Well, dear readers, I am horribly backlogged, as you may suspect. Life comes at you quick! It looks like things may be picking up for a certain planning-minded miss. Some of them are my own doing, and some, completely, utterly, delightfully unexpected! I have given up on the post promised in the last one, because it has taken more time and research than expected. I might as well tell you now: the promised post was to be a road trip all along the entire length of the Mississippi River, named The Baker Man Trip!!! It will be posted TBA...
What I have in store for you my backlog includes a sake tasting party, my engagement party, and a Nostalgialicious themed combined bday party. BUT, I will start with my first commission: my company asked me to decorate for our Cinco de Mayo lunch. I decided that the cheapest and most effective to create a fiesta-like atmosphere was to make papel picado banners from company paper. All the white papel picados were recycled from already used printer paper. I had only one night to make them, and the room was HUGE, so to make banners that go from one corner of the room to the other and not lose too much sleep, I spaced them farther apart on a piece of yarn. Here are the results!
In retrospect, I should have taken a before pic, but I think it's kinda obvious...
I...er...used the cutouts to make little centerpieces...Save the trees! In case you'e wondering, it's a sombrero. I also made a bell design (the yellow thing on the table in the background) and that X looking design were 4 maracas.
And a different angle...I also played salsa music to set the mood. The sweet deal was we got to make frozen margaritas! Everyone loved the banners and we all had a smashing time.
Papel Picado instructions: Papel picado is like making snowlakes, except you're working with square pieces of paper.
1) As my starting piece of paper is plain old printer paper, I folded one corner of the piece of paper to the other side of the paper, making sure that the edges are perfectly aligned. I then had a triangular flap and an edge that's extra. I cut out the extra edge so that I only had a triangle that's actually a square folded up. To save time, I then used that square as a template to cut the rest of the paper into squares.
1) As my starting piece of paper is plain old printer paper, I folded one corner of the piece of paper to the other side of the paper, making sure that the edges are perfectly aligned. I then had a triangular flap and an edge that's extra. I cut out the extra edge so that I only had a triangle that's actually a square folded up. To save time, I then used that square as a template to cut the rest of the paper into squares.
2) I folded the square in half, then in quarters, then in half again diagonally.
3) I then went to town with a pair of scissors. Be careful not to take out too much of the folded edges as they are structural...
I realized that even with my honey's help and when we're doing random designs, to have the right amount of intricacy, it's taking forever. So, I made the executive decision to have all the white papers intricate and all the colored paper to have a simple bifold or quarter fold design template. That way, it would be plausible to cut several papel picados at once. I then tried my skill at drawing half a sombrero, bell, and maraca. I thought the results were cute, if not accurate.
It was towards midnight when I was struck with another idea! Why not use every scrap of paper and use the simple cutout pieces to make centerpieces? It was modeled after those decorations where it's flat until you open it up and attach the two opposite pieces of cardboard together, and it forms either a ball or a bell or some such. You know what I'm talking about right?
1) To do that, I started with a still folded cutout. I added a square of double stick tape on the bottom and top of the cutout, near the fold.
2) I then layered another still folded cutout on top of the
Pretend that in the last shape, there's two folded pieces on top of each other.
3) Repeat steps 1 & 2 until you've attached ~10 pieces together (it'll work really well if it's a denomination of the number of papel picados you've made of that shape).
4) Allow the folds to decompress, and attach the bottom side of the first piece to the top side of the last piece. Reinforce by taping the the outer edges where two pieces have been taped together. Product should look like the blue sombrero on the table in the second picture of this post (I hope).
Enjoy!
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