Crepe Paper Rosette Balls

At the beginning of August, my siblings and I surprised our mom with a 60th birthday party.  It was AWESOME!  We went with a black and white theme and since yellow roses are her most favorite flower we decided to use accents of yellow.  I really wanted to try my hand at making some of the rosette balls I had seen throughout Blogland and I thought making them in yellow would be perfect for the party.

I used THIS TUTORIAL from The House of Smiths although I made a few changes.  Rather than using styrofoam balls I recycled some tissue pom-poms that I had used for my sister's bridal shower I hosted last November.  They were sitting in a box all smushed and for whatever reason never made it out to the recycle bin and since we were on a pretty tight budget for the party I figured it couldn't hurt to see what I could do with them.

I started squishing and bunching them up and forming them into balls...

I just used the blue painters tape I had on hand to help keep the shape and then I cut some strips of white copy paper to put around them as well.  I have to confess, I am not really sure why I did that...maybe to help hide the purple underneath?!  Who knows what I was thinking!  LOL!

Then I just got busy cutting my strips of crepe paper, crinkling, twisting, twirling, gluing, burning my fingers, etc.  I cut the "stems" off of my mine and then starting gluing to my "ball".

I used some of  my leftover "stems" to fill in any white spots that were left in between the rosettes.  Not sure how many hours it took me to complete these or how many times I may have burned my fingers, but the the end I was really happy with  how they turned out. 

And even better was that the whole project cost me a total of $2 and that was for the crepe paper streamers.  I had to get 2 packages of them from the Dollar Store.

I love that I was able to recycle to tissue pom-poms from my sister's bridal shower and I am even more thrilled about these because I am planning a little "face lift" for these very soon for Halloween!

And this is how they looked on the dessert table for the party...

What do you think?

Can't wait to try my Halloween makeover on them...cross your fingers it turns out...and if it does I will be sure and share it here!

The Bridal Shower

Well, it is almost a week later and I am proud to say that I pulled off the bridal shower for my little sister.  She is getting married in just 5 weeks!  I can't even believe it. 

I was pretty happy with how the shower turned out despite the fact that half-way through the shower our well pump stopped working and so we were without water -- talk about a panic attack!  (Long story short, it was just the contacts and my hero hubby was able to get things back in working order when he arrived home - WHEW!)  Anyway, back to the shower...I must say that I could never had pulled it off without the help from my best friend Gina and my mom.  Gina really went above and beyond the call of duty on this one, seriously.  Aside from our littlest sister, I got no help from the other bridesmaids so Gina and my mom were only to happy to help make this shower happen.  In the end, it was probably just as well the others couldn't be bothered, as my mom, Gina and I had a blast getting things ready!  It was seriously a good time :)

Since my budget was extremely limited we made pretty much everything...from all the food to the decorations.  Dan, my future BIL proposed to Rachelle at the France Pavillion in Epcot so I thought it would be fitting to have a Paris theme to the shower.  I didn't want to go overboard with it and I think we did okay, but you will have to tell me what you think.  Of course, after the fact, I realize there are pictures that I wish I had taken but since I got so throw off track with that whole "no water" thing, well, you can see how I probably dropped the ball a little, right?  So...here we go...

My mom, BFF Gina and I just before the festivities begin...

When everyone came in I asked them to share their well wishes, blessings and words of advice with Rachelle on notes that one of my fabulous House of Paper friends, Linda,  helped me create.  (These are going to go in a scrapbook I have planned for my sister)

Then we took each guests picture with Rachelle at this little "Paris Cafe" I had set up (each picture will go with each guests' card in the scrapbook)...

Me and my sister, Rachelle

all 3 of us sisters

our mom and Rachelle

my sweet baby girl, the all-important flower girl ;)

Since the Groom dropped her off, we grabbed a shot of them together as well

There was plenty of good food...

We had a special chair just for our blushing bride to sit in, courtesy of our mom...

I made sure to have plenty of pics of the bride and groom all around.  My favorite though was this display I set up near the gifts.  I used some of their gorgeous engagement photos and made a banner that says "She Said Yes!"

Hey look...there's me! ;)

Her pile of gifts...I seriously didn't call everyone and tell them to make sure everything coordinated...but it certainly looks like it!  LOL!

She was blessed with some lovely gifts and in the first shot you can see some of the streamers I sewed and glued using my scrapbook paper and ribbon (close up in a sec)  I also made some hanging circles.

Couple more smaller picture displays of her and Dan over the years.

I made a yummy mimosa punch and of course forgot to take a picture of the bar set up but you can at least see the pretty punch here...this was just a table with flowers as everyone walked in.  I found a piece of scrapbook paper with the eiffel tower on it and Gina cut out a glittery R so we displayed it here.

To thank everyone for coming, Mom, Gina and I made chocolate eiffel towers in brown and lavendar chocolate...so yummy!

My mom with me, my baby girl and my youngest sister, Anna...although I call her Tink (yes, that would be short for Tinkerbell...I have called her that since she was little.)

My BFF Gina and I.  Hard to believe we have been friends now for over 30 years and she is such a blessing in my life.  My mom has joked that since Gina has been around longer than my brother and sisters that makes her family...works for me!

and of course...our "classic" look...

I call this one Four Sisters.  Tink, Rachelle, myself and Christine.  Our little brother is engaged to be married in 2011 and Christine is going to be our newest addition. 

Well, here's hoping everyone had a good time, most especially my sister.  Rachelle has waited a long time for her wedding day and I really wanted her to feel special and be able to shine during her bridal shower.  I couldn't be happier for you little sister.  Much love and happiness to you and Dan.  I love you.