Felt Flower Pin Tutorial

I had a couple requests to show you how to create the felt flower pin I showed in the post below. You'll need some felt, two sizes of dies (can be a flower, circle or oval), thread, button, hot glue and a pin. First, die cut 5 large and 9 small 'petals' for your flower. Here I used the Delightful Dalia Papertrey Ink dies. You'll notice later I used a different button as the button below ended up being too large. Take your thread and weave it in and out of the bottom of the first 'petal', seen below.

Do the same for the next petal. Pull the thread to gather the felt at the bottom of the petal. Here's the first two petals pulled together.

Continue this process for all 5 of the large petals. Once all five petals are complete, join petal 5 to petal 1. Pull the thread as tight as you want to get the desired amout of gathering. Begin the same process for the smaller petals.

Until all 5 small petals are complete. Here I sticth them down to the large petal base as it makes it a bit easier to work with.

Add the remaining three petals on top of the second layer and secure down.

Choose a button for the center of the flower and stitch to the center of the flower. One your button is in place take the final small petal and cut two vertical slits and a horizontal slit in the felt. This creates a slot to fit in the pin without it showing on the back of the flower.

Glue down the flap to the bottom of the pin.

Then glue the entire pin back to the back of the felt flower.

Voila! Your completed felt flower pin.

If you create one, please leave your blog address in the comments. I'd love to see what you come up with!

It's almost time......

for Santa to come! Yipee! Oh how I love Christmas. I've been busy making goodies, cards, shipping out packages, etc. and have negletec the blog-o-ronie. So I have a fascination lately with felt. I decided to pick up some at Joann and try my hand at hand made felt flowers.

I used my Delightful Dahlia PTI dies to create the petals and a button from my stash. For my first flower I think this turned out really good! I think the ladies in my family will be getting some of these for the holidays!

Today I'm also sharing one of the Christmas cards I sent out this year. I think it is just stunning! The Through the Tress set form PTI reminds me of the winter aspens of Colorado with a lone cardinal. Thanks for stopping by!

I survived!

No pictures today, sorry. Just a quick post to say I survived Santa's Sweatshop...errr I mean Workshop. LOL! What a day - not bad, not great, but a day. I've now experienced this and not sure I want to sign up for it again. I guess I can mark that off my bucket list. :)

Working my fingers to the bone

So I signed up to sell items at the upcoming Santa's workshop at the elementary school. Items can be new or handmade. I have known for a while, but didn't really get going until this week. Did I mention it this Friday, Dec 3? AHAHAH!!!! So I haven't had much time for the bloggoroonie. I thought i'd share what I whipped up today.

What do you think of this beauty? I have to say that I am thrilled with the way it turned out. Thanks to my friend Alicia, who let me know that Hobby Lobby had raw perpetual calendars in the unfinished wood area! It had a wood anchor attached to the top, but I pried it off.

I painted it two colors from some old Making Memories paint. Let me tell you that stuff is great! One coat and it's done!

I pulled out some Basic Grey paper,Calendar Basics PTI stamp set and foam numbers I got at a CK convention a couple of years ago and voila!

What do you think? Hubby can't get over how cool it is and says he wants to buy it for one of his work wives. ;) I told him if it doesn't sell at Santa's workshop. More to share on my creations,but this elf has to get back to work.

Orange Winter Wishes

This weeks Whimsie Wednesday challenge is a Sketch by my dear friend Alicia, aka CraftyAl. I thought I would combine this sketch with the OTWC color challenge.

I really pushed the envelope on this one by creating a winter/holiday cardin halloween colors. Well maybe not so much a strecth...... these colors also happen to be the school colors where my hubby went, and my son wants to go to, high school.

I just adore this little cheerleader image. Notice the sparklie orange & black paper? LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! I picked it up at Joann on sale a few weeks ago. Tip: you can color your own gems with your Copic markers! I didn't have any black gems, but a little coloring and voila!

Supplies Paper: PTI (Orange Zest); Neenah (White); Core Couture (Catwalk, Black Tie) Stamps: Whimsie Doodles (Snowgirl); PTI (Polkadot Basics II) Ink: CTMH (White Daisy), Copic Other: Gems

Warm Winter Wishes

The Challenge: There is always a lot of focus on Christmas in our industry this time of year, as that is what the majority of the population celebrates. However, this month's blog hop is dedicated to those that celebrate winter holidays other than Christmas. Create a project that celebrates Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or some other winter holiday as we embrace everyone's beliefs in a celebration of diversity through paper crafting.

I thought I would use my new Favor It 2 die and a super cute Whimsie Doodles image! I felt this was neutral enough to give someone who didn't celebrate Christmas. Using non-raditional colors was this weeks Whimsie Doodles Challege. I used lots of pastels with a heaping of pink!

Supplies:

Stamps: PTI (Stocking Prints, Polka Dot Basics); Whimsie Doodles (Snowgirl Treet)

Paper: PTI (Sweet Blush); Neenah (White)

Ink: CTMH (Hollyhock, Daisy White); Copic

Other: PTI Die (Favor It 2); 3D Foam Tape

A pumpkin fairytale, Lanterns and cake pops!

It was time to attend the annual pumpkin carving party our friend throw. We had patterns in hand (bought on clearance after Halloween last year) and clean, gutted pumpkins! Reanne wanted Cinderella's Castle, so I decided to carve mine as Cinderella's Carriage. Boy did they turn out great!!!

The castle was easy. I was able to bust this puppy out in about 15 minutes. Then there was the carriage......

This took quite a bit longer. I think it was well over an hour, maybe even two! I traced the pattern and cut 90% with an exacto knife. We get serious about our carving at this party I tell ya.

The boys just couldn't resist making theirs into something comic book related.... Doug's on the left is the White Lantern and Douglas's on the right is the Yellow Lantern. Sorry for those not comic oriented, but these are from a really cool series Blackest Night and the follow up Brightest Day. Lastly are some ghoulis cake pops. If you've never heard of these go check them out here. I got together with a girl friend friday to teach her how to make these yummies. The cake inside is a yellow cake mix dyed redish, purplish. I drizzled the red after they were set to look like blood. I found the cute little cauldron on sale at Joanne and couldn't resist. They were a hit at the party.

SPOOOOOOOKY!

Today is a double post, so be sure to scroll down to see both.

I do love Halloween and really love creating fun papercrafts. I decided to stop hording all the $1 chipboard albums I bought at Michael's and put them to good use. So what do you think of my Halloween banner?

Here's a close up. Did you know that Twinkling H2O's color chipboard??? Oh my it's amazing! I wish the shimmery, sparkle-i-ness of it showed up in these pictures. The letters are purple (which looks like blue here) and green. I've debated about glueing googlie eye in the center of the O's. So to help me decide I'd like your opinion - Yay or Nay on the googlie eye's. Who knows there just might be a trick or treat in it for you!

Birthday/Anniversary Calendar

I am trying to get a head start on Christmas gifts this year. I decided to make, for a family member that shall remain unnamed, a Birthday/Anniversary binder. It has a page for each month that allows you to write in birthdays and anniversary's for each day of the month. The pages have a pocket that can hold cards for those special days. Here's a close up of the covered. The colors aren't true to life here, but to capture the text I had to modify slightlly in Photoshop. The cupcake to me was the perfect image....you can't celebrate a birthday or anniversary without cake! My color scheme is mainly PTI Lemon Tart, with the text accent in PTI Summer Sunrise. Lastly a close up of the spine. I really like how this turned out! Now I have to get to making cards to fill the inside!!!

Supplies

Stamps: PTI (Calendar Basics, Cupcake Collection, Wedding Day, Simple Alphabet)

Paper: PTI (Lemon Tart), Neenah (White)

Ink: Copic, PTI (Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise), Palette (Black)

Other: Spellbinders Labels 4, 3D Adhesive

Wreath for All Seasons

Ohhhh I love this stamp set! It's from the September PTI release and a must have set for any stamper. Here is a quick and easy birthday card I made for a good friend last week. I used the twig wreath in a medium brown ink paired with the small dots/berries in PTI Spring Rain. I also used the PTI Mat Stack 3 die - love this too! I finished off the card with a simple satin bow and some distressed ink around the edges.

Whimsie Wednesday Challenge 53

My good friend Alicia is the host of this weeks Whimsie Wednesday Challenge 53,so I decided to play along. I finally broke down and selected some images that i really loved! A set of adorable Christmas cupcakes ( of Whimsie calls them muffins, but I'm all about cupcakes) aka Muffin for Christmas.

I just loves these images!!!! I started with the Chirstmas tree and used my Copics, then added a touch of Glossy accents to the ribbon and bow, and topped off he star with some Stickels. The ATC base was stamped with PTI's Text Style and finised off with some old MM rub-ons. Now all I need to do is make a card base to put this beauty on!

HEC #11 - Trick or Treat

Wow! I didn't realize it had been so long since I last posted!!! Well I am in full swing Halloween here. This is for HEC's Challenge #11 Trick or Treat. I was lucky enough to get the Treat theme.

I have to say that I have fallen in love.... that is with Martha Stewart's Glitter! Oh be still my beating heart! I used her glue stamp pad here with some black glitter and am sooooo loving the results! I highly recommend this product.

Supplies:

Stamps: PTI (Polka Dot Basics, Text Style, Spooky Sweets II)

Cardstock: PTI (Orange Zest, Plum Pudding), DCWV (Green)

Other: MS (Black Glitter), Ribbon, 3D adhesive

Ahhhhhh Fall & HEC #10

So fall is my FAVORITE time of year. The crisp air, the need to wear jeans and sweatshirts, fall aroma's. I love it all. Over in the PTI forum I participated in a Halloween/Fall swap. While I equally love Halloween, I was much more inspired by fall.

I pulled out a couple supplies that I hadn't used is a loooooooooong time - Twinkling H2Os and a fall mix embossing powder. If you have never used Twinkling H2Os ooooh they are fabulouse. Here I used 3-4 different fall colors - yellow, red, green, orange, and a gold. I layered the colors to create a fall look and die cut the scalloped edges you see on the left side of the card, as well as the dicut and embossed leaves.

Hopefully you can see the shimmer on the leaves in this close up along with the shimmer to the fall color mixed embossing powder I used on the leaves on the card. There's lots of gold tones, including the gold embossed sentiment - thanks Ted and HEC for Challenge #10.

I hope you all enjoy your fall!

Mr. & Mrs..... and they live happily ever after

Hey there! What a busy week and it was a short work week! So this week I have been working on a wedding card for a wedding DH and I are going to this evening. The invitation was a pale cream, a bit of shimmer cream and a pale blue. I took inspiration from these colors and created this card.

So I know it's a bit of overkill with all these images, but I liked the natural lighting because it shows you the true colors adn the flash show you all the shimmery goodness of the cardstock!

I used my medium scallp border die from PTI to cut some blue and pewter cardstock. I used an embossing folder for the damask at the top of the card. Throw in a strip of stamped vellum and a couple of strips of ribbon and voila!

Inside I cut an ivory mat and stamped the sentiment. Then I die cut the frame, embossed and adhered with foam tape.

I love how it turned out and hopefully the happy couple will too!

The "Mom's" gathering

So last night my best group of girl friends, "the Mom's" as I call them, came over last night for some food and fun.... and oh yeah a little crafting of course! We had some much fun! Amy and I made a few cards; Amy more than me. Pam brough crafts, but was too overwhelmed to start and Kim.... well her craft was making us drinks! :) Here's Amy's Halloween card. She decorated the inside and out! The inside is on the left and the outside is on the right. I just love the gems she put at the bottom of the card on the inside!

I pulled out an oldie but goodie...Witchybella! I forgot how cute she is. I paired her with the Spiderweb Cuttlebug embossing folder and a sentiment from PTI's Spooky Sweets II.

Here's a close up on her dress detail. The shading came out sooo good!

Back 2 School

Since I can't volunteer at school during the day, I try to treat the teachers with crafted items to help make their day better. Every year at the end of school I would give the teacher a jar with their favorite snack. So it dawned on me, that I should give it at the beginning of the year and make sure it stays stocked throughout the year.

I found these jars at Dollar Tree for $2 and put in the teacher's favorite salty snack. I used a white gel pen to hand write teacher, the teacher last names and notes on each piece.

I found these cute containers at Target in the Dollar spot and they were 50% off! Love a good deal! Here I just wrapped cardstock and patterned paper around the middle, die cut a Nestie circle for the lid and some nestie stars for the tag, added an eyelet and tied to the container with PTI twine.

Lastly are some notepads and pens. I had some mini-legal pad cut in half vertically and then create a cute wrap around holder with a matching pen. It couldn't be a back to school post with out a picture of the kids!