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.  

 

Beaded "Charm" Bracelet

I got the inspiration for this bracelet from two places....M has been asking for a charm bracelet for a while.  When we went to Michael's, we were sort of disappointed to find out that it would be pretty expensive to buy enough charms to fill up a whole bracelet.  So we settled on buying one charm that she liked and then making the rest out of beads and other trinkets we had at home.  I also saw a beautiful charm bracelet on Anthropology's website that sort of provided some inspiration as well.  It was super full of charms and winter-themed.  Gorgeous!

Anyways, I didn't take very many photos of the process (I'm never sure if my projects is going to turn out and I forget to take pics).  The idea and the materials needed are simple.  Basically, I measured chain long enough to fit around my wrist and made a bunch of "charms" using whatever random beads I had in my stash and headpins.  Then I just opened up the chain links and put the charms on.  I used a toggle clasp to finish off the bracelet.

I ended up making two different versions of the bracelet.  One for K using less charms so you can see more of the chain and one for myself (photo) which is a fuller bracelet with more beads.  It's just a matter of preference.  I think I will have to try another in a different color scheme!