Woodland Table Centerpieces

My best friend Julie, is almost due to have her baby.  I was more than happy to help in the preparations of her baby shower.  Since her nursery is going to be a woodland theme I thought it would be appropriate to incorporate that into the decorations of the shower.  I created the favors, centerpieces, a banner, wishing tree and a few other surprises I will share with you in my next few posts.  Enjoy!

 I created the birdhouses from plain birdhouses I found at my local craft stores.  Each birdhouse was uniquely decorated.  I used my Ranger paint dabbers to paint the houses.  Each house was decorated with it's own combination of decorative papers. Most got additional details added with paint, die cuts, embellishments, etc.  I then used a strong epoxy to attach them to a candlestick I painted to match.

The woodland animals I cut from the Cricut cartridge Give A Hoot.  Our area was hit hard with storms and I was able to use some fallen trees for the pedestals for my creations.  My wonderful Dad help me cut the wood into the sizes that I wanted and then I used some heavy adhesive to attach the top to the bottom.  A few pine cones and other nature elements added to the centerpiece. 

Because I wanted the centerpieces to look great no matter where you were sitting at the table I added mason jars filled with flowers and greens.  Not just ordinary mason jars though, I painted these with the delicious colors from my Ranger Paint Dabbers.  I simply poured a little into the jar added a little water and used a brush to coat the sides and bottom.  The outside of the jars remained the beautiful shiny glass but showed the gorgeous color that coordinated with the decor.  Lovely!

I will be selling the bird houses along with many of my other creations at my next show 

36th Annual ALL NIGHT Flea Market

August 18th, 4 PM - 4 AM

Yes, you read that right

4 o'clock PM till 4 in the morning!!!

DuPage County Fairgrounds

2015 Manchester Road ,Wheaton, IL 60187

Table 1 Centerpiece

 Table 2 Centerpiece

Table 3 Centerpiece

 Table 4 Centerpiece

 Table 5 Centerpiece

 Tables 6 and 7 Centerpieces

God Bless Kyler Banner

I preparing for little Kyler's Christening I wanted to create some simple, yet elegant decorations.  For this banner I turned to Lettering Delights.  They have two perfect SVG collections that were just perfect!  I used the Accordion Fold Rosettes and the Pennants to cut the perfect size every time, quickly and easily. (There is a picture at the bottom of the page of the size and what it looked like before I cut it out).   Along the edge of each pennant I used the Tim Holtz mini rosette die and pleated it to create a beautiful trim along the edge. The lettering if from the Cricut Storybook cartridge.  I cut the white shadow twice.  I placed one white shadow letter on the rosette and added dimension with foam tape raising the rest of the letters up a bit.  The finishing touch was a clear dangling teardrop gem that I added to the bottom of each pennant.   I hung the entire banner over the curtain rod going out to our back yard.

The Accordion Fold Rosettes from Lettering Delight come with 18 different rosette patterns so I had plenty to choose from.  I like this one and made it nice and large so I could fit my letters on top of it. 

 I put the pennants on on it's side so I could fit 2 on each page saving time and paper.

Tim Holtz Mini Rosettes

Hugs & Kisses For All - Favor Cake

This gorgeous cake is entirely made of paper, well... it has a chocolate center if that counts!  I needed to come up with something fabulous for Kyler's Christening favors and I wanted to make it special.  So I started creating these cake slices...one thing led to another and I ended up with a beautiful 3 layer cake with some cupcakes gathered at the base (possibly looks like a 4th layer?).  Whenever I'm working on a project I usually don't have my entire project mapped out ahead of me, maybe I have a general idea of what I want to do and then just let creativity take over. 

 Both the cake slice box and the cupcake box were cut from the Eclips Albums, Bags & Boxes #2 cartridge.  I cut the cake slices in two different sizes to get the layered cake effect and then topped it with one of the cupcakes.

  Each one has is filled with HUGS & KISSES from baby Kyler!!!

I have always loved Penny Duncan's creations and she had just the perfect cross for this occasion. And, of course I had to dress up those sweet little cupcakes! I used the Flower Burst punch from EK Success to adorn the all the sides.  A perfect fit! 

The flowers on this cake were all cut with the Eclips using the Albums, Bags & Boxes #2 cartridge.  I liked that I could cut the flower at a variety of sizes to give them a more natural and nonuniform shape.  That is as natural as blue flowers can be.  I cut them all from white card stock and then sprayed them with my homemade shimmer mist.  Once all my flowers were cut, I rolled them while zoning out in front of the TV.  A quick spritz of water before shaping helps soften the paper making it easy to mold just how you want, even on the tiniest of flowers. 

I just love how this favor cake turned out.  I see making many more in the future!  So many ideas running through my head...the wheels are spinning... 

Don't worry there will be a video coming in the very, very near future on how exactly I made this.  I just wanted to share the pics right away with you.  But I promise you it will be coming :)

Halloween Batch of OWH Cards

 I am shipping off another big box of 192 Operation Write Home cards to our fine Soldiers!  I wanted to share them with you before I got them mailed off.  Most of the cards are Halloween but I also made some for Everyday, I love you, Missing you and Thinking of you.  I worked on this project while I was in the car traveling to our camping trips this past summer.  I will have a future video showing just how I can scrap in the front seat of a car (no, we weren't traveling by moder home, LOL). All of the Halloween cards were made from one single paper stack.  I used the Ravenhead Manor paper stack by Recollections, I purchased it on clearance last year after Halloween. Since I was away from my studio and only had the supplies that I brought with me it challenged me to work with what I had.  I enjoy a challenge and challenge you to also do the same sometime.  It is rewarding to find out what you can come up with when you are not able to have all your resources available to you.  Once my brain started really cranking I started thinking of ideas for other things too.  I had to write them down so I wouldn't forget them by the time we got home. 

All packed up and ready to go!

Here's a peek at what's inside, this is just SOME of the cards...

Some of the die cuts words were made at home using the Cricut Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake cartridge.  There are some great seasonal words on there...Boo, Trick or treat, Happy haunting, etc.

As you can see with the cards below the same paper I used it in both landscape and portrait format.  When I cut all my mats I was not sure what my plan was going to be for them at that time so I gave myself some options.

 I also created some everyday, I love you, and I miss you cards to send.  They always need those!

 For these butterflies below I used a layering punch from EK Success.  It has all 3 layered punches in the one single punch. Ingenious!