Easy Paper Flowers

I was shopping the other day at Michael's and I saw these new scissors from Martha Stewart.  How does she come up with this stuff?  Anyway, I had to have them even though I had no idea what to do with them.

Martha's new Fringe Scissors.  I feel like Edward Scissorhands using them!

I used a hot glue gun, a straw, the fringe scissors, and regular old tissue paper.

I folded the tissue paper in half about three times until I got a long skinny piece.

I glued all the loose ends together with a thin line of the hot glue.

Then I fringed the non-glued side on the whole strip.

I used a bead of glue to attach the straw to the end of the tissue paper like shown.

I put down a line of hot glue and then rolled the straw so that the tissue started

wrapping around the straw.

As I got to the end of the strip, I wrapped the piece slightly lower on the straw

to give the flower some fullness.

Trim the straw and fluff the ends a little and *poof!* you have a flower.

Ta Da!

St. Patrick's Day Printable

Sorry about the crappy photo, but I wanted to get the post up!

Here's a simple printable for your St. Patrick's Day decor.  It's a takeoff on the LOVE sculpture by Robert Indiana.  It prints out 8.5" x 11", but is formatted to fit in an 8"x10" frame, so just trim it!

Get the Printable!  This will take you to box.com where you can get a free membership for safe downloads.

St. Patrick's Day Door Makeover

With a last name like "Collins" and two Irish Water Spaniels running around, we enjoy St. Patrick's Day!  February and March are not my favorite months of the year because everything outside is so drab here in Utah, so I like to brighten up my front door and my home with lots of decorations.  A few easy projects can really brighten things up!

Banner-

This is a simple project whether you can sew or not.  If you can, you can stitch the flags into a piece of bias tape.  If you can't, glue can be your best friend!

To make a pattern, I folded a piece of paper in half the long way and cut a straight line to make a triangle.  It ended up being almost the full 8.5" wide at the top and 11"long.

I traced this little foam shamrock with a pencil.

Then I filled in the traced area with a decent coat of white acrylic paint.  Maybe I should have used a darker green.  I already had the fabric (which is a cotton canvas) so I was making do.

Stitch the flags into the bias tape.  I started at the middle and went one way and then started in the middle again and went the other way.  That way my flags are evenly spaced and my glitchy sewing machine is showing the top stitches- not the garbled bottom!

Pillow-

The directions on how to make a pillow envelope are HERE.  For this I used burlap as a nod to a potato sack and then a piece of the same canvas that I used for the banner.  I traced another shamrock that I had to cut the shamrock.

Door Shamrock-

This is one of those projects that became a disaster.  I am not happy with my results, but it will have to do until I buy more glitter!  I made a freehand pattern for the shamrock and used a jig saw to cut it out of some scrap wood that I still had in the garage.  (Read- "That Parker hadn't gotten to yet. . ." 

I based painted it and then I was all set to use "Glitter Blast" paint on the front.  It did not work at all.  And I even followed the directions.  I am a very unhappy customer right now.  :(  So, then I sprayed the whole thing with clear polyurethane (I was outside, by the way.  Do NOT do this in your house!  Or by your car. . .) and sprinkled three different colors of glitter on it.  I ran out of glitter, so it is a little anemic, but I an always add more.  And who doesn't want more glitter?

Visiting Teaching Printable- February 2012

I will be the first to admit that I'm not the best visiting teacher, but I do better at making appointments if I have a little something to share.  Here's a quick gift that you can print on your home computer printer on cardstock or photo paper, pop into a dollar store 5x7 frame, and share with your sisters.  It coordinates with the "Guardians of the Hearth" lesson.
 

Get the Free Printable!  (you will be re-directed to box.com where you can get a free membership for safe downloads)