Tutorial Tuesday- Completely free Anthro knock off!

Note to self: when you schedule a post, schedule it for10 AM and not PM. Sorry folks!

Yeah, you read that right. A completely 100% free Anthro knock off! You're going to love this. I was perusing Anthroplogie's website, like I always do when I'm procrastinating, and my eye caught this little number.

{Pidgeon Pea Necklace from Anthropologie}

I saw it and thought "Wow, those look a lot like those paper beads I used to make!" I clicked on the description...and OMG. They ARE paper beads! I practically ran to get scissors!

You will need:

• An old magazine
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Thin paint brush
• Yarn

Yeah, that's it! I am 99% certain that all of you have these things lying around, which would make this FREE for you too! I chose to use a magazine to make the beads because the website boasted a "glossy" finish, and most magazines have glossy-ish pages. (No, I don't speak Spanish. My husband's cute Cuban grandmother gave it to me because she thought I would like it...forgetting that I don't speak Spanish.) Plus, you can get a great range of colors! You could use scrapbook paper too if you want,but don't use anything as thick as cardstock. Trust me, just don't.

Tear out a few pages. I didn't even use all of these. I recommend using advertisement pages. They have lots of color and very few words, so they work nicely for the beads.

Cut out triangle-ish shapes. Thick at the bottom, thin at the top. Cut out a lot! Cut them thin, think, short, long, and don't worry about cutting straight.

I didn't cut them totally pointy because the really thin pieces have trouble sticking.

Bust out that glue stick and start gluing! But not at the bottom, start about an inch up, otherwise you'll glue the bead to the paintbrush and it will SUCK to get it off.

Start rolling your gluey strip around the paintbrush, starting with the glue-free, thicker bottom. Roll loosely at first, then slowly roll a bit tighter. If you roll too tightly around the paintbrush the bead will be hard to get off.

Roll and roll and roll. (Wow, my nails aren't horrendous! I think this is a KC&A first!!)

Gently pull the finished bead off the paintbrush! Tadahhhh!!

Roll again.

And roll and roll and roll! Get really sticky fingers and yell at the cat for eating a bead, but then forgive her when she rubs her cute furry face against your leg. I doubled and tripled up on strips for some of the beads to give them different sizes and thicknesses.

If you're beads are being finicky and need some help, pinch in the round part of a clothespin to hold it down while it dries. (Am I a genius for figuring that out or what??)

When you're all done, string them on a piece of yarn. Tie it off.

Yai!! You did it!

Go outside to model it. Realize you wore a terrible outfit for the necklace and try and look happy about it. See that your arm is reflecting in your sunglasses.

Try to take the sunglasses off and blind yourself because you really can't see without them. Give up on modeling the necklace.

Don't forget to see where I link up! :)

Tutorial Tuesday- Paper Lanterns

Disney's Tangled comes out today! The hubs is out buying it right now. Tangled quickly climbed it's way to my Top 10 Movies list right after I saw it during Thanksgiving break. I saw it two more times in theaters. I LOVE Tangled. To honor such a glorious day, I decided to make paper lanterns! My dad sent me this link on how to make actual floating paper lanterns, but I didn't have all the materials I needed to make it. {sad face} I still wanted to make some lanterns, so I settled on fun origami balloons instead that I am calling lanterns. 

I was so bummed out. I planned on making a bunch of them and hanging them from Christmas lights, but while I was looking for the lights I realized that we took all of our Christmas stuff to our storage unit 20 miles away. Boo!! So for now, just pretend ok?

The construction of the lantern is simple origami, and chances are you've made these as a kid! I used cheapo dollar store colored printer paper because it's thinner than regular printer paper aaaand I didn't have origami paper! Cut it into a square. (8 1/2" x 8 1/2")

Fold it in half. Since it's a square, it doesn't matter which way you fold.

Fold it in half again.

Open up one of the squares (see how it's going all triangley?)

And smash down that little triangle. Make sure all the corners and edges are nicely lined up before making a crease.

Flip it over.

Push gently on the fold (the one by my thumb.)

And smash down the triangle. Everything should all be triangular now. Make sure you make nice creases!

Just like this!

Fold down one of the corners to the bottom point of the triangle.

Repeat with the other side.

Flip it over and fold down those corners again.

Now, fold in those side corners to the middle of the balloon.

Do it again on the other side.

Flip it over and fold in those corners again!

Right above those folded in corners should be lose flaps. If they aren't there, turn it upside down, they're on the other side. :) Fold the flap down.

And then fold it in.

This is the trickiest part. Flip up the folded flap (say that five times fast!) and it will reveal a little pocket! Gently stuff that folded flap into the pocket.

 See where the pockets are?

And see how it fits in? As long as you gently stuff in it, it should fit in nicely. Do this again for all the other flaps. (Three more times)

Tadahh!! You're done with the folding!

Look at your lantern. One end will be closed, and one end will have a little opening like this. Blow in it. Yes, blow in it, it is a paper balloon after all!

You may have to manipulate it a little bit, tug on some edges and shape it to make it it nice and square. When you're done, you'll have a little lantern/balloon!

I painted a little sunburst on it like from the movie with acrylic paints.

Since I forgot about the lights, I decided to hang them up a different way. I took a toothpick, broke it in half, and tied some thread around it.

And then put the toothpick in the little hole. When you go to pull on the string, it toothpick will prevent the thread from coming out and you'll be able to hang it!

Tahda!! (Again!) I really do wish I had the Christmas lights so that they would look more like the movie, but I think if I make a few more of these and hang them from a mobile it will look mildly authentic. If you need a more visual tutorial, check out this video for a step by step walk through. And for an alternate way of creating the lanterns, click here.

Happy paper folding/Tangled watching! :) Don't forget to check out where I link up!

Tutorial Tuesday- Button Frame

Oh boy. Today was one of those days! (Am I saying that a lot lately? Sorry.) But, I'll explain along the way, because pictures help tell a story right?

I woke up this morning to this. The whole wide world coated in ice. Yes, freezing rain last night. It took the poor hubs almost an hour to dig himself out of all the snow and ice! (And on top of that, he noticed he forgot his laptop (aka, how he does his job) at home and had to drive all the way back to get it! Poor guy.) I thought that with school canceled I would have the day off, but no. I had a full working day today! So that threw me off. But that's ok! I was able to create this!

(This is my "artsy" attempt to hid the fact that 1) I have terrible lighting in the basement and 2) I always seem to take my pictures at night.) I loooove my button frame. I love buttons, I love frames, I love everything about this.

Anyway, wanna make one of your own? You will need:

• An old frame with a flat surface (none of those fancy frames with rounded, intricate designs)
• White paint/paint brush
• Glue gun
• Lots and lots of buttons!

 Gotta love Goodwill! Picked up this baby for a buck!

Disassemble that sucker so the glass doesn't get painted on.

Paint it white. This would have been SOOO much easier with spray paint, but with the frozen wasteland outside I didn't want to risk it. I would take that back in a heartbeat, don't use dumb acrylic paint for thisone.

Once it's white, you're ready to button-fy it! Plug in that glue gun.

This took an hour or two for me (mostly because I was watching Avatar: The Last Airbender the whole time.) So pop in a movie, sort through those buttons, pick out all the ones you like, and glue.

And glue.

And glue! I looove buttons, it was so much fun for me to pick out pretty ones and try to piece them together so they fit nicely on the frame.

When I was done I jazzed it up with my new Silhouette (named Stella. I was totally embarrassed that I named her but then Summer from Sumo's Sweet Stuff was having a poll on FB to name her Silhouette and one of the names was Stella! It was too funny, and now I feel like I can openly admit that I named my Silhouette.) I purchased the adorable love birds (the image is "love_birds_C00615_20387) and cut it out on simple white cardstock and mounted it on blue scrapbook paper. That wasn't easy though...it literally took 12 tries before I got the stupid thing to work. I ruined a few sheets of scrapbook paper, cut right through the cutting mat, and almost threw the thing against the wall. Then I reread the instructions and did it right. (smacking head.) The "bliss" is a cute little rub on I got from Joanns.

This is the part where I was going to say "Simple. Lovely." But the terrible picture makes it hard. There is next to no natural lighting in the basement and the tan walls make the pictures even more yellow. Sooo sorry about that. Just pretend it's lovely, kay?

And don't forget to check out my "Parties" tab to see where I party. See you there.