The Paper Lantern

I leave for vacation today, and will return to the blog in Mid-July.  I thought I'd leave you with a new video post, this time a project. My paper lanterns have been featured on Design Sponge, in magazines and at Alt Design Summit, but believe it or not, I've never done a tutorial here on Poppy Haus! When I started showing my projects, I didn't know that I needed to include tutorials. So, I made a short video to show you how I make a basic lantern. You can use any size white paper lantern, any size cupcake liner. If you want, you can layer the larger papers with a striped mini-liners to add dimension, or try using french pastry papers.  Just watch and learn!



Special thanks go to my camera dude Pete Maloney and my friend Zach for lending me his beautiful music. www.roguewavemusic.com

You Are My Fave

Here are some pictures of the "Favorite Things" party we held this weekend at Little Farm.  The weather was beautiful and the cows were hungry. Our adult guests were treated to a delicious picnic lunch complete with fried chicken, potato salad, coleslaw and biscuits.  The kids snacked on prepacked lunches including peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the crusts cut off which I wrapped in wax paper and sealed with a quick custom masking tape.  The hit of the party was the kids table which I decorated with kraft paper and a few of Wylie's favorite things like trains, dinosaurs and a bag of costumes (including capes).  It also housed the cupcakes, vanilla with vanilla frosting, which were topped with miniature figurines of zoo and farm animals, and more dinosaurs.  I made an animal food station packed in the boys Ikat Easter Baskets, which we used to bag portions of food to feed the cows, goats, sheep and chickens. At the end of the day, the kids took home their W favor bags filled with animal crackers.    

Thank you to Jennifer Daily for providing some of the pictures for this post!

The Anthropologist

About ten years ago I walked into the San Francisco Anthropologie and looked up at a ray of fabric buttterflies stretching across their top floor ceiling.  Some short time later, I gathered the materials and made a smaller scale version for my apartment. Now their clothes and accessories are coveted by just about every girl I know, but my favorite thing about Anthropologie is the the ambiance, the way you can feel the warm scent from the burning candles, the day dreamy music, and the hand crafted art installations they call visual merchandising.  They sell all sorts of fancy and unattainable things, but the store is full of pieces constructed out of paper and wire and rope meant to feel that way. I have this smart and stylish friend named Valerie, who recently posted a link to a beautiful Rhodadendron chandelier from Anthropologie and it got me thinking...it's been a while. 

Hey There, Cupcake

I picked up some white paper lanterns and tightly layered soft white cupcake papers around the surface using a hot glue gun. I later went around with decorative petit fours papers found at a store called Spun Sugar in Berkeley. They gave the first layer some dimension and made it look less like a party decoration. I think the overall look feels something more like anenomes. They would look beautiful with  a light dropped in them, for now they hang over my dining room table.

Materials

• 100–125  white standard-sized paper cupcake liners
• 100–125  vertically striped petit fours papers
• (1) 18–20″ white paper lantern
• hot glue gun
• 1 Hemma Cord from IKEA (for lighting) ($3.99)