Flowers and Readers

The party was a smashing success. We're only just now recovering from the burst of effort it took to pull it off with such aplomb. Cakes were made, flowers were arranged, and decorations were hung, but best of all, memories were made, pictures where taken, guest books were filled with so many kind thoughts and wishes, and expectations were exceeded.

It's so fun to help somebody celebrate who has little or low expectations. The guest of honor had never really had a party just for herself, she had always helped others. She couldn't fully envision our decorating ideas and was wondering just how many people would actually show up. Her guests were expecting a boring room. So nice that everybody was pleasantly surprised on all accounts!

There are more pictures to come, but I just wanted to share some shots of things that made the biggest impressions: flowers, both real and paper. The guest of honor was turning 70 and wanted to keep things simple with a mix of multi-colored roses. She picked them up at her local market the day before and combined them with greens collected along her daily walks with her dog. Simple. Colorful.

Paper decorations were a mix of 12 large pom-poms and lots of tissue paper pomettes. The pom-poms were easily hung from the drop ceiling (they're good for something!) and the pomettes were light enough to stay put with a bit of tape. I ordered a pile of tissue paper (seidenpapier) online and decided to make everything myself to save money.

The verdict: Make your own pom-poms. They're pretty quick and easy to make on your own and offer a high impact factor for the price. I made 12 and hung them in groups of three and was glad I'd made that many. One hanging by itself looks lost pretty quickly.

Don't waste your time making your own pomettes if you're using tissue paper; they are a total pain to make!! Pomettes out of tissue paper have a lovely translucent quality, but you can't really re-use them since you have to use so much adhesive to get them to stay together. I also had to be careful with the larger ones as they needed three sheets of paper and had to each be tied tightly together in the middle to avoid sagging too much under their own weight (you can see a bit of this in the photos). Total hassle. I also used these German Fotoecken (photo corner-type sticky squares) to adhere everything as the double-sided tape I had was just too thick. Of course I had a million little sticker backs flying around in the summer breezes as I assembled them. Each large pomette used 20 Fotoecken; each small pomette used 8. Like I said, total pain to deal with. Buy the premade ones if you must have these, otherwise find another decorating idea. That said, they really were perfect for covering up some ugly brown glass doors we had all along one wall.

By the way, PomPomYourLife.de is a great place to get tissue paper in Germany. In addition to having a huge color selection, they're competitively priced and also offer pre-folded pom-poms and pomettes.

I'll post some more pictures of some other fun details later, but wanted to get these up now. The end of the semester is pressing down on me with students and clients trying to get work done before dashing off for summer vacations.

**Don't forget to change your RSS subscriptions this weekend if you haven't already done so! I can't believe Google Reader is over. I used it for 6+ years and after a month of trying to get used to other readers, still can't find my happy spot. Feedly is my favorite option, but I know Bloglovin' is another good one. You can also get these posts via email using the link over in my sidebar.**

**Deutsch lesern: Pass auf! Google Reader is bald weg. Du kannst Nic's post lesen für weitere Deutsch-sprachige Detailen! Feedly und Bloglovin' sind die beste neue möglichkeiten für Bloglesern. Finde diese blog hier auf Bloglovin'. Meine Posts kannst du auch per Email kriegen -siehe Link, links.**

What about you? Have you ever made your own pom-poms or pomettes? What was your experience? Also, which blog reader do you use, if any? I'm just having a hard time with the switch!!