Sakura-inspired Cards

There's something beautifully serene about cherry blossoms. I do not even remember when and where I got this particular paper punch but this design idea has been percolating in my brain for the longest time. It was great for using up some of my paint chip scraps but it is a very labour intensive card. Every tiny flower has to be individually punched out and then glued to the card base. My intention is for these to be 'Thinking of You" cards and I am quite pleased with how they turned out. However, I am undecided as to whether this design looks better with or without the gold accents.

This is the process it takes to make this card: (I really enjoyed taking these in-progress shots!)

I decided to try adding gold accents to one of the cards and it is fascinating to see just how different the whole style of the card seems.

I am starting to get back into the crafting frame of mind. [Thanks to lots of encouragement from my husband! I think he's decided that this is the most likely way that my mountains of craft supplies will start decreasing....by being used. ;) ] Stay tuned for a few more of my projects in the coming weeks! 

Crafting from Around the World: Lei Making in Hawaii

I have just returned from a week long vacation in Hawaii and yes, it was awesome. It was sunny and warm and the scenery was beautiful. But you didn't think that I would actually take a vacation from crafting though, did you?

I went with two of my friends from medical school and we stayed near the Waikiki beach area. On day 3 of our trip, we discovered that just a few blocks from our hotel, the Royal Hawaiian Center was offering free Lei making lessons every week day. Of course we had to be there! Our class had a total of 25 participants and the three of us sat down at a long table with a surprising number of tourists from Canada. (We were all there to escape the snow :) )

The basics of lei making are pretty simple: you just need to string a bunch of flowers one by one onto a piece of string with a needle. Execution of this though, was a little trickier than it first seemed.

The materials

We were each given a basket containing a generous collection of orchids and two other flowers which I have forgotten the names of. At first, I was a little horrified at the thought of all those cut flowers being used in a craft - I kept thinking of how much trouble my mother has with coaxing our orchid plants to bloom each year and the thought of using those blossoms to make garlands made me a little uneasy. However, I was in Hawaii and the blase way they treat orchids makes them seem like they grow like weeds there. My hang ups didn't last long. :P

The first thing we did was snap any residual stems off the orchids. Then, using the needle, we would string the flowers together one at a time, careful to pierce each flower right in the centre.

The needle was a foot long!

A flower shouldn't spin around on the string once it is strung - if it does, you did not pierce it at the right spot. 

The pattern was fairly simple: orchid, orchid, orange flower, white flower, repeat.

It took about an hour but the three of us all managed to finish our leis (some of us with fewer injuries than others in the process :P). I thought that the different types of flowers made our leis much prettier than the plain orchid leis that were being sold on the streets.

Another nature craft which we made in Hawaii was a crown woven from coconut leaves and decked out with flowers.

It's not quite like braiding; you need to twist each strand under before weaving it in. 

Flowers go on the right side if you are single and on the left side if you are 'taken'.

I wish Canada had the same abundance of flowers for me to craft with. In the cold climates, you either need to be super rich (real flowers aren't cheap!) or work in a flower shop if you want to play with blooms on a regular basis. Hmm... maybe I'll try making a dandelion lei in the summer...

Heart Punch Notes (Lil' Notes I)

I have decided to start a multi-post feature called Lil' Notes. I really like decorating note cards because they are fast projects and a simple design tends to work out best. I made these two a while back when I was playing with the small heart punch that I found. Remember these cards?

I usually use these cards to add a cheery message to my aunt's lunch when I am delivering it to her at work (we work at the same hospital).

More to come!

{Update 16/02/15 - I added him to the Gluesticks blog's Friday Finds Linky Party. Check it out. There's a lot of neat stuff there.}

A Pinterest-y Wedding

Two weeks ago, my friend, Jennifer got married and I am so happy for her. Alex, her husband, is a very lucky man. 

Weddings can be exceptionally busy and stressful but I find that they are also a way of bringing a community together. My sister and I really felt that while we worked alongside a lot of other people who played a role in Alex and Jen's big day. The ceremony was intimate and elegant and everyone pulled together to ensure things ran smoothly. 

My sister and I, along with Emily, Amy and Tracy were responsible for the bulk of the decorations. I say "the bulk" because as charming as that sign is above, we didn't make it. The sign itself is the handiwork of a church friend, Eugenia and the floral arrangement is thanks to Jasmine. Most of the other things though, we did make. We spent A LOT of time on Pinterest and there were so many ideas we wanted to try. We left it to Tracy, our fearless leader, to ensure everything was cohesive.

Jen is the type of bride who doesn't want to put undue demands on the people helping her. It's because she's so nice though that all of us are more than willing to put in that extra mile. She gave her decorating team pretty much free reign in what we wanted to do. Her one real request was teacup flower arrangements - so we made it happen.

A mixture of crepe paper, tissue paper, cardstock and dollar store flowers. I thought the arrangements looked delightful. I played the florist after all ;) Each arrangement was put on a wood slice pedestal. That was Tracy's idea and it was just the right touch!

Actually, the arrangement is the only thing I can take credit for. The orange roses were the work of Amy and the white flowers, blue buds and green paper leaves were thanks to Allison. We bought some dollar store flowers at the last minute because we ran out of time to make more by hand.

Jen bought thirteen adorable, miscellaneous teacups and we ended up filling nine of them. 

I had never done flower arranging before but for this wedding, I suddenly became a florist and discovered skills I never knew I had! (And remembered bits of random articles and crafting books that I had flipped through in the past.) One element we used that I really liked was putting baby's breath in decorated mason jars. These jars lined the pews and the effect was simple but beautiful. If I ever get married, I would consider doing this as well. 

We hot glue gunned the ribbon and lace to the mason jars. The jars were secured to the pews with wire.

Arranging the flowers involved branch clippers and a lot of I-hope-this-will-look-good.

When you are decorating for a wedding, your focus is in the details. We team-shopped every dollar store in Ottawa looking for just the right supplies.

We created a Date Night & Food Suggestions board for the guests to write down their recommendations. We found cute flower and bird buttons at Dollar Tree. 

The vases and branches were Jen's selection; the fabric roses were Emily and Allison's creations.

We are familiar with most of the Fabriclands in the city now and are still debating whether one of us should get a membership. :)

This was definitely a last minute creation. The table on the stage had a table cloth which was too long so we had to fold it. We needed something to hide the center fold, so I took a scrap piece of tulle and a bit of ribbon and ta da! 

These burlap flowers were one of the first things we made. Originally, they were supposed to go on the mason jars but when we tried them out, it looked too busy. In the end, these went on the window sills of the reception room.

This was drawn by Allison at 10:00 pm, the night before the wedding. We had this big white board that we couldn't get rid of and couldn't quite cover. I personally, liked the cartoon sketches she made of Jen and Alex before this particular drawing but she wasn't too happy with their eyes and so simplified things to silhouettes. A doodler is invaluable to any decorating team. 

Although we agonized over minutia at times, we did try to keep the big picture in mind. Things that are cute in a small setting can look very different in a larger setting. In this case, our little things looked awesome :D!

Not too sparse and not overpowering - I thought we struck a nice balance.

I have no idea how Tracy, Amy and Emily pulled together these ruffled burlap curtains the night before the wedding.  The whole food area set up came together beautifully. It helps that the food from Art Is In Bakery looks so appetizing :P.

It was a lot of work but the day was wonderful and the couple looked so happy. I wish them many blessed years together!

Kusudama - Black and White

While cruising the internet for paper crafts, I often came across kusudamas and although they did look pretty, I never really felt inclined to try and make one. That changed while I was flipping through Pinterest one day and came across this black and white design. Using two papers of different sizes for each petal takes a little longer to assemble but the effect is well worth it. I adore the little crystal stickers in the centre of each flower – they add a touch of sparkle to the project.

I initially had trouble designing the tassel. I was not sure what type of thread to use. I thought about embroidery thread, wool, or Chinese knotting cord but in the end, I settled on using plain cotton thread. I took twelve threads and braided them together (Which took about an hour. I am not doing that again.). I finished off the end with four plastic black beads and six strings of twenty clear seed beads each. Black and white elegance.

I was trying to get creative with the background but it didn't quite work out. My sister was laughing when she saw this one - said that it looked like the orchids were photo-bombing the picture. 

Heart Punch

While cleaning the other day, I found my old heart punch which I had forgotten that I owned. The punch is small but very versatile – perfect for cardmaking and scrapbooking. Aren’t these sweet?

These cards are perfect for gift tags or short notes. I used one for the pot of flowers my siblings and I gave to our mom for Mother's Day.

Of Cousins and Crafting

Yesterday was Good Friday and so the family gathered together for dinner like we usually do for most long weekends. My cousins and I were happily raiding my aunt’s craft supplies and were all fired up to make kusudama flowers (because we figured that we actually stood a chance of finishing this craft in an evening) but to our dismay, we discovered that there wasn’t any glue. We were undaunted in our resolve to make paper crafts so we settled on doing origami.

Sadly, my efforts turned out terrible (I attempted a Kawasaki rose and a Lotus flower. Both ended up ripping) and are not worth posting. My cousins, however, came away with far more successful creations. I tried to get them to say something about their work and this was all I got:

"I like it! I would make a bouquet..." (Note: She didn't sound very convincing.)

"It all started with the box...I didn't understand it...it was very hard to make. After I got help from my cousin, then I started to get it."

"After I finished the box, I made a button hole flower like my other cousin did."

 Clearly, I need to work on my interviewing skills - these were very reluctantly made statements.

The mini-grand piano at my aunt's house served as a refreshingly different background for my photos. I am starting to get a little tired of my desk being the setting of my photos. I am going to have to get more creative.

Speaking of crafts and cousins, I am reminded of the half-finished, enormous 3D origami chicken that is languishing in my basement. It looks more like a strange yellow bowl at the moment but I think we need to gather the troops in the future and finish that chicken off. Coming…well, I want to say ‘soon’ but it would probably be safer to say ‘eventually’… J

Lily-of-the-Grunge

My father was the one who initially taught me how to fold origami. I can still remember waiting impatiently while he folded me yet another paper basket so I could pretend to go on a picnic. I gradually learned to make paper fox puppets, mail boxes, whales and swans out of scrap paper. As I grew older, I started attempting more complicated patterns like scorpions and dinosaurs but in recent years, I have mainly been interested in making origami flowers.

Paper flowers are versatile as decorations and crafting embellishments. I have been wowed by elaborate Oribana flower arrangements and have been tempted to make my own. Lately, time has been my enemy for this ambition but because I had a few minutes to spare today, I thought I would make a start.

I was surprised by this lily-of-the-grunge-look that I managed to achieve by gluing the flowers on the ends of some straightened paper clips and putting the whole ensemble in a can. I plan on wrapping the wire in floral tape later on, cutting out leaves and creating a full bouquet. For now, I will enjoy this blooms-in-a-concrete-jungle feel.

A close up so you can see all that lovely detail in standard printer paper. : )

There is almost a light-from-heaven-upon-Easter-lilies effect in this shot. I thought it looked interesting.