136 cards in 2 1/2 hours

Since moving into our new house, I haven't had a place to create or craft. The house is wonderful and everything our family needed, but I lost my craft desk and space. sad face. Last night I was feeling blah and just needed to create something!

In honor of Teacher Appreciation Week and feeling left out since high school teachers don't get the love that elementary teachers receive. We get a paycheck, that's about all the love we get. (told you I was blah) I decided to make cards for my fellow high school staff members. I've done this before, but not in a couple of years?? wow. that's a long time.

So.. back to the cards. I got everything out and at 8pm started making cards. I had helpers that asked lots of questions and wanted to touch things. But I'm pretty efficient and started cutting paper. I make 3"x3" cards as they are cute, cost effective and they fit in our mailboxes at school.

If you plan on ever making bulk cards, I suggest cutting the paper first. I randomly chose paper that kinda of coordinated, but really I just wanted all of the cards to look decent with one color of ink. Simplicity is the key to bulk cards! Cut all of the 3"x6" strips and then the 2"x2" accent paper. Then fold the cards.

Next get ready to stamp. I stamped the sentiment first. I knew the sentiment that I wanted, but it took me a few different tries to decide on my accent stamp.

Next I stamped the accent stamp and then flipped the pieces over, applied tape to 20 or 30 squares at a time and adhered to the front. I varied the placement on the front of the card.

Now that the cards are made, it's time to embellish.

It is important at this point to just go with the flow. I use glue dots and just put coordinating buttons on the roll of glue dots about 20 at a time. Pick up a button and put it on the card. DO NOT LINGER on this step :)!!

And there you have it. 136 cards in 2 hours.

This morning, I ran to the store and picked up a bag of mixed chocolate miniatures. These are perfect for the inside of these cards. I rolled the glue runner on about 20 cards at a time and slapped a piece of candy down.

 And there you go!

All in it was about 2 1/2 hours. Not bad for a last minute project!

Paper, stamps and ink are Close To My Heart.

Coffee Filter Hair Flowers!!

Tonight I taught the almost teen to make coffee filter hair flowers!!

 

It truly is amazing how easy and fun these flowers are. Even a 13 year old has an attention span for this. Yes, those are Maddie's hands. Do you really think I'd paint my nails like that?? :)

 

 These are small filters. I hate how much I wasted of the filter. In fact, I hated it so much that I ended up dying the extra. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but who knows!

I placed a ready-made store bought hair flower between two flowers that we made tonight.

Here is Maddie dying the flowers.

We let the flowers "drain' on paper towels for a few minutes and then popped them into the oven.

After about 30 minutes at warm, I turned the oven off and left them to cool. 

I got an elastic hair band out and tied the top of it. I'm going to use it as the center of the flower.

 

I have to say, I love how it looks.

 

And there you have the finished product in my hair. Sorry, it was after bedtime and the little girls were in bed! Maybe tomorrow I can get some cute pictures!

My Coffee Filter Flower Arrangement Tutorial

My Coffee Filter Flower Tutorial

 

By no means am I unique or original in my creations! I am sure there are tons of tutorials on the web on how to make coffee filter flowers.  However, I am going to put my instructions on here as I adapted the instructions I found to suit my needs. (inexpensive and super quick!)

 

Aren't they pretty!!

 

 

Step 1: Get coffee filters and fold in half and in half and in half until you have a wedge. I was strong enough to cut through 4 or 5 at a time, but found that 3 at a time was much more efficient as I didn't have to struggle to cut them! In the second picture you can see how much of the edge I cut off some of the filters. The trick it to cut different amounts off so that you can different size filters.. ie petals!

 



 

After cutting a few sets, I decided that I liked the rough edge. So, I tore some of the edges off the filters and on some I took the blade of the scissors and roughed up the edge.

 

Step 2: Once you have some different size filters cut, open them all and make stacks with a couple of big, medium and small together. Some of my flowers have as few as 7 filters, some have as many as 14 filters. There is no science to this. Then fold in half and half again and staple the bottom of the wedge.



 

Step 3: Open back up. It won't lay flat. Take the top filter and pull up and scrunch together. Do this with each layer. Once all the layers are scrunched you will have a ball of scrunched filters.

Step 4: Pull open the layers and flatten out a little bit. You want the flower to be wrinkled and textured.

 

Continue the above steps until you have a bunch of flowers. It really is easier to make the flowers all at once so that you can paint them in one sitting. (these are words of experience...)

 

Step 5: Scrounge around the house for tidbits of paint. I found a bottle with a little of yellow, a small bottle of white and a new bottle of red. All were craft paints. If I had found house paints I would have used those. I don't believe in buying something for a project if something I have might work!

Pour some paint on a plate. Add some water.I don't know how much, just a little and swirl it around on the plate.

 

Step 6: Dip the flower in the paint. Swirl it around.

 

Step 7: Go to the kitchen sink and turn the water on softly and rinse out the flower. Yes, you are going to wash off some of the paint. Squeeze the flower, gently pulling the water from the staple to the tip of the petals.

 

Step 8: If desired, dip the tips into another color. Rinse.

 

Step 9: Lay the flowers out on newspaper or paper towels. You really need something absorbent. Not parchment paper.. (experience again.)

 

Step 10: After a little while, turn the flowers over so that the flowers won't get too squished on one side. 

 

(notice I found some paper towels!) 

 

Step 11: Only if you didn't make enough flowers the first time... go back and make more flowers, get caught by your 3 year old and let her help make flowers too. I don't recommend this step..)

 

Step 12: Now using my parchment paper... line a baking sheet with parchment paper and stand up flowers on it. Put in oven on the lowest setting your oven has... mine has a keep warm setting.

 

You only have to do this step if you are impatient like I am. But it works!! After a few minutes or so, turn the flowers over. then after a few more minutes, turn the oven off. 

 

Step 13: Place the flowers on clean paper towel to cool and cure.They aren't hot, just warm! If they are hot, you probably don't want to do this in your oven!

Step 14: Look around your house for some old artificial flowers that have pretty (or decent/usable) centers that you can pull the petals off and reuse the stems. Yes, I am that cheap.

Step 15: Find the center-ish of the flower and push your stem through. The center isn't useable as it has a staple in it!

Step 16: Place in a vase!

 Aren't they gorgeous!! And I love that I don't have to water them!!

A little wire, some beads and wah lah... Friend Gifts!

It wasn't that long ago that when Maddie, aged 11 asked to make gifts for her friends for Christmas that I cringed and said "Sure" in that sing-song voice that says "I may be saying yes now, but we are going to chat about that later and come up with a different plan..."

However, it is with great pride, that I can say that Maddie is now not only an official crafter, but she is getting good at it too!!  Last year she made baked goods that were delicious for friend and teacher gifts.  This year, she decided to make necklaces.

Below are a couple of her creations!

And here is a close up.  Can you see that one string is gold and one is silver? 

It looks really good in person!

Now granted, I would have never chosen the color scheme, but the necklaces aren't for me.

I think her friends are going to be super excited!