What To Do with Wedding "Junk"?

What do you do with all of your wedding junk? I kind of cringe when I typed junk, because I worked SO hard on it all to label it junk...but when it's been sitting in your living room for several months just gathering dust, right?

But I found myself coming up with a new use for my tissue paper pomanders. I won't take credit for it, actually...this was B's idea...at least I'm honest. I had originally thought that I would find a local buyer for my tissue paper pomanders since it's not as if they can be easily shipped. But after sitting so long in our living room, they were looking a little worse for the wear down on the bottom. A little squished, you could say.

So I decided to toss them out. B was appalled that I was so willing to let something that I had spent countless hours (he says that he counted the hours I spent making them and came up with 800) working on for our wedding. But really, what am I going to do with them?

As we removed the inner support wire brackets and compressed them down a little to put into the outside trash...a miracle happened. B came up with a brilliant idea to get one last use of out of these bad boys before throwing them away.

Do you want to see?

Ok, twist my arm...here's our newest Christmas outdoor decorations:

And here's a close-up...

Yep, we turned out tissue paper pomanders into hanging snowmen on our front porch! They're cute...even if we can only use them this one year! Just goes to show how creative some grooms can be!

Option #1 for My Hooks...

I posted some inspiration pictures for my shepherd’s hooks the other day. I love them all, but have to be honest and say that I’m drawn to the ones where there is a "kissing ball" or pomander of flowers.
Of course, once again, my problem with that idea is cost. Having someone make the flower balls out of fresh flowers is WAY expensive. And every time that I mention the slightest inclination to make some more tissue paper flowers, Mr. CC starts to growl at me. And Mama CC laughs…

But I see SO many posts where brides do the tissue paper pomanders in smaller sizes for their aisle décor and it looks SO good. Check out these. Could you tell that they were tissue paper?
So despite the laughter and occasional snarls coming from Mr. CC’s recliner, I practiced and made a tissue paper pomander in a smaller size just to see what I thought about it. I figured that the Styrofoam balls that were required were only $5 at my local Michael’s store, and I have an abundance of tissue paper left over, so I might as well try it out.

Here’s what I came up with.
What do you think?
Mr. CC doesn’t like them. He thinks that they look too fake, and since people will be closer to these pomanders than the ones that we’re going to hang (which he thinks look AWESOME!) it’s just not right. It’s too cheapy looking, is what I think that he wants to say, but won’t say for fear of hurting my feelings over something that I made myself. SO sweet…

Truthfully, I’m not sold on them. I think for one thing that the ribbon is too wide. This is the ribbon that I bought to hang the larger pomanders up high with…and it’s too much for these smaller pomanders. And I’m not certain that they don’t look too fake up close too. But what I did notice was that for the size ball that I used to make these here, I only used about 15-20 "flowers" on each ball. Maybe they wouldn't be SO expensive to do out of roses?? Or real carnations??

So what do you think that I should do? I’ve got a few more ideas in store for what I could do with these shepherd’s hooks…I’ll keep you posted on my progress!

Did something that you had stuck in your head as being PERFECT turn out not quite as perfect in real life?

Attaching Your "Flowers"

When first reading about this project, I got it in my head that Styrofoam would be a better medium for the ball than a paper lantern. I don’t know what I was thinking. Not only is it heavier and harder to work with, but Styrofoam balls are also expensive!

So I stuck to what the girls that had already done this project told me to do and went with paper lanterns.

I ordered my paper lanterns from paperlanternstore.com in the sizes of 10”, 12” and 16”. I was actually going for either 10”, 12” and 14” or 12”, 14” and 16” but the 14” paper lanterns were always sold out. I ordered in either white or off white, depending on what was in stock. And keep in mind that each paper flower stands about 2-2 ½” off of the paper lantern, so a 10” lantern becomes a 14” pomander. Even in varying sizes, the total order (with shipping) came to less than $20.

I would make a good pile of flowers before I did this stage of things. I actually kept a box of flowers in our living room. I would “fluff” flowers while we watched television at night and then throw them all into the box to wait until I had enough done to finish a pomander at once.

So, I already owned a hot glue gun. I used a mini glue gun, but size doesn’t really matter, whichever you’d prefer. Heat up the hot glue gun and open up your paper lanterns. They ship to you flat and you have to assemble them. This is easy and hard all at the same. Well, that’s not true. It’s not hard at all. I was just worried about sticking that metal bar through the fragile paper and ruining things…

Obsessive much, I know.

Anyway. Once your paper lantern is constructed, I would recommend starting at the bottom of the lantern. I did this backwards on the first one, and the poor flowers at the top got all smushed by the time that I finished because I kept sticking my arm into the lantern and smashing them. For me, it was easiest for me to get my hand inside the lantern at the top…if it’s easier for you to go through the bottom, then start at the top. Just start at the opposite end of where you plan on getting inside the lantern from. You’ll just want to make sure that the bottom of the lantern (since this is the part that when hanging you can look up and see) looks the best and is really full. (you can barely even see the opening, huh?)

Take a paper flower and fluff any smushing that may have happened while in the box.

Find the middle of the flower and stick your finger into it.
Keeping that finger in the middle, fold the fuzzy wire down flat.
Add a good dollop of hot glue around the head of the wire.
Allow the glue to cool for a minute before attempting the next step or else you WILL burn your fingers. Please, learn from my mistakes!

Once ready, position the paper flower on the “top” of the lantern and ease your hand other hand inside the lantern to apply pressure from both sides. See, why you have to cool the glue off? Now you are pushing from the center of the flower on the top and the center of the hot glue dot on the back. It will still be warm. Trust me. Just be careful and take your time. When the glue cooled a little and becomes just warm instead of hot, the flower is probably pretty firm. You can test gently.

Repeat the process for all of your flowers. When placing the next flower, I recommend getting them nice and close in together. This helps them look more real, and “fluffs” them even more. (The “mums” cover more ground than the “roses” seem to, which was also another reason that I went with them for my flower.)

Here’s a shot of a nearly finished lantern…just to keep you encouraged on your progress…
Also, you’ll notice that I alternated white and cream flowers. My artistic little sister and I thought that blending the two colors might make it more “real.” I have to admit that she was right. The first pomander that I did I alternated one to one. But it was too much white. Not enough to re-do the whole thing or anything, but just not quite right. So all of the other ones I have just put a white one in every once in a while. No real pattern or anything.

I will attach these to the underside of the roof of the arbor at our ceremony site with some black satin ribbon that I can find at any craft store.
So what do you think? Do you think that they look as classy and neat as I do? I LOVE them! And they have been worth the work. And since I can watch Platinum Weddings, Rich Bride/Poor Bride, My Fair Wedding and various other wedding shows while doing all of these activities; I have to ask the question…is it really work? I think not.

Did you have a project that when you started it you really weren’t sure how it was going to turn out, and then as it progressed you just fell in love with it?