Bow Holder!

I have posted a couple of these before, but I just recently made this one for a friend who is having a girl in July. I saw her fabric, on her blog, that she was going to do her baby's room out of and I made this to match. That is what is so fun about these. You can customize them any way you want. The process is a little tricky, but once you figure it out its really easy. First, you cut out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a shirt. Then cut out a piece of fabric in the same shape, but about an inch bigger all the way around. Hot glue the fabric to the cardboard so it is really tight. I don't glue the front, I just wrap the excess fabric around the cardboard and glue it to the back. That way you can stretch it really tight. Next, glue three long ribbons to the back. Then you are ready to put the tulle on. I have done this part 2 different ways. 1) Buy a roll of tulle from a craft store. Cut 3 strips and glue them to the back. 2) Buy a one yard from a fabric store. The advantage to doing it this way is the tulle is about 3 times as wide, so you can cut one strip and fold it in half. And continue the process by gluing it to the back of the shirt.
Choose a coordinating ribbon (I love the rick rack, but you can use any thin ribbon that matches), and glue it around the outside edge. Next, cover the the back with felt to cover all of the mess on the back. And last, just adhere a ribbon to the bottom of the shirt so it looks complete and put a coordinating button in the middle. I have loved having a cute way to display my daughter's bows!

Flower Gum Holder

We made this project at our last Stampin' Up class. I should have taken a picture of the side of it so you could see the gum. The gum is wrapped up in the green crinkled strip of paper.

Supplies:

Old Olive CS: 8 1/2" x 1 1/2" and an extra square for the leaf (heart)

Rich Razzleberry CS: 3 1/2"x 3 1/2" cut into a flower (we used the big shot, but you could use any other cutting machine or even scissors.) The flower ends up being 3"x3"

Crushed Curry CS: 3" x 3" (the flower ends up being 2 1/2" x 2 1/2")

Both flowers were embossed with the cute Polka dots by the Big Shot, but you could just leave that step out if you don't have a Big Shot at your disposal.

Razzleberry Lemonade DSP: 5 Scallop circle cut out with the scallop punch.

1 brad: to hold the whole flower together

Ribbon: about 4-5" of crushed curry 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain

& 3-4" rich razzleberry 1/2" Polka Dot Grosgrain

Assembling is simple. First, run the long green strip through a crimper. Use glue dots to adhere the gum to the inside. Fold in half and staple the to ends of the green paper together. Then run a small square of green through the crimper and use a heart punch to cut out the leaf. Use a glue dot to adhere that to the inside of the stem. The center of the flower that looks like fabric was my favorite part to make. I love learning new techniques. You take each individual scallop and crumble it in your hand. After they are all crumbled, layer them and stick the brad through. Then get a small squirt bottle/spritzer and spray all the layers with water. You want them pretty wet, but don't soak them. Them just start forming them with your fingers so they curl up the way you want them to. I think the more worn and imperfect, the better! Then undo the back of the brad and stick the last to layers in (the plum and yellow) Use a large glue dot to adhere the entire flower to the stem. Last, just tie the ribbon on the bottom. So cute!!!!

Yet Another Apron!

You are probably sick of seeing all of my aprons, but I am totally obsessed with them!
I made this one for Aimee (the wedding shower I went to on Saturday)! I think this might be one of my favorite aprons. The colors are so fun. Once you get the hang of them you can whip them out pretty fast. And once again I got the fabric at Hobby Lobby! Love that store:)

Wedding Shower Favor

I helped make these for a wedding shower that I went to on Saturday. They we super easy and super cute. We used the Cricut with the Boxes, Bags, & Tags cartridge. The box is 6" and we used 12"x12" paper. We could have fit 2 boxes per paper, but just ended up using the extra paper for the cute scallops on front. I pre-ordered the "Aimee & Nate" stamp from Stampin' Up and punched it on Whisper White paper. Then we punched them out with the 1 1/4" circle punch. (A little tip: If you stamp first and then punch you can center the stamp easier) Then we used the scallop circle the punch out the pink flower. It only took us about 2 hours to make them from start to finish, and we make 45 of them. Then, of course, we filled them with cute matching candy!

...Stampin' Up

Mother's Day Idea!

I love the colors of this card. This one looks complicated, but its really not bad if you get the scoring right. Here are the supplies we used:
Bashful Blue card stock: 2"x 4" ( And run through the bigshot with a flower embossing pad)
Rich Razzleberry CS: 8 1/2"x5 1/2" (scored @ 4 1/4" and 6 1/4") & 1 piece that is 4"x 3/4" and then use the scallop edge punch.
Pale Plum: 4 1/4"x 5 1/2"
Whisper White: 2"x 4" & 5 1/2"x 1 3/4"(The bigger one needs to be scored 1" in and scalloped on the edge)
DS (designer Series) Rich Razzleberry: 1 1/4"x 4" & one extra piece for a flower(which was run through the bigshot also, but could be cut out with a punch or even scissors.)
Bashful Blue DS: 3 smaller flowers
1 brad
Ribbon: 11-13" Bashful blue ribbon
Stamps: Message for Mom stamp set
Stamp Pads: Rich Razzleberry and Bashful Blue

You, of course, don't have to use the Stampin' Up colors. It would be so cute with tons of other color combinations. I just thought the "stand up" idea was so cute! If you need any help figuring out how to put it together let me know:)

Last Stampin' Up Projects!

I have been doing Stampin' Up, with the best demonstrator ever, for about 3 and 1/2 years now. I'm sad to say that chapter has now come to a close. This is one of the cards that we made last week. I obviously can't take credit for it, but I love the colors and had to show it off. Here are the dimensions and colors from the Stampin' Up catalog:

Old Olive (green):8 1/2"x 5 1/2" (folded in half)

Melon Mambo (pink): 5 1/4" x4"

Pumpkin Pie (Orange): 5 1/8" x 3 7/8"

Whisper White: 5" x 3 3/4"

Bride whisper white (Green stripe): 2"x4" (this paper came white and then we used a brayer to roll green ink on it. After you get it the color you want, wipe it with a tissue and the color comes off the white stripe!)

Melon Mambo ribbon: 1/2" Polka-Dot Grosgrain Ribbon 5"

Stamps: Awash with Flowers stamp set

Punches: Scallop Oval and Large Oval

Just stamp and assemble. Make sure you stamp the white before you glue in case you mess up, then you can turn it over! Also make sure you put your ribbon on before you glue it all to the green background. I just taped it around the back of the pink paper. Last, use a dimensional to put the "For You" on!

Apron

I love making aprons and decided it was time to make some more! They are pretty easy if you have a pattern to follow. This one took me about three hours. (Well two days if you include all of the chasing after children in between:) I was just at the mall the other day and found a Kiosk that sells aprons and they were about $30-$40. I made this one for $8. If you have the patients it pays to make things yourself! The price may vary depending on the cost of your fabric. I got this at Hobby Lobby and it was about $5.99 a yard and it was 30% off. Some of the more expensive fabrics range from $6-$10. I bought 1 1/4 yards of the strip fabric and 5/8 of a yard of the polka dot fabric. I ended up with a little bit extra of both. It would be pretty simple to figure out without a pattern if you have sewn before. Just decide the shape and cut it out. I put a dart in the front of the apron so it was a little more fitted, but you could easily do without. You can also buy less fabric if you don't want a liner on it. You could get away with about 7/8 of a yard of the stripe. To get the ruffles, I cut 2 1/2" strips and hemmed the edges. Then did a loose stitch in the middle so I could pull it to make the "gathered look". If you have questions I would be happy to walk you through it step by step!

More Bows!

Fabric Bows

I made a bunch of fabric bows over the weekend and I was super excited how they turned out. And bonus...I found out that Hobby Lobby carries fabric and it is so cheap! I bought a yard and a quarter for $5! Most fabric that is that cheap is...lets just say NOT CUTE! I love this fabric! To make them all you need is about a 1/4 of a yard of fabric (you could probably get away with an 1/8 depending on how big your initial flower is), some hot glue, a matching button and and alligator clip. To start you cut out 6-8 flowers that are all the same size.

Fold them in half...

and in half again. Don't fold it exactly in half because it is cuter if you can see more layers!

Next, just layer them in a circle and put a giant blob of glue in the middle. You can layer them however you think looks cute. I did some so there was only four petals on top and some that had eight. Which ever you prefer.

Then I cut out a felt circle and glued in on the back just to hold everything together. If you can tell, I also wrapped half of the alligator clip in ribbon. I don't rap the lower arm of the clip because I discovered the hard way that it is really difficult to get the clip in your girls hair if it is wrapped in ribbon.

Last, I glued the matching button on top! SUPER CUTE!!!! I will post all the different kinds that I made as soon as I get around to taking pictures of them:)

More Unique Chic

Magnetic Shopping Lists

When you open it up this is what you see. I found these super cute shopping list booklets at Michael's Crafts for a dollar. Then I took a 12x12 sheet of double sided paper and cut it so it was 8x12. Then I basically just wrapped it around the booklet and put Velcro on it so it would stay closed. Then I got a library clip and attached ribbon to it and stuck it on top. I put a flower on the front of this one, but you could decorate it however you want. Then I put two magnetic strips on the back so you can hang it on your fridge or magnet board.

Projects for Unique Chic

I found these cute journals at Michael's Crafts in their $1 bins. They had matching cards, envelopes, pencils and ribbon. So, I bought them all and put them together like a gift. I don't know if you can tell but I stamped on the little note cards and the envelopes. I thought they would be so cute to give as a Visiting Teaching gift or something like that.