Butterflies and Flowers OH MY!

   For Hot Mess's birthday we continued the
butterfly theme with flowers as well. Because
the party was at a local park thats extremely
busy I made this poster for the back of our car
that was parked in front of our pavilion.

   Breaking out my trusty Cricut machine to
 make the letters, flowers, butterflies. While
 combing through for ideas I found this fabulous
 "Happy Birthday" scroll work. So with a
dollar store poster, some glitters and
embossing powder we now have a unique poster
for the birthday girl that she begged to be
hung in her room after the party.

   This was rather simple really. My cutting machine did most of the work I simply embellished
 the heck out of it. Once I cut the flowers out I used 
embossing powders on some 1" circles then glued 
them to the centers of the wider flowers. The 
narrower flowers were treated to a glue pen and 
glitters.

   Before I began to glue down the flowers I pulled my trusty glue pen back out with some green glitter to simulate grass. Then lay down the "Stalks & leaves". Breaking out the Tearific Tape I only glued down the centers so that I could curl the edges flowers to add dimension.


  Letters were next, the purple shadow was 5 3/4" and pink letters 5 1/4" tall. Which of course meant using 2 pages of each color and "melding" them once I laid them out on the poster.  I used a whole 12x12 paper for the "Happy Birthday" scrollwork from my Paper Lace cartridge. As gorgeous as it was there was still something missing. So I masked off the outer parts with scrap paper so the Versamark wouldn't get anywhere I didn't want it to.

The final product delighted Hot Mess and all of her friends absolutely loved it!

Because I cant just leave anything well enough alone, I used the extra butterflies and flowers to decorate the balloon weights. The forecast called for some high winds so we used them to weigh down the table clothes and keep the napkins from flying away. The main difference for these is that I used hot glue and green craft wire to put these together. 

Keep Calm and Glitter On!

 

For the Fairy Princess

      When I asked my youngest daughter what theme she wanted for her birthday party she was naturally screamed  "Frozen"  just like the last 5 parties we have been to? Can we please pick something original? or at least something that isn't what EVERY other girl wants PLEASE????  Don't get me wrong It's an cute movie but way overdone. Ok, ok I will get off my soapbox now :)
     
     So I asked again.... butterflies and fairies. Those two I could handle. So off to my little craft dungeon I went; but not before the best part of this whole project, watching Hot Mess pick out her stamp for the front of this card. We went to the dangerous store (according to my husband)
Sparkle N Sprinkle. She didn't know which way to look with all of the sparkly things there.

     Here is what I came up with. A Bifold card that has lots of butterflies and sparkles as per Hot Mess's request.  There are a few steps involved here so make sure you start early or you'll be up to 3am like me :) It goes much faster if you do it as an assembly line.
 
Supply List to make 20 cards

• (10) 8-1/2" x 11"  soft pink card stock 
• (3) white 8-1/2" x 11" white card stock
• (5) 8-1/2" x 11" white copy paper 
• 12" paper cutter
• purple ink pad
• Versamark ink pad
• Fussy cutting scissors
• markers in colors of choice
• 1/4" "Tearific" tape
• Fairy stamp 
• Butterfly stamp
• "Ice" embossing powder
• "Gala Pink" embossing powder
• "Fiery Fushia" glitter
• Corner rounding punch

Step 1-Embossing
      I stamped 4 fairies onto the long side of white card stock then applied the Gala Pink embossing powder before it dried. After that I turned the paper around to stamp another 4 fairies for a total of 8 on each of the 3 white card stocks.

Step 2- Coloring
     I have found that coloring an embossed image helps me to stay in the lines. I had a hard time finding  nice flesh tone in a marker so I actually used a colored pencil.

A breakdown of what color goes where.

You'll notice I didn't color all the way back on the dress. I trim that down to fit the card design to my taste.

Step 3- Fussy cut
each of the fairies need to be cut out


Step 4- Card stock cutting
     Place card stock horizontal on your cutter.
Cut in half from 11" to 5 1/2" this will give you (2) 5-1/2" x 8-1/2"
and a final card size of 5-1/2" tall and 4-1/4" wide. Which will fit A2 envelopes.


Step 5- Scoring
Here's the tricky part and a cheat.  You need to score the card 2-1/8" in on each side. I used my cutter again. DO NOT USE THE BLADE FOR THIS STEP!  I used the arm as a guide and my boning tool in place of the blade. By placing the long edge against the bottom of the cutter and short edge at the 6-3/8" mark. I scored the first side then turned the paper around 180 degrees and repeated for the second side. Now is good time to round your corners with a corner punch as well.

 Step 6- Stamping
     The Butterfly stamp I had only had 3 small butterflies so I simply repeatedly stamped on each inside edge until they were all full up.

Step 7- Greeting
     I used my printer and software to create the invitation info that I glued into the center here. Yes I know its cheating but I did these last minute remember.

Step 8- Front embossing

     I basically repeated the same as step 6 but this time with versamark and "Ice" embossing powder on the front to flaps.

Step 9- Glitter

Apply 1/4" tearific tape horizontal at the top edge and bottom edge. Remove the backing and DUMP "Fiery Fushia" glitter onto the tape.

Step 10- Fairy

Using the 1/8" tearific tape I taped down the fairy ONLY on the left side. This way the card can still open and you are DONE!

 

A Warm Welcome on a cold night

Hello and welcome!
   As I sit here curled up in my slippers and hoodie with one hand on the keyboard and the other wrapped around the mug of cocoa that I am trying to hide from the "Hot Mess" (aka my 4 y.o.) I am contemplating what I want to post first. Now keep in mind that my "Cold night" is in Tampa, Florida. I apologize in advance to all of my northern readers. But its too cold to put my flip flops on and my toes are complaining as a result.  Any-who enough of my whining and on to the goodies.  

                            A sneak peek at my next project post!

   So sit tight and hang on.Theres lots of happenings this month. From teaching scrapbooking classes to hopefully a new job :) and of course more posts!

Keep Calm and Glitter On!