User Post: How to make a Parenting Wisdom Tree

My sister-in-law is about to have her first baby, so, I took it upon myself to plan her baby shower. I knew I wanted to do something unique but I was lacking inspiration in the idea department.

So, I Tweeted my baby shower woes (I was looking for unique centerpiece ideas) when, the High Heeled Mama came to my rescue. She suggested making a "family tree" centerpiece.

As I read her blog post about this awesome DIY centerpiece, I also clicked over to the Hostess with the Mostess blog. Using the two resources I had, I finally found my inspiration for a centerpiece.


Here's a little step-by-step "how to" so you can see how my tree came together.

I purchased all of my crafting supplies at Jo Ann Fabrics. The first thing I did was hot glue (my newest crush is a hot glue gun) the owl ribbon around the top of the planter.


Then, I shaved the bottom of a Styrofoam cube with a serrated knife (our wedding cake knife, to be specific) so it would fit snugly into the bottom of the planter. I squeezed a little hot glue onto the bottom and sides of the cube, just for a little extra firm hold.


After the Styrofoam was in place, I trimmed and placed four Curly Brown Willow Stems into the cube. I hot glued the green ribbon to the Styrofoam and then wrapped the ribbon upward around the branches, hot gluing it at the top. Lastly, I hot glued pieces of sheet moss on top of the Styrofoam and around the branches.


I also made the "wisdom" cards to hang on the tree. The idea was for the baby shower guests to jot down a bit of parenting wisdom for the new parents. I picked a selection of matstacks from The Green Stack Matstack that matched my project decor.


I used a small paper cutter to cut them in half and a corner rounder to round the corners. Then, I folded each of the halves and punched a hole using a flower-shaped hole punch. I strung the ribbon through and then hot glued the ends of the ribbon together (instead of tying them, which you could do). I stuck a peel dot sparkler sticker over the ends that I glued, just for a more finished look and to give off some sparkle, if the tree is sitting near a window.


Lastly, I printed out a couple of instruction cards to place on the tables, so guests would know what to do with the tag sitting at their place setting (the instruction cards I printed matched my sister-in-law's baby shower invitations).


And here we have our finished Parenting Wisdom Tree!


You can see the rest of the pictures and decorations on my Flickr here.