Married in October of 2007 Stacie was the quintessential Flirty Bride and used her own wedding as an opportunity to bring to life her vision of what a flirty bride is, and how much fun she should have, both planning her own wedding and at the wedding itself.
A one woman design studio, or as she calls herself, creative consultant, Stacie Tamaki is one busy girl. You can always see the latest she's been up to on her Fun and Flirty Blog.
Whether she's making custom bridal veils, tiaras, jewelry and cake toppers, or creating miniature origami cranes, her imagination knows few boundaries.
Her career in the bridal industry began 11 years ago. Her bridal, origami and custom dog costumes have been featured online and in newspapers, magazines, 4X on San Jose's, KNTV News Channel 11, HGTV , and the TODAY Show.
The plywood base before - due to the knots in the wood I knew that painting wasn't really an option as it wouldn't completely hide the flaws.
So here was my solution. I took two packages of printed origami paper and cut it into quarters. I applied Mod Podge to the back of each piece with a brush, then coated the top with more Mod Podge so the entire base was sealed.
After being Mod Podged with Origami Paper
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One Thousand Cranes
As some of you might know, I fold origami cranes. Thousands upon thousands of them over the past decade.
I wanted to use a set as the backdrop for our ceremony as 1000 cranes are considered "Good Luck" to the bride and groom at Japanese American Weddings.
Because we had a short engagement, 5 months, I didn't have time to fold a new set so my sister loaned back to me the 1000 I had made for her wedding.
For her wedding we had hung them from a grapevine wreath. At our hotel there was nowhere to suspend a hanging fixture from so I needed to come up with a free standing base to display them on. My solution was to find an iron garden arch and hang them from it.
After a ton of web surfing I came up with this delicate, scrolled arch. I even bloggged about it! It was a bit on the flimsy side so to get it to stand upright we needed to screw the feet down to a wooden base. A quick trip to Home depot, 6 wood screws, two packages of printed origami paper and a bottle of Mod Podge later and we were set.
After finishing the wooden rounds I began weaving grape vine along the top of the arch. From that I suspended origami wisteria and leaves. My friend Melany Moore from Shanel's Flowers and Frames volunteered to learn how to make them and folded 3 of the 5 wisteria cones that adorned the arch on our wedding day.
Cranes by: Tiny Cranes
Wisteria by: Melany Moore and Stacie Tamaki
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Comments (13)
DIXIE LEE KANAS• 2009-01-19 09:08:04
HI THERE
YOUR DISPLAY OF THE ORIGAMI CRANES ARE JUST BEAUTIFUL. MY NIECE WHATS TO DO THIS WITH FOR HER DAUGHTERS WEDDING NEXT YEAT. I OFFERED TO HELP THEM.
OUR QUESTION IS; WHAT DO YOU STRING THEM ON, HOW FAR A PART AND I HEARD A BEAD GOES ON THE END OF EACH ONE?
THANK YOU SO MUCH IF YOU CAN TAKE THE TIME TO ANSWER ME.
DIXIE
I use a metallic lame cord by Westrim to hang my larger cranes.
You can see a photo and even order it online here: http://tinyurl.com/beqkpo
For my tiny cranes I use metallic sewing thread made by Coats & Clark: http://tinyurl.com/cjjhrq
Both are usually available at fabric stores. The heavier lame cord is available at craft stores.
As for how far to string them apart. This simply depends on how you want the strand to look. You can do anything from letting each crane rest upon the one beneath it to spacing them several inches apart to make the full set a specific height. That takes some math. Figure out how many strands you will have and divide into 1000. That will tell you how many cranes will be on each strand. Then figure out how long you want each strand to be and divide the number of cranes into the length of the strand and that should tell you how many inches apart they need to be.
To suspend each crane on the strand to create space between them I use a low temp glue gun. The hot ones will burn right through the thread or cord so the low temp is better. I put just a dab of glue on the cord. To see exactly how I do it you can watch this video where I was a guest on an HGTV show and did a brief demonstration of how to hang a strand of miniature crane.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pg80UKLCBk
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Ronda• 2009-02-10 00:32:31
Hi,
I was wondering what size are the cranes and did you use origami paper or some other type of paper? I see some that have patterns and some that are solid in color but are not the same shade thru out. Sorry right now I can't think of the right word for that.
Ronda
The cranes are approximately 1.5" high made out of 3" square of origami paper. I think the word you were looking for was "gradient" to describe the papers with the shading. I buy mine locally but if you go to the link below the "Harmony" papers on this website are the type I used:
http://www.origamicorner.com/sppa.html
I hope this is helpful to you :)
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Faerenach• 2009-05-06 11:44:50
I'm trying to find a pattern for origami wisteria - how did you do yours?
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Mrs.WaiteonLanai• 2009-07-04 02:29:10
Aloha from Lanai, My sister is getting married and is up to 800 cranes so far, aiming for 1001. Her theme is bamboos and umbrellas. She wants to hang her cranes like a chandellier, and our thought was to attach them to an one of the 32 inch (diameter) chinese umbrellas. For the life of me, I do not know how this will work because of the weight of the paper and the durability of the umbrellas. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated...
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The Flirty Girl• 2009-07-04 02:29:47
Hi Mrs.WaiteonLanai,
The umbrella should be able to bear the weight of the cranes as they aren't that heavy. Is this the hanging style you were thinking of?
The Flirty Girl• 2009-07-04 02:31:42
Hi Faerenach,
I will try to create a wisteria tutorial for you as soon as possible! Sorry for the delay.
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tiffany• 2009-08-07 21:19:11
hi,
i'm planning on folding 1001 cranes for my wedding next year. but i'm having a hard time finding pearl white origami paper... i've contacted several people, but no luck. do you have any suggestions on colors with regards to having the cranes framed as art (aside from gold)? thanks!
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Holly• 2009-11-20 14:31:30
i was wondering who did you order the metal arch from on the internet and how much was it including shipping?
i really would love this as i have been looking for something like this for a long time for my 1000 paper cranes im folding
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The Flirty Guide• 2009-11-20 14:49:56
Hi Holly,
I ordered the arch from an eBay seller whose user name is vintagethings30. The link to his items is:
I hope this is helpful to you. We purchased the arch for our wedding in the fall of 2007 so he may not have the same design available now but maybe he'll have something similar.
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The Flirty Guide• 2009-11-20 14:56:28
Tiffany!
My apologies that I only just now saw your comment. Unfortunately I do not know of any local source for the pearl white paper you are looking for. My only course of action would be to go to Google and do a search for it there. Sorry, I know that isn't really helpful.
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Holly• 2009-11-20 16:23:11
WOW THANK YOU STACIE SO MUCH you've helped me out a ton i really didn't think you'd respond so quickly i really appreciate it! ill def post a pic after my wedding in april 2010! my cranes are going to be white/turquoise color
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