What a great way to make a statement at a party.  And the best part is, they’re something new.  You might have seen pomanders made with real flowers, but I bet not like this!

So I asked Brittany if she would do a tutorial on how she made them, and she so graciously said yes.  Our lucky day!

Here are all the details, as told by Brittany…

Recently, I was looking for an alternative to your run-of-the-mill tissue paper flowers for an engagement party that I was designing. I ran across some beautiful crepe paper rose pomanders from Danielle at Homespun with Heart .

So, I decided that I would try these instead, but I wanted to put my own twist on them by using party crepe paper and tying them with wide ribbon.

So today, I am sharing them with you! Beware, these are totally time-consuming, but also totally worth it!

Supplies:

• Styrofoam balls of assorted sizes.  In this case, I used two 5” and one 6”.
• Crepe paper in the colors of your choice, roughly 4 large rolls for this project
• Hot glue gun and sticks
• Wide wired ribbon (2 rolls)
• Floral pins

1. Take crepe paper and measure out lengths around 20” each

2. Fold strips of crepe paper in half lengthwise.  This will make the crepe paper longer as you do it.

3. Hold the end of the folded crepe paper around your pinkie finger.

4. Wrap crepe paper around your pinkie a few times to secure. 5. Continue to wrap around your pinkie, folding over as you do.  This creates the “petal” look.  PS, I really need a manicure.

6. Be sure to wrap pretty tightly, otherwise, the “rose” will unwrap. 7. Secure the end of the rose with hot glue.  It only takes a touch.  And be careful with the hot glue, I burned myself, oh, roughly 500 times while doing these.

8. Once the rose is finished, glue the rose to the Styrofoam ball.

9. Repeat this 1 billion times, until you fully cover the ball in roses.

10. I recommend cutting or tearing the crepe paper as you go, since you don’t know how many strips you will need upfront.  Plus, once you start on this project, you can pretty much eyeball the lengths that you need. 11. Dry overnight preferably. 12. Wrap the completed ball in the ribbon and tie off at the top. Cut to the length desired to hang.

13. Secure the top and bottom of the ribbon by inserting floral pins directly into the balls. This will secure that the ribbon does not slide off the pomander.

14. Hang with ribbon! And voila, you have created a rose pomander that will never wilt, and saved you hundreds! I spent $24 on this entire project, so this is completely cost-effective and a great addition to your next party, or even a little girl’s room!

These pomanders are beautiful!  Thank you, Brittany, for the wonderful tutorial.

To learn about Brittany and read more of her party tips and ideas, check out her event company, Grey Grey Designs.  Plus, you can see more of her parties here at Catch My Party.  Also, if you’d like some pomanders for your next party, but don’t want to make them yourself, you can buy them at Brittany’s Etsy shop.

Do you have a DIY project from one of your parties that you’d like to share?  Please email me at jillian@catchmyparty.com.  I’d love to show it off!

It always makes me happy and inspired to see such pretty things.

So in honor of good weather, here are some of my favorite pool party ideas from Etsy.

First, an invitation from Lilly Mae Designs.

Next a banner from IE Creations.

Some DIY printable pool party decorations from Paper and Cake.

Pool party cupcake toppers from Toadally Cute Products.

And to make your cupcakes even more decadent, how about some fondant cupcake toppers from Kids Cakes.

A large galvanized tub to keep your drinks cool from brodyandma.

And so no one mixes up their drink cups, here are some chalkboard tumblers from Party Bzz.

Some wooden boats to decorate your pool from duckduckgoosetoys.

And to add a little excitement and fragrance to your party, how about these fizzy pool bombs from Les Treasure.

And finally, so no one goes home empty-handed, some flip flop cookie favors from Whimsical Originals DB.

And shouldn’t the kids get something extra?  Personalized beach pails from Bumble Bee Lane.

Stay cool and happy swimming!

I love creative people in love!  Check it out here.

Happy Friday!

Pamela is the creative mind behind Party Starters, a site that sells handmade party essentials — party favor boxes, party banners, cupcake toppers, bottle labels, signs, and invitations.  You can see her products in her Etsy shop here but she also loves custom orders.

She has a great blog filled with party ideas, inspirations, and tutorials.  She even shares with her readers what it’s like to be both a mom and an entrepreneur, a balancing act many of us struggle with.

But let’s get to the good stuff!!

Her site is turning 1 and she’s throwing a party from July 5th – July 9th.   A real online party!

She’s having guest bloggers all week (of which I will be one, thanks Pamela!) and there will be festivities and prizes galore!

So what should you do?

First, check out her blog and her shop.  Then from July 5th through the 9th, keep checking back to see all the great stuff she has in store.

Knowing Pamela, I think this will be a very good time!

(To see two of my favorite personal and quirky weddings click here and here.)

So when I saw this wedding invitation, or should I say, 20-page wedding “comic book” on Offbeat Bride, I had to write about it.

The story, written by the bride and groom, is touching.  The illustrations, drawn by the groom, are gorgeous.

Here’s the beginning…

To see the rest, go to the groom, Giles Timms’ blog.  It’s a lovely tale.

Paper and Pigtails has some free July 4th printable party circles, great for cupcake toppers and stickers.

Free July 4th printables

They will also be offering a coordinating printable “4th of July Party Pack” in their shop by the beginning of next week, complete with water bottle labels, snack cups and favor tags for $25, and a customizable invitation by request for $15.

They do beautiful work so check them out.

What speaks to me about it is that it’s homemade, low key, beautiful, fun, and all about love.  What could be better?

I asked Katie, from NSW Australia, how she created it, and here’s what she said:

What was your inspiration for the party?

I can’t remember my exact inspiration for the party but I know it was just coming out of winter and I wanted to get outdoors and into the sunshine! Also a lot of our friends were also having night time engagement parties and we wanted to do something a little different.

We wanted to create a laid back picnic feel, where people could dine on the grass, enjoying the sunshine and where we could spend a lazy Saturday afternoon with our friends and family. Unfortunately the weather didn’t co-operate for us and we ended up having to bring in shelters and no-one really ‘picnicked’ on the grass (instead on chairs) but we had fun just the same.  I created a mind map for the event and starting listing all the ideas that came to mind when I thought of a picnic party – and it kinda grew from there.

Here is what i wrote on my blog:
“simple
a little country (to compliment our wedding which is being held in the country)
picnic style
a red & orange colour theme
and a M+K= <3 theme (which many of our guests cleverly used too!)”

Can you describe all the different things that went on during the party?

You can find a lot of info on this on my blog: www.alittlebirdtoldmeso.blogspot.com (under wedding) I have listed all the things we did in seperate posts.

Food: Morgan’s cousins acted as servers and brought out trays of yummy food. For mains we served chicken ceaser salad and anglo-asian lamb salad in noodle boxes (which were left over from another party) It was YUMMY. Also yummy was the home made lemonade which was drunk out of straws with flags which guests were asked to write their name on.

Homemade lemonade in jelly jars.

Games: We set up lawn boules on the grass, random balls and I’m pretty sure Morgan put some cricket equipment out too. The homemade twister quilt was also a fun game for kids and adults alike.

Homemade Twister sign

Homemade Twister game in action.

Another easy ‘game’ was leaving buckets of chalk on the driveway to help keep our littlest guest occupied. They loves it and created a whole ‘hopscotch land’ and covered the rest of the driveway in M<3 K!

The kids played with sidewalk chalk

Photo booth: We hung a sheet between two palm trees, put our camera on a tripod, created some felt mustaches from an online tutorial and had guests take silly photos of themselves. It was a lot of fun and we got some of the best shots of our guests from here. I plan on scrapbooking them with notes from the guestbook.

Homemade photo booth complete with mustaches.

Guestbook: We hung some twine between some palm trees and cut simple squares out of scrapbooking paper which were pegged onto the twine. We also used the line to display some of our favorite engagement photos.

Wishes were strung on clothes lines.

Quiz: We gathered everyone together and made a silly quiz of our relationship. The idea was that at least one guest knew an answer to each of the questions and guest had to mingle to find the answers they didn’t know. The answered were then read out and lead into the speeches. (there was also a small prize for the winner)

Speeches + toasts: Speeches were a special part of the day. Also a very special was the part where Morgan’s dad prayed over our marriage, relationship and wedding preparation while all of our friends and family joined in.

What were the most fun things to design and create?

I had a lot of fun sewing up the twister quilt. And love the idea how this can one day become a family heirloom and picnic tradition – we have used it a lot for picnics since!

Homemade Twister quilt

Also fun was making the chalkboard signs and flag straws, cupcake toppers, framed signs and any paper related crafts.

The guests all commented on the food actually, particularly Morgans mum’s berry pie.

And I guess the photobooth were a lot of guest had fun hanging around and being silly.

And for the kids it was the chalk on the driveway!

And we really loved getting to sit down together the morning after the party, at breakfast, and reading over all the guestbook notes from family and friends. There were some really funny responses!

What was your budget?

Hmm wow. As our party was about 7 months ago I can’t really remember that one.

But I do know some hints as to how we kept costs down.

Having a party at home was definitely a money saver because it meant no hire costs. We were also lucky enough to borrow all the chairs from church and the ‘circus’ tarpaulin from a friend. So don’t be afraid to ask friends and family if you can borrow.

Instead of buying an ‘engagement cake’ we opted to make our own cupcakes, which were actually just simple packet mixes (although we made our own icing) – they took about 5 hours worth of icing but were worth it.

Homemade cupcakes and cupcake toppers.

We also made all our own food – a joint effort from my mum, Morgan’s mum and aunt, sister, cousins and myself. It was a lot of work but meant we didn’t need to hire a caterer. And cousins helped serve so Morgan and myself could enjoy the party.

Signs were made from scrap wood and left over chalk board paint from another project. And other objects, frames, tables, glass jars were brought in from around the house.

We made the invitations ourselves and found lots of free tutorials online for eg. the envelope labels, mustaches, Martha Stewart banner:http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/click-print-banner
so keep a great eye out for free printables and ideas.

Homemade invitations.

We are also planning to keep our friends and family (they mean a lot to us) quite involved – we will be getting married by Morgan’s uncle and close friends will play music etc.

The cards are both beautiful and understated.

Here’s what the artist/owner of the site, Frederikke Tu, says about her work:

“Our ecards are my work of passion, taking weeks of painstaking – but fun and satisfying – work and attention to detail to complete. First I hand paint many parts, and then the scanned images are combined with Flash animation to create a visually stunning story.”

The ecards are not free, but for a 1 year subscription it will cost you only $10.

My favorites are definitely the animated origami cards, but so many of the them are absolutely gorgeous.

Origami e-card

Origami Cranes e-card

Flutter e-card

Pigeongram e-card

First off, you can always start old school.

• For drinks serve cosmopolitans, Manhattans, Long Island ice teas, or appletinis
• For food, Chinese food and sushi are two show favorites
• Send fancy invitations and ask your guests to dress as their favorite character
• For atmosphere, put out boas, scarves, gloves, sunglasses, flower pins, and jewelry
• To create a NYC backdrop, hang twinkle lights and blow up some pictures of the New York City skyline
• Play the show DVDs, the first movie, or the movie soundtrack during the party
• Play the Sex and the City trivia game

But now to make it more current, add some Middle Eastern flavor.

• Serve some middle eastern dishes like hummus, tabouleh, falafel, baba ganoush, and kebabs
• Decorate with sand, blow up palm trees, and toy camels
• Provide colorful scarves for your guests and have a belly dancing contest
• Create a game to see who can point to Abu Dhabi on a map
• Get “Team Aidan” and “Team Big” t-shirts made to give out as party favors

If you have any other ideas, please share.  And if you have a Sex and the City 2 party, let me know.  I’d love to write about it here in my blog.

Just 21 days until opening day… but who’s counting.