Sunday Surprises

I just love surprises. This morning, I got up early and took the dog for a walk and saw that in the Sunday paper, there were free samples of chocolate chip FiberOne bars and FiberOne raisin bran cereal. I hadn't tried the cereal, but the bars are one of my very favorite things! I had to stop buying them because I was eating 2 or 3 a day and they do have a lot of sugar in them. All in all, not the worst snack I could choose, but hubby and I decided to try a different brand with less sugar and more protein, blah, blah, calories, blah. So today, welcome back, delicious old friend. What a great surprise to start off my day! Plus, the cereal was delicious, too. As if that's not cool enough, I look at the beautiful flowers my dad sent us for our anniversary and see that 2 of the gorgeous orange lilies had opened up and that 2 of the other closed lily blooms are beginning to open and they are actually stargazer lilies, not orange like the others! There were no open stargazers in the arrangement, so to have them pop open is another wonderful surprise! I took some pics before the stargazers started peeping out, but my camera battery is dead, so I can't take any of them right now. What a great start to a great day! I hope yours is fabulous as well.

Flowers!

Today I delivered a bouquet for one of my 2 September brides. It was for her bridal portraits. I used gerbera daisies, roses and spray roses in pinks and white. I got to see her in her dress and she looked absolutely beautiful! Here's a couple shots:

Harry Potter vs. Voldemort

Ok, so this has absolutely nothing to do with anything crafty or flowers or weddings, but I was just catching up on one of my fave blogs, cakewrecks, and there was a link to this. Made me laugh so hard I was crying.
Harry Potter v Voldemort rap battle

Shell Boutonnieres

My Folly Beach Bride is doing boutonnieres made out of shells. The groom will have orange spray roses and shells and their son will have a mini-me version of his dad's, but the other men will have all shell boutonnieres. I'm playing around with sizes, shapes, weights, etc. The men won't be wearing jackets, so they need to be light enough to hang well on linen shirts without sagging or pulling at the material.

Here are my inspiration pictures:

from Martha Stewart

These from Martha Stewart Weddings are so super cute! I love how they use just one type of shell each and a little ribbon and let the natural beauty of that shell show. I also really like the way that they pin into the shirt/jacket and do not have a "stem."

http://www.thehaystackneedleonline.com/2009/04/beach-vacation.html

I love this one with the assorted shells and the orange ribbon as well. It is made by fritts rosenow of rosenow floral design. It just so happens that the bride is using orange, too! But I think this one would get too heavy for the linen shirts, so I'm playing around with different adhesives and ways to hide the pin to make it work.

Here are a few so far. All with the exception of one are meant to pin into the shirt like the first set of inspiration photos. I'm going to play around with some more tonight, so stay tuned!

I love these auger shells!

I would use a real leaf in the real version.

Granny's 97th Birthday Party

The birthday girl!

The birthday party for my Granny was a success! All of the residents and any family that they had visiting enjoyed it very much, and most importantly, Granny loved it. I met my $25 challenge by a mile, thanks to some great bargain finds. I ran out of time to buy things before I ran out of money. If I had known the deals I would find, I would have gotten way more flowers and tumblers and lanterns on my first trip to the stores! The decorations were not what I originally had in mind, and if I were to do it over again, I would get lots more paper lanterns and would have had one of the maintenance people use a ladder to hang them from the ceiling (which was my original plan). But there were no maintenance people readily available and the ceilings were higher than I anticipated, so I ended up only using 4 lanterns and putting them on walls. The residents appreciated and enjoyed the decorations so much, that people started asking what the special occasion was at the mere sight of the flowers on the tables! Although it was not aesthetically what I wanted, it was even better than I imagined in terms of being fun for the residents and for Granny. It did not take much--those old ladies sure know how to party! And I can say "old" without meaning any offense--all but 2 of the guests were over 90 years old! If I make it that long, I will consider "old" a compliment! How cool to be surrounded by so many years of experience and wisdom. It was a very fun day and although it wasn't what I originally had in mind, I think it turned out just great.
Here's the hallway area where tea time is held. It's outside of the main dining room and there is a cute little old-fashioned ice cream parlor that they open at snack time, too.

Here's the cute little ice cream parlor. We didn't use that room, but there were people in there and it has the porch area where it is nice to sit outside. It was a little chilly that day, though.

So here's the money part:

4 paper lanterns from Michael's crafts $4

pink crepe paper steamers from DollarTree $1

6 bushes of brightly colored fake flowers from DollarTree $6

5 bright tumblers 75% off at party store $1.62

paper plates and napkins from DollarTree $2

3-tier Martha Stewart cupcake stand from BigLots $1

roll of pink kraft paper from party store $1

Total: $16.62

These are the things that I used that I had already:

tape, scissors, plastic forks and spoons, ribbon to hang the lanterns

And here's the party!

I could not do to-the-floor table covers because most of the residents use wheelchairs and they tend to get in the way, so I covered the top of each table with pink kraft paper and put a couple streamers on the end. Each table got a colorful tumbler with bright flowers and I put a few on the ledge behind the tables as well. They are only $1 a bunch, and the tumblers were on clearance at Card and Party Outlet . They turned out to be about 30 cents each!! The guests took the flowers back to their rooms.
Although I am usually not a fan of artificial flowers, I like to use them in situations like this because they do not wilt and die and they can brighten up the room without any maintenance on the part of granny or the other ladies who took them back to their rooms. The guests beginning to trickle in.

99 year-old getting out of wheelchair to hug 97 year-old....it was either going to be very sweet or disastrous. I was torn between grabbing my camera and standing by to grab someone who may fall, but luckily there was staff nearby to catch anyone who needed it, so I took pictures! It was all sweet, no disaster!

This is the cart they use for tea time snacks and drinks before I set it up and got the cupcakes on the cupcake tower. We also had sugar-free pudding and Jello for those who could not have sugar.

Quick update

Just a quick update from Chicago. Yesterday, I posted 2 idea boards for a bride who is getting married in September. She likes Gerbera daisies and her husband-to-be is a Clemson fan, so she wanted to use some orange along with the champagne and black combo they are using for the wedding. I couldn't find photos of some specific combinations of flowers that I had in mind at the time, so I kind of faked it by pasting daisies over other bouquets just to to an idea of what it would look like. Gotta love Polyvore!

Today is the big day of Granny's 97th birthday and $25 nursing home birthday party challenge. So far, so good on the $25 challenge. The party changed a little when we decided to bring Granny home for dinner. So instead of doing the party around the dinnertime in the dining room at the home, I'm sprucing up their daily 2:30 tea time. They have a snack cart and open the little ice cream parlor every day at 2:30, and the more independently mobile residents come down to have some snacks and drinks and visit with each other. There are usually family members who are visiting there, too.
Yesterday, I was shopping around for some last-minute items and my brother suggested I go to a store called Deal$. If you like DollarTree, you will swoon in Deal$. I spent over an hour in there, no joke. It is a DollarTree company, so there is all the usual stuff you find in DollarTree, still at the $1 price point, but then there are other things in there as well, up to $5. Nothing in the store is above $5. And it's not all junk, either. Because of the higher price point, they have a lot of name-brand closeouts and overstocks along with the off-brand products. Love it!
Happy Friday y'all! Have a good weekend!

flower ideas for Laura A

body flowers for Laura A's Wedding by amdesign on Polyvore.com

Reception flower ideas for Laura A's wedding by amdesign on Polyvore.com