I drool over: There is a new trend of using unconventional materials to create beautiful and interesting bouquets. Using everything from ribbon, brooches, fabric and paper, yep you heard me, PAPER! What's so great about these bouquets is that they are easy, fun to make and after your wedding day they are an instant keepsake! Just drop it in the vase on your kitchen table or bookshelf and your friends will be asking, "Hey wasn't that your bouquet?" I first saw the idea in a little online magazine done by MSN.com called GLO. They have some wonderful stuff which you check out in THIS article. Project wedding also has some awesome how to articles on how to do these beautiful bouquets.

I know! Can you believe these are made of PAPER! If you'd like to try this out, HERE is the link to the tutorial.

I am going to try my hand at making one of these beautiful bouquets to show you just how easy it is. You just need a little daring. I hope to post my conquest soon. Until then I hope you will be daring! Be bold and try something you never thought you could do! You may just surprise yourself. I'll have more later on how you can also do your own real flower bouquets and accents for super cheap.

Ciao!

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Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start- Teapot Invitations

Let's go back to how all this creating began. Back in the spring, I was helping my sister-in-law Deidra give her older sister and my other sister-in-law Alisha a lingerie shower in honor of her upcoming wedding. Now Alisha is a classy southern young woman so instead of your usual lingerie shower with risque decorations and suggestive themes, we decided to make it a tea party theme.

Of course any good party needs guests which means you need......invitations! I went to the local craft stores in search of invitation sets. They were super expensive! And none of them matched my theme. I thought I can do something better and cheaper! Soooo, I grabbed some cream card stock, patterned scrapbook paper, cream satin ribbon, stamps and a gold ink pad. I later came back for matching cream envelopes.

And here's what I came up with. (Please excuse my photography skills, I'm a work in progress)

This is red and pink patterned scrapbook paper. I found a teapot template online and printed it out on card stock. I cut it out and traced it onto my scrapbook paper. I then carefully cut out the teapots. Below the beautiful red and pink pattern is the invitation which you can see in this picture.

The background was created with gold ink and stamps. After printing out the teapot template on cream card stock, I stamped the pattern on and let it dry overnight. Then I ran the card stock back through the printer to get the wording on. If you run the paper through too soon after stamping them you will get smudged and streaked invitations which is so not cute. After printing the wording on, I cut out the invitations.

I added a few more personal touches. A monogrammed "C" attached to the ribbon added a nod to Alisha's upcoming nuptials and shaping it like a teabag made the extra touch very appropriate. I also added a simple stamp flourish to the flap of the envelope making the plain envelope look more interesting. Here is a picture of all of the components.

So there you have it. The beginning of my creating! There's more where this came from and the shower itself had some great touches that I can't wait to share with you, but that's for another day.

This project was very affordable and cost much less than the boxed sets. You can save a bit more at craft stores if you read the weekly sales ads and print out the coupons they offer online. I check them weekly and take advantage of them when buying supplies for my projects.

I hope you enjoy making your own teapot invitations!

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"Good seasons start with good beginnings." - Sparky Anderson

I've never thought of myself as a writer and certainly not as an artist, but here I am writing to you about how I have recently become an artist. I think everyone has things that they love to do and whether they are good at those things or not they do them, well, because they LOVE to! And two of those things for me are creating beautiful things and sharing them with others.

About two years ago, I got married and aside from being the happiest most beautiful day of my life thus far, I realized one of those "things" that I love is weddings. I enjoyed every bit of planning and creating for my wedding day. Flowers, ribbons, pearls, dresses and pretty paper. It makes me smile just thinking about it. I was especially excited when I discovered the new trends of doing unconventional things at weddings. Wearing orange Converse tennis shoes to your reception, candy bars instead of favors,  and mason jar centerpieces. Not only are Brides looking for creative personal touches they are looking for ways to do them in an affordable way. My own wedding was less than $8,000 which is becoming more and more typical for Brides in this economy.

As my friends and family have been getting married in quick succession, I have found myself giving advice, throwing showers galore and best of all CREATING! Somehow I discovered that creating invitations is simple and I could bring a personal and affordable option to my friends and family. But more on how it all began later.

Which brings me to the reason for this blog! On this journey I've been encouraged by my wonderful friends and family to share my creations. Of course I've been reluctant to do so but now I am ready to share it with you in the hopes that you will love my creations as well.

I can create something especially for you, a personal and affordable touch for your happiest and most beautiful day. And of course, anything you see on here is very easy to create and I'll share with you some of my tips and tricks so that you can discover what I have, the love to Create! This is also a place for me to share with you the things that I find and drool over. So come back often because there's a lot for me to love!

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.
Antonie de Saint-Exupery

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