Butterfly Fairy Wands!

My late friend Jayne was a wonderfully creative person who was inspired by the most unusual things and made some really beautiful and unique paper pieces. One of the things she had made was a decorative item for her niece's baby shower, shown here.  It is a butterfly fairy wand!  She had a butterfly die she used to create the base for the wand using some chipboard which she then covered in scrapbook paper on both sides.  Once she did that she cut some rosettes with the Tim Holtz rosette die. This die has two sizes of rosettes, pre-scored so all you do is cut with your Sizzix or Vagabond and then crease and glue together.  The die even has a circle to cover your glued spot in the middle of the rosette.  She put one rosette on each side of the butterfly.  Before she affixed the larger of the rosettes, she painted the stick a silver color and then wrapped it in some ribbon we found in the dollar bin on one of our craft shopping lunches.  She also backed the larger rosette with some of the ribbon and added some ribbon tendrils.

I loved the idea and have used it as inspiration to create my own set of fairy wands for Laila Olivia's baby shower.  The butterfly die I have is a little different in that it is more solid with only a couple of cut outs on each wing.  I decided to go with a (what else) heavy, pink glitter card stock for my butterflies. Liking Jayne's original idea of rosettes I did a reverse to her design and made the rosettes larger than the butterfly by using my Cricut and the Ribbons and Rosettes cartridge and cut these large rosettes with a small heart border. I then cut the smaller rosettes with the Tim Holtz die and used the smaller one on the front of the butterfly.

For the wand portion I used pre-cut dowels in 12 inch lengths you can purchase at any craft store.  I then painted them in a pearly white paint I had leftover from my "Grandkids" project.  I then grabbed a number of different rolls of ribbon from my stash...mostly pinks and browns, some I had also picked up to match the polka dot theme we had going on the cake ribbon and started cutting different lengths.  I hot glued 5 of these differing lengths to a small 3" strip of ribbon and set aside.  Once the paint on the wands was dry I wrapped each wand from top to bottom in a variety of ribbon allowing some of the pearly paint to show through.  


Next I hot glued the ribbon band to the back of the butterfly and then hot glued the wand on the back as well.  Once dry, I hot glued this piece to the large rosette and let them set.  I had picked up some brads, a variety pack of approximately 3/4" size in two shades of pink.  I took the brads and snipped off the prongs on the back with my wire cutters and then hot glued the brad to the top of the small finished rosette.  The brad became the center of each rosette.  Finally I hot glued the rosettes on to the front of the butterflies.


Here is a close up of my finished "Fairy Wands."  I made enough to use as part of the decorations at the shower and once the shower was over my daughter-in-law kept some for Laila's nursery and the rest were given to their nieces who attended the shower.  I'm very proud of my little creation!  They were fun to make and share at the shower.

Go on, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Wreaths

Hi there, it's been awhile...there have been big life happenings in my little corner of the world, but finally feel like I'm getting some of my time freed up again.  I have a small group of friends who try to meet once a month for a craft night.  It's a pretty eclectic group of ladies with a wide variety of styles and tastes.  We started the group to encourage ourselves and each other in our crafty pursuits.  We wanted to specifically set aside time for ourselves, visit and touch base with each other and hopefully accomplish something during that two hour window, one night a month.  We have no set rules, we don't require everyone do the same project, we put out suggestions and usually bring our version of the supplies to create our project.  Something unique and different for each of us.

Have we been successful you may ask?  Depends on how you rate success!  Have we met every month, nope...but in the months we have met, we have done what we set out to do, we've visited, crafted, and most every one of those times, made something new or different, something outside our comfort zone, something we'd seen on Pinterest or somewhere else and wanted to try, and done it with enthusiasm and most importantly...enjoyed ourselves.  For September's evening everyone decided they wanted to make wreaths.  Because we don't have strict rules or a set format everyone did something a little different.

I have a lovely Fall wreath that I had made a few years ago so decided to focus on a wreath for Halloween.  My design utilizes a couple of different design ideas I had seen on Pinterest.  I tried to use only supplies that I had at my house but ended up buying a couple of items as noted.  The first idea was to use wire insulation tubing from Home Depot (.97 cents) to create the wreath.   I cut the tube to the length I needed to create approximately a 15" round wreath.  I duck taped the ends together and then wrapped the entire wreath in black tulle.  I found some black 1/2 inch wide ribbon with glittery dots in Halloween colors at JoAnn's and wrapped that around the circumference of the wreath.  I found the same kind of dotted ribbon in 2 1/2" wide and made a bow for the top of the wreath.


The oval at the top was cut from an old file folder 2 times (recycling at it's best!) and covered in orange paper.  I used a strip of black paper and my Martha Stewart Drippy Goo punch to have some black goo dripping from the top of the oval.  I bought "eeire" words from K&Company, this one says Boo! and has a bunch of glittery, swirls and such.

For the main part of the wreath I decided to go with rosettes!  My eyes are always bigger than they should be and I don't often take into account all the work involved in the particular design I've decided on.  I folded a lot of rosettes!!! Lucky for me I had the Tim Holtz rosettes die and the Ribbons and Rosettes Cricut cartridge which had a rosette pattern with spiders on the edges.  This helped a lot!  I used a variety of patterned Halloween paper I had at home as well as plain card stock in the standard Halloween colors, purple, black, orange, grey. After cutting all the rosettes I folded and glued and folded and glued, and folded and glued some more...you get the idea!  I started arranging the rosettes around the wreath, stacking and hot gluing.  I found a small bag of colorful little spiders that I also added as accents.  I then had enough of the 1 inch dotted ribbon left to make a hanger which I looped around the wreath and tied in a bow at the top.

Fun times!  Cya later!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Mother's Day

I have a new Tim Holtz Alterations die, Hanging Sign.  As you can see from the picture, it looks like a quaint country sign at a cute little bed and breakfast inn surrounded by a field of flowers.  There was born my idea for my Mother's Day card. 

I chose to use white card stock for the card base, actually I used the 6 1/2 x 5" pre-made card base in the packets you can get from Michaels.  I decided to make it a landscape orientation card and chose one of the flower papers from the K&Company, Susan Winget Botanical paper packet.  It has a lot of lavenders, blues and other pastels in the color scheme.  I utilized that for my main background and then cut the sign post from brown card stock.  For the sign itself I chose an off-white paper with a lightly speckled background.  I printed Happy Mother's Day on it using Word and cut it out with the die.  I inked around the edges with Tim Holtz' vintage photo ink pad, added some lavender bling under the sentiment and had some butterfly and floral embellishments that went with the papers and used them on the sign. 

I wanted the sign to be free swinging, like a true sign would be, so I grabbed some jump rings I had and used those to hook the sign to the sign post.  Around the top edge of the card I put a pretty lavender ribbon around and tied in a square not.  Inside the card I stamped the sentiment "How dear to the Heart is a Mother like you..." and added one more butterfly to accent the inside. 

That's a wrap...more fun cards to come...wedding showers, baby showers...more projects!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Scrap Cards

Still using up some of my scraps, from My Minds Eye stash.  These are just general cards for various occasions, thanks, illness, missing you.  I used the idea referenced in yesterday's post but turned the scrap pieces on their sides and added more to go the length of the card from top to bottom.  I also staggered them to add some visual interest.  I added some pretty green ribbon edged with gold from my stash.  For the sentiment I used my Sizzix Decorative Labels dies and stamped my sentiment in Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink then ran it through my Swiss Dots embossing folder.  I added a green pearl on each side of the label then popped it up on pop dots.

Next I took my Stampin Up lacy border punch and punched the same scraps used above and layered them from the bottom of the card about half way up the card.  I used some olive green satin ribbon and laid that over the edge of the top scrap to give it a finished look.  On the sentiment label I stamped in green and added green pearls to complete the look.  I also popped this label up as well.

Last, I grabbed my Martha Stewart punches and started playing.  This particular punch looks like a starburst...I'm not sure of the name of it and apologize for that...it went really well with the paper scraps I chose as it has somewhat of a starburst pattern. I used the punch around the page punch and punched along one side of each strip.  I punched four strips and laid one along the left edge and one along the right edge of the card.  The remaining two strips I put down the center of the card and backed up the straight edges to each other.  I used the large starburst punch and punched a 2 inch starburst out of the same paper.  I pulled a golden rod paper and punched a small 1 1/4 inch circle and a cut a large 2 1/2 inch circle.  I stamped my sentiment on the smaller circle and mounted on top of the starburst and then mounted the whole thing on the 2 1/2 in. circle and added a gold jewel at the bottom.  I put pop dots behind the circle to lift it off the page.  I really like the way it turned out.

And finally, my friend Shawn has designed her own set of sentiment stamps.  She is selling a small number of sets and if you are interested you can check them out here.  She is offering a great deal on them...there are 22 stamps in the set.  A great addition to your stamp collection for a really reasonable price. 

 

I really love to get comments, so please feel free to leave one.  See you around...until then, Imagine, Create and Enjoy!

Birthday Card

My future daughter-in-law's birthday is coming up so I wanted to make a special birthday card.  I utilized the idea found here. I utilized some of my papers from My Minds Eye paper pad I picked up a couple of years ago.  I added some brown satin ribbon along the left side and then utilized my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die to add the flower.  Rather than use different colored papers on alternating flower pieces I used all golden card stock.  In the middle I added a green brad and a green jewel on the top of the brad.  Since the color theme seemed to be gold, green, brown tones, I added the sentiment Celebrate on the bottom in Vintage Photo distress ink also by Tim Holtz.  Inside I stamped a Happy Birthday sentiment.

Simple, but cute and I like the flower...I think it gives it a nice focal point. Hope Dana likes it too!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Retirement Cards

There are a number of my co-workers who are retiring in the next month or so...I needed to make some retirement cards.  I had a number of scraps of different travel papers I had used for a couple of different projects awhile ago so decided to use them up for the retirement cards.  These were inspired by cards shown here and here.  The first one I used a stamp that says Bon Voyage, but it is a little difficult to read.  After that I found a clearer stamp with the same words.  This first one I layered three different pieces of travel paper and added a shimmery ribbon at the top.  I then stamped the the Bon Voyage on an embossed tag from a Cuttlebug die.  I inked it up with some Tim Holtz distress ink and added three little bling on the top schwoopie!

On these next two shots I ended up using one of edge punches and gave them either a scalloped edge or a diamond edge on each of the three different patterned papers.  I still added some glittery ribbon below the sentiment and then inked and added the other Bon Voyage sentiment which was a little more readable.  I also added a little bling on the edges and on the bottom one I added pearl accents to the outsides of the sentiment tag.  The single picture shows the detail of the punched edges.  Ribbon is all from sales at Michael's and Jo Ann's Fabrics.

On these final shots I found a Good Luck stamp and utilized the smaller scraps and the idea referenced above from Pinterest.  I had seen this idea previously with bigger squares as a background or base for a larger sentiment but hadn't thought about using it for smaller scraps of paper.  I also added paper flowers I cut using my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die cut.  I love this die...it is so versatile!  I added some pearl bling and decorative brads.  I only added ribbon to one because the other ones I felt had enough embellishment with the flowers or the sentiment tag in the middle.  These sentiment tags are actually Sizzliet dies their Decorative Label Set #4.

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Valentines Cards

So I've started to work on some Valentine's cards, just playing around and have come up with a few.  These first two used printed card stock by Recollections (Michael's) mounted on red on the left and pink on the right.  For the card on the left I used my Cuttlebug hearts embossing folder on the patterned paper before mounting it on the red paper and ultimately on white card stock as my background.  I cut a small heart, also embossed it with the hearts folder used above, and stamped it You & Me and added some pink pearls to give it some bling.  For the one on the right I used my Tim Holtz rosette die and cut the rosette out of a pretty pink glittered paper scrap from the My Minds Eye paper stack.  I added a couple of jeweled hearts one of which had an arrow through it and some other bling.  I also added the matching jeweled arrow heart in the inside next to the stamped sentiment.

This next card I was trying a different color from the standard pink/red theme usually associated with Valentine's Day.  I layered on top the same patterned paper used above, added a text block on the front with some white pearls and a glittery pink ribbon along the edge.

For this last card I used my Sizzix Texturz plates, the Retro Hearts one and embossed a piece of white card stock.  After cutting it down to the size I wanted I mounted it on pink card stock, I used the Colorbox Cranberry ink pad which looks somewhere between red and pink when sponged onto the raised hearts.  I then used some pink ribbon from my stash that's printed with the words I Love You and hearts.  On the tag (Cuttlebug tags die) I stamped You Complete Me from the My Creative Time, "Turn That Frown Upside Down" set of stamps.  I love her stamps, they are small and petite and you can fit them in small spaces on your projects.  A touch of bling on the bottom of the sentiment tag and we are good to go!

That's it for now!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Birthday Cards

Earlier this week I shared some gift card holders I made for upcoming birthdays.  To complete those gifts for the niece and nephew I did matching cards to go with them.  The card on the left is for my nephew.  I continued the rock and roll theme with some of the leftover scraps from the Rock and Roll paper.  I mounted that on some matching turquoise blue paper and mounted that on white card stock.  I then used another piece of the turquoise paper, cut a frame with a Spellbinders die, stamped the words You Rock on it and used black embossing powder to make it pop.  I mounted that on the flip side of a scrap of the Rock and Roll paper and then cut out one of the guitars from the scraps from the giftcard holder paper and mounted it on the tag with foam pop dots and then used pop dots to mount the sentiment on the front of the card. 


Nephew's Card



For my niece's card I used some of the leftover paper with water lilies on it, mounted on lavender paper and then on white card stock.  I used my Sizzlets Decorative Label die to cut a sentiment block on purple card stock.  I stamped Happy Birthday on it in purple and embellished with some green pearls.  Because this paper had some sparkles in the design of the paper I didn't add much extra bling. Both cards have birthday wishes stamped inside.  Here is each card with the matching gift card holder ready to be sent with their gift cards tucked inside.

 

Niece's Card





Catch you next time.  Until then, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Monogrammed Note Cards

I had previously seen these beautiful monogrammed card sets here and knew I wanted to make some for gifts.  So I made a set for my hairdresser as a Christmas gift and then made two other sets as gifts.  I chose white card stock for the card and embossed piece and used a deep purple card stock for the contrast color.  I used the Musical Flourishes Sizzix embossing folder to add some texture to the front of the cards for the lady's version, an embossing folder that has plenty of schwoopies, and added the monogram for each lady.  I popped up the monogrammed circle off of the card to give it some dimension.  A little bit of bling and they were simple but very pretty gifts.  The first set I made for my hairdresser Kelli I made all the same orientation and they opened from the bottom.  I also embossed the flap of the envelopes as well. 

The second set of lady cards I did half with a top to bottom orientation and the other half opened from right to left.  That changed it up just a little bit.  I chose white card stock again but went with a more lavender toned paper for my contrasts.  The monogram was popped up off the card and blinged out and I also embossed the flap of the envelopes on this set as well.

The third set of cards was for a man so it needed to be more masculine.  I used a Sizzix embossing folder with diagonal lines for the texture and instead of white card stock I used cream and burgundy.  For the monogrammed pieces I used my Cricut and cut a kind of retro sign looking piece in two different sizes.  For these I used the person's first and last initials of their name rather than just their first, and because they were for a guy, I used a font that was a little less swirly and feminine looking.  Again, I did two sets, one that opened top to bottom as shown on the left and then one set that opens right to left.  I think they turned out nicely and were well received when gifted.

I will be making some more monogrammed notecards for gifts for sure.  Until next time, imagine, create, enjoy!

Sizzix

Last Christmas I used some gift cards I received and purchased a Sizzix machine.  I've played with it here and there, but nothing serious until this past weekend.  I've been seeing a lot of cards with embossed layers and find they are beautiful, fun and unique!  I needed a birthday card for my friend so last Sunday my sole purpose was to use my Sizzix and come up with something pretty!  I think I've succeeded!!  This first card is my friends birthday card.  I used one of my Sizzix folders (didn't write the name on it and threw away the packaging!) and chose a pale blue for embossing.  I added a darker blue background as contrast.  I then pulled some ribbon from my stash.  It has wired edges and is actually a series of variegated purple hues, but I think it went quite well with the blue card stock.  I added a lavender butterfly with some bling in the upper right corner using my SU! Butterflies Embossing Sizzlet. On the bottom right I used my Cricut to cut my sentiment piece and background, then inked, stamped, blinged up and mounted my sentiment.  I added a matching sentiment inside on white card stock. 

Next I played with the Allegro Cuttlebug folder.  I love music, if there isn't a movie I'm watching while crafting, the music is on!  This card stock was a kind of rustic red or country red.  I mounted it on a cream card stock.  I liked the look and decided to make it a little elegant with some gold ribbon along the edge.  I cut a sentiment block with my Cricut out of cream and added a pretty sentiment with a butterfly in the corner from one of my stamp sets with a touch of bling on the butterfly and along the bottom of the sentiment.  I inked up the edges with the Tim Holtz Fired Brick ink pad.  I left the inside blank so the sender can write a personalized note.

This card is a birthday card, with the flowery look to it I'm thinking it's a girl's card.  I used the Happy Birthday Cuttlebug folder with a burgundy colored card stock mounted on white.  I add a sentiment square in white card stock in the lower right corner with a small stamped flower and some matching bling. I then added some flowers in the upper left corner with a heart brad in the middle and a little bling on top.  The inside is stamped with Happy Birthday.

Finally, I did a thank you card using the Thanks Cuttlebug folder and burgundy card stock, again on white.   Using the Tim Holtz small rosette die, I added a mini paper rosette on the front with a gold patterned paper from the DCWV Tradewinds paper stack.  I think it punches up the burgundy a little and gives it some dimension.  Inside I stamped "thanks a million and added a schwoopie in the lower right corner with a little bling.  I stamped it with Tim Holtz Fired Brick ink. 

I think I'll be using my Sizzix a lot more in the future!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Mother's Day Card

I have recently gotten some Martha Stewart punches.  They are the deep edge Aster punch, the Starburst punch around the page border and corner punch and the Starburst punch around the page punch that allows you to punch anywhere on the page (i.e., in the middle of the paper).  They had been sitting on my craft table, staring at me...you know...you buy something cuz you think how cute it would be to do a project like that, and you get the item and then it sits and stares at you...at least some of my supplies do that!  Not with everything, but with a few things.  Anyhow, I digress...I decided Mother's Day was the perfect time to use these punches.  After a few attempts with the punch around the page punch I got the idea.  First of all, the way these punches are set to work, you must have evenly sized paper on all sides (if I'm wrong, someone please enlighten me!).  If you don't, you get some half punched flowers or starbursts and others with holes in them.  After I figured that part out it turned out to be pretty easy.  I used purple card stock to punch around for the background against which I mounted some pretty patterned paper from K&Company's Botanical Specialty paper pad by Susan Winget.  She makes some beautiful papers.  I stamped my Mother's Day sentiment on the patterned paper.  I then had a background to mount the butterflies I had cut with my Sizzix machine and my SU! butterfly die.  I then added a large Aster flower made with the deep edge punch out of contrasting green color and added some bling.  What card or project is complete with out a little bling.  I mounted all of this on a specialty white iced looking paper.  On the inside of the card I used my butterfly stamp and stamped butterflies on the left edge of the card, then covered one of the stamped images with a pretty, glittery, blinged out butterfly, and added another butterfly die cut from the Sizzix and added the schwoopie in the lower right corner.  I thought it turned out pretty nice.  My mother-in-law liked it which is the important part!  Thanks for visiting today.  Hope to see you again soon!

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!