September birthday party

September's party was super easy, as I actually threw my own birthday party this year I had all sorts of things on hand. I did a park picnic which was lovely but I wanted to see how the same elements would function at a more simple dinner party so I threw together this pretty table.

The background was a mixture of tassel garlands and some gold Mylar number balloons. Both are hung on the wall with washi tape and made things feel instantly festive. 

For the table I started with a white + print table cloth, and layered some light blue woven napkins at each place as a place mat of sorts. I used the same white plates and gold flatware seem to be my standard go to, but I layered the dark blue floral napkins and cutlery on the plate with a different patterned bow tie at each place. I also used a gold rimmed wine glass and a shorter water glass, and place cards I made out of leftover invitations, with a felt flower clipped to each. 

As the cake topper I used the original drawing for my invitations, which I redid the color to, and I made a new cake stand by layering a white plate on an overturned blue bowl.

Cost breakdown was as follows:
balloons.....................................................................$8.00
pin backs...................................................................$4.00
hair clips...................................................................$3.00
total..........................................................................$15.00

This table was super fun and easy to put together, and it was a nice challenge to try to use the parts from my picnic in a different setting and see them still look nice. Also I very much enjoy doing party favors that can actually be worn at the party, it's such a nice extra touch.

...tied up with string

I have way too many craft materials, sewing trims, bits and bobs. I try to convince myself that it's not hoarding, it's collecting. But this is a fine line. My studio is overflowing with tidbits and trifles. 

Recently when I was wrapping a gift I decided to experiment and see how many different ways I could decorate a brown paper package by using only materials that I had on hand.

I began with this blank surface:

First I used ribbon and cut out some old block printed postcards.

Next was a polaroid of the sky with some navy pom pom trim.

Then I went for some traditional velvet ribbon, plus an old photo and a little 'for you' tag held together with a mini clothespin.

Fourth was a mix of some thick gold netting ribbon and hot pink grosgrain which I used to hold a pink tassel keychain in the middle.

Fifth I used a mix of a a paint strip and some dotty garlands I had leftover from an Easter party.

Then I stayed with the paint chips, but added in a scissor print and some eyelashes. I tied it all on with pink rick rack.

Seventh I continued with the idea of small gift as wrapping, and layered some cut out leaves with a sun printing kit and some polka dot ribbon.

Eight was some wrapping paper that I folded down to create layers, and an oversized playing card with black velvet ribbon.

Ninth I used some daisy trim and a fake flower.

Tenth I wove together a mix of construction paper strips and wrapped them around the middle of the package.

Then I used a combination of sparkly trims and small cards.

Finally for the last, I used some large and small price stickers to create a pattern on the paper.

Honestly I am sure that I could have kept going. I think I could draw two possible conclusions here: A. I am a hoarder and need to get this under control or B. My friends are going to be getting more gifts in the near future because this was super fun and there's not much that I like more than a prettily wrapped package. Also, this solidified my feeling that you really don't need 'gift wrap' in an official sense to wrap gifts well, because really anything can be used to make a package look exciting and finished.

making my own birthday invitations

In some ways, making something for myself is the easiest, but in some ways its far more challenging than any other kind of project. Maybe because I have all of these random ideas bubbling up and have trouble deciding on any one, maybe because I'm a terrible fickle client, who knows. I decided to throw a birthday party for myself this year (it's a big one, so it seemed appropriate) and when I finally decided on a plan (park picnic with lawn games) I figured I'd let myself indulge in a bit of party planning and decoration cuteness, just to get it out of my system I guess. So in addition to planning an elaborate menu of snacks and doing a bunch of balloon decorations and party favors (more on those later) I made real invitations. Crazy right? And then I sent them in the main----even crazier!

So I spent an afternoon just doodling around with supplies figuring out a plan and then producing a small run of these. I started by pulling out all the colored envelopes I have leftover from other things and picked the turquoise ones which started me on a color pallet. Then I decided that I wanted to do a sort of die-cut style illustration for the front of the card, so I drew up this portrait of myself as a panda, scanned it into the computer and and sized it so that I could get two cards out of an standard sheet of card stock. I did a few versions of the colors in the panda's dress and balloons before I settled on the final version.

Then it was time to come up with the interior. I was struggling with what to say in the card, how to convey it, so eventually I just wrote something up that sounded sort of conversational, and then lettered it out with ink, scanned it and cleaned it up, and printed it out on vellum. I used the edge of the panda on the front of the card as a template for designing the interior so that when the card is closed only the left side of the text is visible, and then when you open it up you get all the additional information.

As I wanted some more color on the interior of the card, I also cut down some grass green paper to layer behind the vellum in the interior, then I stacked all three pieces together and ran them through the sewing machine to attache them all together.

(I also decided the panda needed to be saying something and I sort of just went for the most obvious as you can see here, it seemed appropriate!)

Finally, I cut up some confetti from the leftover bits of paper scattered across my desk, piled it in each card and put them in their envelopes. I used these giant neon orange price stickers I've had forever but never had a project for, and addressed them with ink. The ones that were sent through the mail had a collection of colorful stamps as well. And in just a few hours, I had a pile of invitations ready to drop in the mail, and deliver around to various people. I always feel like invitations set the tone for an event and so I'm hoping these get people excited for a festive little shindig. I've always loved receiving colorful and exciting mail (ie-anything other than bills) so I figure other people probably enjoy it too and I was happy to spice up the mailbox for a day.

beehive cake topper

Just wanted to pop in real quick to talk about making that cake topper for the tea party. This should wrap up the last of the July party posts so that I can move on to other thinks, like this months party!
The structure of the hive was pretty simple, I just folded and taped some construction paper into a roughly hive-like shape and then covered it in yellow crepe paper. But that didn't seem cute and bee-ish enough so of course I had to make some bees.

Since it seemed best for them to be vaguely in scale to the mini hive I pulled out these little yellow pom poms I've had stashed from some old project. I skewered each one on a straight pin, drew on some stripes and glued in some tiny paper wings and voila! It's a bumble bee!

You can see the scale represented pretty well her next to that big sharpie marker.

Since they were already on pins I was able to just stick them into the hive wherever I wanted and I also added a little buzzbuzzbuzz banner on a longer straight pin as well. Simple and cute.

Paper flowers

The paper flowers for last months part turned out to be very simple. I wanted something sturdy so I used construction paper. Then I started with a small middle 'flower' and kept cutting bigger and bigger ones until I thought it would be full enough. I rolled the tips or sides of the petals down so that they would be more curved, cut a small fringed yellow piece for the center and green paper leaves, and then stacked it all and glued it together.

When that seemed to work out, I used it as a template and cut out a bunch more so that they would be more or less uniform and assembled them all factory style.

It seems like this super simple technique would be easily modifiable to make different 'types' of flowers, change the shape of the petals, play around with the leaves and such, but overall it was was easy and satisfying. As you can see I made them about the size of a tea saucer but they could easily be made bigger and more layered, or very tiny as well.

Bee piñata

The bumble bee was a big part of the decoration for July's party, and was relatively easy to construct.

I made a base out of crumpled up packing paper (I'd just gotten a box of shoes so that was convenient) and then wrapped it in strips of yellow tissue paper to form a base. Then I cut up a bunch of white, yellow and black fringe.

I started with a small circle of white fringe at the bottom, or butt of the bee, and worked in circles gluing on fringe as I went, switching to yellow after a few rows.

When the entire body was covered in fringe, I made legs and antenna out of black pipe cleaners, doubled up and twisted together. I tried to make little feet at the bottom of them but figured I could bend them into more leg like positions once the bee was all put together. I punched holes in the bee with an awl and threaded the legs in with a dab of hot clue so they would stick. Same for the antenna.

And then I cut some vaguely wing shaped pieces out of drafting tracing paper and and sewed the layers together, then glued them up under the stripe of black fringe. I tried out some kind of 'eyes' but thought they just looked too cartoon-esc so I scrapped that idea. I used a big upholstery needle to go through the body sideways with fishing line so that I could hang him from an angle. I did some fluffing of the fringe and straightening of the legs once it was on the wall, I think this took about two hours to construct. 

It is not a real pinata, in the sense that it isn't hollow and full of candy, but as a three dimensional decorative object I think it adds a nice oomf to the honeycomb wall. And now of course it's languishing on top of my bookshelf until I come up with another venue for it. 

six months of parties

So 2015 is halfway over. Not sure how that happened but I will try not to dwell on how little I felt I have gotten done, and rather focus on what I did do. I was working on my next party setup and realized that I have now done six little table settings this year and I thought it would be neat to see them all together to see how different, and how similar they are. 

Working with just a corner of my living room, and a regular table and chairs, it seems I was able to come up with very different feeling setups, and all using primarily things that I already have on hand (hoarding validation) and keeping my budget low. All of them are quick and pretty easy to put together and they could be used for a variety of occasions. All told really making me exited to throw together some more in the second half of the year.

June party favors

For favors I wanted to continue the flying/mail themes from the table setup.

First I cut the envelopes out of red construction paper and edged them in red white and blue striped wash tape. 

Next I drew paper airplanes on shrink dink (or oven bake shrinking film) and baked them. If they were going to be pendants make sure to punch a hole in the film before baking. They could also be made as pins.

The were very simple to make and looked cute on the table as well. Also I think I need to start using shrinky-dink more, it's super fun stuff.