Decorative Packaging

Indoor weddings or outdoor weddings would both benefit from this style of decorating.  I love an isle that is candle lit, but it also bothers me that a catastrophe may happen with all that fabric and fire.  These little galvanized buckets make beautiful little floral arrangements to decorate the center aisle for a wedding.

If you are a do it yourself bride, you can pick these mini buckets up for as little as $2.00 each. Place a floral oasis in the bottom if you choose to use fresh flowers like these lovely carnations.  Add the flowers and some greenery with baby’s breath of course then.  These country white chairs look so sweet with the satin ribbon or taffeta ribbon bows that attach the buckets to the chair.

If the budget is small, then you could put them on every other row, or every two rows.  You may even choose to use this for the first few rows where immediate family will sit, and then tulle bows on the other chairs.

Making fun things for a baby shower doesn’t have to be hard, or expensive. Many of the creative crafts you can make as decorations can also be part of the gifts you give.  They will just be in disguise.

These cute little candies look like star mints, or other hard candies we all love to enjoy.  But they are not to eat!  These will make great table decorations around centerpieces or just randomly in little bowls or however you choose to use them to decorate.

These are made from baby wash cloths.  Those come in two sizes.   Either size will work but the larger size will be easier to work with.  These can be used on diaper cakes, and are a great way to add color to your tables.

You will need:  Packages of baby wash cloths, curling ribbon, clear cellophane and a small pin.  If you hot glue these, they won’t be useable for baby.  You could also use double stick tape but pins are just as easy.

Begin by laying the wash rag on a flat surface.  Begin rolling tightly from a corner to the opposite corner.  You may need to use a small double stick square to hold the final corner down to prevent unrolling.  Use the curling ribbon to wind around the roll. If you lay the ribbon on top of the edges of the rolled rag, it will hide it.  Use contrasting colors like the picture.  When you come to the end with the ribbon, use a tape square to secure both ends of the curling ribbon.

Roll the rag into a coil then secure with a straight pin.  Cut squares of crispy cellophane to wrap them up like a Brach’s candy. Tie curling ribbon on the twisted ends and don’t forget to curl the ends of the ribbon.  These are so cute, You may have so much fun making them that you’ll keep need to buy more supplies!

Baby showers are so much fun.  The anticipation of the new bundle of joy is always something to celebrate with friends and loved ones.

With today’s technology, many expectant moms are eager to find out if they are having a boy or a girl. This is easier for those who are shopping to find specific things to encourage the new mother with.  But in other cases, the element of surprise is amazing.

These shower decorations and gifts could easily be for a boy or girl since pink and blue is kept to a minimum.  With the color theme being lavender and green, they have done a beautiful job of decorating.  You can also decorate in the mom’s favorite color and buy some things for her personally and many of the specific needs like diapers, accessories, neutral colors P.J.s and blankets.  Then once the baby arrives, you can bring an outfit to the hospital to suit the gender of the baby.

Baby shower ribbon comes in many colors and is cute to use for wrapping the gifts, decorating the gift table, napkin rings or bows, for use in party games, and wrapping the prizes for those games.

Tissue paper and velvet ribbon flowers

Here is another flower to make with the kids.  You can also use these flowers in the little flower pot I posted in an earlier post.  Its fun to bring the spring inside when its so cold out side.

Materials:
Pastel colored tissue paper
Pipe cleaners
Scissors
Ruler
Thin velvet ribbon

Instructions

1. Decide what color you want your flowers to be, then select tissue paper
2. Cut paper into 5×7 rectangles, or desired size.
3. Stack about 15 pieces neatly. Use multi colors or one, if you use less paper, the flowers will not be as full.
4. Start folding the long side of the paper like and accordion.
5. Wrap one end of the fuzzy stem around the middle of the folded paper.
6. Cut the ends of each side to make a point, or round them, this will form each petal.
7. Separate the layers gently. Pulling each paper up to the middle. Then do the other side.
8. Tie ribbon around the stems to make a bouquet.  The picture shows thin sheer ribbon but I think velvet would look wonderful since the stems are fuzzy.

This can be a Sunday school craft, or school craft or family fun to surprise mom for May Day, or just to be a blessing to some lady in the neighborhood who could use some cheer.

These cute little flowers will put a smile on grandma’s face!  These work well with the flower pot in yesterday’s post. Kids love to finger paint.  They can help with this craft too but you should do the cutting so that the flowers look ok.   You can just cut out several flowers ahead of time and then let them paint.

You will need: Construction paper, Finger paint, Green chenille stems or (,Popsicle sticks and bendy straws) Scissors, craft glue, Green satin ribbon.

1. Cut out simple flower shapes from construction paper. If you cut five  petals then they can put each finger on it.
2. Dip kids fingers into the paint and let them press their finger print on each petal.
3. Cut green chenille stem in half so they wont be too long and fall over.
4. Glue or tape fuzzy stems to the back of the flowers.
5. Tie green satin ribbon bows on the stem to look like leaves.
6. Place your little flowers into a homemade flower pot like yesterday’s post.

You can also use colorful contact paper. Or scrap booking sheets.

Here is a fun craft to do with the kids.  This is a fun gift to give to grandmas for grandparent’s day, teachers of elementary school kids, or moms for mother’s day. This can be for an Easter activity or just rainy day in the spring the kids can not go outside, it can be sunny on the inside with this fun yellow flower pot. It is very simple to make and you probably have most of the items already so it is not an expensive gift.

I have a fun idea for flowers to put in the pot that you will see in tomorrow’s post.  You can also add dirt to this pot and plant seeds for a spring craft and science project to watch the flowers grow.

You will need: Styrofoam cup, Small chunk of floral foam or play-do, Colorful buttons, White craft glue, Yellow acrylic paint, Paintbrush, Scissors, Grosgrain ribbon, Soil and seeds.

Step 1: Paint cup yellow inside at least half way down, and outside too. Let dry.

Step 2: Glue a decorative ribbon around the top edge of the cup.  Let dry.

Step 3: Glue colorful buttons on the ribbon in random order.  Let dry.

Step 4: Add potting soil if you wish to make this a live plant flower pot

Step 4: alternatives, Place some play dough or floral foam in the bottom of the pot to stick artificial flowers in, you can add decorative shreds, shredded tissue paper, or even cut up construction paper to look like grass.

Floral ribbon or plaid ribbon can dress up any plain paper, even this brown mailing paper.  This beautiful green plaid ribbon could easily be used for St. Patrick’s Day surprises or any occasion at all.  Stocking up on a wide variety of decorative ribbon will insure that you are prepared to wrap anything for any occasion.

Adding embellishments like flowers or bows is always welcomed.  These flowers could have come off of a hair bow, or floral arrangement.  My mom has a purse that has a flower on it like the small gift on top.  It looks much prettier as a gift topper than it does on that purse.   Sorry mom!

Wrapping a round box isn’t difficult.  Just lay ribbon out in a cross pattern, and sit the box down on top, bring the ends up and tie in a knot, then a bow.

This gift looks as if they planned it to look like this instead of a last minute way to wrap a gift when you have no paper. A decorative package is much more fun to receive than an ugly one.  So Be creative when you are wrapping!  And Have fun!

These cute little hair bow make me sad that my little girls are grown up.  I suppose I will have to just start making them for my fashionable great niece.

This grosgrain animal print ribbon is adorable.  Animal print clothing and shoes are back in style.  My college student daughter received a pair of rain boots with animal print on them but I doubt I will get her to wear these bows with them.

The amount of ribbon you will need per bow depends on how large you want to bow to be.  Experiment with the length.  Wrap the ribbon around three fingers three times.  Hold the ends firmly.  Make sure the ends are on opposite sides and you have three loops around both sides. I recommend cross stitching an x in the center of the ribbon loops to prevent them from slipping.  Use thin floral wire or embroidery thread to attach these mini jingle bells and cinch the center tightly to create the bow.

Hot glue the bows to a barrette or snap clip unless you prefer to hot glue them onto a coated rubber band.

Have you ever received a gift that was wrapped in expensive designer wrapping paper?  I have and always felt very special to think someone would wrap something for me in such expensive paper.  I cannot afford the expensive paper so I am always on the hunt for imaginative ways to wrap in a way that it looks expensive but doesn’t break the budget.

If you have a box of crayons then you can make this very artistic gift wrap yourself.  You will need six sheets of tissue paper, two pieces of wax paper the same size as the tissue paper, and your favorite Crayola colors and an iron.

Remove the paper from the crayons and use a crayon sharpener to make piles of shavings.  Let the shavings fall in separate piles so you can distribute them where you want them.  Place the crayon shavings between the tissue paper.  (Three on top and three on bottom) Then place wax paper on the bottom and the top.  Set your iron to medium heat with no steam.  Then begin ironing the paper with constant pressure until the crayons have melted.  The wax paper will preserve your iron from any seepage.

Let the paper cool off and wrap your gift. Don’t forget to include a beautiful satin ribbon and equally beautiful and creative bow to complete your artistic masterpiece.

Finding creative ways to wrap gifts is a hobby of mine.  I remember when we moved out of state, my sister in law and mom used to send us occasional packages with special items in them.  Sometimes it was home baked cookies, or gifts for our daughter.  It was always so much fun getting a decoratively packaged package in our mail box.  They always decorated the brown paper wrapping with markers, and stickers.  Sometimes they would color pictures or use the funnies from the Sunday paper.

I love this idea, you can use this idea to mail a gift or as gift wrapping.  If you plan to mail this gift, use colored tape and not ribbon to decorate the box.  Weave the colors in and out to create the pattern. Then use a mailing label to write the address on.  Who do you know that could use a care package?  A college student would love to get a box of goodies wrapped like this.

If you plan to use this idea for a hand delivered gift, then try alternating horizontal and vertical strips of various colors of ribbon.  Use coordinating curling ribbon to add a festive bow.