Cool Labels

 I recently bought some plain white labels and wanted to jazz them up a bit. While I was finishing up a project my son Jack (who LOVES to play with my spray mists and color with paint) asked if he could "spray" as he calls it. I had the big stack of white labels and thought sure why not..let see what he can come up with. I gave him a few and he had a blast spraying all kinds of colors onto the sheet. For a few of them I dotted them with Tim Holtz distress stain dobbers (I need to get some Bingo dobbers too!) While I was at Micheals I saw Heidi Swap came out with a small circle stamp with an interchangeable circular saying stamps. Adorable and perfect to stamp on top of where I stamped with the dobber!! I made some to label my craft storage bins, notebooks and of course envelopes. So many uses! 

Happy Creating,

Melissa 

 

Halloween Tree Ornament

I've been looking for a frame of some sort to use in my most recent swap group for some time! The swap is Halloween Tree Ornament. I knew I wanted to use a picture I had of a black crow reading a book. I made several trips to the Dollar store to only find one or two frames of the same design. I needed 12 of the same design. I was at Michaels on Sat before I went to my monthly crop and score! I found a 3 pack of chalkboard type wood frames. Bonus..they were only $1.49 (on clearance) per pack!! I was super excited! 

I like to keep the swap items inexpensive because I also have to pay shipping to and from the host. The best part is that they are really light, so they won't weigh the tree down. First, I needed to paint the frames as they came in pink, teal and light green. I used a basic black craft paint and did two coats with a foam brush. 

I printed out the crow picture and cut it down to fit each frame. I used wash tape around 

the crow, and then embellished with Echo Park Chillingworth Manor. 

I cut the plastic ring part off of  spiders and glued them on last. 

Since the frame will be hanging and the back will probably be exposed I used the same line of paper and embellished with a tag, black polka dot washi tape, and a black button.

 I really like how they came out and can't wait to get 11 different ones back to decorate my Halloween tree! 

Happy Creating,

Melissa

Handmade Birthday Hat

A fun tradition to start when kids are young is a birthday hat. (I wish I would have thought of this one when my kiddos were babies) Make a sturdy birthday hat that you can take a picture of your child wearing each year on their birthday! It would be so much fun to look at the succession of pictures..young to old. One of my very crafty friends Jennifer makes adorable hats..and I got the idea from her :)  For this one I started by cutting a piece of 11X14 watercolor paper the size of the hat I wanted. I love watercolor paper because it's sturdy enough to hold up to a lot of crafting. I actually had a store bought birthday hat that I took apart and saved for a template. To start off with I cut out the name on my Silhouette and lightly adhered it to the hat.

I misted the hat with Maya Road misting spray. After it dried I peeled the name off. 

I folded tissue paper several times and then using my little flower punch I punched out the flowers. I glued them to the hat along with a little pearl in the middle with Glossy Accents. 

I trimmed the edges of red party cray paper to make it slightly fringe and glued white ric rac in the middle.

For the top I layed out a strip of white tissue paper and then cut fringes. I then rolled it up and make the "pom pom". I separated the layers by gently pulling on them. 

The banner is made of double sided triangles joined at the top. I cut them this way so I can fold them over bakers twine. I wrote Happy Birthday and secured each end with a pin. (I taped the pointy end to the inside of the hat). This hat was fun to make, my friend requested "not too girly". Thank goodness she said something to me or I would have gone a little crazy and did the whole nine yards of princess, ribbon and tulle!  Happy Creating,

Melissa