Tissue Paper Balls - Creative Every Day - Days 16 and 17

This year marks the tenth anniversary of Olivia's adoption day. Olivia was born in Dianjiang which is in Chongqing Municipality - towards the west-central part of China.

We normally go out to eat at a Chinese restaurant that she chooses (as does Sophia when it is the anniversary of her adoption day which is in nine days). We did that for lunch (rather than dinner) and then in the evening, we will have a very light dinner or snack (most likely the latter).

Since it is a milestone year, I wanted to decorate the dining room a bit different this year. I saw a pin on Pinterest that led to Koyal Wholesale which sells tissue-paper pom poms. The link shows how to fold and assemble the pom poms.

The dining room decorated with white paper lanterns, 

three tissue-paper flowers (one blue one and two white ones), and

four fancy blue bows.

My initial inspiration, however,  came from another pin that leads to Craig and Whitney where there was a lovely combination of paper lanterns, tissue-paper flowers, and other  paper decorations hanging from the ceiling.

So, the first step was to fold 8 layers of tissue paper into about 1 or 1 1/2 inch widths - doing an accordion fold. Once the tissue paper was folded, I used 20-gauge wire to hold the accordion-folded tissue paper in place in the middle.

Next, I cut the ends of the tissue paper off in a rounded-fashion. Then I began pulling each layer up individually to one side. I did this four times. I repeated on the other side.

The blue tissue-paper pom pom.

After "fluffing" the pom pom a bit, it was ready to be hung. I used white thread that I tied in a loop for the hanger and a tack to use in the ceiling.

Tried to put the tack in the ceiling. "You have to be kidding me," I said aloud. The ceiling is hard as a rock. There is no way in the world that anything is going to be pushed into it. So much for trying to make a version of the pin I saw on Craig and Whitney's blog.

So, I had to do Plan B: use the tacks to hang up the lanterns along the beams. Rather than pushing the tacks into the ceiling, I could push them into the wood which is slightly softer.

Next came the tissue-paper pom poms. The big blue one is a bit heavier than I thought, so I hung it from an existing hook.

One of the white pom poms.

The little white ones were light enough to hang on the window with tape. The blue bows were taped onto the windows near the white pom-poms.

The two small blue bows along with 

the white tissue-paper pom pom.

Took a picture, and then left to pick the girls up from play practice and go out to eat.

Thought I had everything high enough on the windows.

We came home and Sophia was the first one to the mudroom door which has a window looking at the kitchen.

"Oh oh...Mom, I think Cooper got into toilet paper," was what Sophia said when she looked into the kitchen.

In the relatively short time period that we were gone, Cooper had taken the white pom poms down from the windows, and destroyed them in the kitchen and living room.

After showing the girls the photo I took of what Cooper had torn apart (see above) , they turned their attention back to the dining room.

"When did you do all this?" they asked. They were both equally as excited about the lanterns and decorations.

I told them I did this while they were at play practice; and was thinking about the hanging lanterns in China that led to the entrance of the Chongqing zoo. We saw pandas there which was one of the highlights of the visit.

Entrance to the zoo in Chongqing. 

There were hundreds of red paper lanterns lining the driveway.

It was fun to decorate the dining room for Olivia's adoption day anniversary while thinking back ten years ago and the journey we were beginning to take with one another.