Alise in Underland - Part 2

The second in our series of three invites is from the White Queen (the first was from the Red queen).

The first gave the date. This, the time. All will be revealed in the third invite.
Apart from the invites we are progressing with the many props and costumes for our themed event. Check these out.

The beginnings of two Cheshire cats that will be black lit. One for the front of the house and one for the back yard. We're trying to figure out how to get the black light to fade in and out as opposed to flickering.

An adult 'Drink Me' Potion (Chambord and Blue Curacao)

The crocquet ball for our game on the front lawn.

A gathering of crocquet mallets. What would you call these? A flock?

The White Rabbits over-sized pocket watch made from a plastic plate sprayed gold, a blow up of an illustration of a watch face and yellow foam sheets to form the chain, which was also sprayed gold.

The White Rabbit's hat. Foam hat from the Dollar Store and bunny ears also from the Dollar Store. The most expensive thing about this was the chequered paper. (12" x 12" sheet from Michael's).

More to follow.

Our favorite time of the year is Halloween. Every year we have a themed Halloween party to promote our business, and more importantly, to have fun! In the past some of my favorites have been our
Voodoo Party

7' tall bottom lit with black light. Strings of cardboard bats coming out of his mouth and orange flame light in the fireplace behind it.

Our Witchsmeller Pursuevant Party (Thank you Black Adder). No pix but we had stocks in the back yard set up as a photo op! Our Mad Scientist Party a

Venetian Masked Ball

One of many hand made masks we created for this event

Hand made gift box for bottle of wine with matching label. A best costume prize!

The Raven

And our
Carnivale Macabre

This year our theme is "Alise in Underland" and I decided to post our thoughts and ideas as our plans progress.

This year we decided to send out a series of 3 invites designed to tantilize and perhaps puzzle our guest list

Center Piece for Upscale Creepiness

We recently got the chance to decorate a display window at Trevi in Lake Elsinore as a promotion for Royal Bash. The general Idea being halloween themed weddings and quinceaneras. We chose black red and silver, a la True Blood,  to do an elegant but creepy display.

The central piece for the display was a table center piece (or could be used as part of a larger dessert/candy bar) a cookie or ornament tree.
Start with a tree branch size of your choice, just make sure its sturdy enough to support hanging ornaments, luckily we found ours when we went camping a few months ago and it's been sitting in our studio (read garage) ever since.

Supplies :

• Tree Branch (size optional)
• Plastic flower pot (size of pot should correlate to size of branch i.e. a small branch needs a smaller pot, a larger branch needs a larger pot. For this project we used)
• Spray paint in colors of your choice (for this project we chose shiny black, and hammered silver)
• Quickrete (plaster of paris will work, but it's expensive. 60 pound bags of Quickrete sell at Lowe's for $3.00, more or less.)
• Water
• Piece of cardboard or a plastic water dish for pots in correspondung size (it needs to fit inside the pot but not fall all the way to the bottom)
• Dried moss (sold at any craft store.)
• Ribbon  (your color of choice.)
• Misc. decorations for front of pot

Step 1
Spray branch and flower pot color of your choice

Step 2
Stand branch up in flower pot (rest branch against a wall to keep from falling) and pour dry Quickrete mix into pot and around branch (you only need about 4-5 inches to get the desired strength)

Step 3
Pour water to cover quickrete, watch to see if you need more water. Let set over night

Step 4
Add cardboard to inside of pot about three to four inches below rim.



Step 5
Add moss to cover cardboard

Step 6
Glue ribbons and decorations to front of pot. Voila!

For the display window we made fake cookies and hung them off the branches of the tree. The tree can either be used as a centerpiece for a table where the cookies are edible favors, or as a part of a larger dessert bar.

Hope you enjoyed this project. Check back here or Lynes' blog often for more fun ideas.

Always,

- Fleur

Back Porch BBQ Birthday Bash

Invitation designed by Royal Bash

Home made lemonade and sweet tea

Party Styling by Royal Bash

Hand made tiara for a Coors loving birthday girl! By Royal Bash.

Tiny Coors crown for a birthday boy, plus a matching 'drinks wand'

Party Styling by Royal Bash

The beginnings of Champagne Mint Juleps or Sprite Mint Juleps

Pudding shots created specifically for our birthday friends. Lemon Meringue, Red Velvet, Carrot Cake (tricky), Banana's Foster and Dark Chocolate Jubilee

Mr. and Mrs. Coors Light

Ribbon Rose / Bouquet Tutorial

July was a pretty big month for Royal Bash, with a July 4^th party, followed by a fiftieth wedding anniversary, and rounded out by a wedding on the 28^th.

A few months before the wedding, I met with the bride to be to go over some of the creative details of the wedding, and right off the bat she decided she didn’t want to use real flowers for her wedding, as it was going to be outdoors during one of the hottest months of the year. I couldn’t say that I blamed her as temperatures often exceed 100 degrees out here during the summer, and fresh flowers would be both expensive and logistically difficult to use in that heat. Not to mention fake flowers can be just as beautiful as real ones if you use them correctly, with the added bonus that they’ll never discolor or wilt, meaning that your wedding bouquet will be as beautiful ten years later as it was on the day of your wedding.

She had a folder of ideas she wanted to do if she could, and handed me a picture of a bouquet made entirely of ribbons and said, “I really love this.”, but in a way that suggested she would never be able to have it. I took the picture and told her not to worry, as a wedding gift I’d figure out how to do it, and she’d have a similar one for her wedding, and so would all the bridesmaids. It wasn’t until much later that it slowly dawned on me that the groom and groomsmen would need matching boutonnières as well, what had I gotten myself into?

Because I had offered to do the bouquets for the bride her five bridesmaids plus a toss bouquet for the reception, and all the boutonnières for the groom and groomsmen, I thought, "Well everything else should be consistent", and offered to do the boutonnières / corsages for the parents and grandparents on both sides, all the ceremony decorations, and table decorations for the reception. If that seems like it was a lot of work, you aren’t wrong, but because I enjoy doing what I do, I was up to it.

Now,  you might be thinking, “Cool story, but how does this apply to me, the reader?” The point of telling you fine people all of this, of course, is that I decided, while there are a lot of websites that show how to make a ribbon rose, there aren’t a whole lot telling you how to make an entire bouquet out of them without wiring them together and all of that confusing nonsense. Two things I should quickly mention however are 1.all the “flowers” for the bouquets and boutonnières were hand folded out of ribbon and 2. Lyne, my partner was instrumental in the completion of this task.

So, without further ado:

Ribbon Rose tutorial

For these roses, I used ribbon that was 1 ¼” wide and cut the ribbon lengths at two feet. Longer ribbon will make roses with more “petals” But two foot ribbon is the minimum length to get the desired effect.  Wider ribbon will create wider roses but make sure your length of ribbon is longer as the wider ribbon eats up more fabric on the folds.

Supplies:

- Ruler
- 1 ¼” Ribbon  I find that using 100% acetate ribbon (McGinley is the brand i found) is easiest for making roses as it doesn’t slip as easily as regular ribbon.
- Scissors
- Stapler

Step 1.

Cut ribbon diagonally at two foot lengths. The diagonal cuts will help when folding the ribbon in on itself to create the “rose”.

Step 2.

Starting roughly two inches from the edge, fold the ribbon at a ninety degree angle downwards, over the ribbon, towards your body.

Step 3.

Fold the ribbon Ninety degrees again, always making sure to keep the new fold on top, to the left.

 Make sure that you create a small gap between the two ribbons as it will make the creation of the “rose” easier

Step 4.

Fold the ribbon ninety degrees upwards, away from your body.

Step 5.

Fold ribbon ninety degrees to the right.

Step 6.
Repeat steps two through 5 until you are only left with 1- 2 inches of ribbon to fold

Step 7.

Pinch the folded ribbon tightly with your left index finger and thumb while pushing the pointed edge of the left over unfolded ribbon down through the hole created from folding. (see above picture.)

Step 8.

While holding on to all the layers, pull the ribbon from the back until it creates the “bud”.

Step 9.

Still holding on to all layers except the top layer, twist the top layer to form the center of the “rose”

Release the second layer and twist. Continue with every layer until desired look is achieved.

Step 10.

Firmly grasp unfolded edges of ribbon and tightly twist together. Staple the left over ribbon twice as closely to the rose as possible.

Step 11.

Cut off excess ribbon.

Ribbon Rose Bouquet assembly tutorial

This makes a small “bridesmaid’s bouquet” Obviously a larger styrofoam ball would make a larger bouquet, it would require about double the flowers however.

Supplies:

- 4” Styrofoam ball cut in half
- 1” dowel cut to desired length of “stems” ( I cut my dowel at 8 1/2" )
- Bouquet cone from craft store
- 1 ½” White satin ribbon
- Glue gun
- 20 – 25 folded ribbon roses ( colors of your choice )
- 1/8” ribbon optional
- Rhinestones ( or any decorations for the bottom of the bouquet )

Step 1.

Cut a hole in the cut side of the styrofoam ball about half an inch deep, and  wide enough to fit the dowel into.

add hot glue to hole and top of dowel, glue dowel into place.

It should look like this:

 

Step 2.

Cut Bouquet holder so it slides onto dowel.

Add hot glue to inside edge of ribbon and glue to cut side of Styrofoam.

You should now have this:

Step 3.

Glue a piece of ribbon to bottom of dowel.

Glue satin ribbon to underside of bouquet holder and spiraling down the dowel.

Step 4.

Working from the middle out, glue flowers onto Styrofoam making sure the flowers are close enough together so the foam doesn’t show.

Step 5.

Add Rhinestones or desired decorations to bouquet.

 

For more pictures of completed decorations, and other cool ideas, check out Lyne’s blog and our website www.royalbash.com