Rosettes and Princess

UPDATE ON THIS BLOG POST!  I don't think this post hit many peoples' inboxes, so I'm posting it again, just in case you did not receive it. I checked with a few of my fellow bloggers and they hadn't received this post. So here it goes again! (posted on April 13, 2019)

Another month gone by,

Where did it go?

Did in hide in the clouds?

Or did it hide in the snow?

Did it hide in the sunshine?

NO.... the sunshine was broken!

Did it hide in the flowers?

NO.... they had not yet awoken....

From a long winter's snooze...

I kind of had the blues....

So I hid in my craft room...

Took off my shoes.......

AND MADE STUFF! 

Yup... I've been making and making and making. I feel like I've been living in a cave for a month! 

I did venture out in my yard today and inspected everything, and I do see that (finally) a few things are starting to bud out. I'm so happy!  Maybe I can come out of my cave now!

My big lilac bush on top left, Irises, Grape Hyacinths (I think?) lower left, and one lonely tulip.

I've made a few things for the little shop here in town, called The Hummingbird Junction. What a darling shop! I've made some Prayer Boxes, a Princess Treasure Box, Easter pillow treat boxes (forgot to take pictures), and some pretty rossette wands. 

The Prayer Boxes are origami boxes...... and I made all of the little prayer request tags to put inside the boxes.

Found these darling little animal buttons at a local 2nd hand store. They are perfect for the little boxes. I have some pink and blue elephant buttons too.. so will make some more Prayer Boxes for those.

I had some pretty "Princess" papers with sentiment tags, so I thought a treasure box would be very appropriate for a little Princess!  I made the tags also....... and once done, they were so cute I put them (digitally) in my Etsy Shop here.  They come six to a sheet and you can print them out and cut them for tags for the little Princess(es) in your life... for gifts or tucked into cards or notes.

I also printed out some pretty colored tags from digital papers I purchased from Etsy. I use my Stampin' Up Scalloped Tag Topper Punch to punch the pretty tops to the 2" wide tags. Makes quick tags!

I'll definitely be making more sweet Treasure Boxes and Prayer Boxes, now that I have all of my prayer request cards made.

My tulip (again),  top right are strawberries just barely peeking up, lower left is some sort of really HARDY geranium that can survive over these cold winters, and lower right is my peach rose. That geranium has gotten HUGE. They grow to become large shrubs that can be about 4 feet across and 3 feet high!

I've become obsessed with paper rosette wands again (and rosettes in general)! I've made tons of rosettes for my Etsy shop (probably 3-4 years ago). I see them on YouTube, and they come and go, but alot of the gals seem to be making them again, so I joined right in!

You can also use cupcake liners or crepe paper to make the rosettes.. so I, of course, had to immediately run to the Dollar Tree to buy cupcake liners and crepe paper!  Oh I'm such a sucker for trying something new and different.

This wand above has a clear cupcake liner on the back (white) but it was kind of cheap and thin (from the Dollar Tree). I'm going to get some nicer ones to use.. and of course, there are TONS of them in all colors, polka dots, stripes, etc. to buy online. I'm in trouble.

I used paper straws for the wands. The are very sturdy and found some at the Dollar Tree. Now I've learned (from YouTube of course!) that I can make my own paper straws! Any paper I want, any color, etc., so I'll be doing that too.

I'm on a mission this year to use up some of my older papers and stickers for various projects. Except um.m.m.m.m.m.  that doesn't count buying digital printables from Etsy (and other sites) does it?  I may use some of the rosettes in my Etsy shop to make some rosette wands for my shop... but they may be too costly to ship.

My little fairy garden needs revamping. The one little clump of daffodils is from my neighbor's yard. So at least I have a little pop of yellow.

I made a sweet little "Life" photo album for my (soon to be) daughter-in-law. She's the one who has the gems/rocks/jewelry shop in Astoria, Oregon. She loves dragonflies, so I used a little charm she had given me for the front cover.

I've also made two good sized photo albums for my Etsy shop. They were so fun to make and I used up some of my older vintage style papers and emphemera.

"Shabby chic 6x8" photo album, sturdy paper, with pockets & (8) 5" x 8" photo mats, vintage girl, 22 tags, roses, pinks, greens, yellows."

The above sweet album can be found HERE in my Etsy shop.

"Vintage style 4x6 photo album, 7 pages, 14 pockets, 7 top pockets, tags, photo mats, Mother, birthday, pink, rose, gray, cream green, lace."

The above vintage style album, perfect for Mother's Day, can be found HERE in my Etsy shop.

I also put this pretty, very sturdy (on 110 lb. paper) vintage "thinking of you" card in my Etsy store. I love these clock faces (free digital printables) I found at Shabby Art Boutique. Kerryanne is from Australia, has a wonderful blog, and store, and quite often has free "shabby" printables that she makes herself. 

This card has its very own matching (very sturdy) envelope!

Well friends... that's what I've been up to. I may have to come out of my cave one of these days, put on the gardening gloves, and do a little sprucing up in our (very tiny) yard.  I know most of you are already seeing many signs of Spring where you live. We are SO behind here... the snow just melted a couple of weeks ago.

Happy Spring!

~Marilyn~

Shabby w/ burlap wedding/engagement cards.

In my last post, I was trying to catch up sharing a few things I've made over the last few months. I succeeded in getting only two things posted. I'm just too wordy! I had to quit with those two as my post was already too long!

So here is another share - an engagement card and wedding card that I made for my nephew and his fiance (now married!).  The engagement card was made over a year ago, and I just finished the wedding card in time for their May 15th wedding. I tried to match the wedding card fairly closely to the engagement card, as my "niece in law" said she wanted to display them both in a frame!

Here they are, posted side by side:

I wasn't sure what their style was, so used some burlap to make the card look a little shabby and grungy.. who doesn't like that? Their wedding colors were purple and gray as my niece in law said that's the only two colors they could agree on! 

The insides had verses I found on the internet, and I printed them out in the same font and used a lot of brown ink disressing on both cards. I used more burlap inside, and little strings from the burlap under the buttons. I managed to find a couple more of those pretty vintage buttons with purple gems in the middle, that I had used on the engagement card. I really wasn't thinking ahead when I made the engagement card, as to saving things to use on their wedding card. It was just pure luck.

 I love making handmade envelopes and used the WRMK Envelope Punch Board for both. The cards were both 5x7 so I made the envelopes big enough to hold the thickness of the card. I used some goldy beige glitter paper for the engagement envelope, some gray satin ribbon and one of my shabby paper flowers that I made using matching scrapbook papers. The tabs with names I printed on my computer and then cut them out with fancy edge scissors and distressed the edges. Here's a close-up of the engagement envelope. I sure love how it turned out.

For the wedding card envelope, I used white glitter paper. It wasn't as fancy as I was on a rushed time frame to get it done! I made a tag so that it was similar to the engagement card envelope and used the same purple ribbon (though it looks blue in the photo), and at the last minute found a bunch of white tulle to tie around it.

Here are a couple of more close-ups of the cards. I really do love how they turned out and love the look of all the burlap. See those vintage buttons on the top? They were so perfect for this card!

 I used vintage images I found on Pinterest that were free for personal use. I tried to keep them similar. I had decided on the "dance" theme for the wedding card, as my sister told me they had taken dance lessons together just so they could dance at their wedding.......... so I wanted a vintage image of a couple dancing. Do you know how hard it was to find a good vintage image of a couple dancing, in the same era as the couple sitting on the moon?? Very hard! 

 And here's Jacob and Julie dancing at their wedding!

Until next time.............. stay cool! Was 105 here today..... in Oregon.... on June 5th?  Crazy!

Something pretty this way comes....

Here's a sweet little shabby "pretty" that I made the other day. I just wanted to share it with you.  If you're a seamstress, you may have made the radiant star design before. This is much like the radiant star design, and NO SEWING!

Voila! ........ my "shabby chic" ornament..... to festoon my Christmas tree, or any little knob or hook waiting to be presented with something pretty (and pink!).

And how did I make this you say? Well..... no sewing required! That's the first good thing about this project. The other thing is that it's FUN... and you get to use fabrics from your huge fabric stash. Here's the video tutorial by Shabby Fabrics that I watched on YouTube, to learn how to make one of these cute ornamental decorations. 

You just use little 2-1/2 x 2-1/2 squares of fabric (40 squares), either from a jelly roll or from your overflowing scrap stash.... lots of little straight pins (very small head, called satin pins) and a 3" styrofoam ball. Note: use a regular styrofoam ball, not a Smoothfoam ball, as the Smoothfoam is very hard to push the pins into. That's it! Easy peasey. 

You can see the points of the fabric around the top. In each point, there is a little pin stuck in. I glued on the lace and glued on some little pink "fork bows". If you haven't tried a fork bow, go to YouTube and search and you'll find many tutorials. They are so much easier than trying to make a tiny bow! 

My ribbon hanger is a sheer ribbon, with another pink bow. I also added some little pink strands of beads.

This shows the size compared to my hand. Also, I put some lace around the middle instead of ribbon, and put the bow and hanger on top rather than along the side (my mistake... and I just noticed! oh well.. this was my "practice" piece. If you watch the tutorial, you'll see that the "star" design is supposed to be on the side, not the top.)

The above photo is the full design of the little folded squares, which form the star. Normally (if you don't make a mistake like I did!), this design will show on the SIDE of the ornament as it hangs..... not on the top and bottom where it is kind of hidden. 

It's a little time consuming to make this, but sit and watch one of  your favorite movies on TV, and pin away! No iron needed... just your finger and alot of pins. I finally dug out my old thimble, as my finger got a little sore punching those pins in the styrofoam. 

I'm off to start another one, this time using Christmas fabrics... or hum.m.m.m. maybe another shabby one. I love it!

Hope you give this a try. Let me know if you do and send me an email with a photo. They would make great gifts.... and besides...........they're addictive!

FUN AND FUNKY VINTAGE/GRUNGE TYPE CARD.

With summer finally in full swing here, I'm finding less and less time to sit myself down at my craft table! I did manage to make a neat vintage/steampunk/grunge card for my nephew and his fianace, for their engagement party. Thought I'd give it a little spotlight here because I really liked how it turned out!

I used a purple and gray color theme, as these are their wedding colors, and I did alot of inking of edges with some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo (which I love love!).  See those 3 little buttons on the top? They were some pretty vintage buttons I found at a garage sale. I love the little purple gems that sparkle and shine when you turn the card this way and that.

I tucked in a little lace doily on the left side of the photo, after sponging it with the vintage photo ink.

Don't you just ADORE this image? I found it on Pinterest when I searched for "vintage photo couple on moon". The website it's from is Deviant Art. Her images are free for personal use.  I typed the various tags text using MS Word, using a fancy font, then printed them out on cream cardstock, and cut them out with fancy edged scissors. The photo was also cut along the edges with my fancy edged scissors and ink distressed.

  
Burlap always gives something a more grunge/vintage look, so I cut strips and frayed the edges, to add under their names, and the sentiments. I stamped some little black stars on each side of the "love you to the moon and back".
  

I found this saying by searching online for engagement quotes. I thought it was just perfect. And there's another one of those vintage buttons at the bottom. Love it!

I used a little more burlap on the inside for a little added interest... and used a few little burlap strings that I had pulled out from the edges.

I made my special envelope using the We Are Memory Keepers envelope punch board. That is one of my FAVE tools.   The paper is a glittery gold paper that I got from JoAnn's. The "belly band" is made with some gray satin polka dot ribbon. It can be slid off easily. I didn't want to mar the envelope and ruin it, but taping it shut. To the belly band ribbon, I added one of my handmade shabby paper flowers using the same purple and gray papers, and a pretty lavender organza ribbon bow.

The tag is also made with the gold glittery paper (though you can't see how it sparkles in this photo unfortunately). Another little lavender bow tops it off, with their names on a little piece of cream cardstock, and a little strip of the scrapbook paper with the purple flowers glued on. Lots of distressing here too.

This wasn't really a tutorial, but I hope you get a few ideas from my card. Happy crafting!