July Monochromatic Project

Our July Chocolatier project was to create some sort of a monochromatic project. I decided to make a flower topiary, something I'd been wanting to do for quite some time. It was a little time-consuming, but rather simple to make. I used 4 sheets of Echo Park cardstock and cut each into 3x3 inch squares (I used exactly 64 flowers to make this topiary).

Here's a closer look at the flower ball. It's monochromatic for the most part, but since the cardstock is double-sided, it was unavoidable that the backside would sometimes show. This inspired me to use some of my "just-received" Making Memories Paper Reverie Noir butterflies, securing them with MM Wedding pins. I thought the grey tones of the butterflies blended very nicely with the grey backgrounds of the pink cardstock.

Here's another close-up of the flower ball. You can see the individual flowers quite nicely here - they don't all look the same, which makes it look more natural (in my opinion).

So how do you make these flowers? I surfed the internet looking for ideas on how to make paper roses. There are several websites and videos out there, detailing this particular technique - I just skipped the step of drawing a spiral (I would feel compelled to erase it) and saved more time by using a pair of deco scissors to cut the spiral.

Once you've cut the spiral, you simply roll up the strip from the outside to the inside. The center piece acts as the base. Release the spiral until the flower is the right size and shape - then just glue things down at the bottom. Glue the flowers to the styrofoam ball and voila! You've got yourself a topiary!

In other news... it was a rather busy weekend. Mika's All Stars team decided to fund-raise at the local 7-11 gas station. I was very surprised, but it went extremely well - after only 2 hours, the girls had raised a few hundred dollars. People (by and large) were very kind and generous and the girls were extremely fortunate! After 2 hours, though, they were pretty pooped out - but the 7-11 manager gave us all free Slurpees so that made everything better!

The team still had practice afterwards. Marika was lucky... she helped to field balls in the outfield (she even stopped the ball once and threw it into the infield, lickety-split!) and the coach let her bat, too. She hit a triple her first time (the first baseman missed the ball so the coach sent her on)! All of the girls on the team were so sweet to her (I was afraid they'd be resentful), congratulating her on her hitting and helping her put on her batting helmet. It was so cute!

After practice, the girls got together at the local pizza joint for a pizza party. It was fun to hang out with some of the other parents and the girls had fun playing games, too. Coach Brian came over to us and said, "Man, your little one is going to ROCK (in softball) when she gets older!" This made us very happy to hear... :)

On Saturday, we took the girls to their very first Lowe's clinic. We had to register online, but that was about the hardest thing we had to do. The girls got two projects to do (see above) and we discovered that Lowe's actually sells little DIY kits for kids! You can find them in the tool area... we bought quite a few (especially those on clearance, because goodness knows when you'll find them again)... it seems like a good Christmas gift idea for anybody with little boys...

While Marika went to a birthday party and Mika went to more All-Stars practice, I went to a baby shower hosted by one of my soccer buddies. Part of the reason I probably enjoy playing soccer so much is that soccer chicks are an interesting bunch! It was fun to hang out (although I was asked to show off my knee on a couple of occasions, and one friend kept poking me, with suggestions on what might possibly be wrong with me) and just chill. I liked this diaper cake that somebody made... and isn't that a great skunk? There were lots of cute clothes (especially for a boy baby) but I did NOT feel the baby pull. Nope, I am totally done! :)

Today wasn't very relaxing either - before we took the girls to a skating party, we went to Daddy Dude's baseball game. He's back at the old field, which I don't particularly like because it's hot and dirty (the ballpark). However, it was nice to finally have a working scoreboard! Just look at the final game stars, though - Daddy Dude's team was the home team, so they won, but it was a very... FLAT... game. Who gets more runs than hits in a game and still wins?!