Snow White Party -- Cut Wood Vase Tutorial

I wanted to share a quick tutorial on this vase I made for our Snow White birthday party. 

The inspiration for the vase came from the wreath I made for our front door.  When I saw this one at diy kinda girl, I knew I had to have one of my own.  I made the wreath following her directions pretty closely.  I did use brown burlap instead of felt to cover my wreath form.  I added a little Happy Birthday banner out of scrapbook paper for the big day.  I loved my wreath so much when it was done that I wanted to make something coordinating for the inside.  I decided on a large vase that could hold some flowering branches from the yard.

 

Because I'm cheap, I didn't want to spend money on my base, so I started with two empty green bean cans.  These are the giant ones from Sam's Club.  I used the can opener to open up the bottom of one of the cans so that it was just an empty tube.

 I used black electrical tape (because that's what I could find) to hold them together once they were stacked on top of one another.

 Just like with the wreath, I wrapped the whole thing in brown burlap strips, secured with hot glue.

 I started gluing the wood discs on, thinking of it like a puzzle, large pieces first, then fill in with the smaller ones.

I just kept turning it around, filling in until I got close to the top.

I added some cut forsythia branches and it made for the perfect natural element to our dessert table.  I wouldn't fill the water past the top of the bottom can, just in case it's not water tight.  The vase itself is pretty heavy with all of that wood, so it could really hold some tall branches and make a large visual statement.

If you're interested in seeing the other details of our Snow White party, check these out:

Snow White Party Invitation

Banners and Buntings

The Queen's Table

Snow White Party -- The Queen's Table

 

 When we first started planning Lily's Snow White birthday party, I knew we had to do something with the iconic mirror and that scary queen turned witch.

 On one of my trips to Goodwill, I spied this gold framed mirror whose curves spoke to me.  It seemed perfect for that evil queen's mirror.  While I was trying to dig it out from a pile of junk, an older lady came up and started asking me if I could get that mirror out for her!  I quickly explained that was what I was going for.  I uncovered my mirror quickly and got out of there.  The ugly plastic candle sconces were also a Goodwill find and I secured them up on the wall with some Command strips.

   

Once I made it home with my prized mirror, I cleaned it up and cut my words out of frosted glass vinyl on my Silhouette.  It was my first time working with vinyl in the Silhouette and it was harder than I expected!  My words could definitely have been applied straighter and the spacing could have been better, but Lily didn't seem to notice!

 

 I scooted a sofa table over underneath the mirror and candleholders and set it up like the queen's magic workshop.  We used a black plastic cauldron (from my mom's Halloween stash), a spell book on a really neat Goodwill easel or book holder, a wooden scoop full of apples, an owl figurine swiped from my grandma's house, a goblet from Goodwill that I spray painted, and a Goodwill cheese board and dome glued to a wooden candlestick to make a pedestal for that poison apple.  I'm telling you, this really could be called a Goodwill party.

Down below, I added a basket of apples, some glass jars filled with colored water to look like evil potions, a bird's nest, and empty jars.

 For the queen's spell book, I completely ripped off one I found through Pinterest at Polish the Stars, except hers is much better.  Seriously, go check it out.  Mine is the extremely quick version.  I typed up some text to look like a magic recipe or spell, printed it out, stuck it in the oven for a few minutes, and then used double sided tape to stick it inside an old book that was missing some pages.

Once the party got started, we added dry ice to the cauldron for a spooky effect.  We added hot water to the dry ice and the fog started flowing.  Unfortunately, so did the water.  The black plastic cauldron turned out to have a leak.  After it was cleaned up, we switched to a black stockpot and we were good to go.  :)

If you'd like to see more of the Snow White birthday party, check out these posts:

Snow White Birthday Party Invitation

Banners and Buntings
Woodland Vase Tutorial

Snow White Party -- Banners and Buntings

To add plenty of visual interest and pop, I added several buntings around our house for Lily's Snow White Birthday Party.  I got my inspiration from Kirstin's book page buntings from her fabulous showers at kojo designs. 

 I searched high and low at the thrift stores looking for an old Snow White picture book.  I think I found every Disney story except Snow White.  I found one pretty inexpensively on ebay.  I picked out the pages with the largest pictures, trimmed them down to the same size, and glued them onto some pom pom trim.  I also used a Martha Stewart punch from Michael's to make some lace edges on the bottom of the pages.

 I added some little mushroom birds from Hobby Lobby up in the corners to make it look like the birds were holding the bunting up.  I hung the bunting with a tiny finish nail and just used the metal clip on the bottom of the bird to clip it onto the nail.

 After making the large book page bunting, I took the leftover pages and cut out smaller pictures with two different sizes of circle punches.  Then, I just ran them through the sewing machine and stitched them all together to make a little banner to hang over the cake.

 For a super quick project, I quickly cut out some triangles from fabric scraps and burlap and hot glued them to some jute.  I didn't even measure the space between triangles, just glued them and hung it up!

If you'd like to read about the other details of our Snow White birthday party, check these out:

Snow White Party Invitation
The Queen's Table 
Woodland Vase Tutorial

Snow White Party Invitation

If you missed my overview of my youngest daughter's Snow White themed birthday party, check it out here.  I wanted to revisit some of the details that made the party such a success.

For her party invitation, I decided to try my hand at some fancy schmancy chalkboard lettering.  I borrowed my mom's framed chalkboard that hangs in her hallway for the job.  I knew it would be big enough that Lily could sit in front of it and I could get her and all of the text in the photo without getting the wood frame.

I played around in Microsoft Word and printed off my text in the size I wanted.  I laid it out on the chalkboard to get a rough idea of placement.  Then, I took a piece of chalk and rubbed all over the back of the paper.  I carefully laid the paper back on the chalkboard and went over the letters with a pencil.  This gave me a VERY light outline of chalk left on the chalkboard.  I then went over my guidelines with a chalk marker to get a more definite line.

When I was done, I cleaned up a few smudges with a damp paper towel.  Then, I propped the chalkboard up next to a window and sat Little Miss Princess in front of the negative space next to the letters.  I made sure to place a piece of white posterboard next to her, opposite the window, to act as a reflector.

I gave her an apple and let her big sisters stand behind me and make her giggle.  I did some basic cropping and added a simple frame and it was done!  I printed them out as 5x7 photos and stuck them in a red envelope.  Done!

A Snow White Birthday Party

 

My youngest daughter LOVES Snow White.  With two older sisters, she was forced into the princess craze at an early age, but she has always been loyal to Snow White.  Last year, she shared a birthday party with her sisters, as their birthday is only two weeks away.  This year, she got her very own party and, of course, chose a Snow White theme.

I tried to make it a bit less commercialized and go more with a woodland or nature theme thrown in with Snow White.  Honestly, this could probably be called a Goodwill Snow White party because the vast majority of our decorations came from the thrift store, if it wasn't something we didn't already have.

I'll share a bunch of pictures and then check back in with some of the details and how-to.

Our 3 year old Snow White loved her party and was delighted at all of the little touches!  Her big sisters loved helping out with the planning and decorating.  I'll check back in tomorrow with some of the details on how we pulled it all off.

Read about more of the party here:

Snow White Party Invitation
Banners and Bunting
The Queen's Table 
Wood Slices Vase Tutorial