A Few More Flower Girls

Something big just happened. Life-altering big.

I got married.

Of course there were lots of little projects that I did, but here's one of my favorites.

I have had the privilege of leading a girl's Bible study for my church for about six years now. If you know anything about teenagers, that's an eternity. It's bad middle school hair, winter formals, algebra, starting high school, sophomore year friend drama, and slumber parties with lots of food and laughter.

To honor that special place that these girls hold in my life, I made them all flower girls and my co-leader (with me through thick and thin) the ring bearer.






Yes. There are lots of them.

So, what do you do for so many flower girls? Tell them each to buy a white dress, let them wear whatever shoes they want, and make them all flower crowns.

For the crowns, I bought bunches of artificial baby's breath, pulled them apart, then wove the flowers around a wire loop.



Here's where things get personal. Regular cardboard boxes and wrapping paper won't do. The craft store had these wooden boxes were the perfect size for my simple little crowns.

I drew out a special version of their names on paper using a sharpie, then traced the marks that bled through the other side with chalk and transferred the marks to the tops of the boxes. My cat helped whenever she could.



After the designs were transferred, I got myself a wood burner and went to town. When they were all finished, I put a layer of clear, glossy polyurethane.

I will admit that I can be a bit impatient. I probably could have waited another day before closing the boxes and packing them away until the wedding day, but I had other things to do. Therefore, the boxes may have been a little difficult to open the first time. Some prying required. Totally worth it though.



I know this post has been a little photo heavy (Can you blame me though? So pretty...), and from here out it will only get worse. Here are all of my designs:

Pleats for Days

I was altering a beautiful green polka-dot dress (post coming soon), that was 10 sizes too big. I decided the best way to use as much of the original fabric without bulking up the waist line would be to put in some accordion pleats.

Wrong kind of accordion.

That's more like it. 

Half-way through pinning and measuring the skirt, I realized the pins I had placed at the beginning were slipping out of my tediously measured, perfectly pinned pleats. Instant frustration.

One cup of coffee and 10 minutes of Googling later, I had a solution. A pleating board.

There are so many other blogs with how-tos for this particular item, that if you don't think that mine will work for you, keep searching. So many options. I looked at so many before starting my project, that I don't even know who deserves a little credit and extra web traffic.

Here's what I used:

You'll need some wet-seal packing tape, a damp sponge, scrap fabric, fusible webbing, ruler, pencil, and an iron.

Once I decided how big I wanted my pleats to be, I measured and marked where the folds should be on the packing tape just like I would if I were marking the fabric. Then I folded it, using the damp sponge to seal it together as I went. Next, I cut out fusible webbing and scrap fabric to match the size of the folded tape.

Here's the easiest part: make a sandwich and press it. Place the fusible webbing on the wrong side of the tape and place the fabric on top of that with the right side of the fabric facing you. Now, press it like a panini.

Enough sandwich analogies. 

That's it. You're done. Pleat board finished. I made two different sizes.

To use it, I pin the beginning of the fabric that I wish to pleat at the top of the board (pleats facing down). Next, tuck the fabric into flaps. I use my EZY-Hem to help slide it in there. Since it's metal, you can iron as you go without fear of melting anything.

When the fabric cools, you can remove it and do whatever it is you want with your perfectly measured and pressed, pleated fabric.

I promise to post the finished pictures of the green dress soon-ish. The only thing I have left to do with it is put in the zipper. So close....