My Sister’s Sweet 16 Project
Recently one of my cousin's daughters turned 16. Her name is Briana. And my sister was asked to be a godmother to Briana. She is what is called in spanish "la madrina del brindis" or in english the toast godmother.
The first thing we did was go to downtown Santa Ana or as many people call it "la cuatro". I think this is the best place to shop for what you need for your quinceañera or sweet 16 party wether you are the main girl of the party or a godparent.
Wherever we saw fluffy quinceañera dresses we made sure to go in and browse the shop. We saw so many amazing looking centerpieces like the one my sister needed for the party. Many of them were branch trees decked out with lots of nice flowers and ribbon along with the cups for the toast hanging on each branch. The bottles of apple cider were embellished with nice linen, ribbon, flowers, and even fake jewels. You guys I wish I had pictures of all the good centerpieces we saw and that my sister fell in love with. There was one with the cups surrounding a huge sweet 16 crown which my sister liked more than anything else. There was even one with horses and a carriage pulling the bottle and a certain amount of cups behind.
If you are ever in downtown Santa Ana do not be afraid to go inside these shops and see how creative and talented these people are. You could get ideas for your wedding, quinceañera, sweet 16, and other parties.
All the arrangements and centerpieces for the toast ended up costing $300 to $500. Now I am not going to lie I am not sure why my sister wanted to create and diy her own but I am really glad she did. I remember that she was so excited after seeing all the creativeness and said I can do this and it might even be cheaper to do my own version.
As soon as we got home that day she started searching online she used youtube and Pinterest as her main inspiration and went from there.
Next thing I know she is at Michaels shopping for the cups and what she was going to use for the base. She called me and sent me pictures as she explained her ideas and wanted me to give her some of my ideas and opinions. A couple days later she took me, our mom, and her son to Hobby Lobby. We had luck that day all the florals were 40% off and my sister really surprised me that day. She had really good taste in florals and in the ribbons she chose.
I was happy to see my sister excited about something that was very crafty, diy, and creative. She says it reminded her of her wedding when she did most of the decor. I remember her saying that maybe this was her calling all along and that this is what she is meant to be doing.
The hardest part about this whole project was finding flowers that matched Briana's dress pictured below and having a base for the whole project.
She used the largest tray of a three tier dessert tray, a wood cutting board, two small pieces of wood, a pool noodle and a humongous embroidery hoop as the main base and structure of her project.
She inserted and glued all the flowers and leaves onto the pool noodle around the embroidery hoop. When it came down to putting all the flowers and greenery she was a pro and reminded me of a florist just doing her thing.
Embellishing the bottle and the cups was one of the last things my sister did. She did really cool ribbons and made the cutest flowers out of ribbon for the cups and the bottle which it is probably hard to see the detail of the bottle with everything surrounding it.
Me, my family and sister really liked the end result. Also how cool that it actually matches Briana's bouquet. Hopefully she gets asked to be a godmother again because I am sure she will knock it out of the park again like she did this time.
Good job sister for kicking butt and I am proud of you for the awesome work you did. I know it was stressful at times, and I know that I should have helped you more to save you some stress but I am so happy that you got through it. She did tell me that she got a really huge pimple the day before the sweet 16 and that her husband believes it was because she was so stressed with the project that a pimple even showed up.
You guys despite everything my sister was really happy with the end result and she says she will do an even better job if given another opportunity in the future.
