Singed Pom Pom Flower Tutorial

As promised, I'm going to show you how I made the pom pom flowers for my

digital photo frame makeover from last weekend.

We'll be making the burgundy flower today in 10 easy steps!

1. Pick your material and cut a dozen circles out of it. I'm using an organza fabric.

(For the record, the above circle is 2 inches in diameter, and the gold flowers were made with 1.5 inch circles.)

2. Very carefully singe the edges of your material with a flame.

I prefer to use a clothespin to hold my fabric and a candle for my flame.

If you've never use the singed fabric technique before you may want to create some extra circles of fabric. This process will take a little bit of practice! For many fabrics, the edges will singe very quickly so don't hold it directly over the flame for too long!

Also, not all fabrics will work with this technique. Avoid natural fabrics (i.e. cottons). Synthetics work best (i.e. organza, satin, etc.)

3. Continue step 2 until you have singed the edges of all of your circles.

Also cut a small round piece of felt to use as a base for your flower.

4. Take one circle and fold it in half. Add a small spot of glue (I used Beacon's 3-in-1) to the center edge of the folded over circle.

5. Fold the circle in half again. Pinch the bottom of the fabric so that the adhesive spreads through all layers of the material. 

6. Continue step 5 until you have all of the circles folded into fourths.

You should now have a dozen "petals."

7. Add some adhesive to your circle of felt and add one of the petals.

8. Continue adding 3 more petals around the circle. This is you bottom layer of the flower.

9. Carefully add more adhesive to the center of the bottom layer of flowers. Start adding 4 more petals to create the second layer of the flower. Stagger the second layer so they are not sitting directly on top of the petals beneath them.

10. Add more adhesive to the center of the second layer of petals. Add three more petals, staggering them again from the petals in the second layer.

You will have one more petal left over. We made it as an extra in case anything happened to one of the other 11 petals in the creative process!

This is what the back of your flower now looks like. You can add a pinback, hair clip, etc. Or add it as an embellishment like I did to my frame by just using some glue!

I love the look the singed edges gives to these pom pom flowers! It gives them a little more life and makes the flower fuller.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!

Craft Desk Update - Week 4

4 weeks of trying to get my act together to get this craft space cleaned up...

And I FINALLY feel like I have something positive to show you!

Look at that countertop space!

The top of my desk is clean, clean, clean!

At least for now. I commissioned the hubs to make some shelves for me to use on and above my desk. I was able to get one of them spray painted today and will be getting it onto my countertop soon!

Unfortunately, I think that means my desk may be in chaos again soon. But I love organizing so hopefully it be will return to a satisfactory state quickly.

The floor is still a bit of a mess. I did clean it some, but still have a lot of things to go through.

But I'm getting there! :)

Guest Blogger - Sandy from Sandy's Space

I'm so excited to have Sandy from Sandy's Space over on the blog today! She is the most amazing paper crafter. You wouldn't believe some of the things she creates! Take it away, Sandy!

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Hi, this is Sandy Ang from sunny, little Singapore. I’m a crafter who loves card-making, paper construction and creating altered objects. Always interested in trying out new papercraft techniques and ideas. You will find more projects and tutorials on my blog.

Today I'm showing you how I created this perpetual calendar. It is meant to be mounted on the fridge or white board. It takes a little time and effort to make, but you will be repaid with a calendar that can be used year after year.

(12"x12" plus 3" onion dome top)

What you'll need :
2 sheets of 12"x12" paper, acrylic sheet, 31 number stickers, 31 small pictures, alphas to spell out the months, magnet

Instructions :

1. Choose 31 pictures to represent the days of the month. I used these cute frames from scrapbooking paper but you can choose your favourite stickers.
   
2. Position them in four rows of 7 frames plus a last row of 3 frames.
   Glue onto a 12"x12" paper taking up the bottom 2/3rds space.
3. Add numbered stickers in a horizontal sequence onto your frames
   
4. Cut a U-shape in a 4"x12" paper
   
   
5. Insert a 12"x 2" acrylic into the slit
   
   
6. Glue onto the 12"x12" paper taking up the top 1/3rd space
   Mount onto stiff cardboard and add magnets to the corners
   
7. Measure the spacing between your frames
   Write your 'day of the week' tab according to the spacing
   You will need a set of 7 tabs in the following sequence
   
8. Collect chipboard alphas to spell out the months and glue onto magnets
   
9. Mount calendar onto a fridge or whiteboard
   Place FEB alphas on for the month
   Slip the 2nd 'day of the week' tab into the acrylic pocket

And there you have it, a perpetual calendar. All you have to remember is to change the 'day of the week' and month alpha on the first of each month.

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Absolutely fabulous, Sandy! Thank you so much for sharing this great tutorial. I love the idea of being able to use the same calendar again and again just by slightly tweaking it.

You may remember Sandy's Tropical Angels that she linked up during the Homemade Christmas Gifts portion of my Christmas party last month. They were a big hit! And she has a great tutorial for making them on her blog.

T-Shirt Tuesday - Scrapbook Love Bug

Have you been bit by the scrapbook love bug?

Chances are, if you love to scrapbook, you've been bit!

Happy T-Shirt Tuesday!

Digital Photo Frame Makeover

I hate that this post is coming up so late in the day, but I have been filling a bit under the weather today. Luckily most of this project was finished yesterday, so I just had to get my act together to finish it off and take the final photos!

I thought it would be fun to particpate in the January's Create with Me: Rosette Frames at UCreate. I had the perfect project for it!

Though now I realize I didn't actually follow the rules since my flowers aren't rosettes. Maybe Kari will forgive me?  :)

My in-laws gave me a digital photo frame a couple of Christmas' ago. I love it! BUT, it does NOT match my decor. At all!

Everytime I walk by my Singer desk I always hear the tune "One of these things is not like the other one!"

The shiny black mod frame just does.not.match.

So I decided to give it a makeover!

I found some fun scrapbook paper in my stash.

Traced the edges of the frame onto the paper.

Measured where to cut the center out of the frame.

Now I have a lovely matte overlay!

I set it atop my frame to make sure everything fit.

Perfect!

I don't know if you noticed the other frames on my Singer desk,  but there is a lot of bling going on.

I want my frame to blend in with all of these other frames!

The scrapbook paper is pretty blinged out by itself, but I added a little something extra to the sides to make it even more shiney.

I also added some brown ribbon around the inside edge to complete things off.

Looks good to me! Now I just need to add some flowers...

I made 3 pom pom flowers in colors that match the decor of my living room where the Singer desk lives.

I made these pom pom flowers a little differently from the traditional pom pom.

You can find the tutorial for making these here.

Now that looks a lot better!

You can find some answers to questions about the frame makeover here.

Craft Desk Update - Week 3

Time for a craft desk update!

Ummmm... no improvement really. In fact, I've added MORE things to organize! (see the pink arrow)

The hubs and I spent last weekend on a couples retreat with some friends from college. It just so happens there is a super large scrapbook store nearby so we girls make a pilgrimage there every year. The arrow points to my new loot!

The only improvement is some clearing on the top of my desk. If you want to call it improvement because actually I just shoved some things around so that I could work on a big project.

You see, I had BIG plans to clean up this space last Sunday when we got back from the retreat. I was childless and husbandless for several hours, but it wasn't in the cards.

Why?

Because of these... 

It may not look like much but I had to make 325 of these (each!) for a custom Etsy order. My handy dandy Silhouette made the project a breeze, but, as you can imagine, it still took quite a long time to complete 325 of each of these die cuts!

But I think they turned out really cute! They were requested to be put on a goody bag for a local fundraiser for the Nashville Opera. The hand represents an opera glove with a silver pearl bracelet on the wrist. I was able to put the Thank You note on the glove with the print-and-cut feature of the Silhouette.

So where does that leave me?

With a craft space that still needs a LOT of attention! I'm hoping to make some good progress this weekend. And I have a fun new project to share on the blog tomorrow! Stay tuned!