Falling Leaves

You just cannot ignore it anymore even if we had a wonderful sunny and warm weekend.
But it is fall. And I don’t like fall. I am a spring girl, I also love snow and I love warmth, but I don’t like the plants in my garden and everywhere around me dying, not at all…

However, moaning doesn’t help, so I kept myself busy and created a set of fall leaves from paper to make some warm rich overwhelming beautiful fall tags using my new leaves dies from Taylored Expressions (ordered from USA and every Cent for petrol to get them from far away out of the customs office was worth it! ). The tree I’ve cut with my Silhouette Cameo from a cutting file I made myself a while ago. And for the photo background I found a gelli print in matching fall colors.

I hope you love fall more and enjoy the rich season!

 

 

Funny Crea(ture)tive Lettering

Having children’s room decoration in my mind I started to create these letters. It was an in and out of the computer.
I started to print the outlines from this pretty font. Then I have drawn the black and white pattern on it by hand with a marker.
I scanned my drawings and added the pattern back on the computer. I added the eyes and printed the whole alphabet, then cut all the letters and added yarn, threads and wool as hair.

As always you may use this as an inspiration for your own projects (perfect to craft with kids).
Or you can order your custom names from my Etsy store. Please give me 2 days to set it up individually for you. I am offering the personalized names ready printed and cut or as digital download sheets to print and cut them yourself as often as you want.

Ready made custom lettering

Digital download version

 

and more 4th of July crafting…stars and stripes box tutorial

Have fun to build this lovely 4th of July Independence Day gift box. You can get the template in my Etsy shop (it is just $3.50) or you are inspired enough to construct something similiar yourself.

4th of July stars and stripes DIY printable gift box

This is what you need:
3 printed sheets (I used heavy glossy photo paper)
scissors, ruler
something to crease edges ( I use a knitting needle, but there are cool tools available in craft shops, too)
liquid glue, double sided tape

Take care that you print all sheets on the same size. It just happens that the printer settings are changing from one to the other…techniques!
Then you roughly cut the parts and sort it.

Then crease the edges of the side parts between the rectangle and the zigzag lines urgently before cutting! This makes it much easier to fold the parts later.

Next you cut the circles and zigazg lines. I am die cutting this with my sizzix big shot. The biggest circle of the sizzix framelits is perfect and the Tapered Fringe by Tim Holtz goes well for the zigzag lines.
But you cut it easily by hand, too.

Close the side parts with double sided tape

Add the circles on top and bottom of the box lid, the fringes have to be between the circles. Then try the inner parts, while it is not yet fixed to see if it fits and if necessary adjust before closing the round.

Take the figure and fold along the dashed line in the middle of front and back figure. Add some double sided tape to glue it against each other. Then cut the figure carefully leaving a bigger white rectangle on the bottom to make her stand. With making a slit into the surface where you want her and pushing the ends under it you can make her stand.

I love those striped sticks. They are so versatile and always perfect to pimp up something, that looks a bit boring. You just fix a stripe of double sided tape on one side, then roll it up from the other side over a knitting needle, so easy!

The stars you can make 3-dimensional by folding them up on the long and down on the short edges. First crease all the edges, then fold into shape. This is much easier than you might think!

At last you assemble all the parts and fix it with tape, glue or best with a hot glue pistol.
Don’t worry if some parts are not looking 100% proper and clean. With the worn and stamped looking print this doesn’t matter at all.

Have a great 4th of July!

How to make little “4th of July – stars and stripes” gift boxes and decorations

Yesterday I was busy creating something for independence day, the 4th of July in USA:
I took one of my pyramid box templates, added stars and stripes and some rubber stamp effects in Photoshop.
If you don’t want to make this yourself you can get the templates from my Etsy shop.
The boxes are perfect for a little favor of gift. The lids you can also use hanging as decoration for your party.

Have fun!