Paper 'Inspire' Blossoms

Creating is such a wonderful outlet for me.  It allows me to focus on the task at hand, and use the other side of my brain.  If you stopped by yesterday, you saw some beautiful hand-made paper blossoms that I created.  The encouragement came from two wonderfully supportive girl friends, who enjoy paper crafting as much as I do.  Well, after I had made those 'Dream' Blossoms, in a variety of colors, I wanted to create a different looking paper blossom.  So, back into my craft room, I went.

I created these paper 'Inspire' blossoms.  And, I wrote a tutorial, that Amazon Kindle has published.  The e-book is published in a variety of languages and can be purchased and downloaded here.  I also made a pair of these 'Inspire' blossoms to sell in my Etsy shop, here.

Thank you for looking.  I hope you have found some inspiration here, and create something beautiful!

Rustic Snowflake Tutorial

My last Arts & Crafts Fair for the holiday season is on 

Saturday, December 8, 2012.

It will be at the North Valley Academy from 10a to 3p.

Hope to see you there!

Welcome.  Today, I wanted to show you how I made my rustic embellishment pieces.  I didn't make a video, I took a few pictures.  That way, you won't have to wait through buffering, or delays in streaming, etc.
Lets get started!  I frequent a particular coffee shop, and so I started using some of my 'trash'.

keep your coffee cuff {smile}.

tear off one end.

 place the coffee cuff, texture side down on die

 (look how clean the edges are on the snowflake)

 paint the edges of the snowflake with paint.

(I used distressed picket fence paint.)

 dunk the painted snowflake in a tub of glitter.

 tap off the excess glitter.  

spray with Aqua Net hair spray.  

Let dry.

your snowflake is ready to embellish.

Here is what I did with my finished snowflake.

And here is what the whole package looks like:

I created another mini gift bag.  I used aqua mist card stock to make the panels that cover the brown paper bag.  I used various pattern papers from City Sidewalk by pink Paisley.  I used pool party seam binding.  The children playing in the snow, is actually a CTMH stamp set.  The 'don't open till dec. 25th' is a retired Stampin' Up! stamp set.  I used cream twine to tie a bow on the aqua mist button.

Thank you for looking.  I hope you are inspired to create something beautiful out of paper!

Happy Crafting!  hugs, Sharon W.