Weddingbee Blog

In the early days of planning and the fluster of page-bookmarking and image-saving, I came upon this super fantastic image…

Image via OnceWed / Photos by Kate Murphy

…and decided I had to make OUR initials for OUR wedding. I searched far and wide for paper-flower tutorials, and finally found one that seemed simple enough that even I could do it.

Yeah, turns out I was wrong.

First, I bought the wrong kind of glue because I couldn’t find anything called Crystal Effect. The folks at my local arts and crafts store were no help (big surprise), but I finally found what looked like an alternative in Ye Olde Scrapbooking Aisle: Glossy Accents by Inkssentials. It promised to dry to a hard, clear, glossy finish—just like I like ‘em—so I loaded it up with a circle punch and a slew of paper in our wedding colors, and carted her home.

Awesome glue.

With this more securely drying glue, the paper-flower-making process became much easier, but still not a cinch. If I’m moving too quickly, or zoned out or tired (as usual), I’d screw up. I would get the flower all perfectly positioned, with the glue on the paper circle that would adhere to the back of the flower, and secure everything in place, poise the circle over the flower, and—BLAMASDH (a technical sound)—the flower would pop open, the circle would end up on my hand, and glue would be EVERYWHERE.

I also figured I’d just cut our initials out of one of the thousand pieces of poster board I had around the house. And ended up with this:

You don’t even want to see my ampersand.

Not bad, considering they’d be covered with paper flowers. But then I made a special trip to Joann because I needed to get some gray ribbon for our invitations (more on that later), and did you know that Joann is SOOOOO much more awesome than Michaels?! Seriously! Really, it is. You should go. I browsed the aisles a bit, and not only found a huge collection of Martha Stewart party doo-dads, but also I found these:

Image via Joann

Huge, sturdy, blank paper mache letters! Holy yes!

I have a lot of paper flowers to go…

I’ve got just over five months to turn all this…

…into this.

But soon enough, these adorned, color-coordinated initials will be ready to fancy up the wall of our venue!

*Personal photos unless otherwise indicated