Escort Card Table Centerpieces Finished!

Well, it is May 12th, which means I have exactly one month left to get all of my projects done. The last few weeks have been pretty busy with graduation, finals, working more hours at work etc. But now, I have a lot more time to dedicate towards finishing up everything! Like today, I finished off all three of my escort card centerpieces. Take a look!

If case anyone is wondering about these, I used 6" styrofoam balls for my pomanders. I wanted to make them slightly larger than my pomanders that I'm using to line the aisle with. I bought the beads from Hobby Lobby, and put them on fishing line. Adhering the beaded strand to the ball was the toughest part. I used hot glue, and had to make a small hole in the ball, then I filled the hole with hot glue. Then with my bead strand, I took the top bead and plugged the hot glued hole with it. Since the bead strand was pretty heavy, I had to hold it in place for several minutes until the hot glue finally dried entirely. Then, I place the ball on to the vase with the bead strand hanging down, and I let it hang for a while to see if it was going to come off or not, but it never did! Anyways, overall these bad boys were really simple to make and they'll add a little something extra to the escort card table!

Centerpieces.. Changed my mind!

So I know I blogged earlier about how I want my centerpieces to look, but I have changed my mind and made my final decision! I want to incorporate my tissue paper flowers that I've been making for pomanders a lot more, so here is what I've decided to do:

These will be my escort card table's centerpieces..

Now these vases are a tad bit taller than what I plan on using, and I bought similar looking strings of beads like this black one except I bought them in my colors. This is also another way that I can incorporate my tissue paper flowers. I can't wait to show everyone how they turn out!

Now, for my reception centerpieces. All I've know for sure is that I want to incorporate fruit and gerber daisies, but I've googled and searched until my face turned blue.. and all I can say is that.. I FOUND IT! I've found exactly what I want to do and here is it:

I found these bubble bowl vases (8 inches) at Hobby Lobby. They were $5.99/each, but they were 50% off! So I was able to buy 15 of these for $3.00/each. WOO HOO! Now for how I plan to incorporate my tissue paper flowers.. another thing I've been doing is researching wholesale flowers online for months and I've found my daisies, but now I need to find mums like the green ones shown in the photo. Well after some thought, I realized that I can make these myself out of tissue paper and they will look just to same. If you've seen my tissue paper pomander tutorial, then you've seen how large the flowers turn out. I plan to cut the size in half for the centerpieces. You'll see what I mean when I do my first trial! Which will be VERY SOON! STAY TUNED!

My Upcoming Projects

So while I'm in the works of some new projects, I wanted to share with you my inspiration for my future projects!

How cute are these? I CANNOT wait to get started on this project. I plan to type up some directions for anyone interested in completing this DIY. I will be starting on this in the next couple of day so it won't be long!

I want to utilize my pomanders in more than one area of the wedding, so I want to put these (in my colors) on our escort card table to give it a little height.

I love these for our escort cards. I'm the type of person that wants to go beyond the norm and do things that people haven't seen, especially since all of the weddings we've been to have been very traditional and very much the same. So small details like these will make our wedding more unique.

I found this idea on The Knot's Wedding Obsession Blog. This would serve an entertainment piece at the reception so that guests can get a better idea of our history together.

This is one of the first DIY projects that I found when I first began idea shopping for the wedding. I want to try and make my table numbers very similar to these and also put on the bottom  a little fact about us.

I can't wait to get started and share my projects with you!

How to make tissue paper pomanders

Here are my directions for making the tissue paper pomanders. Sorry about the formatting! I copied it straight from my Wedding Planning Bio website.

Tissue Pomanders Directions

Materials Needed

1. A styrofoam ball (I used a 6" ball)
2. Tissue paper
3. Floral wire (I used 24 gauge)
4. Ribbon
5. Scissors or paper cutter (I found scissors to be easier because the tissue paper kept getting stuck in my paper cutter)
6. Optional - Hot Glue and Hot Glue Gun

Step 1

• First, you need to cut your tissue paper to your desired size. This was the step I had the most trouble with because I had to try multiple sizes to find the right one. If you want to know what size I used and how I got them to that size just page me on the P&E board.
• Now, after you have your desired size, use 5 (or 6, depending on how much texture you want your flower to have) pieces of your newly cut/sized tissue paper and stack them, like shown in the picture.
  
  

---

Step 2

• Now take your stacked tissue paper and begin folding it back and forth, like an accordian.

---

Step 3

• Fold your accordian in half.

---

Step 4

• Now, take your scissors and round off the edges of your paper. This step is crucial if you want your flowers to look more realistic. I made a flower once without rounding the edges and it looked awful. So make sure to round off the straight edges!

---

Step 5

• For this next step, you will need some floral wire. The wire will hold your flower together, as well as serve as its stem so that it can be inserted in the styrofoam ball.
• When determining how much wire you need, just keep in mind that a little goes a long way.  After you've cut your desired length, fold the wire in half and insert your tissue paper in between. Your fold from before will serve to be beneficial here because then you will have it centered more properly.
• Now twist your wire ends together to make a stem.

---

Step 6

• Fan out your accordian folds.

---

Step 7

• Now, gradually divide each tissue paper layer individually and fan them out. It's best to fan each layer separately and to do so very carefully as to not to rip the paper.

---

A Finished Flower

• A completely fanned out flower. Ain't it purty?

---

Step 8

• Now, we need to insert the ribbon into the styrofoam ball. Cut your desired length of ribbon. Then cut a piece of floral wire and fold it in half. Place your ribbon in between and even it out so that before you twist your wire that the ribbon will be even on both ends. I found that after twisting the wire, to secure my ribbon better, I tied a small knot.
• Eithering using your floral stem (I used a wire hanger) or something strong to make a small hole, punch a hole into your ball and fill it with hot glue. Then immediately insert your floral stem.
• The hot glue it optional, but I wanted to make sure that my ribbon would stay put since it will be hanging for a long period of time. So the hot glue ensures that.

---

Step 9

• Stick your flower into your styrofoam ball. This step can be tricky because it needs to be inserted without damaging the flower. I found by placing one finger inside the flower to reach the wire, and pushing it down helps a lot without hurting the flower much.

---

The Final Product

• All done! Now for my advice:
• Don't worry if ALL of the flowers aren't perfect because they are being bundled together and it will be unnoticable.
• Don't use long pieces of wire because the longer they are, the more that you have to push into the styrofoam ball and it can be a PITA. So a little goes a long way.
• As mentioned, I prefer using the hot glue to secure the ribbon in place, and I'm glad I did!
• If your stack of tissue paper isn't exactly even, don't worry about it. Or even if your sizes of paper don't match 100%, don't worry about it.

Tissue Paper Pomanders - Check!

Starting these pomanders was my first DIY project that I ever started for the wedding. I decided to start on them about a year out because I knew they would be time consuming. I've since removed all the flowers from the balls because I've decided that actually fanning out the flowers so far in advance doesn't make the pomanders look as good as they should. In my case, we had to move them around a lot so flowers kept getting smashed. So I've been making the flowers, but I haven't been fanning them out. I plan to fan them out about one week prior to the wedding to have them looking their best. I'll be posting my directions next on how to make these!