Treats and Tablescapes - A Challenge

I agonized over this month's i {heart} papers design team challenge.  I loved my little box from last month, and I wanted to be at least that happy with my project this month.  Well, I'm tickled.  I breathe a sigh of relief.  I ended up doing a huge project and then thought, 'What on earth am I doing?!!!!'  But, once it was done I decided it was the right decision to stick it out.  Stay with me here, it's a long post...

The full project;

I wanted to set it up on a table and make it all table top pretty, but my lighting sucks since I worked on this down to the wire and I lost all my daylight.  I have done an Asian themed tablescape.  I will be a doing tutorial on the chopstick holders later this week.  For this project, I used the Granola paper Collection because it has a wonderful earthy feel to it that was perfect for my idea.  By the way, Kate has it on sale right now too. Happy day!

I made the container holding the chopsticks from a puppy formula container that I had saved, hoping I could recycle it somehow.  I learned from experience that when covering a round container, not to assemble the papers ahead of time.  The layers have decreasing overlap the more layers that are adhered to the container.  I used lots of adhesive so the paper wouldn't fall off or sag.

Isn't this knot cool?!!!  It's called a Chinese Lanyard Knot.  Kate ordered some very cool Linen Cord at CHA and I fell in luv!  After I got home, my DD and I were at a book store and I found a book on sale all about tying cool knots.  I bought it just because of this cord.  Be still my beating heart.  I love the effect.

I measured my chopsticks and started cutting paper from those measurements.  My chopsticks (super old cheapies from Ikea) are really fat at the top end, so my holder had to be wide enough to accommodate that.  It's like when I measure for clothes and alterations; I build for the largest measurement.  My chopstick holders are 2"x10 1/4".

The top of the chopstick holders are super simple.  A little paper, round the corners, any old vellum die cut butterfly, and you are done.  The taupe pearls are from ZVA, and Kate is expecting more in.

For the lower half of the chopstick holders, I pierced a border from Ecstasy Large Borders template.  I created a copy paper template so I could line up the metal template precisely for each chopstick holder.

No oriental tablescape would be complete without paper lanterns.  These are super simple and I think the key is having a set of rectangle nestabilities dies.

And I just had to see what they looked like lit;

Make sure you check out the rest of the projects served up for your enjoyment this month!


Carolyn
Cathleen
Deb
Gretchen
Kendra
Lori
Lynn
Megan
Tracy
Kate

paper; granola (basic grey), powder blue, geneva, oxford (bazzill), irridescent vellum (paper accents)
ink; pumice stone distress ink (ranger)
accessories; taupe pearls, white pearls (zva), linen cord (canvas corp), small rectangle nesties, butterfly 2 (spellbinders), large border template (ecstasy/ornare), chinese coin (unknown)