9.21.2012

{Art} Wedding Pretties and How to Make a Doily Lantern

Last weekend my friend Keri and I had the honor of doing most of the decorating for the wedding of some dear friends. I thought I'd share some of the prettiness with you here today...

To save money, we decided to do our own flower arrangements. The only thing we purchased were the roses - everything else was gathered from around our yards and nearby fields.

Welcome to the "flower sweat shop."
 

The day before the wedding, we went out early to pick the Queen Anne's Lace, ivy, and other greenery we used in the arrangements. It was a beautiful morning, and there were spider webs covered with dew all over the field: amazing!



Thankfully, there was still plenty of Queen Anne's Lace blooming, although we did have to relocate a few little visitors...


Anyway, back to the wedding.... Keri made the arrangements for the wedding party: the boutonnieres, corsages, and these gorgeous bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids...


And I did the arrangements for the pews, the altar, and the candlesticks...




 
For the reception, the bride had requested a piñata! How fun is that? We couldn't find a "wedding" themed piñata anywhere locally, so Keri found this tutorial online and made this fantastic wedding cake piñata herself! She did an amazing job!
 
 
As you can see, it was a big hit at the reception. - {groans} You know I had to, right?
 


My own craft project for the reception was this doily "chandelier," which we strung up with white Christmas lights and a canopy made from fabric normally used to cover tobacco beds (How's that for re-purposing?!?). We got the fabric at a farm supply store, and it's a pretty economical way to do something like this. The closest thing I can compare the fabric to is interfacing used for sewing, but this is MUCH cheaper than interfacing...


Anyway, as you can see, it did a lot to dress up a rather plain, dark room and made it look much more elegant for the reception....


There are already several tutorials online for this, but to be honest, I found it to be WAY more complicated than they made it seem. I thought I'd share what I learned through my own experience with you, and hopefully it will save you from some of the frustrations I faced...

The first order of business was to go doily shopping! I wanted a variety of real, hand-made doilies made from cotton crochet thread (not the polyester, factory-made ones you get in stores), so Keri and I hit up some of our local antique stores. We managed to snag most of these for around $1-2 apiece. I brought them home and washed and ironed them first.


The tutorial I found said you could use one of these "punch" balloons to form the base. I tried this first; however, my balloon wound up leaking half its air the first night, and I had to re-do the whole thing. So use a sturdy beach ball!


On attempt #1, I tried using Elmer's Glue thinned down with a bit of water. This made the cotton doilies so heavy that they kept wanting to fall off of the balloon. I wound up only covering half of it at first, and I planned to do the other side when this had dried.... However, like I said, the balloon leaked, and I had to start over.

These doilies were super thick, and in hindsight, I think the thinner you could find them, the better off you'd be.



Boo! The balloon deflated! You can see the little loser on the right there, after the first night. I had to re-wash all of the doilies to remove the glue, then tried again on the beach ball. This is a 24" beach ball, and in hindsight (once again), I think one of those "clear" plastic beach balls would have worked better than this one (I'll tell you why later).


Okay, let's try this thing again.... The second time around, I did a better job of preparing my work area and gathering my supplies ahead of time, so it made the whole process much less frustrating.

I tied a string to the air vent in the ceiling and added a hook formed from a paper clip to the bottom of it. Then I tied another string to the plug of the beach ball, and tied a loop on the end. This allowed me to easily hang or remove the beach ball from the string whenever I needed to flip it over, rather than having to untie it. It's easier to work on if it's suspended, but there are times when you're going to need to manhandle the thing, so it's nice to be able to quickly take it down.

 
For the "glue" on this one, I wound up using a mixture of several things (several types of Mod Podge, fabric stiffener, and Plaster of Paris). However, as I learned on another project, I think I would have been better off with straight-up Mod Podge (the one marked for use on fabrics). If you use just the Mod Podge, I wouldn't thin it down any.
 
Because I had so much trouble getting the doilies to stick to the bottom of the balloon the night before (the force of gravity won out over the sticking power of the glue solution), I decided ahead of time that I was going to "tie" the doilies together as I placed them on the ball. This would also help hold the whole thing together once it dried and I had removed the beach ball...
 
As I added each doily, I used white crochet thread and a tiny crochet hook to help me anchor the doilies to the ones they overlapped. I simply threaded the string through the two doilies in several spots, and tied a good square knot. Once it was dry, I trimmed all of the ends of the string. This was a pretty tedious and messy process, so I don't have any pictures.... sorry....

Incidentally, another thing I learned was that it's not a great idea to choose doilies that have such loose, spidery looking areas as you see in the doily covering the upper yellow section below. They don't provide enough support once you remove the beach ball. Look for doilies that are lightweight, but have a fairly sturdy structure throughout the entire piece, like the one on the bottom left....

Depending on the type of lighting you intend to use inside the globe, you're going to need to leave an opening  or two in the doilies. I left an opening around the top where the string was attached, and I made it large enough to fit my hand inside. I also left another small opening on the bottom, which would allow you to replace a light bulb if you were using this with a pendant light kit. The openings also made it possible to get the beach ball out when it was dry.


Once I had all of my doilies tied in place, I let it dry overnight, then painted a second coat of my glue mixture over the whole thing. Again, in hindsight, I should have probably added several more coats of just plain Mod Podge and let it dry for a week or so before removing the beach ball, but we were getting ready for the wedding and in a bit of a rush...

Once the glue has dried and the doilies are feeling good and stiff, give it a few extra days to dry thoroughly, and then you can remove the beach ball. If you don't care about it, simply pop a few holes in it with a sharp knife, or if you want to reuse it, open the plug and carefully deflate it.


At this point, I realized that, while my doilies were stiff enough to hold a shape, they were still pretty pliable. If I had had time, I would have blown the ball back up, added a few more coats of Mod Podge, and let it dry longer.... but again, time was working against me. This type of beach ball also proved to get pretty "stuck" to the glue, so I really had to pry the doilies off of the plastic. I think the clear, plastic-y type of beach ball would be better than this opaque, more "rubbery" ball. (I used the clear type for another similar project, and it pulled away much easier... I'll be doing a post on that project later!)


Here it is once I got the beach ball out.... After it hung like this for a while, it started to sink in on itself a little. I wound up reinforcing it with a couple of rings made from a white wire coat hanger to support it during the wedding, and I used white twisty ties to suspend the string of Christmas lights all through the center. It held up enough to use for the wedding, although it became more "balloon" shaped rather than being perfectly round... You can see the difference in the two photos below...

At any rate, it was still beautiful, and it made the perfect centerpiece for our sparkly reception lighting. Now that the event is over, I may put the beach ball back in and add a few more coats of Mod Podge to get the sphere shape back, but we'll see...

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial! If you decide to try making one yourself, I'd love to see pictures! Thanks for reading!



Linking up today with Jennifer:

StudioJRU

19 comments:

  1. I am impressed, it created such a beautiful center piece, it seems like quite a "involved" project, so i am glad you have sorted out all the pitfalls, i was wondering what ...i was going to do with my stash of doilies....

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    1. Thanks, Jenni! Yes, it was much more involved than I expected... the blogs I read made it seem so easy. I don't know what I was doing wrong - but I think those ladies must have been working on theirs in some parallel reality where the laws of gravity don't apply! :o) I hope yours goes well if you try it. I'd definitely recommend using just plain Mod-Podge, if you can get that there. You'll have to post pics if you try it!

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  2. Wow! It's beautiful! I need to make one of those to hang at birthday parties!

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    1. Thank you! Yes, that would be a good idea! I think it would look cute in a little girl's room or a nursery too.

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  3. Very nice, I love those great photos captured in all its glory. Greetings.

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  4. I love this. You get a pat on the back from me! I just decorated my sons wedding, and that meant the rehearsal dinner as well.Many of the things I worked on took longer than I expected and several things happened so they didnt get used. (rain for one and someone forgot to deliver the key to the bldng we rented for the rehearsal dinner so by the time we got the key I was already 15 min late to the rehearsal! Live and learn. I tried to do more than one human can possibly do on her own. I agree with you, this would be beautiful if you could hang it in a little girls room or nursery. have a blessed creative weekend!

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    1. Anna - thank you! Yes, I can relate to taking on too much - we were pretty exhausted after the wedding and swore them off for a while! It was fun though, and in the end, the only major "hitch" was the one that was intended! ;o) Thanks so much for taking the time to comment!

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  5. You did an amazing job of the doily lanterns and also the flowers. You are very creative and talented. The reception looked wonderful. Loved the piñata too, our children recently made a couple for a birthday.

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    1. Thank you - you're very kind... Piñatas are so fun! I think we may have to keep doing those for parties in the future. (And hey, there's candy involved!) :o) Thanks for stopping by!

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  6. This is just beautiful - of course I like vintage and lace things, and it is nice to see something that is so beautiful that is very DIY! Thanks for the tutorial...

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    1. Thanks, Cindy! I'm glad you enjoyed the tutorial! Thanks so much for stopping by...

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  7. Awesome job! That came out beautiful! I would really love to try this. I always seem to have issues when it comes to removing the form inside the paper mache items I make. Did you unplug the beach ball in yours or poke holes in it? I wonder which would be better. Were you able to reuse the beach ball after you were done?
    Great Job!!!
    Jen

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    1. Thanks, Jen! To answer your question, I unplugged the beach balls to remove them - it was a little tricky getting my hand inside to deflate them, but I think I should be able to reuse the beach balls. I'd definitely go with the "clear" plastic type rather than the opaque plastic - the clear popped right off with a little bit of pressure, but I had to tear away the other one, and it took quite a bit of force.

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  8. Seriously, how do you build upon your cute amazingness?! Such a great idea and very well executed! Thanks Beth, I may have to copy that on our next occasion.

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    1. Aw, thanks so much! Good luck with it if you decide to give it a try! :)

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  9. I tried this with a balloon & it didn't work so well with wall paper paste but I will try it with modpodge. I was thinking of greasing the balloon up with vaselene first also because my balloon stuck to the lace after I poked it.

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    1. Yes, I think the paste you use has everything to do with the success. I found ModPodge to be the best. The Vaseline is a good idea too - I also had some trouble with sticking. Good luck!

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  10. I tried this with wall paper paste & it didn't work out so well. The lace & balloon stuck together. They did not separate after I poked the balloon. I will try with mod podge & can't help but think greasing the balloon with vaselene would also help. Anyone have any suggestions/

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