Girl Talk

Hi Girl Talkers!

Leigh here bringing you a little tutorial on paper flowers.

I learned this technique last summer and then almost forgot about it until I saw a cute Spring flower papercraft in my local scrapbook store. I’m dying for Spring and if you are too, these flowers might be just the “pick me up” you need!

Side note: I apologize in advance for the photo quality. I am a paper crafter, not a photographer, so please forgive me! And, I photograph my projects like I talk…waaaaaaay too much!!

So, there are a lot of pictures, but I needed to show step-by-step in order for you to get the whole picture {no pun intended}!

Okay, here we go…

I chose Fun Land by Dani and Jacque because of the wonderful colors and fun patterns.

I picked my papers and created 4×4 inch squares of those. I printed them on an 8.5×11 inch sheet of photo paper.

I then trimmed them out and cut them into smaller strips (4 inches by 1/2 an inch).

Then I used my circle punches to create a base for the flower out of white cardstock. I chose two sizes so I could have two different flowers. You don’t have to have a circle punch. You could easily trace a circle and cut it out of cardstock.

Next comes the “glue” that holds this project together.

I looooove Terrifically Tacky Tape by Provo Craft. It is super strong and won’t let go! It’s also called “red-line tape” because it looks red until you pull the backing off and then it’s clear. {Clever, eh??}

I covered my circles with the tape. Be sure to cover them completely…we want it very sticky to hold all this paper in place!

Remove the red backing from the tape.

Then comes the fun part! Twirl all of your paper strips into nice curly ringlets.

And then, start sticking them down. Begin with the outer ring and work your way in. There’s no science to this…just bend and fold and push down onto the tacky tape to secure the paper pieces.

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At this point, it may look awful to you, but don’t worry! The first one always looks wonky until you get a group of them together! Just play with it until you’re happy. Squish it down, smoosh it around, put some glitter on it, just have fun and make it sparkle!

Finally, figure out what you want to do with your cutie patootie creation and bling it up! I’ve seen these added to cards, scrapbook pages, gift boxes and hybrid creations. I’ve also seen them used as fake lollipops {cute, no??}.

Here’s what I did. I stuck them onto sucker sticks and pretended to have fun summery flowers already in bloom!

So that’s it! I hope you’ve enjoyed this ridiculously long extremely thorough tutorial.

And, if you’ve made it all the way to this point, I think you deserve a little freebie!

I saved the exact 4×4’s I used to make my flowers from the Fun Land papers.

You can download them HERE!

Just remember, the JPEG file is sized to print on an 8.5×11 inch piece of paper. Any paper will work for this project {even plain copy paper}! I made all 6 flowers out of ONE printout!!

And, any of Dani’s beautiful papers from her kits would work also! Just pick your favorite Dani kit and get to it!

Don’t forget to post your creation in Dani’s Gallery or at Sweet Shoppe Designs!

Oh, and if you have questions, just leave a comment here along with a return email address and I’ll get back to you!

Thanks for sticking with me and happy crafting!

Elizabeth coming at ya with another fun and fabulous template challenge, but before I get started let’s find out who February’s random winner is!!!! It’s Tina Bentley with her LO entitled Bring Me Joy. Congratulations Tina, you can contact Dani ::HERE:: to claim your goodies!!!

Now on to the new template!!!

Here is what some of the uber talented Dani’s Girls did with my humble little template!!!

By Deanna

By Debra

By Farion

By Kellie

By Kjersti

And I of course love to scrap with my own stuff, but I mixed it up a bit and spun it 90 degrees!!!

So have fun with this template and remember….all you need to do is scrap a page with this template using any of Dani’s gorgeous designs, come on back here and post a link to your masterpiece for a chance to win some yummy Dani goodies!!!

:::DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE HERE:::

Who’s ready for a little bit of spring in their life!?!?! ME…ME….ME!!! I’m so ready for all this snow to be gone!!! We’ve had records amounts here in Western Pennsylvania (almost 76 inches) and my mood shows it most days!!! *lol* So I decided I needed to brighten up my laptop just a bit with a super bright and cheerful desktop and I here to share it all with you!!! So bring on the sun……bring on the Spring!!!! I used Dani’s Pop Goes the World kit and you can find it ::HERE:: at Sweet Shoppe Designs.

::Download 1280×800 size here::

::Download 1024×768 size here::

Hello! SaraL here with a little hybridy birthday presentation suggestion.

I wanted to create an attractive card for a female neighbour, who I know quite well – but not very well.  I think we all have people like this in our lives, where it is appropriate to give a card and maybe a small gift, but nothing too personal.  This is the set I created:

I used Dani’s lovely Vintage Garden Fairies Mini Kit with the quilt-style alpha from Babycakes.  I layered the green paper from the Vintage Garden kit over the alpha, significantly reducing its visibility in order to add just a hint of coordinated colour.

By using the alpha and a simple butterfly as the focus and main linking embellishment between the card, tag and gift bag, I think that the style and design is sufficiently pretty and feminine to please any not-so-close friend or acquaintance – especially after adding a little glitter glue for sparkle!

Here’s a better view of the card:

I prepared the card in Photoshop.  This allowed me to get the alpha and font in just the right place, and to print only what I needed.  I printed the purple top layer separately onto card so that I could neatly attach my chosen ribbon and hide the cut ends out of sight on the reverse.  In case you were wondering, the butterflies were made by using the fairy wings from Dani’s kit – plus a little added glitter of course!

The tag mirrors the card design, as you can see.  I made a card-style tag, folding it by creasing the centre with a bone folder and ruler. It could have been simply stuck to a gift, but I punched a hole and added a ribbon as an alternate idea for you to see too.

Finally, here is the coordinating paper gift bag.  I had some plain white paper bags purchased from my local craft store (in the children’s section for some strange reason!?) and designed a simple decorative panel to complement the card,  in Photoshop.  After printing onto paper, I stuck the panel onto my paper bag – adding a larger butterfly (printed on card) with sticky foam pads just for a subtle raised effect.  The fancy edging on the bag was made with my trusty Fiskars border punch – I then had fun threading ribbon through the holes and tying it in a bow to complete the look.

The card design is pretty straight forward – and very ‘liftable’, so why not have a go?

See you next month!

SaraL

PS In case you were wondering, the font I used throughout was DJB Angelbaby by Darcy Baldwin.

It’s that love time of year – but anytime is good for showing and giving love.  This little love project is a fun book to keep date night ideas for throughout the year.  My husband and I love to have a night a week that’s just for us.  His work schedule changes often though, so the night changes.  The cover photo on the album is also a reminder.  It is stuck on with double stick tape so I can pull it off and put the 4×6 print on the fridge as a happy reminder of the fun to come that evening.

I got the 6×6 mini album at Archiver’s for $2, but any little album will work.

On the inside I put a few ideas for inexpensive, last minute dates.

The ideas and cover are made using Dani’s  “All You Need is Love” papers and embellishments as well as “Bracket Craze”, all available in her store.  The font is CAC Pinafore.

Tickets to concerts/movies, restaurant menus, lists of fun ideas, whatever you enjoy doing can be put in the pages of your date night book.

If you’d like to download the cover/reminder page, please click here.  Then grab Dani’s kit and make some fun personalized pages for the inside.

Have a wonderful date night with the one you love!

*smiles*  Becky

Hey everyone! Debra here bringing you the latest tumble challenge. This month, we are going to be tumbling the ever so fabulous Tracy (aka Tracyfish)! You can visit her awesome gallery here , choose one to tumble and then come back here and leave us a comment with a link to your layout, and letting us know which of Tracy’s awesome layouts you chose to tumble!

Here is some inspiration from the team!

Elizabeth tumbled Tracy’s Silly Monkey’s

Kjersti chose Apple of my Eye

Debra chose Free Spirit

So, head on over to Tracy’s gallery and have fun choosing a layout to lift! Don’t forget to come back here and leave us a comment with a link to your layout. We’ll announce the winner at next months tumble challenge. We use a random number generator, so everyone has an equal chance!! I can’t wait to see all your layouts!

It seems to have happened again… my son’s Valentine’s party is two days away and I have no Valentines for him to give to his friends, and no treat bags ready for the class party.  I have been thinking about what kind of cool project I wanted to do for the occasion, but have been procrastinating thinking that I’ll have time “later”… and as we all know, “later” never comes!

Sooooo, if you’re like me and don’t have much time to put together Valentines or treat bags – you’re in luck!  I finished personalized, photo card Valentines AND personalized treat bags in about an hour this evening using Dani’s Punk’d Valentines – it’s so quick and easy that even I’m wondering why I waited so long to put them together!

Even if you’ve never done any type of “hybrid” project before – never fear!  The whopping list of THREE items needed for “assembling” the treat bags is a good indication of how fool-proof and easy these projects are!

You will need:
- Scissors
- Stapler
- Small plastic sandwich bags OR small cellophane treat bags

Of course you will also need:
- Photo(s) for the photo card Valentine
- Some way to print your Valentines and treat bag toppers
- Candy, cookies, or some kind of fun treat to go inside of the treat bags
- And Dani’s Punk’d Valentine set available HERE at Sweet Shoppe Designs…

After adding photos and personalization to my photo card Valentine and to my treat bag topper, I printed them off at home  (I was able to get 3 Valentine cards per 8.5×11″ page and 4 treat bag toppers per page for printing).  I chose to print my Valentines on semi-gloss photo paper and my treat bag toppers on cardstock.  After printing, I simply cut out the Valentine cards and treat bag toppers.  Once cut out, the Valentine cards are FINISHED!

Now for the treat bags… After cutting out the treat bag toppers, I folded/creased each topper in half.  After filling my bags with candy, I folded down the top of each bag and stapled the bag topper onto the top  – that’s it!  Here’s what they look like front and back…

You won’t find an easier way to get Valentines and treat bags finished in no time flat!  I hope you try out these fun and easy Valentines, which are sure to be adored by family and friends!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Deanna

Just a quick reminder that there’s still time to do our February template challenge.  Check out the fabulous template Tracy put together for this month’s challenge:

Click the template image to take you to the original post to download the template and read the challenge details.  Happy Scrapping!

Hi Girl Talkers! Happy Wednesday!

I just wanted to share a little love with you today using Dani’s kit “All You Need Is Love.” If you haven’t checked it out, you should! And, it’s on sale 34% off this week during Sweet Shoppe Designs 4th Birthday Bash! It doesn’t get any better than that!

Here’s a little goodie for all of you out there who are afraid to try hybrid! Don’t be afraid…this won’t hurt at all!

I used Dani’s kit to make some cute little tags for the upcoming Valentine’s season. These little tags are the perfect embellishment for small gifts, bags, baked goodies, etc. They add the perfect little touch to any gift.

Here’s what I did:

I printed the file on 8.5×11 premium photo paper. Regular card stock would work too. I decided to mount my circles on red cardstock to add a little extra pizazz, but you definitely don’t have to!

I cut out my circles using a round punch (you could also use a plain pair of scissors). I punched the red card stock with my extra large circle scallop punch for the bases. I then adhered the circles to the bases using double-sided tape.

Once they were done, I simply stuck a glue dot on the backs and stuck them all over the place! Here are a few of the treats I stuck them on:

You could also use them as cupcake toppers, gift bag tags, treat toppers, lunch box notes, etc. I even printed some off to use as a matching game for Valentine’s Day in my classroom. The possibilities are endless!

So, go grab the file here and get playing! I’d love to see what you come up with!

If you have any problems downloading the link, please let me know! I’ll come back and check the comments below for the next few days!

Good luck and happy Valentine’s Day-ing!

Leigh

Another month is here and that means another new template for you to work with for our challenge.  First here is our winner from January…heathergw with her LO Christmas Day Snow!  Congrats!  Contact Dani HERE to claim your prize.

Here is the template for February…

DOWNLOAD HERE

 

Post a link to your layout wiht this template by 2/28 and you’ll have a chance to win a GC from Dani.  You don’t have to use Dani’s products on the layout, but she loves it when you do.

Here are a few examples from us…

By Elizabeth using Don’t Rain On My Parade

By Kjersti using All You Need is Love

By Allie using Gidget

By Rachelle using Mistletoe Magic

By me (Tracy) using Father Knows Best