Pulling it all Together

My table has been in need of a little refresh lately with some cute decoration, so I pulled some of my favorite Stampin' Up! products to liven up my table!

I recently posted about making an adorable modge podge birdie and wanted to make a few other goodies to go along with it.  

I took a glass hurricane already in my home and added a bow of 1 1/4" burlap ribbon around the neck.  I used two half yard strips to accomplish this.  First, one strip was wrapped around the neck of the hurricane, folded over once and hot glued to hold the two ends of the ribbon in place.  This helped to make the extra tails of my bow.  Second, I tied a bow using the second strip of burlap ribbon and hot glued it to cover the fold from the strip making the band around the hurricane.  These were then trimmed to length.  

Next, I hot glued a button from the naturals designer buttons collection to the center of my bow and added some extra detail to my ribbon with an Early Espresso ink pad and sponge dauber.  

A final detail was added to the hurricane by punching out a two blossoms using a scrap of Soho Subway paper and the blossom punch.  In the center of the blossoms, I added a cork flower embellishment from the new Sale-a-bration Sweet Sorbet accessory pack.  These were adhered to the each side of the bow with some velcro.

Tip: A velcro spot on each side of the bow means I can easily interchange the accessories on each side of my bow depending on the season.  If you aren't interested in changing it out, hot glue works great for adding your flower embellishments to the side of the bow!

For the final decoration, I laminated one piece of 12 x 12 Designer Series Paper is Soho Subway to make a mat for my hurricane and little birdie.

Simply Scrap-alicious!

I put together the Everyday Occasions kit a few weeks ago and I love it for more than one reason.  Not only do you have great cards, you also get a few extra embellishments.  I'm not the kind of person to let any scraps go, and have always enjoyed finding a creative place to use them.  So, when it came to updating my This n' That journal, I thought this was the perfect combination!  Check out how some of the elements from the Everyday Occasions kit have been integrated into my journal!

The tags and feathers from the Everyday Occasions kit works perfectly with my page of pictures from the Grand Canyon.

The pink sunburst, honeycomb banner, and a bit of glitter paper from the Everyday Occasions kit add a little pizzaz and bling to my New Orleans page!  I combined this with the Retro Fresh journal pages and the Epic Day stickers.  These all use similar colors and themes, so I can mix and match!

The title, the hearts, and side banner from the kit are ideal for my San Francisco page.  The grey, white, and aqua coordinate perfectly with my pictures of the bay.

Designed Decorations

I found these beautiful curtains in a discount store recently and was immediately drawn to the pattern, not to mention how they would work well with my yellow walls.  After hanging them in the living room, I wanted to bring another element of that style print to my living space, which led me to the Eye Catching Ikat photopolymer stamp set from Stampin' Up!

Once you go photopolymer, it's hard to stamp with anything else because they offer the same great patterns and quality from Stampin' Up!, but in a completely clear design.  It makes the placement of your work simple and quick, which is perfect for making a pattern or print with the stamps.

Another great feature of photopolymer?  You can easily lay out the design you want to use and see how it looks and rearrange if needed!  I've played around with several prints so far.

In experimenting with the idea of making a print, I tried ink and fabric paint.  You can certainly customize this to your needs!  However, I found that the fabric paint didn't give me the look I envisioned.  In testing the ink stamped on canvas, I loved how some of the texture of the canvas came through the ink.  So, I went with that!

To develop my print, I purchased a yard of a canvas fabric from my local craft store and grabbed a few clear blocks for mounting the photopolymer stamps, stampin' mist, and stampin' scrub stamp cleaners, and the following ink colors to match my living room: Pool Party, Cherry Cobbler, Summer Starfruit, Gumball Green, and Early Espresso.

The most difficult part of this was deciding which color I wanted to use with each stamp!  Here is a look at what the stamped image looks like on canvas (above).  Review your previously made pattern to make sure you know where to start.  Then build your pattern from there!

Here is what my pattern looked like after stamping the images.  This was super simple and easy because of the completely clear photopolymer.  Check out some other patterns used with this stamp set!

It's hard to choose!  I decided to cut out a little of this design for a 4 x 6 frame I had leftover and add to a side table in my living room.  Now my custom print is on display for everyone to see!

A little birdie

I've had this idea for creating a little mixed media bird for a while now and am finally inspired to make it.  The idea came from seeing adorable metal and ceramic birds in home decor and craft stores.  I have a tendency to see things I like and thinking, "I can make that!"

Seeing various little birdies made me want to make a Stampin' Up! version.  I love the colors and vintage feel of the Soho Subway paper from Stampin' Up!, and so chose to use this for my bird.

I started with a paper mache oval as the bird body.  I tore half of a piece of Designer Series Paper (DSP) into small pieces to be used for covering the paper mache body.  I took a foam craft brush and applied some of the modge podge to the paper mache body.  Then, I applied a piece of the DSP to the modge podged area.  Pressing down, I made sure a had good adhesion to the surface.  Finally, I applied another coat of modge podge to the top of the paper.   

This process is repeated continuously- overlapping the strips of paper as necessary to ensure good coverage- until the entire surface of the body is covered.  Let this dry and even consider an added layer of modge podge to give the body a finished look.

For the wings, I drew out a teardrop shape in proportion to the body and cut it out using scrap paper.  Then I took a light layer of modge podge and coated the surface of the paper I wanted to use for the wings.  This not only helped the paper to hold shape better, but gave the paper the same finish as the bird body.  After drying, I used my wing stencil to trace and cut out wings from the DSP paper.

To give the wings some added flair, I re-traced my teardrop shape in the center of the stencil to achieve a smaller teardrop.  Then I cut that out and used it to trace the smaller design on a different designed paper.  This smaller wing shape was then glued to the center of the larger wing using modge podge.

Once the wings were dry, modge podge was added to the back quarter of the wing at the widest end.  This was then attached to the side of the bird body parallel to the body.  By only adding glue to the first quarter of the body, I could ensure the wings were securely attached while allowing the rest of the wing to have dimension.

The beak of the bird came from punching a 2" circle from DSP.  This was then cut halfway through and the corners of the slit section pushed together to create a cone.  This was glued together and then adhered to the front of the bird body.

Now for the tail!  6" by 1/4" strips were cut from a variety of pieces of DSP in the Soho Subway pack, 6 in total.  The end of the strip was then curled.  After all strips are curled, they were then glued together at the non-curled end and attached to the end of the bird body.  

Details were then finalized for the little bird!  I added two small circles using a black sharpie for the eyes.  On the bottom of the bird, I punched two small holes in the bottom for the insertion of the legs.  To make the legs, I used wire left over from hanging a picture, but any wire will do.  Some pliers were used to curl the wire to make the feet.  After making a pair, the leg was inserted into the body and hot glued in place.  

Christmas! ... In January?

Confession- I’m a little behind in finishing some of my Christmas presents. :/  I’m sure you’ve NEVER heard of someone not able to finish all the projects they set out to make, right? ;) With a house move and my brother being hospitalized many times this fall, I had to let some things slip.

Lucky for me, I wasn’t seeing this friend until January AND her birthday is in January, which was perfect motivation to complete this hand crafted present. 

My friend Rebecca is a super talented jewelry maker and all around awesome gal that also advises a group of sorority women with me.  Both of us appreciate and enjoy crafting in all sorts of ways, and have even been vendors at craft shows together.  Her company name is “The Beading Bird” and much of the display items for her jewelry involve birds.

I found two charming decorative birdhouses at a local thrift shop and decided these were destined for Rebecca!  Her colors are a lovely coral and soft aqua, which I used to paint the houses first.  Craft paint and two paint brushes (a craft foam brush and a smaller brush for details) helped with painting the two colors.  After a few coats of paint and drying time, I finished birdhouses with a coat of varnish.  Here is what they looked like after painting.

Next, I wanted to add some excitement and texture to these birdhouses, and the idea of shingles came to mind.  I measured the width of the birdhouse roof and cut a strip of Very Vanilla paper to that size.  I then ran the strip of paper through my scallop edge punch.  After scalloping the edge, I trimmed the paper to ¼ inch to give me a row of scalloped "shingles." I repeated the process for each surface I wanted to shingle, which meant several rows of the scalloped shingles per side of the roof.

After cutting my paper, I added color by running the edges over the Pool Party ink pad.  This brought out the color of the aqua roof on the birdhouses and added some texture to the look of the paper.  Finally, I coated the inked side of the paper with some Crystal Effects to give the shingles a shiny, lacquered finish.

These paper strips dried overnight, and then were ready for attachment the next day.  I used a glue gun to adhere these to the roof of the birdhouse.  While other adhesives like Tombo glue will work, I found that the drying time of hot glue really helped to expedite this process for me. 

To adhere the rows of shingles, I ran a strip of hot glue along the surface of the roof about a quarter inch from the bottom and adhered the strip of paper to the hot glue, trying not to press down too hard.  This helped me to obtain the raised look of the shingles so they weren’t completely flat against the surface of the roof.  I repeated this process until all roof surfaces were tiled.  Trim any bits that might overhang the edge of the roof.

Now my friend can use these adorable birdhouses in her jewelry display or as decoration in her home!

An Artful Kitchen

I had a few photo frames I wasn't using and a little space in my kitchen that needed some love.  Thank goodness for Stampin' Up! and their amazing Designer Series Paper!

My yellow walls match perfectly with the Eastern Elegance DSP paper.  To get started, I trimmed a sheet of paper to 2 pieces cut to 5 x 7 inches.  I then cut out two Whisper White accents using my Apothecary Accents framelits on the Big Shot die cut machine.

I just love the baroque patterns in the Eastern Elegance DSP paper, so I thought it would be nice to incorporate some of the design into this project.  So, I cut out two of the baroque details from the Eastern Elegance paper.  What's great about the DSP paper packs?  The paper is double sided and all the paper coordinates with one another, making the mixing and matching of patterns super simple!  

Then came the fun part!  Since this was being added to my kitchen, I decided to use the lyric, "Hey good lookin'! Whatcha got cookin'?"

I free handed a section of this phrase on each of my apothecary accent pieces using the Bermuda Bay and Pool Party markers on the fine tip side.  A few curly cues and swirls added some extra oomph!

I then adhered the cut out baroque piece to the side of my saying.

This was then adhered to the 5 x 7 piece of paper.  For a final detail, I took a few punched out pieces using Pool Party cardstock and the chevron border punch.

For the last step, these were added to the frames and hung on my wall!  Hopefully this will inspire you to create some fun and simple artwork using some great patterned paper.  Enjoy!