DIY Christmas decorations _ Christmas stars / flowers

CHRISTMAS STARS / FLOWERS

This must be one of the easiest, yet cute decorations to make! Each star takes 2min to do and the cost is basically 0.
You'll need:
1 toilet paper roll per star (or decorative paper)
scissors
stampler
thread
hole punch

1. Cut the toilet role into 6-8 pieces (each one is around 1 cm thick). Each circle will be a petal
2. Staple two circles together at the bottom of each one. You will now have 4 pairs.
3. Start stapling  the pairs together.
4. Punch a hole in one of your "petals" and thread a thread through the hole. Make it as long as you wish depending on if it will be a Christmas tree decoration, or as part of a garland.
DONE!
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If you are using decorative paper instead of a toilet paper role you'll have to add a step.
You will have to hold the circles in place when stapling the pairs together, as each one won't be a circle, but only a strip. It just takes a little extra patience, but it isn't too complicated.
The paper I used for these is wallpaper samples that I had left over from my wedding DIY decorations. In particular the unique ceremony programs:
http://pulmonate.blogspot.it/2011/12/wedding-inspirationceremony-program.html

What you need

2. cutting the toilet role into 1cm thick pieces.

3. Stapling the pairs together

Stapling the pairs with each other, creating our star / flower

The extra step when one is using decorative paper instead of toilet paper roles.

The finished star / flower.

Wedding inspiration board

Inspiration boards are a good way of organizing your thoughts during the planning of your wedding. There are so many things out there to inspire you and one can imagine having the wedding in many ways. It's hard to actually narrow it all down and stick to a certain style. In fact in the beginning of my wedding planning my ideas were all over the place! In the end, I started realizing that there were certain elements that I had really fallen for and a specific style started to emerge.
The first thing we chose for the wedding was the wedding location, and after that we could start thinking of a specific vision that we wanted. The location for our civil wedding was the lovely Scaliger Castle in Malcesine on Lake Garda. Absolutely stunning, right on the lake, with a 180* view of the water and mountains.
I wanted a eco-friendly look, with many DIY elements. I hand-drew the invitation card together with one of Marco's best men, made all the table decorations myself, sew the flower girl dress(tutorial and result), made the ring pillow, made wedding program fans, a road sign with distances to where our guests had travelled to be there,  rice and lavender cones, designed my own wedding dress and had it made, had a song written for us by a good friend. So it was very personal!
To have a look at the final results of the decorations click here.  And for the wedding pictures as a whole (although not the official photos) check them out here.

This is the newer inspiration board that was made about 3-4 months before the wedding. Several things were still changed from this board but it is pretty similar to the final result.

This was the first inspiration board that I made before Marco even officially proposed! We had started talking about the wedding and this is what I envisioned. Not many of these details were actually used though. The skirt of the dress and the flowers remained the same, a location on the water (the country is different though), are the same.

The bridesmaids inspiration board can be seen here.

Bridesmaids inspiration board

This is the inspiration board I made for our wedding last August (2012). I had 3 lovely bridesmaids who traveled from afar to be there for my special day. Each one represented a special part of my life. Rosalie, my childhood friend from Australia, Michelle, my teenage friend from Sweden, and Aleksandra my adult friend from Italy.
I wanted them to chose their dresses themselves, as I wanted them to wear something they were comfortable wearing. Also, I've never liked the idea of everyone wearing matching clothes. It just feels so stale.
My 3 bridesmaids all chose lovely dresses and we all looked amazing on the day. We went to the hairdresser in the morning where we got our hair done in similar up-dos: Side chignon. Mine was a bit more elaborated but otherwise quite similar.
I had also made silk flowers for each of us to have in our hair, in order to make us all look similar despite the different dresses. In fact it all turned out very well.
(Official photos still to come). For general photos from the wedding check them out here to see the result!

Wedding inspiration _ flowers

This is the second post about inspiring wedding bouquets. The first one can be read HERE. I tend to like quite wild and unique bouquets rather than classical bunch of red roses. I like when the leaves or background have a olive green (almost grey) colour and when fun elements are incorporated. With fun elements I mean something that perhaps isn't commonly associated to a wedding bouquet such as seeds, berries, thistles, twigs, fruit, etc. Here are some bouquets that I think are lovely!!! 

This is a very modern bouquet where the yellow Craspedia stands out from the cactus-like leaves and thistles. Perhaps one would think of this choice as a sign of not easily letting people get close to them, but I find it very interesting and unique! For me, this would win any day over a classical Rose bouquet!

A bunch of flowers where the yellow Craspedia has a central role!

A bunch made entirely out of Craspedia. Very fun! 

The pink, cream, peachy colours of this bouquet work very well together. There are a few items in this bunch that I particularly like but I don't know what they are. Does anyone know what the brown seeds are?? And what about the small green round ball flowers? They are unique and create a great touch to the otherwise very traditional bouquet. 

I LOVE this bouquet! I The colours are amazing. I love the dull olive green colour of the leaves giving an amazing background for the bright flowers. The central grand Protea. Also the dynamic Thistles create a fun bouquet. 

An Aussie style bouquet with Banksia flowers as well as coloured blue thistles. If they didn't have the roses it would be a perfect bunch!

I actually adore how this bouquet has such dull colours. It is very architectonic. I don't think I'll ever be able to decide between this kind of bouquet and something extremely colourful! I also like the fact that it has berries in-between the flowers! 

This is a very romantic bouquet with it's light pink flowers and grey leaves and balls. What are those ball flowers? Anybody know?

This bouquet is so romantic and hand made. It's so sweet how it looks like it has been put together rather randomly. The Allium underneath together with roses and babys breath..

Wedding inspiration _ flowers

 For my wedding bouquett I want to use native Australian flowers. Being half australian I want to bring that into the wedding somehow. Australia has some very unique and absolutely gorgeous flowers and I think they will look stunning in a wedding bouquett! I want quite a wild looking group of flowers. Not many of the same kind, different colours, and having a very pale green leaf surrounding them. In general I love olive leaves but even eucalyptus leaves have a very nice colour. There is one kind that has small round leaves that I think will look great (I just have to try and remember what they're called).

I'm not sure if all of these flowers are native Australian or if they originally come from South Africa. But don't they look great? What stunning flowers!

Here's a way to integrate the "yellow and grey" theme even in the flowers.

I love this fun bouquett with yellow ball flowers (forgive my lack of knowledge of the actual names... if anyone knows the real names I'd love to know!).

Look at the great colours in this bouquett! This is so stunning. And I would love to have flowers like this especially if I use colours such as grey, champagne, grey/blue at the wedding. In that case these flowers would really get a lot of attention and brighten up the room!

Many girls I've shown my flowers to prefer this kind of bouquett. Probably because it's more traditional and "girly". I do like the fact that the flowers are champagne coloured as well as the playful seed balls. Also the dark maroon coloured flowers give a good contrast.

I like the dark center in these flowers.

Alium is one of my favorite flowers in general. They are too big to integrate in the bridal bouquett, but perhaps I can use them as table centerpieces. I will only use them if I also deside to have a "blue/grey" colour theme.

I love this colourful wild bouquett! Isn't it gorgeous? Such unique flowers with such vibrant colours and shapes.

This bouquett is too classic for my style, but I do like the twigs and the hay around the sides. I definitely won't be using roses for mine, but I do like the colour of these roses.