Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine’s Day, surrounded by loved ones – whether or not you’re attached to a significant other.

If you need a last-minute card idea, there’s nothing wrong with simple. It’s amazing how quickly and easily you can transform card stock, scrapbook paper, and tissue paper with a little glitter, glue and scissors. Take it to the next level with some markers, crayons, or colored pencils. Whatever you have around the house!

I used all differing shades of pinks and reds, without fear of clashing colors. I think they turned out pretty cute! Let’s hope my parents think so, as they should be receiving them today

(Pardon the lighting, it was pretty dark when I took the pix.)

Felt Cat Toys

A couple of weeks ago, I was looking to do a quickie project with purpose, and decided to make some cat toys for the girls (Walker and Sunny). The reason was twofold – first, I wanted to treat my darling kitties to some new playthings because it’s been awhile. Secondly I needed extra weapons to throw at them for when they would disrupt me while I was working (or eating, or doing anything that didn’t involve paying complete attention to them). I’ve found the best method of keeping them distracted, at least for moments at a time, is to throw toys around the room. (Otherwise, they tend towards destruction when they feel neglected.)

The supply of cat toys I’ve invested in has dwindled, and the remainder are looking worse for wear. But don’t let the picture below of these 4 remaining purchased toys fool you into thinking there aren’t a dozen neon-colored, catnip-filled mice, weird koosh-like balls, and other shapes with bells in them all hiding in the crevices of my apartment. Every now and again something resurfaces that I haven’t seen in awhile, but often another toy is lost in its place to the great unknown. (Think clothes-dryer sock monster kind of deal.)

So, on this particular day, I decided to get some supplies out and make a few. All four took me just over an hour in total to create, not too big a time investment. Also, it was a fairly simple project overall, and a quick way to replenish my arsenal on the cheap.

What you’ll need:

• Felt
• embroidery floss/thread and needle
• scissors
• batting or other stuffing

As you can see below, I just cut out some basic shapes from felt – not too large, maybe 3″ or so – then I stuffed them with some crinkly paper, and sewed them together for a little plush toy.  I used embroidery floss to sew the edges so that the stitching became part of the decoration.

I don’t know that the crinkly paper made any difference, but the cats love these. For your project, you can certainly stuff them with regular batting, and even enhance them with some catnip. Next time, I’ll want to make them heavier so they travel further when I throw them across the room. (Maybe they’ll actually make it across the room.) My concern with that was finding something that added weight, but wouldn’t harm the cats when they bit into the toy. I’ll figure something out, I’m sure. But, as is, these toys will surely delight your favorite felines.

Do you have any other ideas for cat toys? Any suggestions for something to add weight without harming those delicate but pointy teeth?

Scrapbook Paper Flowers

I was totally inspired by Cally at Cally’s Creations for this next project. When I saw her post about the 3D flowers, I knew I wanted to create some of my own. Following her basic guidelines, I put my own spin on these, and it resulted in some fabulous decorations for both my walls and curtains!

You’ll need:

• Paper – scrapbooking, tissue, card stock, construction, printer, etc
• rhinestones
• glue
• scissors
• small or medium safety pins (if you want to hang them on curtains)

Basically, you want to cut out concentric circles of differing sizes and glue them together in the middle. Callie used adorable brass fasteners (split pins) with flowers to join hers together, but I used some glue and a plastic rhinestone to finish mine. I also found I didn’t have the patience to cut out more than three layers for each flower, so I didn’t!

The only rules I had for these flowers were that they be comprised of purple and teal layers to match my living room. I actually didn’t even pay attention to the hues and whether they went with each other, and the colors still look fantastic together. I used both plain and patterned scrap-booking paper, as well as some patterned tissue paper I had leftover from my garlands.

If you’re going to do more than 3 petal layers, I’d recommend making your outside circle larger to start with. I think mine averaged around 3″ in circumference, but I didn’t measure. To more precisely cut out circles you can fold paper in half and then cut out a half-circle, but I liked the organic, imperfect shapes I managed to freehand with the scissors. I then crinkled some of the paper, per Cally’s instruction, to give it more texture.

As you can already see, I added my own flare to some of the flowers by cutting out triangles to form separate “petals.” This is easily done by folding your flower in half, and snipping two small lines to make a triangle. Remove the cut paper.

While I wanted some wall decorations for my walls (I used painter’s tape to apply it), I also wanted to put some up on my curtains, so I got the idea to glue a safety pin to the backs of some flowers. This was really easy to do – just make sure that you don’t glue down the side of the pin that opens! I took about a one inch strip of scrap-booking paper, placed the pin in the middle, then added 2 dabs of glue – one on either side. (As my kindergarten teacher taught me, a little dab’ll do ya.) Then I placed the strip onto the back of one of the flowers. Let it dry, and voila!

These came out awesome, and I’m already planning to repurpose them by combining them into some bigger art project. I’ll post the updates whenever that happens. For now, check out some of my gorgeous results!

And here, you can see the safety pin idea totally worked! (They’re still hanging on my curtains because they compliment the dining room so well.)

Have you done a project like this one? How did it turn out?

Paper Pom-Pom Garlands

I’ve been accused of random things in my life, but most often I’m lambasted for downplaying my creativity. I’ve been told that when I shrug off something that I’ve created as no big deal, it’s bizarre to other people, because not everyone’s brains work like mine. (Though to me, it wasn’t a big deal!) I think this is part of why I decided to start this blog – to show off a bit of my artwork. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have a knack for the colorful and crafty, but I have difficulty understanding how to walk the line between acknowledging my talent vs. being an unbearable braggart. (Aren’t I amazing?)

So apparently, when I casually told my mother I’d created some decorations for my birthday party, she didn’t understand that I’d handmade these garlands, as well as some other adorable adornments for my living room. I’d seen decorations like these at a party store, and had bought them on a previous occasion, but as with most things artsy, I thought, “I can make that.” So I did.

Do you remember making flowers out of tissue paper as a kid? I’m not talking the detailed flowers I learned to make using stencils from a kit my mom got me in college (does she know me or what?), but rather the accordion-folded tissue paper squares that you fluff out and attach to a pipe cleaner to make a flower… If not, that’ll be another demo for another day I applied the same principal here – stack a bunch of papers, fold them accordion style, then fan and fluff them so you have nice pretty puffs strung together on embroidery floss (in this case).

You’ll need:

• tissue paper
• scissors
• embroidery floss or any kind of string

Start off by cutting your tissue paper to whatever sized rectangles you like. I folded and cut my sheets of tissue paper in half as many times as I could until my rectangles were about 5×7. With different colors, because I do love diversity, I made my rectangles smaller – about 3×5. I didn’t measure these, so don’t stress over it. You just want all your rectangles of the same color for the same pom pom to be roughly the same size.

I decided that 12 was the magic number to where there weren’t too many sheets of paper to contend with, but enough that when you separated them it would still appear full. I stacked 12 sheets on top of one another, kind of a pain to count individual pieces of tissue paper since it’s so fine, but I wanted to remain consistent.

Start folding the paper from the narrower end, as pictured below. For my larger pom poms, I made a fold roughly every inch. For the smaller ones, I made the folds closer together. If you don’t know how to do an accordion fold, you start by folding the paper up by about an inch, flip the paper over so the fold is facing downward, and fold back by the same amount, flip paper over again, and so on. When you’re done, your folds should line up, and the paper should look like an accordion, or a fan.

Once you’ve finished folding, take whatever string you’re using, and tie a double knot in the center of your fan. You’ll want the knot to be pretty tight, but a little wiggle room is fine, and will make it a bit easier to loosen the pages from each other when you fan them out. I spaced my fans about 6 inches from each other. When you separate the paper to make your pom poms, they’ll appear closer together.

Then take a break and look over to make sure your cat isn’t doing anything weird.

Nothing unusual here...

Puffing out your pom poms is more time consuming than you’d think, since it’s also a delicate process. The time to do this is not half an hour before your guests come, just as an FYI. Starting from the outside, gently separate each layer of tissue paper, one at a time. You have 12 sheets, so you’ll want to pull 6 towards the top, and the others towards the bottom to create a bowl-shaped poof. Then separate the pages on the other side.

This doesn’t have to be done perfectly – but the more you separate the layers, the more poof you’ll have! Also, the sturdier your tissue paper, the easier this will be. If the paper rips, don’t sweat it – when it’s all puffed out you won’t even notice. This is a very forgiving project.

Then string your garlands wherever you want! I had this one hanging from a curtain rod, and another strung over my sliding door. I love the texture they added! Also, in case you’re wondering, I did, in fact, match the garlands (and other decorations) to the colors of my apartment. My entire apartment is actually that brightly colored, but the decor will be another topic for another day.

These easy decorations can brighten up any home, even if there isn’t a special occasion. You might even consider making larger pom poms and hanging them vertically from the ceiling. I’d love to see pictures if you do!