Party: Crate Paper {Roses}

You know that type of person who relays a story by starting roughly a decade before the actual event? Do you hate it? Well, then you probably should get ready, because I'm about to do just that.  

When I graduated from high school, I had no idea how to cook. So when I entered college, I took a few cooking classes because I figured my future husband wouldn't want to eat Ramen noodles and PB&J's every night (those were my specialties).  

During my first year cooking class, we spent several weeks cake decorating.  At first, I was extremely excited.  I imagined myself creating a beautiful three-tiered cake with fountains of colorful icing and gobs of gorgeous flowers.  Um....wrong. I spent roughly three weeks trying to keep a steady hand, failing, swiping off the frosting, trying again, failing, and swiping of the frosting again.  Talk about frustrating. 

All that history to say that I don't decorate cakes with frosting.  I posted pictures yesterday of Suze's birthday.  Since we didn't want just a sheet cake from Wal-Mart (no offense, Wal-Mart), we went with a cake from Sherry's Bakery, a bakery here in Dunn known for it's scrumptious pastry creations. But you can't just have a plain, white-frosted cake.  You've just found that I detest decorating cakes with frosting, so what else could I do?  Hmmm. 

I thought about ribbon at first, but I didn't have any. So out came the crate paper and the little crate-paper roses were born.  NO FROSTING!!

 

What you'll need: 

• crate paper (any color)
• card stock
• quilting pins (the type with the ball at the end)
• tape

Begin by tightly balling up the crate paper. This will be the center of your flower.  While holding the center with one hand, twirl the crate paper LOOSLY around the center with your other hand.

Secure the end with tape.  Don't worry, it won't show : )

Cute, right?!

 

I didn't want the crate paper to touch the cake (I was afraid it might bleed into the frosting), so I cut out circles of card stock to put behind the roses.  I chose green and it sort of looked like leaves.  To attach it to the cake, I used quilting pins because they are longer than regular pins.  The kind I had just happened to have yellow balls at the end.  Perfect!