Everson Festival of Trees!

Today is setup day of the Paper Arts Club 2011 Everson Tree and here's a sneak of it before it leaves my house!  I chose a white tree this year because we've always had a green one and I went out on a limb to be a little different!  I wish you get a chance to see it in person as it is really pretty and against the white tree, everything just pops!  The Festival is once again at Shoppingtown Mall in the former Bon Ton store.
Another element to our tree that you may not know about is the star topper.  When the tree is all decorated, I always finish it with wood stars that I purchase at a craft store.  Every year is a different design and this year I chose the solid red card stock to coordinate with all the other bits of red.  Here's a closeup of it:

I hope you've enjoyed what I consider to be our Club's most important community project of the year!  Thanks to every Club member who donated a card each month.  This year we have 130 cards on the tree!  I would love to scrapbook all our trees we've donated over the years.  There are so many I struggle to remember the year of our first one but I believe it was 2000.  I do remember it was made of diecut little boxes made to look like ornaments.  We've come a long way since that tree and it is a Festival favorite from what I am told!

3d141 - Yo Yo Ornaments!

Hello everyone and welcome to another week of 3d fun!  As we think about holiday gifties, I found these yo yo ornaments fit the quick and easy category beautifully.  And you know what?  I've never made a yo yo in my life until this project and now I'm hooked on the little things.  I will admit that I found this idea in a Better Homes and Gardens Holiday book (I gave the book as a gift and have asked my friend for the exact title) and just added my style to them!  Close ups of each ornament better show detail along with a 5th ornament that didn't make the featured photo.  How to construct the yo yo itself is after the close ups section.

I do hope you will try these little cuties and share them with us in the comment section of the 3d Challenge Group or The Planet Blog!  They make great gifties for co-workers, employees, teachers, hairdressers, etc!  They make fun package tie-ons for wine bottles too!  Once you get started, they are addicting to make!

 
The 'snowflake' ornament starts with hot gluing the white string to the center and then adding a scallop circle punch also hot glued at the center of the yo yo.  Next add layers of tulle (kinda hard to see in the photo) that are cut in squares and offset.  A Sizzix snowflake is punched and added next and finished with a flat pearl.  Several narrow lengths of tulle are tied around the hanger for additional fluff and dimension.

 

I call this one the 'green tulle' ornament.  The first step is to add the gold string for a hanger.  Next, tie the tulle in a bow and fan out the loops and stick it down with hot glue.  The ribbon flower was added next along with Prima leaves, some gold pearls and pins.  I think this is perhaps my favorite one!
 

Hot glue the gold string to the back of the ornament first.  The 'lace ornament' is a lace diecut that is edge distressed with Vintage Photo ink and hot glued to the back of the ornament.  A wired ribbon is double tied to add more loops and hot glued on.  A glitter star, flower and gold leaves are from Prima with an added gem to the center of the flower.

 

Add the red crotchet string to the center first with hot glue. The crotchet circle is next.  The double bow ribbon was tied separately and the jingle bells tied onto the ribbon center then hot glued onto the center.  I stamped Goodwill to all onto seam binding and hot glued that into the center.

The 5th and final ornament has two rows of hot glued lace forming a circle.  The gold hanger is glued next, then double ribbon bows with scrunched seam binding and a Prima flower.  The glass bauble is added last and tied on with string.
Here are the directions to make these little darlings:

 Cut a circle.  I used a discarded Planters Peanut can that was 6-1/4" in diameter.  The fabric is thin enough that I could cut 6 circles at once!  I traced the can using a pen right onto the fabric stack.
Double thread a needle and hand stitched 1/8" from the raw edge. Some directions say to fold over the raw edge and iron it flat and then stitch but I saw absolutely no value in doing that step!

Next, cinch the stitches by gently pulling the thread as much as you can to gather all the fabric together.  Tie a knot several times to hold the gathers in place.  Cut away the excess thread.

 

Shape the yo yo by flattening it and fixing the gathers to your liking. All that's left is to decorate!  The entire cutting, stitching and gathering takes less than 5 minutes!!!!

2012 Calendar Class!

It's finally here!  My annual calendar class!  The class is today and is sold out but here's a sneak of  this year's calendar design.  Every year I come up with a different design and one day, I'll compile all the years of calendars we've made.  It is difficult to remember how long I've been doing this class!  We will be using my new fav tool today, the We R Memory Keepers The Cinch to bind our project.  Stop by the Shoppe and see the entire project in person!

Whimsie Doodles Challenge on Paper Craft Planet!

This darling image Cookie Fairy from Whimsie Doodles was so much fun to work with, especially with the added sentiment!  I used some seasonal papers from Crate Paper called Farmhouse and literally chose the background paper first and then decided how to color the little girl with Copics.  

To give depth to the project, I tried to create dimension as much as possible.  Here are the raised pieces:  the brown scallop, the little girl, the word banner, and the punched heart.
Further dimension was created by adding the flower to her headband, gems to her shoes and the ribbon and embellishment pieces in the center.  Don't forget to add distress inking around the card panel to add depth too!
Here's another card I made with an equally cute image Shy Fairy!

Again, because of the papers I chose (Memory Box), the card design fell into place nicely. I can't seem to make a flat card so there's lots of chunky dimension here. The tiny jingle bells are part of a string of garland purchased from a craft store. It has lasted me years and was an excellent purchase. They came in gold and silver. Notice her eye glass lenses are filled in with Glossy Accents! Sentiment is from Hero and image is colored with Copics. Glass glitter was added around the image panel that was Distressed with Old Paper prior to adding the glitter.
Hope you get a chance to visit us over on the Whimsie Doodles Challenge on the Paper Craft Planet blog!

Fran*tage Friday - Angel Kisses!

Mix up a bit of montage and eclectic collage with a touch of vintage timelessness á la Fran Seiford, and what do you get?  Fran•táge!
Every Friday, we'll be showing you a technique using the new Fran*tage line of stamps from Stampendous.  The best part?  You can win some free goodies from Stampendous just by leaving a comment over on the discussion forum found here!
Here are the products I used to make this card:

Cling Jumbo Snowflake
Cling Angel Kisses Set
Cling Warmest Greetings
Shabby White Embossing Enamel
Silver Crushed Glass Glitter
Transparency Sheet
Colored Cardstock (Burgundy Cut 4-1/4 x 11 and Gold Cut 4-1/2 x 5-3/4)
Black Memento Inkpad
Scattered Straw Distress Ink
Here's another view of the card front:

The first step is to cut the transparency to the size of your card front which is 5-1/2x4-1/4.  (Remember when cutting transparency to put a printer paper sheet under it otherwise the cutter won't slice through the plastic.)  I used a glue pad to ink up my snowflake but you can also use Watermark pad, a Top Boss embossing inkpad, or any pigment inkpad.  For some reason, the glue pad worked best for me.  Sprinkle on the embossing enamel and shake off excess.  Apply a heat tool to the image but hold farther away than you normally would for paper.  Keep a close eye on the melting process as overheating will warp the transparency.

Next, simply run a line of adhesive on the top edge of the transparency and affix to the burgundy card front along the top fold.  You will cover up the taped area with the ribbon.  I used seam binding and created a double bow then scrunched it with a little mist of water to create the vintage feel.  To make the ruffle edge, just lay down a length of Scor-Tape or similar and work a length of ribbon into ruffles as you work along the tape.  This is very random! Cut the gold cardstock layer 5-3/4 x 4-1/2 and mount that to the back of the burgundy card.
Create the tag with a scrap piece of cardstock and edge distress with ink.  I added a length of Scor-Tape at the end of the tag and dipped it into the crushed glass glitter.  I colored baker's twine with a Garnet Copic marker to match the cardstock.
The inside of the card looks like this:

Stamp the sentiment with black Memento inkpad and then the snowflake with the Scattered Straw inkpad.

Want to win some FREE Stampendous stamps? Post your comment by clicking here. You can tell me whatever you’d like. You have until Thursday at midnight, Eastern Time. After that, we’ll pick a winner through Random.org and announce the name on the next Fran*tage Friday.
Good luck!
Thanks to our good friends at Stampendous for sponsoring this event!