Sheet Music Flower Tutorial

Hi guys! I posted this on the DP forum but thought I should share it here, too. It's how I made the flower on my Christmas card that was in Paper Crafts. (squeal!)

Hi guys! Here's the other tutorial I promised you. Sorry the colors are a little wonky, if you have any questions let me know! First up, here's what you'll need. Sheet music (or other thin paper), spray mist (water will work, too), a scalloped circle punch and some pretty brads.

Start off by punching seven circles out of your sheet music.

Mist them, you don't have to be too thorough but you do want them wet. If you want a more intense color, flip them over and mist the other side as well. I didn't on mine because I wanted the yellowed vintage sheet music to show more.

Now, crumple them up!

Flatten them out and allow them to dry.

When they are dry (or just barely damp) stack them up and poke a hole in the middle. I found it's easier to do this with a piercer than to do it during the next step.

Insert your pretty brad in the hole and flatten the prongs in the back.

Now, crumple and smoosh (two highly technical terms) the top layer around your brad.

Continue with the rest of the layers until you've crumpled them all.

Now, gently unfold each layer starting with the bottom one. Don't flatten it out, you want to leave it rather fluffy, and you're done!

Here are a couple of variations. You can ink the edges of them before you stack them and after it's all done, you can remist it to add more color if you'd like. I can't wait to see your flowers!!!! :D

Moxie Fab Challenge!!!

Oh, I am so happy with how this card turned out! I had an idea in my head and it worked!!! You'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) at how many times I just can't get it right. LOL!!! This is for the In My Beautiful Balloon Challenge in the Moxie Fab World!!! I read the Moxie Fab blog and they quite often have challenges. This is the first one I've done! I used the For The Record line from Echo Park that came in my April My Scrapbook Nook kit. I used a Martha Stewart punch to create the sun and colored just the rays with a glitter pen.

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together?! (Name that show!)

Stash Your Cash Crop at Dixie Pieces!!!

With the tax deadline looming, we're having a crop that is all about ways to hold onto your cash and use your stash! There will be challenges and games that will give you entries into a drawing for your choice of a past Dixie Pieces kit! The crop starts tomorrow at 9 am PST and continues through Sunday night. You'll have until April 24th at midnight to get your challenges completed and uploaded in the gallery. I hope you all can join in! I set a goal to scrap 40 layouts from April through June so I'm hoping this weekend will help me get a big head start! Hee! See you at Dixie Pieces!!!

Toast Sandwiches

Miss Thing and I had toast with jam for our snack this morning. (Little Man was in time out for hitting her in the nose and making it bleed. Yikes!) She's in that phase right now where she takes apart her sandwiches and eats the middles and then eats the bread...if she's hungry enough. LOL! So, I figured that toast would be right up her ally, one less step you know? Well, I plopped her toast, cut in four little squares, right in front of her. She looked at me and said, "Top?". Like, where's the rest of it, Mom??? I tried to explain that toast was supposed to be like that, it wasn't a sandwich. She stared at her plate for a second, picked up one piece and plopped it on the other. "There!" she said. Like, jeez Mom was that so hard. Hee! She put the third piece on top of the fourth and then....took them apart and starting eating!

Audrey's Tutu Sweet Birthday Party! ***The Decorations***

Okay, I was only going to do two posts and not three but man, I took a lot of pictures!!! So, in order for it not to take a year to load...three posts. :) This post is just some shots of the dining room area. I decided around Mickey's 3rd birthday to stick to decorating only this one room otherwise I might go too nuts and stress myself out more than I needed too. :) The fluted bowl in the lower right hand corner is actually from my uncle, it used to belong to one of my great-grandmothers and has roses in it so I like to dig it out for Little Miss Audrey Rose. The platter with the animal cookies and sugar wafers also belonged to one of my great-grandmothers and has a similar rose pattern. I know that was technically the kitchen but the rest of this is just the dining room, I promise! Heh! I got a bunch of bandannas in springy colors because I figured I could decorate with them and then she could play dress up with them as well. I draped two over that window in the picture and the other over the glass sliding door. I also draped a white feather boa over the light fixture. I added that (and two others) to her dress up wardrobe as well.

You can see the other boa here and I change all the pictures on the shelves from both kids to just the birthday child. The little hanging lanterns I picked up at Dollar Tree. Love that store! Oh, and her lavender boa.

Here's a close up of the table and cupcakes. The dress form was white but I sprayed it pink. It's either going in her room to hold hair accessories or it will be sprayed aqua or white and used to display stuff if I do more craft fairs this summer. The little plates on either side are also from great-grandmothers and the butterfly is one of a bunch that I got at Dollar Tree and just tucked here and there.

Finally, here's the little set up with her subway art. Her pink, white and lavender tutu is tucked under the cake stand and there are more butterflies (and a few Dollar Tree birds) as well as the hot pink boa. That girl is going to be set in the dress up department!

Okay, so next up will be a recap of the party and Miss Thing's three (yes, three!) wardrobe changes!

Audrey's Tutu Sweet Birthday Party! ****The Stuff I Made Post****

For Miss Thing's party, I wanted a sort of "dress-up" theme. She's really into putting on other people's shoes and randomly wearing other people's clothes (and her own) so it works with who she is right now. Since she was turning two, I figured making a tutu was the next obvious step. :) I made her a light pink, lavender and white one which she had fun with but then I got the tutu making bug and went out and bought some teal, lime and bright blue tulle. Oh lordy, she loved it!!! She ran around the house in it making airplane noises!!! Anyway, I got a bit carried away and made a matching tutu for her dolly, along with a headband with a tulle puff and a clip with a tulle puff that either she or her dolly could wear. I used almost every square inch of those 45 yards of tulle! Oh, I bought three 6" rolls of tulle not 45 actual yards! LOL!!! Here's Miss Thing and her dolly all decked out. A closer shot of her headband. (The headband was from Dollar Tree and the bling is from My Mind's Eye.) I cut six circles of tulle, stacked them and pinched the centers and stitched them together and then stitched it straight onto the headband.

And here's Andrew providing a better look at the tutu itself. Isn't he the hottest model ever!

Here's Miss Thing's birthday card. I used the March kit from My Scrapbook Nook. It's such a pretty, girly kit! This is the only thing I've made with it so far because I've just been too busy. I already have had my April kit for a few weeks now! LOL! Anyway, I'm thinking a bunch of her party will be scrapped using this kit. :)

Now this next item is actually spring themed subway art that I found on the eighteen25 blog. It's a super cute crafty blog ran by three sisters. Love that blog! Anyway they posted this cute spring subway art here on their blog and I just thought it was adorable!

But, I really wanted something in a more pastel theme so I pulled it into PSE and fiddled around with it and came up with this! Love!!!! I printed it up at 8x10 and spray painted this junky old frame I found with aqua paint and it's just perfect together!Now, how does this relate to Miss Thing's birthday party? Well, I decided to create some subway art themed just for her birthday! I was even able to use the same frame as the spring one I made as the colors went really well together. You'll see pics of that when I post about her party in general. :)

And finally, I made cupcakes!!! I'm so glad cupcakes are in right now because they are so much less stressful to make than a full cake. If you burn a few cupcakes, no big deal. If you burn one side of your cake....disaster!!! We had rainbow chip cupcakes with rainbow chip frosting and I found some Easter candy corn to make little flowers on each one. Yum!!!

So, that's the stuff I made for Miss Thing's 2nd birthday. I'll post her party itself next! :)

A Baby No More!

My baby is two years old today! So, I'm going to have to quit calling her a baby. Man, it's gonna be rough. :) This is the view I see on most days. Aud is my little Klingon. She's either wanting to picked up and carried or she wants to hold my hand. :) She's especially clingy right after nap time. She's not quite as bad as Mickey was but she still needs a little love or a lot of distraction when she first wakes up during the day. She's a happy little thing and so fun to have around. She's quite the talker and the other day one of Mickey's preschool teachers asked when she turns three. LOL! We are a family of talkers, I guess. :D

I'm massively in love with her hair! Andrew keeps wanting me to cut it but there's no way I can chop off those curls!!!

She's really interested in growing up. She's taught herself to drink out of a big girl cup, she can half get herself dressed (she can get herself completely undressed too, yikes!) and she heads straight for the big slide in the backyard and ignores the toddler one.

I call her my little maniac. :) She runs everywhere and gives the tightest hugs and her favorite phrases right now are "I win!", "I did it!" and "Don't like it!". I could live without that last one.

These last two years with our Little Miss Thing have been wonderful. She's a great kid and I know how lucky we are to have such a sweetie in our family.

Happy Birthday, Audrey Rose, we love you!!!!