I’ve been getting requests for instructions on how I did stuff at the church party. Here goes:

1. Grass Pots- Buy miniature clay pots from Home Depot (about 30 cents each). Turn them upside down on newspaper and spray paint them. Turn them right side up and spray paint the rim. Buy wheat grass seed from a health food store. (I bought mine in the bulk foods section at Whole Foods. They are called “red wheat berries” or something like that. The wheat costs about 40 cents a pound. Fill the clay pot almost full of soil but leave a quarter inch empty. Line the top of the soil with lots of wheat grass seeds (pack them tightly.) Then cover the seeds with a thin layer of topsoil. Don’t pack it down tight. Water them every morning and give them sun. You’ll have full pots of grass in a week. (One more thing, if you are doing a lot, get a couple nursery trays for transport. It makes things so much easier.)

2. Pom Poms- I buy tissue paper from Paper Mart. (I love these guys. I ordered it Wednesday night and it arrived Friday morning.) You need 8 pieces of tissue paper for each ball. The Martha Stewart directions ask for floral wire but plain old string works just fine. The secret to making them look good is to pull out each layer of tissue one-by-one in order. Don’t “poof” them up until you are ready to hang them or they will look smooshed. All the directions are right here.

3. Flags- This idea I sort of came up with on my own. I love label paper and I’m always messing around with it on projects. I designed the little flags on Adobe Illustrator printed them out on label paper then peeled off the back, wrapped it around a toothpick and cut it into the shape of a flag. You can get label paper from any office supply store.

4. Tablecloths- We are lucky that last year there was a bit of a surplus in the budget so we invested in some table cloths. This makes a huge difference when working with a very tiny budget because as soon as you put the nice colored thick table cloths on…voila, the room is transformed. Whether you rent or buy, get table cloths that hit the ground! There was a question whether to buy neutral table cloths or colored. I think it is important to commit to color. It makes more of an impact which is important when you have a small budget. I chose red because It would go well with Christmas, Valentines, and Fourth of July. The only time of the year I was worried about was spring but we tied everything in with some bright colors and a few pastels.

5. Drink Dispenser- I got this at Costco a few years ago. It is big and heavy and the nozzle doesn’t work that well….BUT it is pretty. Mine was $30. I haven’t seen them for that cheap but I blogged about a source here and Katie, a reader, told me they have them at Target right now.