authentique

My friend Margie is nothing if not a busy bee.

She is always up to something. Designing new products. Traveling the world. Getting locked out of her house.

She just released her newest line of paper products.  She is working for a new company called Authentique.  They will debut their new lines at CHA later this month. They are almost ready to launch their website. For now you can check out the Face Book page.

As always, she sent me a fun package with all her new stuff.  "To play with." she said.

So I played. I made soldered jewelry charms with some of the smaller die cuts. I made a gift box to put them in and give them to someone deserving.

Margie is one the people in my life that really keeps my creative juices flowing.  When we get on the phone to work on Spark plans, we always end up on some huge crafty tangent. We swap craft ideas like baseball cards.

We are kindred spirits in that way.

Congratulations Margie on your latest achievement. Your papers are beautiful as usual.

I love you girl.

the gathering season

Well it's here. It's offically the gathering season. That special time of year when I start to gather up all the little gifts for the kid's advent calendar. Tis' the season that I love so much.  I'm constantly on the hunt for small, inexpensive tokens to fill each day in December.  Sometimes it's sweets. Other times I find little trinkets like a yo-yo or lip balm.

Every door in our advent calendar contains a little note. A cryptic messages as to where the children might find their treasure.

This year I am using my Girl's Loft kit to make each gift special.

Do you have an advent calendar in your family?  Here's some ideas of small gifts you can get to fill the days:

yo-yo

lip balm

stickers

cocoa mix

chocolate gold coins (gelt)

christmas socks

silly putty

ornaments

books

Cracker Jacks

Pez

movie tickets

character band-aids (my kids love these)

trading cards

gum

animal crackers

friendship bracelets

fun pencils

Hot Wheels

Crayola tub tints

bouncy ball

candy canes

bottled soda

kazoo

nightlight

sprinkles and cookie cutters

card game

craft kit

Christmas DVD

dreidel

marbles

gingerbread house kit

bubble bath

Check the dollar bins and Target and Michael's.  They always have a bunch of fun stuff. Also, coupons for ice cream go over well in our house.

You got some ideas? Let's hear them! Like I said before, I'm on the hunt.

I also used my Girl's Loft kit to create a paper Santa to stand sentry at the advent calendar.  We have some sneaky kids in this family.


The November kit is full of The Girls' Paperie "Tinsel & Twig" line.  If you buy a kit and you would like to make your own paper Santa, email me and I'll send you the pattern.

toil and trouble

My good friend Margie Romney-Aslett is a designer who has her own line of products for paper crafting.  She also has a kit club that she runs with her daughters.  Every month The Girl's Loft sends out a kit full to the brim with fun crafting supplies.  The kit for October featured Margie's Halloween line "Toil and Trouble".  The girls sent me a kit to play with because they think I'm the shiz. That's what I like to think anyway.  I finally found a couple of hours when the babies were sleeping to dig into my goodies.

I made candy cones. Okay, they may not be original, but hey, who doesn't love a candy cone?  And candy cones made with Toil and Trouble products? Uh. That's a yes. Any day of the year.

And now, as if this post isn't festive enough, I get to give away an October Girl's Loft kit for you, yes you, if you be the winner.  Believe you me, it's a package of fun.

You can see all that the kit contains here.

You can enter to win said kit by leaving a comment.

You can have a second entry by tweeting this exact comment- @suaviloquy I really want to win @thegirlsloft kit because it rocks and so do you.

I really do love being Queen of this domain. Everyone should be the Queen somewhere.

As Queen I decree that a winner shall be chosen on Monday, October the twenty-fifth in the two hundredth and tenth year of our Lord.  Let it be written. Let it be done.

as promised...

Paper Wreath Tutorial

Supplies:
twenty-five to thirty sheets of really great printed craft paper (I LOVE this line)
twenty-five to thirty sheets of solid color paper
an old book
buttons (thirty or so)
floral wire
glitter(oh my I do love glitter)
wire cutters
needle nose pliers
foam wreath form
glue
scissors

Using your craft paper and old book, cut out "X" shapes in various sizes with rounded edges. The largest should be around 6-8 inches and the smallest should be about 3 inches. Cut four each from the printed paper, solid paper and old book pages. Do not worry about uniformity. It looks better if each petal is unique. Also cut out circles for the flower centers. I use a 1 1/2 inch die cut.

Cut a length of floral wire (I like to use heavy gauge wire for more stability). Thread a button onto one end and using your needle nose pliers, curve the wire so the it goes back through the button.

Follow with a circle.

If you want to glitter your flower, use some glue to coat your paper and sprinkle and tap off excess. Start to crumple and shape your petals. I like to curl mine inward. Stack the petals one by one on the wire.

After you have stacked all twelve petals, use your needle nose pliers to make a curl with the wire in the back to hold the petals tight.

My wreaths are fairly large and require twenty-five to thirty flowers. Yes, it does take me forever.

But.

It lasts forever. The flowers never die.

And you can always make a small one if you don't think you can handle hours of crumpling paper.


Poke the wire from each flower into the foam wreath. It may take a little tweaking to get them arranged just right.

Be patient.

Enjoy!

Oh, and send me a pic of your finished wreath!

*****Okay I'm writing this very small because I don't want to come across as a intellectual property freak, but I would like to say that you are welcome to use this tutorial for personal use, but please ask before you publish it somewhere. After all, It's the polite thing to do.