Thursday, April 22, 2010

In Chinese We Have a Saying...

Chi bao fan....mei shi gan!

Full of rice, nothing to do. Its meaning stems from the inane nature of doing things that you must be so bored to be doing them... because why bother otherwise?

Lately, I've heard that a lot from my parents with all the wedding crafts I am enjoying! I've always liked doing crafts.... since I was a kid actually.. so much that my mom used to sign me up for craft classes all the time - I learned Chinese knotting, ceramics, painting (least favorite), and lots of gluing beads and stuff to painted thinga ma bobs.

First, I bought tissue paper ... 480 sheets of purple and 480 sheets of lilac, sized at 20" x 30" (which is like getting 960 sheets of 10" x 15" sheets of both colors) for $22.81/per package plus shipping and handling (cuz I didn't want to drive to ghetto LA to pick it up).
Compared to drug store or craft store tissue paper of $3.99/pack of 16 sheets, I got a steal! So I calculated... I have enough tissue paper to make.... drumroll.... 120 poms (each pom takes 16 10" x 15" sheets) with a cost savings of $3.61 per PoM, or $ 433 bucks for 120 PoMs! What a steal!


Next, I bought silk flowers. 2 different 84-pk silk rose flowers for $14.99 (plus shipping and handling) and some styerfoam balls from Mosketel's and JoAnn's Fabric (Mosketel's is WAY cheaper - $1.49 and $2.99). And then I began stuffing. And this is what I came up with.



I know... what am I going to do with 120 PoMs right? Wish I thought of that before I made the purchase. Oh well.... my friends are creative - they'll think of something. I've already tasked two of 'em with figuring out how to cover up the bsaketball hoop that doesn't go up by using it as a base for something 3-dimensional. And... I haven't even talked about the placecards yet (those are a surprise).

I'll be the first to admit.. there's a sense of accomplishment from the DIY crafts (plus I'm doing this on a budget!) and my mom seems to have caught the bug. Most recently, she decided to do our centerpiece flowers herself. She even got some friends who volunteered to help out from picking the flowers, getting the vase, to just commenting if it's a go or no go. This weekend marks the test run (even though we know the flowers might be out of season by June). Should be exciting!

More to come on the DIY cheesy cute wedding of the year!

4 comments:

Genny said...

Good luck on all those poms! :)

A Day With Berlynn Photography said...

OOOO!! love these ideas! I am actually using the pom pom ideas for a few parties coming up but I do love the flower ideas!!! Maybe I will try it :o) Check out Marthastewert.com for more fun craft ideas!!

Jessica said...

you can also cut out circles and make poms out of that too. It makes it look not as spikey. Too bad I'm not in Cali or I would totally be making them with you. I mean you could fly me out earlier....it's not like I'll have a life with Justin studying for boards! haha

SupaFlowaPowa said...

oh yeah totally.. i think i'm going to do a rounded cut instead.. was just testing out the spikey cuz i had seen the round.. spikey is too grunge for me!