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Lesson Info

Paper Flora Backdrops

In our imaginary event space, we've got all of these at our tables were wearing our lovely boot in years. Now we want to add a little something that's become very popular as of late, and that is photo backdrops. We see these all sorts of parties, and it really just kind of gives you a perfect spot for your guests to stop snap a picture of one another added to their instagram account, tweeted, tweeted on twitter, and put it up on their facebook and it's, a nice memento in a memory from the occasion. So I'm going to set these aside and the lovely miss kate is going to bring in one of our works in progress, but essentially, what you're going to be doing is starting with a large piece of foam core gonna hold this up partially so you can see it. These come in various sizes, our guy here is roughly what are we were about thirty three uh, probably close to forty inches. What I've done is I've taken this and I've measured five inches along all four sides and cut out the center section, so it l...

ooks like a photo frame. Once you've done that, we can then apply flowers to the exterior of it, and it basically becomes a large ornamental floral flame that you can then suspend. From the ceiling allowing your guests to stand behind it you sort of make a little room here for this big guy so we can get him up on top so I did a little head start on this fella and I'm gonna lay it down flat on my work surface it usually sorry when you rotate it here around it's a little unwieldy but it's typically easiest to construct this on ah flat surface rather than hanging it up and and doing it vertically on lee because it allows the glue to set and gravity does its job and everybody kind of stays in place. So to do this I have created a siri's of flowers that are a little bit smaller than the giant ones that we have created earlier. The exact same technique I created, the temple it's the exact same way they're just on a smaller scale now these medium size ones I was still able to use this staple during the course of construction. I think I had mentioned to you earlier I also did some smaller, more diminutive scale ones the's guys, it was a little tougher to get the staple in there and secure it in that manner and so I did end up using the hot glue gun to put all of those together, so you just want to be mindful I did do a lot of, um pressing the pieces together using the eraser end of the pencil just to save my fingertips, although those did not remain unscathed. So with the leaves, the leaves allow you to create a few fewer flowers and cover atmore of the frame you can imagine. This is this is a little bit of work. This is a couple of movies, you know, sitting in front of them, cutting out your flowers and constructing them, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a specific pattern where you're matching colors on other side, you can choose to have it a little bit organic, mix up the colors with your palate, but I'm going to go ahead and start glowing these guys on. I'm gonna have my extra glue sticks at the ready, but you can see how you could absolutely leave the the foam court uncut into a solid background and hang it so that your guests could stand in front of it, but you'll see when we hold this up, it's kind of sweet to be able to stand behind it and have it framed you all together. So what I'm doing here is I'm really sort of guesstimating the position of my next flower and sort of using some leaves to frame it, so I'm applying the leaves to the foam core first, and then I'm going to go to my flower and just at a healthy amount of hot glue on the back of it and press that right down into place and personally, my goal is really to obscure any of the whites if you want to embrace that and maybe you're doing flowers that are all sort of like whites and creams and you're doing this for a wedding, it might be aesthetically pleasing to leave portions of it where you can see this, the white foam core that's not out of the question at all, okay? And I've got what kate was bringing in for me is I also created leaves and a little bit smaller scale you can see these were the big giant guys that we created that we're on the same scale as the ones that we used in our centerpiece is and then these air just a little bit smaller I did for the smaller leave switch over to a text wait paper a little less heavy than the cover waits and really what I'm doing here is and just kind of like filling it in spaces now I do have to say that before I actually started gluing these down onto the surface of the foam core, I did kind of do a little trial run and I gathered up all of my flowers and I just sort of started setting them around to kind of figure out, um, not necessarily specific arrangement but mohr to make sure that it felt a little balanced and to make sure that actually had enough to cover the entire surface um and I will likely end up with a few extra here today which there's no harm in having a little few extra flowers um if you do find that is the case for your event you can always nice to tuck some of those on cabinets or shelves any place you want to add a little pop of color and you can see I'm really working on the leaves first kind of giving ah base and a surround for the positioning of my flowers and I do like having the various size leaves I just think it adds a nice um variation and ah level of interest okay I'm also going to be talking some of these smaller little flowers in here as well so have any of you ladies attempted a project like this of this kind of size knows this is a new thing yeah that would have been great because people don't like to take their photos on absolutely when the other thing too is that it really ends up being relatively inexpensive as far as decor is concerned believe me I love fresh flowers I really dio um but if I'm in a pinch or on a budget it's really nice to know that I can go to the office supply store get a couple reams of children standard crepe paper and make some of these big beautiful blooms um it's sort of a quick and simple nickel solution you can see I'm narrowing down the amount of space that is left here find a few more leaves even out side of an event that would be really adorable in my daughter's bedroom right now well, I have to say it's it was really flattering but one of the event planners that I do these four on a regular basis she said I have to send you a picture of something and she texted over pictures she had taken one of the backdrops that I had created for her particular event and ended up hanging it up in the entryway of her home which I just was like that was the nicest compliment ever um you know what's that it becomes our it does become arts you know and it's it's a nice thing to live with on a regular basis it's true having in your daughter's bedroom creating these for a nursery I think would be really sweets um I could even see I loved some of the beautiful bug stamps that you were creating the other day. I can imagine combining those with some florals on the leaves for maybe a little boy's room um wear in the home stretch here with this guy I'm going to get one more of the dark colored leads and have that end it's crazy the amount of a hot glue you will run through though I'm just saying by it in the bulk pack have it at the ready you will always use it all rights so I've got a room for a few more here I don't want to add in local color lines I believe for this guy I think I'm like talking in their swell maybe just take off and again don't be shy with the amount of hot glue on the underside of these you do want to be a little bit generous because obviously you want it to be quite secure especially knowing that these are going to be hung vertically and will not be sitting flat I'm going to give this just a second to dry, but in addition to the center pieces that we just created, you certainly could especially if you're working with say smaller cocktail tables have a single flower because they've got these beautiful flat bases so it's going to keep them from rolling around you don't even necessarily need a face you would just want to add a number of leaves to the underside to kind of ornament the edges of it but I think having that by itself on a small around side table or a cocktail table could be really lovely so let me clear a few of these flowers off to the side and I think what I'm going to do maybe um madeleine and phyllis, if I could impose upon you perhaps to help me hold this up and we're going to do a little momentary photo up ok? Ok, so we're just going to go ahead and stand it on its side there we go so you can see you get a pretty good vantage point there actually let's hang it down just a little bit lower and then you know you give yourself a space still pulling off a few of those little strains where you or your guests khun stand behind it and you know, mug for some really cute shots ladies, do you want to come up and we'll kind of get a group shots? I think it would be nice there we go yeah here you screwed in with me and take some of this might be on the sides of the frame I have a feeling we'll all gideon I don't know you could get it way doing everybody in frame all right ready one, two, three cheese thank you, thank you. So thank you ladies so much so you can see it's incredibly light weights you will have to dio depending on your space how you hang it is really going to be up to you I'm not really even sure where to put it I'm going to set it right here for the time being there are certain removable adhesives that worked really well with interior walls. I know three m command hooks and that product line allow you to hang materials of this way up on your wall and remove them at the end of your event without damaging the paint, which is really a nice thing. How what's the best way to stole these in transport because they are dexterity, but they are saying, well, I'll tell you, once you have constructed them into that backdrop formation, they do become a little bit of a storage challenge when you're transporting that toe event. It's really nice if you've got a van or a annette suv or a larger vehicle that you can put down the back seat and obviously set it on the inside and transport it flat would be my recommendation, storage wise if you've got flat attic space or the top of a cabinet in the storage room that's usually a good idea. Otherwise, you might even want to consider at the end of the event if you're not going to be reusing it, perhaps just to cut that foam core, cut it down into sections, and you could send little pieces of that home with your deaths as well as another little added souvenir or favor.