Button Fun

This weekend I had some fun with buttons. And surprisingly they weren't involved in a sewing project!

It all started with this image on Pinterest:

The project comes from here, and gave me the idea to make my own variation. I didn't have buttons in the a pretty colour variation like the one above, so I used spray paint.

I started by going through my button jar (I bought a large bag of buttons at Wal-Mart for only a couple of dollars) and picking up a variety of buttons in sizes, all in a thin, circular shape. To make sure I had enough I formed them into a heart shape in the opening space of the frame.

I then took the buttons outside with my can of grey spray paint and coated them all. I had to let them try for quite some time because the humidity wasn't on my side. But once I was sure they were dry enough I took a piece of cream paper and re-shaped the buttons into a heart. The tricky part was gluing them down with my hot glue gun. I tried to first glue the button and put it back down on the paper but that didn't work so well (think hot glue on my poor fingers - ouch!) so I switched and put the glue on the paper instead and then dropped the button on top.

Here's how it ended up!

Yes, surprise, I left the red button out of the spray-painted group on purpose to add a little something special!

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Two Pinterest Projects

Today I decided it was time to tackle a couple of pins I had on Pinterest. And because I chose two small ones, I thought I'd give you both in one blog post.

The first project was a ribbon hairband, the pin of which comes from The Crafty Scientist.

I simply grabbed 4 hair elastics and two ribbons and got to work.
The first step was two tie two hair eleastics together with a knot, pretty easy.

Then I measured the ribbon around my head, cut it, and used a combination of fabric glue and hot glue to attach the ribbon to the hair elastics.

And there, you have it, two cute ribbon headbands. I just love how you can really personalize this with any type of ribbon for any type of outfit or occasion!

And then my second little project was a scarf hanging idea I pinned a while back from Be Different Act Normal. 

I already had the scarves and the hanger, so I picked up some shower curtain rings for $1.50.

It was nice to just hang the thick scarves through the rings, and then I tied a know with the thin ones so they wouldn't fall out.

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Card Making Time

As I had mentioned before, when I'm feeling creative and have some time I like to make a bunch of cards so I can stock up. So today I'm going to share some of my latest cards and a little about how I made them.

For all my cards I use a a standard size of half of a 8 1/2 by 11 which I then fold in half. The great part about it is that each paper can make two cards and the card also fit easily into standard sized envelopes.

For this birthday card I used a letter stamp set to spell out 'happy birthday' and then a flower stamp to decorate around it. I thought the blue ribbon complimented the soft pink nicely. It turned out to be a nice card that would work for a girl of any age.

This thank you car was a little out of my element, but I think it came together nicely. The flower was hand drawn with just a regular pen, and then I used my mom's craft scissors to cut the jagged edges along the card.

This was just a random card, it was a new stamp so I wanted to try it out. Overall I just went for a simple look with a couple of ribbons to bring some texture and colour.

This was another card that came together. I traced out both the flower and the little hart, and used some little trivets to attach the 'thank you' note to the card.

So that was another foray into my card-making adventures. Who knows, maybe I inspired you to make some cards of your own???


Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Big Girl Mobile

I love to make crafts for my adorable niece. When my sister started talking about her plans for a big girl room for my niece my mind started working. I thought of the perfect big girl mobile to hang in her room.

My inspiration come from two place. First, when Courtney and I were shopping at Pottery Barn Kids we saw this beautiful mobile.

Pottery Barn Kids

And second, I found this beautiful picture on Pinterest.

Style Me Pretty

These mobiles were both perfect because they are feminine and bright with natural elements. It was also important that the mobile wasn't babyish and could be with my niece as she grew up.

I started my going for a trip to a local thrift store. I found the perfect lamp shade. I was worried that it might be too tiny, but I think that it ended up working for my project.

After I removed the fabric from the lamp shade I saw that it had lovely fabric wrapped around the top and bottom circles. I decided to keep this on my mobile.

I found a perfect flower punch for the mobile and punched out yellow and cream flowers to hang from the lamp shade.

Mr. Firefly had the great idea to hang the mobile from the tripod. This helped me as I put the flowers on the mobile. I used a needle and thread to attach the flowers to the lamp shade. I also got some glue and glued on some fake flowers to the lamp shade.

This was so easy and looks very cute. The lampshade cost $2.99, the flowers were $5.99 and I only used half of them. I was lucky to find some scrap paper for the flowers. This project couldn't have turned out better. 

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Pinterest Inspired Art

On Tuesday I shared with you a personalized art project I made with a canvas and some foam letters (check it out here). Since Michaels was having a 'buy one get one for a cent' sale on canvases I picked up one more which I used to make my own version of a piece of art I had pinned on Pinterest.

It turns out the artist is Jodi Fuchs, and she even has an etsy shop (check it out here). As I remember they used to sell the canvas at World Market, but now she sells the poster at her shop, or at least variations of it.

I chose to make my own with a colour scheme of blues, purples and grey, with a yellow backdrop. So I painted the canvas and let it dry.

In the mean time I used good old InDesign to make a template for the shapes, kinda 1/4 circles, but not really. To make it I drew circles of the same size and then overlapped them, so that the shape I wanted was just where the circles overlapped. When I was happy with the shape I repeated the pattern over the entire page, and then printed it directly on my coloured cardstock.

Then came the tedious task of cutting all the shapes out. It took a long time, and was by no means perfect, but it worked.

Because my inspiration was very random, I went the same way, not being picky about where each colour ended up when I glued them onto the canvas. Although, I admit, I did take the time to make a circle completely out of my favourite colour!

After all the pieces were glued down and dry and went over the entire thing with a layer of modge podge to seal it in.

The result? Pretty good. It definitely captures the essence of my inspiration with my own colour combo twist. Maybe using a Cricut or similar tool would help with getting the shapes cut out neatly, but other than that, I think it's a good amateur art project.

Happy Crafting,


PS: Here's where we link up.

Mother's Day Anchor Card

I know this is a little late, but my mom finally got my Mother's Day card for her in the mail yesterday, so now I can share it with you.

I came up with the idea for the card after spotting half of her present here on Etsy. It's a cute little anchor bracelet that just screamed 'Mom' when I saw it. Anchors have a special meaning behind them for my mom, so don't worry, this wasn't just some random gift. (P.S. - The bracelet arrived in under a month and was just as it looked like in the picture, if you are thinking of getting one for yourself).

But back to the card that I made to go with this little gift. I took an embroidery approach to this card, going with a navy blue and white contrast with paper and thread.

I started with white cardstock, cutting it half to 8 1/2 by 5, and then folded again in half so the front of the card measured 4 1/4 by 5. Then I cut out a piece of navy cardstock to fit on top.

Then I drew a line with pencil a little bit away from the top and bottom of the card so that I could embroider with navy blue thread along it. I had to pre-punch holes along the line to embroider through because the cardstock is pretty thick and hard to get through with a needle without a little bit of work.

For the anchor I found an image through Google, printed it out and then cut around it. I then traced it out on a piece of navy cardstock, pre-punched holes along the outline and then embroidered around it.

After that it was as simple as gluing the anchor on the navy cardstock onto the white card.

The card turned out just like I hoped and went perfectly with the bracelet!

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Embossed Birthday Card

For quite a long time now I've been making my own cards for special occasions with a little help from my embossing gun. Embossing is a great way to add a little flare to projects like cards. You can use any stamp and any embossing colour and create a one-of-a-kind masterpiece!

Today I'm going to show you how I used my embossing gun to create a fun little birthday card. Photos are hard to take because the process has to happen quickly, but I'll try to explain it as best I can.

I started with the supplies below, three sheets of cardstock, a embossing gun, pink embossing glitter, clear embossing ink and a bird stamp.

For the base of the card I used the purple cardstock cut in half to a 8 1/2 by 5, and then folded again in half so the front of the card measured 4 1/4 by 5.

Then I moved on to embossing. I chose to use the pink embossing powder on the pink cardstock to give a subtle tone-on-tone look. First I covered the stamp with the clear ink, and quickly stamped it onto the cardstock. Then, over a tray, I sprinkled the powder over the cardstock, making sure to completely cover the stamped surface. To remove the excess powder I lightly tapped the paper, letting the powder fall onto the tray (I later poured the excess back into the jar). The final step was to plug in the embossing gun, turn it on and blow gently back and forth over the stamped area. It is easy to know when your done, because the surface with slowly change to have a glossy sheen. Then there you have it!

To build the rest of the card I stamped out a strip of cream cardstock with a Martha Stewart stamp and then used double sided tape to stick it all onto the purple base. Finally I wrote 'Happy Birthday' out with a silver Sharpie.

Hope you enjoyed my little tutorial and that it was helpful. On a day I'm feeling creative I love to dig out all my crafting supplies and spend a couple hours making cards. It's a great way to stock up so I'm not scrambling for a card when I need one.  Please ask any questions you have in the a comment below. Next week I'll show how I made my Mother's Day card with some paper and string.

Happy Crafting,

PS: Here's where we link up.

Stencilling a Canvas Bag

When I bought stencils for my TV stand (find that post here) on the package they showed using the stencils on a canvas bag. And so, since I was already on the hunt for a bag to bring my lunch and other stuff to work, I decided to stencil my own canvas bag.

I found my blank bag at Michaels for $7 (then used a 20% off coupon) and two bottles of fabric paint (Tulip brand).

To stencil the bag I slip in my scrap booking cutting mat in the mag to keep the surface flat, and to keep the paint from possibly leaking through to the other side. Then I taped down the stencil on the bag and used a foam brush to lightly dab the paint.

The result? Not perfect, but not too bad. I think the problem was that even though I used the mat to keep the bag flat, it didn't work 100% and so it was difficult to get the paint through the stencil and on to the bag. Maybe if I were to do this again I would iron the bag first.

Have you ever tried to stencil a fabric bag or anything else? Have you ever had less than favourable results?

Happy Crafting,
Courtney

I linked this post up here: