We had another birthday party to go to today. My friend Haikumama’s daughter is three today! We got her this Green Toys Indoor Gardening set. I love this set, because the plants really grow well. My daughter, C received it for her birthday. It was great fun for her to watch the plants grow a little bit each day.
I decided I wanted to continue the garden theme for the wrapping paper. My five-year old daughter, C and I created this easy-to-make tissue paper flower bouquet.
We started with some very roughly cut tissue circles. We used old tissue paper that had been salvaged from presents and was languishing in the bottom of the wrapping bin.

We made the flowers each with two tissue paper circles and a pom pom. The pom poms came from the Target $1 bin.

We used white glue to glue down the tissue circles in pairs. I had to use the glue gun to secure the pom pom centers. After each center was dry, we crinkled the “petals” on each flower. I also used the glue gun for the grosgrain ribbon stems. I was going to cut the stems flush with the edge of the box, but decided I like the effect of having them hang off slightly. I think this would be a good design for a wedding shower or baby shower gift too.
Happy Birthday G! You are the sweetest!

 Average Jane Crafter’s mad-for-Legos son had a Lego-themed birthday party this weekend.  My kids and I wanted to do something special to wrap his presents.  I am never happy with the choices for buying wrapping paper at the store.  I prefer plain paper that I can decorate myself.  We used brown wrapping paper, Crayola poster paints, and Duplo Legos to make this printed paper.  In order to make the print, we first put paint on the top of the lego to make the circle print.  To make the block portion of the print, we flipped the Lego over and printed the outer square “on top” of the circles. 

Square Lego Print Side

Circle Lego Print Side

Lego-wrapped Legos!

My son made a short video how-to.

mamalibrarian's ribbon

Last night, faced with wrapping the teacher thank-you gift for my son’s class, I decided to borrow the button-ribbon idea from this Anthropologie box my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday. I used grosgrain ribbon and embroidery floss to secure the buttons. The Anthropologie version has actual button holes on the cotton tape. I was working on this at 11:00 last night, so no time for button holes! It turned out nicely, but I think I prefer the muted colors of the Anthropologie version.

Anthropologie ribbon