lookin' like a party...

Always in the mood for a piece of cake, today's project really hit the spot for me!
No, I didn't actually get to eat any, but... this was almost as good.

Target had the cutest little cupcake stands in their Dollar Spot so I picked up a couple. It was just the right size to stack a pair of paper mache boxes on top to make a 'cake'...

I covered the boxes with patterned paper and glued the small box on top of the larger one. They both still open up so if you wanted to slip a tiny something inside you could.

The fabulous bunting circling the cake layers is made up of something you might not have expected- I used the Shortie Tabs die set from Tammy Tutterow! Cut from lots of bright colors and gently inked with Distress Ink they were the perfect size for the larger bottom layer; I snipped off about 1/4" to make them fit the shorter top layer.

I slipped a die cut doily underneath the stack and a gold button on top. Of course, no project feels complete without some sparkly chenille stem and this gold/silver twist was perfect... 

That's all it took to make a dull stack of paper mache look like a party!

xo,

wishes for you...

Today's post is a birthday card I made using mostly scraps and a beautiful new flourish die sent to me from Tonic.

The little girl is dressed in a clown suit that has been softly colored in pink & blue but I went ahead and mixed it with some bold stripes and polka dots.
A narrow strip of tickets turned into the base for a delicate border from the Filigree Flourish set... 

FYI- If you'd like to use a die strip but it's too long for the spot you want- cut it! Even if the design looks too complicated, if you take a good look at it I'll bet you can snip away just enough to make a perfect fit.

I can definitely see that I'll be using the dies in this set EVERYWHERE. They're simply lovely.

xo,

she takes the cake...

It all started with a die.

I fell in love with the Musical Melody die and wanted to use it somewhere. It made me think of the song 'Happy Birthday To You'... 
Now, I have a very, very special friend that's got a birthday coming up so I figured I would make her a birthday cake from paper! 

That idea started to grow once I found all the paper mache boxes and before I knew it, it was towering high!

After all the boxes were covered in paper and stacked, there was a gap that showed. Chenille stem to the rescue! What a perfect filler.

The candles flames were made with more chenille stem, this time in gold. Every one of the little clowns had big black pom poms on their costumes and my Nuvo Crystal Drops added just the right dimension to them. 

They're liquid drops that remind me of enamel dots when dry. Easy as ever to use, they are self-leveling and dry absolutely solid and dimensional. Perfect for little round black pom poms!

Don't ask why I chose the pink fluffy metallic pom poms, they just made me happy.

Loads of trim, sparkle and fluff- the more, the merrier. After all, this is supposed to be a party.

I hope this makes her happy when she receives it, because...

She definitely takes the cake!

xo,

special day...

 
Last month, I was lucky enough to make it onto the design team for Scrapbook Island. Yay!!!
We got our first project box and had this past month to complete it. The interesting thing about this design team is that at the end of the year, the store holds a huge crop and auction to benefit breast cancer. The projects from the team are the auction items! 

My box had the latest birthday collection from Crate Paper, all the embellies that went with it, a chipboard binder plus the pages that fit it.
I was nervous, nervous, nervous! The deal with the projects is this: you don't add photos (simplest rule in the world for me to follow since I rarely take any!) BUT... you also don't add anything else to the project. Now that is a heart-stopper for me. No book paper, no sheet music, no vintage images (say it ain't sooooo) and most likely, no layers on top of layers on top of more layers.

The 'what' of the project was a no-brainer... duh, it's going to be a birthday book.

The 'how' was a little trickier for me.

I machine stitched on photo mats I had cut from the decorative papers.

The interior sleeves that were included were all the same size. Too dull. I ended up cutting them into different widths so that the book would have some movement.

Cute little vellum pockets got some washi tape and die cuts.

I did my best to create layers where I could.

With the manufacturer bar code strip cut off of each sheet of paper, I realized I had the perfect little piece that could be added along the edge of the pages. It was kinda fun stitching these on, although I was definitely holding my breath until I could flip each one over to make sure I'd caught the strip on the opposite side. whew!

The orange birthday sheet music paper was my hands-down favorite of the entire stack.

Another vellum bag just begging for some photos to be slipped into it.

My stitching was far from perfect as you can clearly see!

It's ready for someone to add their birthday memories...

It was a challenge that really made me stop and think... way out of my comfort zone style-wise (and paper-wise too) and definitely a larger scale than I am used to working in. At the end, it all came together and I was eager to turn it in and see what was in my next box!

xo,

birthday fairy...

Last week I made a little birthday collage for a friend-

I keep bringing back this old image of hollyhocks- it's so bright and pretty that I just can't seem to stop using it. The little fairy looked like a birthday fairy once she had on a party hat. I think everyone would look good in this hat! Some hand-dyed seam binding, a tiny strip of sheet music and a little yellow crystal tied the whole thing together.

Plus, a little bling never hurt anyone.

birthday banner swap... part deux!

Here we go with part 2 of the 'Great Birthday Banner Swap'! The thing that makes these banners so very special, is the fact that my friends made them just for me... putting their own personalities into them, thinking about what my favorite things are and then putting their time and patience and love into them- I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. The first beauty up is from Cathy. She always makes me think of happy colors. She also makes the most fabulous little mini-banners and I was lucky enough to get one on my own banner!

Next we've got Barbi... she's a lover of vintage and pin-up girls, just like me. (whoops- I don't mean I'm a pin-up girl. I meant that I love them too!)

The tiny scalloped edge you see there on the sides? Well those are individual little circles, pain-stakingly glued onto the back to make the fancy edge. Guess she really likes me! ha ha ha

The last one is from Kandy. She's an embellishment wiz. Totally fancy and feminine, loaded with detail.

Check out the pocket she built into the point of the banner- that was a darling idea. She filled it with those pretty little fancied-up tags. Love the sparkly button!

So whad'ya think? I'm a pretty lucky girl to have these friends, aren't I? Yeah, I think so.

birthday banner swap...

It seems it's been about a gazillion days since I last updated my blog (well, OK, maybe not quite that many, but it's close...). No good excuse, just that life sometimes gets in the way of best intentions!

Many months ago, one of the Scrappy Girls had a birthday (yeah, YOU Cathy!) and the rest of us decided that instead of making cards to go along with the gifts, we'd make banner pennants. Actually, I kind of instigated this because I am soooo not a card-maker. My friends make beautiful cards- full of detail, artfully crafted, made with love. Me? Not so much. In fact, not only do I usually not make their birthday card, I've always got the ugliest gift-wrapping. No kidding- if there were a pile of gifts sitting there, they could probably each pick out the one that I brought. Anyway... a banner-maker I most certainly AM!

So here's the deal- we took a standard size of 5"x7" so that there would be continuity. Each one of us made her a birthday-themed pennant that she could string together and hang up. The theory here is that by the time she's about 100 years old, she'll have a lovely reminder of how much we love her. Not just on her birthday, but always! She loved the surprise of the banner pieces and we all decided that this would now replace the handmade birthday cards. Whew! Good news for me. The other bonus? We all decided that it was so much fun, we'd make them for all holidays!

Barbi's was a mix of my very favorite bird image, sheet music (of course) and the striped paper from My Mind's Eye that I used on about a dozen projects (I just couldn't get enough of that paper!)...

Kandy's just reminded me of her- she's so girlie and I'm pretty sure she might actually have a magic wand. Really. I also loved that the paper had her birthday number on it (sorry, there wasn't a 29 in sight) and the book paper I used was the title page from 'Much Ado About Nothing'!

Unfortunately, when I made Cathy's banner way back in September, I never took a picture of it. Next time, I'll show you the banners that my girlfriends made for MY birthday!