Decorating the apartment for spring

Remember how we're going to have Kusudama flower balls as aisle directions for our wedding? I also wanted to make some to decorate our apartment for spring.

I used a different set of little origami papers this time to make 4 halves of a Kusudama flower ball.


I decided to hang them over the entrance to the kitchen. So I measured and then cut out lengths of ribbon (bought on sale at Michael's) for each ball half to be glued to.


My first attempt at securing the balls was to simply loop the ribbons through the cable wiring at the ceiling edge over the kitchen entrance. My plan was to just glue the halves of the balls to the ends of the ribbons and let them hang.


This idea didn't work so well. While each half fits together pretty snugly, it's not a precise fit. Also the glue didn't dry quickly enough to actually secure the ribbon to the paper or the ball halves to each other.


I had to regroup, so I took the ribbons off the cable wires and glued everything together on our coffee table (e.g. temporary crafting table) and let it sit overnight to properly dry.


The next day, I pulled the loop through the cable wire and then pulled the flower ball through the loop, securing them to the wire.


Sorry for the bad lighting, but here they are! Hanging in front of our kitchen.


It would be cool to make some large ones (maybe a foot in diameter) to hang from the ceilings for parties. It would be like a flowery disco ball.

Trying my hand at flower arrangements

One of the vendors we have to book for the wedding is a florist. I've met with several and will make a decision soon. One florist, after talking with me about what we need for the wedding, the colors and flowers I liked, my budget, etc. gifted me with a bunch of flowers to take home.

I ended up traveling on the subway and walking home with this giant paper package in my arms.

He gave me a huge variety - gerber daisies, orchids, hyacinths, roses, carnations, lilies - and I went to work putting together an arrangement.


FI had bought a vase from IKEA so I could put any flowers I get from him in it. I grabbed the vase and set up shop in our front hallway (easy access to kitchen and bathroom for water and paper towels). First I tied the raffia ribbon from the bouquet around the vase.


Then I spread out all of the flowers and started trimming the stems and placing them on the vase. I don't have any gardening shears, so I used a pair of desk scissors. It worked okay, although my cuts weren't very clean.


Then I started arranging them in the vase. I would put in all the stems of one type of flower, then slowly add others mixed throughout the flowers so there would be nice color contrasts and textural differences.


Here was my first completed arrangement.


But wait! We didn't want to see the ugly stems in the glass vase! So taking a page from lots of wedding photos I've seen, I took all the flowers out and lined the vase with the broad leaves (banana?) that were also given to me.

It's not completely smooth, but still a pretty nice effect. Especially since I had already put water (with plant food) in the vase and had to do it underwater.


Then I rearranged all of the flowers back into the vase. It looked pretty cool on our side table for the next few days.


Another overhead shot!


Given how much I like trashbowl shots, I can't finish this post without one of the mess I ended up with in the hallway.
Don't worry, I cleaned it all up!

To brighten up my days!

Last Wednesday, I had a day full of meetings. I was running from room to room for the entire afternoon. It was a long day and I finally got back to my desk around 4pm and found a giant box waiting in my chair.

FI had sent me flowers! He even sent them early (as he told me later) so I could enjoy them for a couple of days since Valentine's Day was over the weekend.

He sent me irises from Proflowers, which according to their website, ship their flowers straight from the suppliers so you get them when they're still in bud form and you can see them bloom over the next few days and enjoy them longer.

They came with a vase and flower food, so I spent some time cutting off the ends of the stems and arranging the irises in the vase with water.

Here's a picture of the flowers after I had arranged them. Still mostly in tight buds.


The 2nd day! Most of the buds were now opened and you can see all the lovely iris colors - white, purple, and yellow. FI said that he got those because purple and yellow are our wedding colors.


The 3rd day. Everything's in full bloom. When I went to switch the water, I rearranged all of the irises so the colors were spread out.


Aerial shot!


I left these at work over the long weekend since it would have been hard to carry them home on the subway. I hope they might still be in good shape on Tuesday!

Another Wedding Show!

Earlier this week, I attended a Luxury Bridal Show sponsored by The Wedding Salon. I was able to get a complimentary ticket to the event via Style Me Pretty, a wonderful wedding blog with lots of beautiful pictures and lovely ideas for weddings.

The show was designed for the luxury wedding market and all of the vendors there were such. Pretty much everything was out of my price range, but it was fun to walk around and get pictures of the beautiful table settings and taste cakes.

Here's one of the table settings. The centerpiece is gorgeous and huge, over 3 feet tall. I like the filler they used in the vase - clear rocks that reflect the colors of the table settings. See how blue they look in the photo? They're actually totally clear.


Here's another enormous table centerpiece. The column is covered in the white roses and white orchids decorate the top and base of the doric flower column. The shiny structure spiraling up the flower column are little gold votive candle holders. I think I would prefer a simpler version of this centerpiece, making it more of a ionic column without the orchids, giant leaves, and candle holders.


Here's a simpler version of a spiral candle holder and white rose centerpiece. In this one, you still get the height of the piece, but your guests can actually see each other across the table.


I love centerpieces that are low (so everyone can see each other) and still bursting with flowers. This low centerpiece is nice and girly with all of these pink roses.


The show had models in wedding dresses with bouquets walking around the space showing off the designs. What was really funny was that they had a sign hanging off of them with information on the dress designer, who made the jewelry, which florist did the flowers, etc.


Here's a wedding cake from Mark Joseph Cakes. I love the simplicity of this design (and so do bridal magazines, I've seen this cake in at least 2 issues) and the beautiful sugar bows. They had cake samples as well - chocolate with pistachio icing and vanilla with strawberry icing. Both the cakes were good, but I think the icings both overpowered the cakes and their flavors (pistachio and strawberry) were too strong.


Sylvia Weinstock had cake samples, which were super moist and yummy. No cakes to look at though. :(


Here's the gift bag everyone got, with gifts "worth more than $250". There were some cool beauty samples but that was about it. There were also tons of magazines, which made the bag ridiculously heavy.


Mars Candy had a booth there as well to show off their personalized M&Ms and Dove bars. For the M&Ms, you can even get your picture printed on the candies. Which while sort of cool, also kind of creepy, since you're basically eating yourself....


Here's a bouquet from one of the florists there. I like the bright colors and big bunched-up-ness of the roses.


All in all, it was neat to see pretty things you could have at a wedding, but I'm kind of glad I got to go for free. There were too many different types of vendors and not enough of each kind. When there's only 1 make-up artist, 1 florist, 2 cake people, but 2 dress cleaners, 4/5 vacation spots, and 4/5 jewelers, you're not going to really be able to do any comparison shopping or see a wide range of options.