How to Make A Shower Umbrella - Part 1

This article is in two parts.  The first part covers the umbrella you would select, the possibility of dieing the umbrella, the sizes you might use for a shower umbrella.

Part two covers the materials you will need, approximate yardage, and the methods used to create a shower umbrella.

Since Thinkwedding is one of the few websites to feature white umbrellas of various sizes, we get a lot of inquiries about creating shower umbrellas, and also about dying umbrellas to be used as parasols by bridesmaids, flower girls, or both.

There are so many uses for white umbrellas, but all white umbrellas of any size is so difficult to get!  After a lot of searching, we found one of the few umbrella makers left in the United States.  They can no longer make a living out of making regular sized umbrellas; their specialty is now making the huge outdoor umbrellas.  Because it's worthwhile paying more for umbrellas that can be completely repaired when they're that large, they do a considerable business with hotel chains.
 

They did, however, have the machinery and supplies to make ordinary umbrellas, if I could give them sizeable enough orders to set it up and run it, which is what I ended up doing.  Obviously, we didn't start out with a lot of sizes because of the huge orders we had to place, but over time we have been able to add the sizes we though would be most useful to our visitors.

All this background is leading to the fact that we sometimes get requests for other colors, because a bride wants her bridesmaids to carry parasols that match their dresses.  I have also had requests for ivory.  Now that you know what we went through just to get white, I'm sure you understand why it's not financially feasible to carry colors.  We just found a solution, though!

We found out that if you use spray floral paint, that it not only colors the fabric of an umbrella beautifully, but it's completely water resistant, which is something we didn't expect.  We took a teal floral spray, which is ordinarily use to "tip" flowers such as carnations and daisies, and sprayed the white fabric on a 34" umbrella.  We waited for about 2 minutes, then ran it under the faucet, with the water at full spray--and would you believe--it didn't run at all!  The water was completely clear!

We then decided to try it with a black umbrella and found that it really darkened the color, because after all, it is a spray.  What we wanted to determine is if we could avoid having to order white umbrellas at all, but found out it doesn't work that way.  When we checked the underside of the fabric, we found out that the color shows all the way through.

So now all you brides who wanted things like peach and periwinkle, which are two colors that are open to wide interpretation, you can now do it yourself!  One of the questions we had was could we get an even color with a spray, but it turned out that we could indeed get even color if we used wide sweeping even strokes, and kept the spray bottle about 15" to 18" away from the fabric.  If you want to keep anything white, like the spoke at the top or at the ends of the fabric, be sure to cover them up, because the spray did color them as well, and it was again resistant to smearing and water.

We haven't checked yet, but we believe that floral sprays are available through craft stores, and they are certainly available through floral supply houses.  We also know that they come in a wide range of colors, which ought to suit anyone's color interpretation!  Incidentally, if you're searching the internet, the most likely words are "flower supplies" or "floral supplies."  We did a quick search before writing this article, and what did we see right away but Antique White!  This is a shade between white and ivory, and would probably be perfect for the requests I've have for ivory.  I'm not sure how much to buy for our 60" umbrellas, but one can would be more than sufficient for our 34" and 42" ones.

That introduces the next subject, and that is what size would be the best for bridal shower umbrellas?  We feel that the 34" size is ideal.  Umbrellas are measured from the tip of the spoke on one side to the tip of the spoke on the other side.  So a 34" umbrella would not measure 34" across, but slightly less than that, because you measure over the arc on the top of the umbrella.    The 34" size is the size of a child's umbrella; that is, it could be used by child of between 4 and 10.  It is slightly smaller than a standard size umbrella.

The alternative size would be a 42" umbrella.  This is a standard size umbrella that you would see on the street and used by an adult.  It is also the size of most folding umbrellas--the kind that fold into 13" to 15" when not in use.

The reason we favor the 34" umbrella is because it is large enough to be used as a decoration, but since it is slightly smaller than a standard umbrella, you don't have to use as much lace and ribbon to decorate it.  In addition, if an umbrella is too large, it can be a challenge to place correctly on a table, or hang over the honoree's chair.  In other words, we feel it's just large enough, but not too large.

There is another size umbrella that may be useful, and that's the 20" umbrella.  This is definitely a small umbrella and while you wouldn't use it for the main decoration, it works beautifully as accent decorations, and as centerpieces on tables.

In part two of this article, we will discuss the materials and yardage you may want to use to decorate your umbrella, as well as methods and techniques we have tried--which worked and which didn't.