Paper Flower Template/Tutorial

Where I work, we acquire a lot of scrap paper. I thought a great "eco-friendly" thing to do with some of it and to also pretty up my desk area a bit was to make some paper flowers.
The flowers are three layers of paper - the large flower, then the small flower, then the circle. Any colorful paper will do. I used glue dots to stick them together, but tape or another glue would work too. Glue dots are just so easy!
Then I slightly folded the small flower's petals up a little to give it a little dimension.
Really simple, but fun to make. And just in time for Spring!



Click on the template to enlarge the image, then print it out, cut out the shapes and trace them on any scraps of paper you can find and you're all set!

another day, another Totoro

After much thought, I finally decided to craft up some characters from one of my favorite movies My Neighbor Totoro. I usually stick to making imaginary things that spawn from my brain, but I just couldn't help making a few Totoros because they're too cute to not! And as silly as this might sound, I don't even mind if they don't sell right away from my etsy shop because I think they make my shop look even that much cuter.

On a more serious note...I've been searching literally my whole entire life for polka dot tissue paper. I love using polka dot packing materials for my figurines, but for some reason I can't get my hands on polka dot tissue paper. I've scoured the web for hours, days, months, with no luck. I'm looking for the classic polka dot pattern. Not random dots all over, but organized neat little dots in a row. I can find random dot tissue paper everywhere on the web like it's my job, but for some reason I can't find the classic polka dot patterned tissue paper. Or I've run across neat dots in a row but for some reason the dots are HUGE. I'm not a fan of huge. Cute and tiny is the name of the game here. Color isn't even important at this point in time. Any polka dot tissue paper would do.
Okay, that's a lie. The dots have to be white. Any color with cute small white dots. Those are my only discrepancies. That's not asking too much, is it?

During my most recent endless search for polka dot tissue paper I stumbled on the Folding Trees blog where there's this really nifty tutorial on tissue paper carnations! Very cool, and amazing what can be achieved with a little marker accent.
I'd be all over this project if I didn't have evil demons for cats that I just know would promptly bat these flowers off the table and use as soccer balls. I really must invest in some display cases, or glass doors, something...

A sailboat on a rainy day.

My pop-pop's birthday is coming up. September 11th. Can't say I'll ever forget that! I decided to make him a card. Usually when I give cards or gifts, the recipient doesn't receive it until a week after their birthday. I'm a terrible planner. But this time I'm determined to get it to him before his birthday.

I drew a silhouette of a sailboat on tracing paper. Layered it on top of a nice piece of textured cardstock and carefully cut it out with a super sharp X-Acto blade. Then glued that to a another piece of card stock. Layered that with a matching piece and punched holes up the side. And finally threaded some matching green rope down the side to hold everything together. Resulting in a 5x7 inch card..roughly speaking.

[don't mind the terrible sickly lighting. It's a blustery rainy day out.]




I also thought I'd share my sailboat silhouette in case you'd like to make your own sailboat card for your pop-pop. Just right click and save the image to your computer then print out and do the same thing I did with the tracing paper. All I ask is that you don't use my image for commercial purposes (i.e. making cold hard cash off of it) without my permission. Because that wouldn't be very nice....or legal.

bedtime.

Why didn't anyone tell me that I can never escape a bedtime no matter how old I get? Whether I'm told to, like when I was younger, or nowadays when my body literally starts shutting down like a computer. Programs start shutting down, hard drives start powering off, the monitor shuts off. It's ridiculous. I'm almost 25 and I'm passing out at 10 o'clock. How am I supposed to get anything done in a day when my body wants to spend at least half of it sleeping? My body and I aren't really on the same page.

This past weekend I heard the birds chirping and I wrote it down to remember to document it later because it was so funny. "pretty pretty prit prit prit prit" Imagine that in a chirpy bird voice, because that's what it sounded like for hours. I always imagine the birds are saying actual words...it's kind of annoying. They sound desperate, searching for a mate the length of the day. My mind tends to wander also, and I imagine a boy bird, lonely, searching for a girl bird and all the other birds are paired off and he's sitting there all alone chirping..saying the same phrase over and over, hoping someone will pay attention to him. I know, I'm crazy.

I chopped off my hair yesterday. I don't know what's wrong with me and my hair. I'm never satisfied with it. I always want to change it. Whether it's by dyeing or styling, it never ends. I tried to dye it platinum today as well. I'll take pictures tomorrow. It's not quite as light as I wanted, but it's an awesome shade of ash blonde, so I'm happy. ....for now...maybe.

As for a bit of crafty business, I've had my hands full with custom orders. It's been tough trying to work on my "series" of Lil Dumplins and the customs at the same time. But I will prevail! I'm still very hesitant to settle on a new name for the Lil Dumplins. Mainly because once I choose, then that's it, I'm not changing it again. I also realized I'm a moron and the business cards that I recently ordered say "Lil Dumplins, Art and Accessories". Not exactly the best time to be renaming my Lil Dumplins, now is it. But that's alright, I'll work it out.

Oh! And I came across an awesome website chock full of how-to's for jewelry, housewares, food and who knows what else (i haven't done a thorough investigation just yet..). Real people upload their tutorials and a lot of them have pictures and diagrams. I think it's really great that people are willing to share their skills with others. Maybe I'll add something one day...if I ever have the time! I love to be helpful when I can. Cut Out + Keep