Paper Flowers and Other Wedding Table Decor

Ginger's wedding was virtually flowerless.  The bride had purchased really fun feather boutonnieres from an Etsy shop and had a brooch bridal bouquet made locally.  That leaves only the bridesmaids' bouquets in the "real" flowers category.  Since I had a small budget to work, and no flowers to repurpose, I decided to make paper flowers-and a few special projects- to decorate the tables.

If you read this blog you know that I adore everything "Tim Holtz" and this wedding could easily be dubbed "A Tim Holtz Wedding".  I mean this isn't Tim Holtz's wedding or anything but I did use a lot of his projects to pull off a charming reception space.  I started with Tim's newish Bigz XL Jumbo Tattered Florals and Bigz Garden Greens.  Using these two dies and a variety of papers I was able to make several different varieties of flowers.  The paper flowers filled the mason jars beautifully and added the shabby chic flavor that Ginger wanted.

Here you can see the pretty large flower I made using peach tissue paper left over from making the poms.

Each vase was decorated with a seam binding bow and several tags as well as some of Tim's baubles, and a golden letter "R" to honor the bride's new last name.  I used the shabby chic tag layered under a chalkboard-look tag because the invitations were chalkboard inspired.

The second item to make up the tablescape was this sweet embellished book.  Super charming, super cheap and super easy.  I ripped the covers off of cheap (think Goodwill) books. It doesn't matter if the book is actually old-or what the topic is- once the cover is ripped off it looks terrific.  I take that back- Ginger brought me a German Sudoku book that I just couldn't make work!

To begin, I ripped off the cover and enough pages until I was left with a page that I wanted to show on top.  Then I simply wrapped the book like a package with seam binding and tied a bow.  The leaves were cut using the Garden Greens die from paper by We R Memory Keepers.  I LOVE the two-tone paper that let me mix and match colors simply by which side of the paper is facing up.  The leaves are only slipped under the seam binding.  In other words, I didn't use any sort of adhesive.  The perfect ending is the addition of a vintage (or vintage-looking) bauble.  I used anything I had on hand for this- earrings, buttons, broaches, etc.

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I used seam binding in several colors-dark grey, peach, pale green/blue and off white- to match the wedding colors.

The pretty little lanterns were made using Tim's Bigz XL Luminary die.  I cut the lanterns using a beautiful heavy cream-colored cardstock. The windows are lined with simple vellum before the luminary was glued together.  Each sweet lantern was adorned with a spray of leaves made using Tim's Sizzlet Spring Greenery.  The leaf is similar to the one from Garden Greens but it is significantly smaller.  The final touch is a sweet little flower made using the smallest petal on the Jumbo Tattered Florals die.

Each lantern was embellished with either white or brown/black pearls along the roof. 

Clearly using a real candle in a paper lantern is a super duper bad idea. Thankfully, electric tea lights work perfectly for this.

 I cut the word "Adore" using my Cricut, SCAL2, and a digital file I purchased from Kerri Brandford.  The words were simply laid on the table for an unexpected ode to Love and Marriage.

 Adding a different "love" or "wedding" themed word to each table would be a really fun detail.

Or cut the word(s) from glitter paper for sparkly elegance.

Next I will show each of the paper flowers that make up this gorgeous bouquet.