Aunt Peaches

Main navigation

Friday Flowers

Friday Flowers: Dahlia Gift Bags

by 14 Comments

Inspiration strikes in funny places. These gift bags were inspired by three things this week…
  1. Birthdays. Lots of them lately. Apparently I am drawn to Pisces. Who knew?
  2. Dahlias. Specifically THIS story on Design*Sponge on the glory of dahlias, courtesy of Studio Choo. Gahhhh, aren’t they gorgeous?! What would I would give to live in a floral studio like that…
  3. Buttermints. Do you know about buttermints? I think they might be a Southern thing. Or maybe an old lady thing. They aren’t so popular anymore…

Buttermints are those powdery, pastel colored candies that melt in your mouth. You used to see in a big bowl on the hostess table at restaurants, or, if you came over to Grandnana’s house, you would see little piles of them in cupcake liners all over the place…the coffee table, the end tables, the dining table, the breakfast table, the ledge in the hall, by the front door…even on the back of the toilet tank.

Help Me Rhonda, how that woman loved her buttermints.

She thought keeping them in a single candy bowl would breed germs, so she used little disposable cups instead. Not a bad idea, only problem was, Grandnanna was obsessive about everything matching. It would be a cold day in July before a blue cupcake liner made it into her pink kitchen. The woman refused to serve food with ketchup at the kitchen table because it clashed with the décor. I’m not even kidding.

Needless to say, she always kept a variety of cupcake liners on hand. They didn’t make a lot of color/pattern options back then, so if you saw something nifty you just picked them up and saved them until Grandnanna’s birthday. She would get mad if you bought her a real gift, but simple indulgences like cupcake liners and heavy duty aluminum foil were greatly appreciated.

Ramble Ramble Ramble…because I inherited every breed of crazy from Grandnanna, it’s only natural I also inhereted some of her cupcake liners and started a collection on my own. Eventually the collection got so big I had to curb it by setting a $1.00 a packet limit on all new acquisitions. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, the fancy department store down the street, the one with the great kitchenware departments where I’m always buying registry gifts, is always selling cupcake liners on clearance and they are always priced 89cents. Polka dots, checks, and stripes…it’s different every time. I can never pass them up. One time, I passed up on buying some Laura Ashley style pink pansy print cupcake liners, and I swear to you, an hour later I was craving buttermints so bad I had to take two buses to get to a greasy-spoon diner where they keep them at the hostess stand.

It was totally worth it.

Making these is so easy. Just grab a lunch sac, some twine, hot glue, and of course, cupcake liners! I make bag handles just by gluing the twine to the inside of the bag. This is gift wrap y’all, no need for long term quality here.

If you want to be thorough about things, use an existing shopping bag like the white one above. Whatever you do, don’t just go out and buy a gift bag! True Craftmeisters never buy bags or ribbon. It’s the law, y’all.

Ruffles work wonders! Just pinch a cupcake liner or two and hot glue to end of some rustic old twine. Ta Da!

Friday Flowers: Making Sweater Felt in the Washing Machine

by 54 Comments


Everyone loves felt flowers. Especially me! They are cheap, easy and add a dash of happy color to any outfit.

There are plenty of great tutorials already out there that use inexpensive, old reliable store-bought craft felt. Problem is, I avoid using craft felt whenever possible. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a great material to have around the house, but making your own felt from old sweaters has mucho advantages.

Felt made from wool sweaters is:

  • Thicker
  • Cheaper
  • More colorful (and if you can’t buy it – dye it!)
  • Cleaner
  • Healthier*

*Important note on felt in general: Anyone who has cut or sewn any sort of felt knows that it generates fiber dust faster than most fabrics. Problem is, unless you are working outside, those fibers get into the air we breathe. Dust from natural fibers like cotton, wool, silk, etc, are pretty easy for our respiratory systems to filter, but dust from synthetic fibers, like the acrylic used in most craft felt, can cause serious respiratory irritation. Personally, it doesn’t make me cough or sneeze but it does give me a headache after 30 minutes messing with it. This leads me to believe it is something to avoid, or at very least, avoid messing with indoors (Update: Sara had a great suggestion when it comes to cutting acrylic wool “why not buy some little doctor’s masks from the pharmacy?”…good idea Sara!) Y’all feel free to compare and draw your own conclusions. If you are working on a project where you need multiple yards of felt, consider looking into something made from cotton or wool. Chances are it will cost 4 times as much as the fake stuff, and it will not come in nifty colors, but it’s a fair trade for keeping your home and family healthy. 

Man, that was a downer. 

Now back to the fun stuff!

The Magic Bag: Making Felt the Easy Way
Anyone who has accidentally thrown a wool sweater in the dryer knows how easy it is to turn knit fibers into felt. There are lots of ways to approach it, but I like to use the Magic Bag method because it means I can felt while I do my other laundry. This saves water, energy, and money (major bonus when you live in a city apartment with giant coin operated machines!)


The Magic Bag
Get yourself an old pillow case and fill it with:

  • Wool. Take yucky old thrift store sweater and cut away any seams, cuffs, collars or fancy edges (save them though—they could come in handy on future projects. More on that next week!)
  • 1 teaspoon of soap shavings. I like to scrape them from a bar of old fashioned ivory soap, but most any soap will work, just be sure it isn’t “moisturizing” or “with conditioners” or stuff like that.
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda. This helps the detergent really scrub and fluff up those fibers.
  • 1 large old towel or pair of jeans, or both. Most anything with a scrubby surface.

Put them all together in the pillow case, making sure there is enough room to wiggle around. Tie it off with a sturdy rubber band and throw it in the washing machine with your other hot water laundry, same as always. Adding detergent is fine but no fabric softener. Wash on the hottest setting possible.

The combination of hot water, abrasive detergent and constant agitation, will make the yarn FREAK OUT and turn to felt in no time. When the wash cycle is finished, pull your items out of the bag and inspect. Pull a scrap piece of wool from side to side. It should be reasonably stretchy.

Can you still see the individual strands of yarn?
If the answer is no, then you have felt!
If the answer is yes, then put it back in again for another wash cycle and try adding another towel. If you can set your machine to repeat the “wash” cycle more than once (turn back the dial) then just repeat that process over and over til you get what you want.

Once the wool is felted in the wash, you are ready to cut it. I like to cut mine while it’s still damp from the washer (keeps the fiber dust down) but you can also dry it at this stage to encourage the fibers to puff up. Either way is fine.


Alternative Method
Get a big old pot and boil the wool on your stove. No agitation required in this method, but it could take up to an hour and will make your kitchen smell like sheep.

Will any sweater turn to felt?

No. Generally, natural fibers work best. After enough of these, you will be able to feel a sweater and know if it will felt, but you’ll have to read labels until you get the hang of it. Here is a quick-n-dirty list of popular fibers and their success rate:

Wool: Great
Lambs Wool: Excellent
Wool with 10% Something Else (spandex, rayon, cotton, polyester, etc): Fine, but anything more than 10% is risky
Alpaca: OK in the washer, but the boiling method works better
Camel: Fine, but it smells horrendous when hot
Cashmere: Sorta…it felts but remains thin and never puffs up nice and thick
Angora: Mixed results…100% angora is no good, but vintage sweaters made from angora AND wool are like the Holy Grail; they come out big and pillowy and soft. I wish I had a sample but I gave them all away and more sweaters are hard to find.
Cotton: Nope
Rayon: Nope
Silk: Nope

And don’t limit yourself to sweaters! Coats, hats, gloves, scarves, blankets work great too.
And don’t limit yourself to solid colors! Use the stripes and patterns to your advantage. 

How do I make the flower?


1. Cut a rounded circle sort of thing roughly 10″ in diameter.
2. Cut a spiral shape.


3. Make incisions around the outer edge of the spiral every 1/2″ or so, making sure to leave at least 1/4″ remaining at the bottom.
4. Snip the corners of the individual petals. Note: Some thicker weaves and fibers will puff up so much with step 5 that you can even skip step 4.


5. Throw the spiral in a hot dryer. This will puff it up and suck the loose fibers into your lint trap.
6. Optional: If the drier puffed it up too much for your taste (top), you can flatten it out with an iron (bottom). I happen to like it puffy, but some fibers will create curly/twisty petals that will be easier to work with after ironing.


7. Starting rolling at the center of the spiral (if you can still recognize the center!) making sure to keep the bottom edge lined up. this process is easier if you give yourself a base after 2 or three rolls around, but you decide for yourself.
8. Once you finish rolling, your flower should look like a cinnamon bun. Stab the needle and thread straight across the back of the flower and repeat several times over in multiple directions.

Note: You will want to use a thick sturdy needle and thread. Thin cotton thread will break. If you don’t have button thread or upholstery thread on hand, try dental floss.

Another Note: I know you are thinking you can skip the sewing and go for a glue gun. You would be right, although the results never come out quite as nice; the glue bulks up the back and the excess globs are hard to conceal, but if you think you can get around it, then go for it.


9. Stitch on pin back.
10. Cover your handy work with a leaf and your done!

Experiment!  Expect your first attempt to come out a little wonky, but you will improve quickly. Once you make a few of these, you will find them very addictive and easy to do. These pins make great gifts but you can also do plenty of stuff with other parts of the sweater, then embellish with the flowers…think vests, hats, capes, cuffs! More on this in the weeks ahead!

Or don’t even bother making the flowers; look at the felt as a special something you can add to other projects.Imagine a pillow edged in ric-rac or pom-pom trim…now imagine it edged in sweater felt trim. Cool huh?
 

Since you can make 6-12 flowers out of a single sweater, I tend to make them in batches. Pick up a few sweaters and you can start mixing and matching colors and consistencies. Its always good to have at least one green sweater for making leaves. A few years ago I was REALLY into making stuff out of sweater felt. I gave felt goodies to everyone I knew and sold them at a couple of craft fairs. Eventually the fun fizzled out and I haven’t touched the stuff in two years. This morning I opened up the giant Tupperware bin full of spirals I cut years ago, just waiting to made into flowers and scarves and caps and capes and cuffs and stockings and ornaments and …..what’s that? What is that I hear? Why, that’s the sound of something fabulous coming down the pipeline!

Happy Friday Y’all!


Friday Flowers: Riboon Rose Rehersal Bouquet

by 11 Comments

Excessive alliteration – it’s a good thing.

Confession: I haven’t thrown out a ribbon out since 1988. 

Y’all, I’m not even kidding. It’s nuts. We are talking eleventy hundred random ribbon scraps stuffed in drawers and boxes and hanging from hooks in the wall of my dining room. It’s not like they are especially impressive in quality, I just can’t bare the thought of throwing them out. The hoarding obsession started the first time I saw the ‘evil ribbon peddler’ scene from Faerie Tale Theater’s Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, produced and hosted by the fabulously peculiar Shelley Duvall.

What ever happened to Shelley Duvall anyway?

I heart Shelley Duvall.

She’s got those crazy eyes.

The eyes of a fellow ribbon hoarder.

I can tell.

OK, enough about Shelly and her crazy ribbon hoarder eyes….So, tradition dictates that the Maid of Honor collects ribbons from wedding gifts at the Bridal shower. This was right up my alley. Usually people tie them to a paper plate to be worn as a hat, or a bouquet to be used at the wedding rehearsal. Try as I might, BFF did not go for the hat. Poo on her! That hat would have been Hello Dolly! awesome.

Most of the bouquets I have seen are just pinned/stapled randomly and come out looking great, but I wanted something sturdy. Something that would last. A memento she could add to her children’s dress-up cupboard down the road, or to stick in a vase in the hall bathroom. Nothing too precious, just sturdy with the silhouette of a traditional bridal bouquet.

Enter ribbon roses!

Instructions.
These are so easy, I feel stupid posting a tutorial but the results are really satisfying. I have been collecting wire edge Xmas ribbon for years in hopes of one day collecting enough to cover an entire tree with these ribbon roses. It’s a lofty goal, but I’ll get there one day. These babies are fast!

PS: If you are working with ribbons without a wire edge, make a simple running stitch instead)

1. Throw a Bridal Shower and collect the ribbons. All of them. Even the plastic purple ones. Make cat toys out of the not-so-pretty ones.
2. Pull the wire out (demonstrated on a 21″ length of ribbon, but you get the drift.)
3. Keep pulling until it gets all rumpled up.
4. Wrap the wire around the end of the ribbon forming a stub.
5. Swirl the ribbon around like a cinnamon bun.
6. Pull the two stubby ends together and wrap with a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner will keep the shape pretty well, but if you are worried about long term use, reinforce with a safety pin or a dab of glue.
7. And there is your rose!
8. Repeat on all the ribbons and pull them together into a dense cluster. Dangle some longer green ribbons on the bottom if you like.
9. Give it to the bride and be prepared to sing She’s Getting Married in the Morning allllllll night long!

Friday Flowers: Hair Barrette Necklaces

by 40 Comments


Why should little girls have all the fun? Big girls can wear hair flair too!

No pigtails required 🙂

Last time I went scouring for art supplies at the beauty supply store I unearthed these wonderful plastic flower hair barrettes for a buck a box! Cute huh? Just clip them on an oversize chain necklace and add a few accent beads. For less than $2 and 5 minutes you have a funky new statement necklace!

And the fun goes way beyond flowers. Bring on the bows!

In their usual place, hair bows make everyone’s head look happy. But why not extend that happiness beyond a single little green bow on your head? Why not a WHOLE BUNCH of little green bows around your neck?

To make one of these ribbon chain necklaces, you will want:

  • A bunch of hair barrettes (I used 15, choose your length as you wish)
  • A bunch of 2” ribbon pieces tied into knots

I like pairing the bright shiny plastic with some dull, vintage bias tape, but that’s just me. Next batch I think I’ll try some juste twine or a strip of plaid flannel. Maybe some mohair yarn. Hmmm….

Instructions

Good thing these pictures can do the talking. You know, honest-to-gosh, I have been trying to type the instructions on this one for ten minutes and the end result reads: put the doo hickey on the thing and slip over the thing with the hole and snap it up.


Very helpful. I have a new found appreciation for people who write books about crochet and macrame.

The essential concept is this: the ribbon knot goes through the hole of one barrette back piece AND THEN slips over the hole of another barrette back piece. Snap one barrette closed and use the other open barrette to loop on another link in the chain….continue until you get a circle.

Hope that makes sense 🙂 You just have to try it and see how easy it is.

Speaking of easy…here is another version. Just gather some bits of black ribbon, tie them in knots and clipped on the barrettes. It’s very Mid-Eighties Madonna, no? Who knew barrettes could be simultaneously opulent AND trashy?

Priced at $1.00 a box, and with so many colors, I see plenty more of these necklaces coming down the pipe very soon!

 


Egg Carton Flower Thumbtacks

by 16 Comments

There are two types of people in life: Bulletin Board People and Magnet People.

Bulletin Board People tend to be creative, spontaneous, and struggle to keep things organized. They like having everything in tidy rows but rarely have time to maintain such a lofty goal. They surround themselves with diverse, eclectic, exciting environments that stimulate thoughts and feelings. They build nests like muskrats and smell like fresh fruit strudel. 

Magnet People tend to be organized and efficient. They streamline their daily activities in effort to get things done. They thrive on feeling accomplished. They are methodical, conscientious, and constantly remove clutter and waste from their homes and minds. They excel at creative endeavors that do not generate mess, like interpretive dancing, knitting and playing the calliope.

Sometimes magnet people have bulletin boards, or visa-versa, but deep down, we are all one or another. There are no two ways about it. Which one are you?

I am a Bulletin Board Person. There is one in every room of my house, even the bathroom. Sometimes they are just a simple old frame or foam board, but I can’t go without one. I need my slush pot! A visual, vertical junk drawer, if you will. This photo is all nice and neat and empty looking, but give it ten days and this thing will be loaded. Have you ever seen the bottom of an old boat that’s covered in ten years of barnacles and sea weed and hairy sludge and somehow and old shoe got stuck in the crud?

Yeah, that’s what my bulletin boards look like.

With that in mind, knowing that this board will soon fill with visually unappealing items, I thought I would dress it up a bit with some flowers made from egg cartons. Cute, huh?

These flower thumbtacks are made form cardboard egg cartons and were inspired by these flowers by Michele Made Me (if by chance you have never been to her site, you really have to check it out. It’s one of the few blogs that gets my creative juices flowing every single time and I’m pretty sure it will have the same effect on you!)

So, as you can see, Michele’s flowers are far more impressive and complex than these, but I’ll cut myself some slack as a first timer. For ten minutes and zero dollars, these came out mighty cute!  Cutting the egg cartons was not as easy as I thought, although the cardboard took to the paint very nicely.

Egg cartons are the now officially the newest member of my club of waste/rubbish based art materials. I’m confident our first encounter will not be our last.

Does anyone else know of other fun things you can make with old egg cartons? I’m intrigued!

This project is linking to Craft School Sunday at www.creativejewishmom.com 

Friday Flowers: Coffee Filter Daisies and Dahlias

by 16 Comments

 For someone who spends so much time with flowers, you would think my favorite would be something exotic or interesting. Nope. I like daisies best. Actually, I like anything yellow and happy looking. I’m not picky about the matter. My favoritism extends far outside the flower realm!

Now that we are nearly at the end of the series of coffee filter flowers, I’m hoping to show a different way to assemble your flowers in hopes it will spark some ideas! The running stitch on these is a bit time consuming for me, but my quilting friends seem to think it makes the process much easier. Y’all will have to tell me what you think. The main advantage to assembling this way is, unlike the other previous flowers, this has no stump at the bottom. This means you can hot glue them on to flat surfaces. AND I KNOW Y’ALL LOVE THE CRAP OUT OF HOT GLUE.

For the lantern above, I just hot glued a bunch of dahlias to the surface of an old lantern. It’s really easy. I think adding the second ball at the bottom makes it look a little more like a fixed piece than a party decoration. I wish I had made five of them to hang in a vertical line –wouldn’t that be nifty?!

1. Fold three previously dyed filters and half and cut large rounded petals and a hole in the middle.
2. Spread filters on top of one another so the petals stagger like fish scales.
3. Fold in half again.
4. Using dental floss or button thread, sew  a running stitch along the bottom of the filter.
5. Pull thread to gather. Tie off.
6. Fluff individual petals.

EAZY PEAZY!

Daisies use the exact same process, just different shaped petals. I like to use two white filters and two yellow, but the ratio is very flexible. These daisies came our nice and floppy, the way I like them, but if you wanted stiffer/sturdier petals, just mix a couple spoonfuls of artist’s gesso into the dye mixture.

Wouldn’t these look lovely glued to the top of a box. You know it’s a bad sign when I start thinking of gifts to suit the wrapping and not the other way around 🙂

Happy weekend!

oops, I nearly forgot!…… WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!
Thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment last week following last week’s giveaway. Winner of the crimper and 200 steel pix is “it’s me …Twinkie Chan!” which is easily the best screen name ever. Selection was totally random. Congrats Twinkie! I’ll be emailing shortly 🙂

Pipe Cleaner Cocktail Rings: Liberace Style

by 9 Comments

Y’all have heard about my obsession with Liberace. Not only could the man play the piano, he did it wearing rings the size of club sandwiches! Honestly, who doesn’t love a big fat cocktail ring? Especially when it was made by loving little hands.

Must give credit where credit is due: I learned about these rings at my BFF’s bridal shower, from Masha, who saw this clip on the Martha Stewart Show. Martha’s guest, The Pipe Cleaner Lady (that’s really her name!), breaks it down nicely. You can tell she has shown thousands of people how to do it. Be sure to check out her website for all kinds of cool ideas.

My fall themed variation is a little different. I found that twisting two pipe cleaners together made them thicker, stronger, and less likely to snag. Try it out and see for yourself!

Materials:

  • 12 pipe cleaners, but I suggest you get more. Once you make one of these babies, you will want to make more in a hurry!

Instructions:
 1.    Twist two pipe cleaners together making one long strand. I chose warm colors similar in tone, but you have fun and pick for yourself!
2.    Repeat process four more times, resulting in 5 double strands of pipe cleaners.

3.    Take two green pipe cleaners and twist together 2” in the middle. This will leave four long ends.
4.    Bend the green pipe cleaners in half and insert the ring finger of your non-dominant hand, forming a loose “X”
5. Pinch and twist the green pipe cleaners around several times. The end result should be a ring around your finger with a helicopter propeller on top.
6. Use the green pipe cleaners to attach the five double stands you previously twisted. Note: TWIST HARD on this one. This particular twist is important and your final ring will go all loosey goosey if this juncture is not secure. Little hands may need help with this part.

7. Take the tip of a double strand and pinch it in toward the center.
8. Continue your pinch and roll up the double strand similar to a snail, winding as tight as you can.
9. Repeat on the other strands until your petals are done. Arrange as you see fit. I like the asymmetrical look, but some prefer to cup them toward the center, similar to a rose or a dahlia. Y’all have fun with that.

10. For stems, take the four green pipe cleaners and loop them back toward the center/under the petals. Twist to secure.
11. Pinch and twist the green loops together forming the stems.
12. And there you have it!  I dare you to make just one of these. Once you conquer the flower ring, move on and experiment…sparkle rings, bracelets, cat hats…the sky is the limit!

This is a super fun party project for kids and adults. It can be simplified or expanded in so many ways. I made these at an annual picnic with hundreds of kids of all ages, and everyone caught on pretty quick. I did a couple demonstrations and then the ripple effect took place….before you knew it the older kids started showing the younger ones and so on and so on. Don’t you love it when that happens?

 Side note: look, I am not advertising for anyone here, but I spent a good deal of time researching deals on pipe cleaners and this appears to be it. Of course, you can always buy cheaper at the craft store with a 40% off coupon (you know who I’m talking about!)…but if you are buying large quantities for a party, this online source has quality stuff at a decent price. Feel free to do your own research; I’m just trying to save some time.

Coffee Filter Roses

by 73 Comments

Back in my failed former days as a window dresser, I got some good advice from Tanja, the Grand Dame of the cosmetics department. Originally from Romania, Tanja was widely renowned for her eyebrow waxing skills and had arrived at a point in her career when she only had to take one appointment a day, then happily dragged it out all afternoon. Most of the time was spent smoking and laughing and singing gypsy folk songs about beet salad, then more smoking and dispensing advice about important things like men, business, and unwanted hair. Of the many things I learned from Tanja, there are three golden nuggets that stand out;

  1. Never brush your teeth with blue toothpaste.
  2. Men with excessively bushy eyebrows are likely to cheat on their wives.
  3. Women will buy anything wrapped in roses.*

             *Women married to men with excessively bushy eyebrows should expect a lot of roses.

A week after Tanja dropped that old chestnut, my new boss gave me the task of revamping a central display table. Huzzah! This was a big deal for me, as all my previous tasks had been corner shelves and side boards in the men’s underwear section. After weeks and weeks of fanning out acrylic trouser socks, this was my big break. Mr. Ross walked me over to the table in question.

Good news: it was premium real estate.

Bad news: the product was rubber boobs.

Technically speaking, they were silicone brassiere inserts (you know the ones that look like chicken cutlets)…back then they were new to the people and no one knew what to think of them. They were universally unfamiliar, unattractive, and not the type of thing customers wanted to be seen ogling in public. The buyer had overstocked and they needed to clear inventory, but who was going to buy these things?

No one wants to buy ugly rubber boobs in public, especially at a high end department store. No wonder they slated this project for the new kid. Disappointed and bewildered, I remembered Tanja’s advice: Women will buy anything wrapped in roses.

SHAZAM! Faster than you can yank a unibrow, three of us grabbed some scissors and stayed up half the night making paper roses out of lingerie packaging tissue (thank you again Jeanie and Shayna!)…we swapped in a black and white striped table cloth and wedged the roses in between the boxes. The end result resembled a car sized wedding cake dimpled with chicken cutlets and the inventory cleared in less than a week. LESS THAN A WEEK. It had stood there for over a month and hardly anyone ever peeped, and now they sold out in LESS THAN A WEEK.

Roses, y’all. Don’t underestimate them.

All flowers have the ability to highlight their surroundings, but there is something about roses. We are attracted to them like no other. It’s distinct and special and makes no sense whatsoever. I’m not sure if it’s genetic or cultural, but it is ingrained in us women folk something fierce.

I know a lot of brides will look at these roses as potential centerpieces, but ya’ll have to think bigger! These roses are for YOU.

Do you sell stuff at art and craft shows? Consider making them to tuck in the corner of your display unit, or cluster around the base of a pedestal.

Do you design clothes, run a boutique, or sell vintage apparel online? Pin a few roses at the neck of your mannequin or model. Those items will get attention like you have never seen before!

Do you sell jewelry on Etsy? Poke earnings through the petals, or, weave a  necklace around the stem before you take the photo. If you are afraid it will distract, keep the rose and background the same color.

Do you need to sell your house? Once your house is thoroughly “décor neutralized” make 3 dozen of these in yellow and put them in a vase located within eye-sight of the front door. Even people who hate flowers will get the distinct impression happy things happen in this place, I want to be happy, I want to live here…and suddenly BOO YOW, your butt is moving in no time!

Materials:

*Coffee Filters
*Acrylic or Latex craft paint
*Plastic fork
*Drinking Straws
*Masking tape (mine is green, but any color will do fine) 

Dying Filters

  1. Take 3 tablespoons of pink latex craft paint and mix with a smidge of yellow. Note: the yellow is not necessary, but I find mixing a dab of an earthy/neutral tone in any color paint always helps the end results look more organic.
  2. Mix in half a cup of water and stir with a fork until lumps disappear. Add more paint or water until it’s the consistency of milk.
  3. Add 2 cups of water and mix again
  4. Submerge your filters, up to 20 at a time. Squish until paint is well distributed.
  5. Wring out excess paint, and if color is too bold, rinse with cold running water until you achieve the desired tone. Dry thoroughly.

Level 1: Simple Spiral Rose 

1.  Take one previously dyed filter and cut a spiral shape, roughly 1” from the outer edge. The result will be a long strip, roughly 1” wide by  36” in length (don’t worry if it’s longer or shorter, just know you’re going for a long skinny strip).

2.  Think of the strip as a piece of ribbon. Starting at the center point of the filter, stick it to the edge of 12” piece of masking tape, leaving 1” of tape available at the end. Continue down the strip, pleating/gathering as you go. Pleating/gathering, pleating/gathering, pleating/gathering….

3.  Continue to pleat/gather down the strip. Just squish it, no big deal. There is no math involved here. It will take you a while to get a rhythm going, but you will get there I promise! Note: If you reallllllly struggle to get the hang of the pleating/gathering, you can also sew a running stitch down the edge of the filter and pleat that way, but personally, I like the inconsistent results from pleating by hand.

4.    Once the strip is finished, take that first empty inch of tape and wind it around the tip of a drinking straw. Continue to wind the tape around the end of the straw.

5.    Add another 12” piece of tape to the base, on the diagonal.

6.    Wrap the tape around the straw to make a stem.

7.    Ta Da!

Level 2: Happy Ruffled Rose 


1.    Fold three filters in quarters, then trim scalloped edges along the edge and through the center.

2.    Results will be three scalloped circles and three scalloped doughnuts. Cut across the doughnuts to open them up (see, your making strips, just like the Simple Spiral Rose)

3.    Twist one scalloped circle and attach to the end of the tape, leaving one inch open. Take the other two scalloped circled, twist, attach, repeat.

4.    Think of your doughnut shape as a long strip of ribbon. Stick it to the tape, finger pleating as you go. The points of the scallops will help you to develop a rhythm as you move down the tape.

5.    Attach the other scalloped doughnuts, and, if you wish an empty stretch of tape, followed by a couple of leaves

6.    Starting from the inside, stick the tape to the end of the straw and roll your way up.

7.    Ta Da!

Level 3: Giant Ruffled Rose
 

1.    Get your cat to model some giant coffee filters. Isn’t she cute? She has been brushing up on her Vanna White skills. I know, I know, she is so talented! Lola also wanted to show you the scale of these babies –they are HUGE. You can get them online, or at your local coffee shop, pancake house, or even your Church basement. Anywhere that serves large quantities of coffee. Ask nicely, then promise to return with a finished flower, and I bet they will give you a few.

2.    Tip: when you dye the extra large filters, rinse the edges out so the center is a slightly deeper color. This will really help to give the impression of a realistic blossom.

3.    Similar to the Happy Ruffled rose, fold in quarters and cut scalloped shapes (this time there are three levels instead of two)

4.    Because one filter will generate a large flower, you only need one twisted piece in the center. Follow with the inside scallop doughnut strip.

5.    Follow with the outer scallop doughnut.

6.    Attach to the tip of a straw and roll.

7.    Keep rolling. This will quickly thicken up –try to keep your tape in line as much as possible.

8.    Ta Da! One filter will generate a rose as big as your hand, but keep going and three filters will make rose as big as your face. Try it!

Tips and Tricks  
 

  • When you dry your flowers, dry them upside down, clipped to a string or laundry line. This will encourage the dye pigments to settle toward the center of the spiral, same as in nature. It’s a subtle difference, but it really enhances the end result. You can also get this result by rinsing the edges of your flowers with water before they dry.
  • Instead of cutting scallops, cut skinny jagged edges to get a spider mum (more on this next Friday!)

  • To get a two-tone rose, paint the edges a deeper color.  
  • Have fun!

Friday Flowers: Ruffled Lotus Lantern

by 37 Comments

This latest flower project was inspired by stories from my friend Erika, who briefly lived in Seoul Korea about ten years ago. Apparently, every May, the good people of South Korea celebrate Buddah’s birthday with the Lotus Lantern Festival, a time when everyone in town decks the streets with thousands of beautiful paper lanterns. They make them out of paper cups and tissue paper, then hang them from trees and fence posts and exchange them with strangers. Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Can you imagine a whole giant city lit up with paper lanterns? Man, I got to get to South Korea in the Springtime!

Anyhoot, my friend Bird needed a lamp, so when we went to Chinatown last weekend, this giant white lantern came home. Now, the plain paper lantern are nice enough, but we thought it could use some dressing up. Inspiration came from the lamp on the cover of this book, and we were off!

This project is so simple, it really doesn’t warrant a tutorial. All you need to do is glue the muffin cups to the lantern.  Of course, knowing me, it’s the simple things that get flubbed most often! I quickly learned that you will end up with a mess if you don’t get a strategy first.

  • Wrong way: Glue them on in tight clusters. Yeah, you would think this method would be best, but it turns out the walls of the muffin cups like to expand as they dry….they start pushing against each other and moving each other around and sometimes they just plain fall off. 
  • Right way: Glue them on in stripes with gaps in between. Let them dry, then fill in the gaps. This way there is room to expand. Add layers and fill in holes as you see fit. This one is difficult to mess up, as long as you let them dry properly.

Tips (images above, left to right)

  • For a lantern with a 36″ diameter, it took 300 standard muffin cups + 100 mini candy cups to accent. This will vary widely, depending on size and  how thick and full y’all want your ruffles.
  • Hot glue will dry faster, but it will not dry completely transparent and you will see glue blobs when the lantern is lit from within.  Maybe there is a special technique to avoid this, but I prefer plain old Tacky Glue.
  • When choosing your lantern, be aware of the structure on the inside and how it shows when lit from within. This big white lantern was made of very thin paper and the structure lines show, but we sorta like that that effect! If you don’t like it, find a lantern made of darker/opaque paper, or triple up on muffin liners, or paint your lantern before gluing on anything.
  • To add dimension, trim down some of the muffin cups to make smaller size ruffles to insert in larger ones.
  • To add even more dimension, make some blossoms by rolling the trimmings and gluing them in the center.
  •  Important: this is difficult to move after it’s finished. Assemble it on location or get a friend to help you move it. Opening doors with this thing in your hands is just about impossible!

Also made this little one for a BBQ this weekend using orange and red polka dot cups. Aint she cute?!

Happy weekend!

PS: Update Dec 31, 2010
Anyone looking for a seriously nifty last minute New Year’s craft needs to check out this amazing lantern from Alison over at Backstich Baby! Wish I had thought of this one myself. Seriously considering hanging one in my bathroom all year round 🙂 Thanks for sharing, Alison!

Friday Flowers: Lunch Lady Flowers

by 13 Comments

I can’t stand ketchup. Smells like rancid jam. And what’s with the crud that forms around the squirt hole? The only thing I like about ketchup is that it’s loosely affiliated with ketchup cups, which is the core of these flowers, as well as one of my most shameful childhood past-times: laughing at the screaming children who found body parts in their lunch.

Our school lunchroom was probably the same as yours: crowded and smelly. Hot lunch was free so hardly anyone ever brown bagged it, except on Clam Chowder Tuesday. The line was overseen by Mrs. Krenshaw, a woman whom my friend Heather’s dad once described as “a cross between a wildebeest and Dom DeLuise” to which we said “who is Dom DeLuise” and he would say “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW DOM DELUISE” and we were all “HUH” and then he decided to show us by tying a napkin around his neck and telling us jokes he saw on The Dean Martin Show the night before.

WHAT DO YOU CALL A COW WITH NO LEGS?
GROUND BEEF.

It seemed funnier back then.

Despite working with hundreds of children each day, Mrs. Krenshaw was not the maternal type. We were petrified of her. She was never mean, outright at least, but she was loud and told us chocolate milk would give us head lice. She also told us lots of stories about her husband’s truck driving adventures  and this one time when she was in the Navy and saw some island people in Polynesia sitting on rocks eating a live octopus.  We would be all squealing and horrified and she’d gnash her teeth up and down real wide and mime the movements like she was eating an octopus the size of a car. Very dramatic. Indeed, an excellent way to get kids to eat their spaghetti.

The one Navy story she never told is how she lost the bottom tip of her left ear. Some of us speculated it was a battle wound from her Navy days while others claimed it was Mr. Krenshaw, who bit it off after coming home from a three day trucking haul so hungry, that when he leaned in to kiss her cheek, he just nipped it clean off.  If you ever saw Mr. Krenshaw, you would have totally believed that second scenario too.

Lunchrooms are a scary place for new kids, so Mrs. Krenshaw went out of her way to make them feel welcome by playing a joke. More like a hazing ritual, really.  The child would approach the line, wide-eyed and confused, while Mrs. Krenshaw would put on her friendliest voice and walk them down the line, making sure they got their tater tots and milk and sporks and napkins…all the while she was luring the child into her trap.

By the time the two of them got to the condiment station the whole room would be watching. It always went down at the condiment station. Smooth as a rhinoceros she’d go reach her hand behind the chart of triangular food groups and grab a pre-filled ketchup cup and slip it on the new kid’s tray. A moment later you would hear her yell sweet as can be “Hey now, what’s in that ketchup cup of yours? You got something there!”

…the kid would stick their finger in, dig around and pull up a small piece of something which would be later identified as a potato scrap.

“What do you have there Starshine? Is that a piece of something? What do you think it could it be?”

Right at the moment the kid held it up, right when they noticed the whole room had gone silent, right about when they were going to put it in their mouth, she would lower the boom:

“OH MY GOD IT’S MY EAR!”

Of course the kid’s head would whip around to see a chunk of her ear was missing and scream and drop the tray. Very dramatic. While the kid stood there crying and confused, Mrs. Krenshaw would laugh hysterically. I laughed too. We all laughed. I can’t tell you how bad I feel about participating in the laughter. I’m ashamed of myself for ever laughing at someone in that position. I should have stopped the kid before they got to the condiment station. I should have warned them. But how do you tell someone you never met “she’s going to put an ear in your lunch. but no biggie, don’t worry about it.”

A minute later, when the joke was obvious and the kid calmed down a little, she would call for another child to come up and fix a tray and make the new kid feel welcome. Usually it was a friendly, popular kid from the same grade level who she knew would make room at their table and take the petrified new kid under their wing. Everyone around the table would assure the new kid “at least you didn’t pee your pants like the last one” and fast-growing friendships were seeded. 

Look, I question her method, but you can’t beat the end result. The kids made friends fast.

My apologies to the dozens of grown adults who I laughed at as a child. Especially the one I laughed at so hard that I bit my tongue and had to go home early. To you, dear friends, this craft is not for you. Your probably still petrified of ketchup cups and will want to avoid being near them, much less crafting with them.

In honor of Mrs. Krenshaw, and her love of ketchup cups, here is real simple do-bob-thingy you can use to tie on packages. Or dress up a bottle of wine. Or wear in your hair. To cover your missing chunk of ear, of course.

Happy tater tots, ya’ll.

Materials:

* 1 funky old cook book you never use anymore
* 1 paper ketchup cup
* 1 muffin liner with edges and center snipped/fringed
* scraps of cookbook paper snipped and fringed (varies widely depending on paper thickness, here I used wide 18” of paper 2” wide + a square for the center)

Cost: Free

Time: 2 minutes if your handy with a glue gun

1.    Dab hot glue on ketchup cup bottom
2.    Wrap a square of book paper to cover the ketchup cup
3.    Insert ketchup cup through the center of muffin wrapper and glue in place
4.    Take excess muffin fringe and fold upward to frame the center of the ketchup cup

5.    Run a bead of glue along your paper fringe and roll the ketchup cup along the rim
6.    Fan out your paper and muffin wrapper fringe
7.    If you plan to string it on a package, punch 2 holes along the bottom rim
8.    Run a ribbon through holes, slap on a box, and ta da!!

Have Fun!