Links to instructions for making these lovely items are below. Go nuts!
Pleated pillow at Presser Foot
Butcher paper wreath by Alisa Burke
Asterisk clock from Curbly
Webbed chair seat repair at Martha Stewart
Tiny polaroid magnets from Ambrosia Girl, inspired by my Pantone magnets!
Sunburst pillows at Versus by Anna of Noodlehead
You know I have a weakness for 3D paper anything, so when I saw an instructional video for origami rabbit cups by Jacky Chan at Origami Spirit, I had to try it. The video moves along briskly so I had to rewind repeatedly, but I prevailed. Hey, now that nobody uses tape anymore, is it still called rewinding? What's it called? But I digress. Go fold some Easter bunnies. If you use 6" origami paper, an egg will fit nicely inside.
Speaking of parties, I keep hearing rumors that two people called William and Kate are getting married in England sometime soon. I don't know much about it, but I suppose it will be the typical wedding seen on all the blogs nowadays with one of those photo booths where guests hold up mustaches on sticks in front of their faces.
If you'd like to watch this wedding on TV and make a party of it (or you're just nuts about British themes), download this set of printables from Design Editor.
Back in January, Hostess with the Mostess posted this photo from Anders Ruff. The hanging polyhedrons caught my eye, so I added this idea to my DIY decoration toolbox. The balls are just paper plates stapled together, made from this tutorial at Family Fun. Nifty! You could use colored plates or spray paint white plates orange. (Or some other color, if you must.) A nice idea for parties or shop windows.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned Bobby Solomon's The Desktop Wallpaper Project many moons ago. Probably. Maybe. Anyhow, some of the latest artwork might make you smile. Charlie Sheen wallpaper, anyone? 
If a brush script might come in handy, check out Water Brush ROB, available for free right here.
Update: It looks like the free version has now been removed.
People with lots of stuff to carry might benefit from some tote bag sewing instructions. Lucky for us, nice people of the internet have come through. A few tutorials:
Mini tote by Hollabee
Pleated beach bag at Thimble
Organizing tote basket by 2 Little Hooligans
Market tote at Bijou Lovely
I've created a downloadable file for making compliment bunting. When you need to tell someone they're super, this might be just the thing. Use it for birthdays, promotions or when your friend is sad. Everybody likes compliments. By the way, your hair looks very nice today.
If you happen to have a Silhouette digital cutter and Adobe Illustrator, it's fun to cut out the letters. (You'll need the Cutting Master 2 Craft ROBO plug-in, available here for Mac and PC. Install it, then open the bunting PDF in Illustrator. Delete the extra pages, then go to File > Cutting Master and cut your triangle of choice.)
Or just print your favorite PDF pages on cardstock and cut them out. Punch small holes in the corners and string the bunting.
The PDF contains six pages—three designs in two colors each. Download the complimentary compliment bunting file right here.
The Curiosity Group comes out with a clever (and free!) printable 3D calendar each month. The April paper toy is a record player with a little cutout in the album that reveals the date. Grab it here.
Or build a calendar of stacking cubes by Pen Pencil Stencil. You'll be set for the year.
I like today for three reasons. One, it's Friday. Two, it's my birthday. Three, it's April Fool's Day. An unrelated note: while our neighbors were out of the country recently, we may have accidentally let ourselves into their house and applied self-adhesive googly eyes to their stuff. Some eyes might possibly have ended up in our house, too.
Mod Podge Amy, trouble-maker that she is, sent over this article about the color preferences of men and women. The excerpted graphic above shows the least favorite colors reported by men on the left and women on the right. Dear readers, this is a tragic state of affairs! Do I insist that orange be everyone's favorite color? No. But should it ever be one's least favorite color? Never! Lemon yellow is far worse. Results also revealed that the majority of people surveyed believe orange to be a "cheap" color. Blasphemy!
Download whimsical desktop wallpaper freebies compliments of Willem Pirquin, a freelance illustrator in Belgium. Choose from playing cards, alphabet letters, gnomes and other playful images.
Should you need icons for websites, presentations, or for replacing all the default icons on your computer desktop because you're crazy like that, Icon Finder is for you. Choose from bazillions of images, many of which are free for commercial use. Search by size, background color, and licensing options. (When viewing any icon, the license info is shown in the upper left corner.)
Remember last week's shiny Pantone magnet project? I'm on a shiny kick right now and decided to test another type of glaze. Hopefully the repetition isn't so dull that your eyes... ugh, it's too cheesy; I can't finish the sentence.
I glued pieces of a map to wooden disks with plain old garden-variety Mod Podge. Then I applied special Mod Podge Dimensional Magic to the surface of the paper, let it dry, and stuck magnets on the back. No unicorns, leprechauns, or rabbits in hats materialized, but I can report that after the stuff was dry, the surfaces of the disks were super glossy. Probably not captured to full effect in this photo, I'd say the stuff gets shinier than Aleene's Paper Glaze, though it doesn't create quite as thick a coating since the liquid is thinner. It dries in about 3 hours as opposed to 24 like Aleene's, and because the directions say to shake it gently before using, it tends to get tiny, almost unnoticeable air bubbles in in. Which didn't bother me at all, but maybe next time I'll shake less. Here's what it looks like wet:
I like both products a lot and am making plans to glaze everything in my house.
Big news! I'm thrilled to announce my latest fabric collection—please meet Outside Oslo, a line of home décor fabrics in two colorways. This batch is brought to you by The Needle Shop, Chicago's delicious little fabric store and sewing school.
Look for Outside Oslo in stores in May. If you're a shop or manufacturer interested in wholesale purchasing, head over to The Needle Shop's page for information on ordering. While you're there, you can grab a PDF that shows all the prints, along with lots of ideas for fun things to make.
Now, allow me introduce the cast of characters. I'm sure it's no surprise there are some orangey guys in here. 
Stay tuned for an update when the collection is available to purchase retail. Hope you like it! And now I'm signing off for the week; I'm traveling and will meet you back here on Monday.
Update: The collection is now available online here.
While searching around the internet, I bumped into Psykopaint, a website that lets you upload and paint over your photos. It's designed for people with "no skills" and who are "too lazy to study for several years." Ha! Choose from dozens of effects, plus brushes that let you paint in the style of famous masters. If you like what you've made, have it printed on a canvas. Here's a test where I painted on the right half of a photo I uploaded. If you find yourself bored silly someday, give it a try.
For your book marking pleasure, Sharon Rowan has made a set of printable foxes. You can even get all fancy and print the diamond pattern on the back sides. Grab this little freebie right here!
I try to keep loose Pantone chips in an envelope for future projects, but these nice colors escaped and attached themselves to my file cabinet. Oops.
If you happen to own a Pantone chip book or can beg a few chips from someone you know, here's how to whip up some little candy-like magnets.
Cut small pieces of bookboard or other thick cardboard with an X-acto knife. (Bookboard is likely available at your local art store or PaperSource.) Make the pieces exactly the size of the Pantone chips. Then paint the edges white; I used acrylic paint for this.
Attach the chip to the cardboard. I tried using wet glue, but it made the chip curl. So instead I covered the back of each chip with double-stick tape which worked great.
Then cover the face of the chip with paper glaze. It dries with a clear, raised glass-like surface. There are a few products on the market; I used Aleene's Paper Glaze. Let it dry overnight.
Finally, attach a magnet to the back. I used a roll of self-adhesive magnet material, but you could use something stronger, or cut up those promotional magnets you get sometimes from companies. 
I tried making these little paper boxes shaped like candies, designed by Makato Yamaguchi. They're a project in a Toyo origami kit for boxes shaped like various sweets. Each candy half is one sheet of folded paper; one end fits inside the other to form a container. You can watch Heather's nice video tutorial right here on YouTube. Collapsing the candy ends is tricky, but I'm improving with practice!
I just came across Lost and Taken's texture gallery of free, high resolution images for use on personal and commercial projects. What a great resource! Choose from torn paper, book covers and end papers, cardboard, watercolors, scratches, clouds, and more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
