Tissue Flowers

I'm always looking for little ways to "green" our household a little more (both ecologically and economically).  One of my favorite tricks is to make tissue paper flowers.  There are a ton of tutorials on the web, and they are so easy to make.  

Once I got the hang of making them, I started using them for all sorts of things.  Every time we host a birthday party or some other celebration, we make flowers in colors that coordinate with the theme of the party.  These flowers were the table "centerpieces" for Kelsey's 13th birthday party.  Instead of buying balloons, we just hung up more flowers.  

I've also stopped buying bows and just tape on a tissue flower instead.  They make any package look so much more festive and cheery!

I love to make giant flowers!  It's kind of difficult to tell from the photo, but I used full sheets of tissue to make this large flower.  We hung this one up outside during another birthday celebration.  

The best part is that these flowers are free!  I just save all of the tissue that we get from presents and gifts throughout the year, and now we have a rainbow of colors to choose from.  The wrinkles in the tissue aren't really noticeable, and if any, just give the flowers more texture.  

 

Mother's Day Card Ideas

Just a quick couple of card ideas for Mother's Day.  We have a lot of moms in our family (both sides), and I like to at least acknowledge each of these awesome women in at least some small way.  These are all generous and caring women, and they all deserve some kudos for their hard work. 

I didn't have much time to put together a fancy card, and my printer has not been cooperating so I couldn't create my own Mother's Day tags.  However, I used stamps to make sentiment tags and because they are not holiday specific, these cards can be given on birthdays or as thank you's. 

By using sheets of scrapbooking paper from a coordinating stack (I think it was by Colorbok), these cards came together fairly quickly.  Now I just have to write a special message to each of the ladies and ask the family to sign them! :)