Handmade Fall Silk Flowers Arrangement perfect for Fall Decor

I made this beautiful fall color theme Silk flowers arrangement specially for my Mom. Usually, I am not a big fan of silk flowers as I prefer to make them myself (paper or clay). For a change I thought when I know I am short of time, and still want to splash some newness and color I decided to use silk flowers this time.
I wanted to make something for my Mom during her visit to US, so that she can take it back home to India and have something to decorate.
So this is what I came up with. I loved the way it turned out. In the process I bought one vase and some flowers for myself too.

It was fun making this. I could not take the pictures of the steps as it was a last minute thing I was putting together.
But just to give you some idea.
Material needed:

-Floral Stems in co-ordinating colors. Big flowers and small flowers and some fillers.
-Green and brown floral tape
-pliers
-Floral Foam
-Craft knife
-Vase

Basic Rules of Flower Arrangements
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Basic steps of flower arrangements are to decide how do you want the final arrangement to look like.
I had similar things in mind. Best is to sketch it, but I didn't.

You need to decide how tall will be the arrangement and then cut the floral stems accordingly.
Start with big flowers. Give a basic structure of the arrangement with that.
The floral foam goes in the vase and secures all the stems that you will insert.

Rest you need to fill with fillers. Just make sure there are no gaps and the foam is not visible.
Use your imagination and remember you might need more flowers than you think.

Give it a try. Its fun.

Teachers Appreciation Handmade Gift Ideas

Most of the schools in USA have their year end celebration in the last week of May or somewhere between first week of June or mid June. Some schools celebrate Teacher's Appreciation day or simply appreciate Teachers for their year long hard work with the kids. It is a great time to show how grateful the kids and their parents are for their guidance and encouragement throughout. As most of you will agree getting a good teacher for your kids is nothing short of a blessing and you should always show gratitude. This year, for the first  time we got  a chance to thank her Preschool teachers as well as her Dance teacher (She has been learning Ballet). Like everybody else I wanted to give something useful but  personal and unique as well.

For the preschool teachers, apart from the common contribution for gift cards we packed a big box of assorted chocolates and made a handmade paper quilled greeting card.We made two similar cards for both of her teachers. I was inspired by Alli Bartkowski's book 50 Nifty Quilled Cards of quilled creations. Both me and my daughter wrote a personal message  inside the card.


For her Ballet Teacher I made a gift card holder with a beautiful pink Ballet Dress also called Leotard. The gift card holder is entirely handmade and has Velcro closure to keep the gift card secure. It makes it reusable as well. She loves coffee so I included a Starbucks gift card in it. Along with it I included a coordinating note card with personal message.

 Hope you will get some inspiration from these ideas for the wonderful teachers that play such an important role in the overall growth and development of our kids lives. Thank you teachers.

P.S. : We do sell gift card holders at our online Etsy shop. You can see some of our popular designs there. We  also take custom orders.