Crafty Creations Challenge - Thank You!

Wow it's been a while since I've had a card to join in the Crafty Creations Challenge! This weeks theme is Thank You and I have a crad that fits the bill, this is actually for my Handmade Gift Exchange partner LeeAnn she won't have seen it yet so I hope it doesn't spoil the surprise too much!

For this card I've whipped out my favourite Forever Friends bear stamp and dug out the marvy le plume pens to colour him in. The papers are leftovers from the days that I was on the Kaboodle Doodle DT, shame I've lost all the digital copies of the papers but I had this little piece floating in my scraps box and had to use it!

I just love the bright colours on the card and the ribbon coz it's that funny crepe paper like material and is so easy to work with!

Anthro Inspired Pearl Headband

This headband has been stored in my Ideas folder (crikey before the days of me being on Pinterest!) for ages, since March when Lindsay posted it on her blog Lee La La. The tutorial for it is here.
I spent ages wanting to make it, but it was worth the wait it's brillian, just need more excuses to wear it now... don't think I'd get away with wearing it to work though :(

So here's my Anthro inspired pearl headband...
And here's a (yet another posey, sorry!) photo of me wearing my fab new headband... I love it, a tad heavy but beautiful all the same!

Another Fascinating Fascinator

In May I posted my fascinator refashion for going to Royal Ascot to the races with the girls (if you've forgotten my fascinator is here)... well after I finished mine one of my friends was struggling to find a fascinator that ticked every box for her. She wanted the right colours, a good size but most importantly it had to be on a separator clip not a headband or comb grip... So guess what happened...

I made her one!

Back to Claire's Accessories we went and ended up with the same fascinator that I bought but in ivory, then we went to the local fabric shop with her dress and found matching ribbon, feathers and a cute little butterfly for the centre to hide the stitches... Then came to the assembling... starting with carefully removing the fascinator from the headband, not as easy as I had hoped, and attaching it to a separator clip...then making it look awesome!

This is what we ended up with after an hour of working on it...

And as I promised a photo of me wearing my fascinator with the dress to give you the full effect of the outfit. The necklace was a refashion too, a cheapy black necklace from Primark that had been through the wars... only cost £2 in the sale and with some black spray paint and white paint it's interesting and blends with the dress...

So here's a photo of us together sporting the refashioned fascinators.... yes the stripes clash terribly we learnt to not stand next to each other in photos after this lol!

Chevron Earrings

So it was nearly a month ago that I 'pinned' Jen from Craft-O-Maniac's chevron earrings for me to recreate... sadly revision and uni work got in the way too often so it's taken ages to get my pair finished.. a bit of taping out here and there, odd coat of paint, touch up, gloss and reassemble... but now my exams are over (ok so there's still a little bit of project work and an assignment to do) I have some of my free time back again, hurrah!!!!

Here's my finished pair of chevron earrings....

Seeing as I don't have a silhouette I had to use masking tape to create my chevrons so mine are pointed unlike Jen's wavy shaped chevrons... I'd love to say the centre black strip is deliberately wider but I didn't notice till after I'd finished painting, but hey at least both earrings have chunky black middles.. think I'll just pretend that's how I planned them to look lol!

Keep calm and have a cupcake!

There must be keep calm and... well just about everything out there but I love this one the most.. Keep calm and have a cupcake!

I took an old tile, attached a hook to the back and rubber pads to stop it damaging the wall. Then I found some scrapbook paper that matched the pink of the keep calm image... a few coats of modpodge and hours later I have a completed tile to hang up in the kitchen above our heart chalkboard.

Sometimes I just wish i could keep calm and have a cupcake, especially as I'm now in panic with my uni exams less than a week away... but a cupcake would be breaking my diet regime :(

Blog Button!

So I must be the slowest, lamest blog trying to get somewhere as I didn't have a blog button... till now that is! I've just finished photoshopping it and now I'm writing the html coding for it.

Yay, here's how it's going to look!

Update: coding is now done, it's all on the right hand side ready for you to grab! Happy Days!

Make up Bag Mk 2

Here's make up bag mk2.. well actually it was mk1 I did it before mum's zipper make up bag but never got round to blogging it.. this one's mine and seems to be getting multipurposed, it's the perfect size for a make up bag or a small clutch for a night out.

I made it using Amie from Kitty Cats and Airplanes tutorial that she posted over on Better Life Bags back in January (here's the tutorial link).

I made the size dimensions suit me a little better than the original as my poor blackberry would have never fitted in with my purse or camera lol. I just love the chunky black button I found in my stash to seal the bag, think it's off an old coat I threw out years ago actually. Ok so the sewing isn't perfect but it was the first project I had a proper crack at when I bought the new sewing machine... I'm just chuffed that I made such a good job of the button hole, never done that before!

Blog Swap with Kassi From Truly Lovely

Well today is the start of something new for me.. I'm having my first ever blog swap.. with none other than the lovely Kassi From Truly Lovely.. enough of me nattering I'll hand you over to Kassi....

I am SO excited to be blog swapping with the lovely Steph here today!!
If you're having Steph withdrawals (as I'm sure you are...)
You can visit her over on my blog, Truly Lovely,
today where she is guest posting as well!

In the meantime, I am Kassi from the blog Truly Lovely!

We are just over TWO WEEKS from our June wedding!!!
Right now much of my life and my blogs are consumed with wedding planning.... Trying to wrap up all the last minute details of course!

If you'd like to follow my wedding planning in more detail,

I have a 'just for the wedding' blog over here. :)

A wedding craft that I did just for me, just for fun, was my Bride Bag!

Every bride needs a handy little bag to carry around the wedding planning essentials!

So...

I am so excited to be able to share my Bride Bag tutorial with you today!
The same concepts can be applied to make a Momma Bag, Shopping Bag, or work tote!

Materials Needed:

• Plain Tote
  

• Sticky backed Vinyl or other stencil


• Fabric Paint


• Iron on embellishments (I used my wedding flowers, daisies)


• Cute little craft iron... Or a regular iron will do ;)
  
  (All these materials were Christmas gifts from my sweet sister, so thanks Miss Kayli for gifting me some awesome craft supplies!!)
  

First, I used my new Silhouette SD (Christmas gift from the hubs-to-be) to cut out the lettering, "Kassi's Bride Bag June 2011".

Next, I pulled the cutout lettering away from the vinyl sheet.

This became the stencil.

Then I peeled the backing off of the vinyl and stuck it to the tote.

*Tip - Sticky backed vinyl is great because once the backing is removed you can stick it onto pretty much anything and it'll last long enough to work as a stencil.

The only fabric paint I had at the time was puff paint... but that wasn't the look I was wanting for my bag... So I improvised...

I just used a small paint brush to brush the puff paint onto the stencil... I used pink and turquoise paint, my wedding colors of course!

It took a few coats of the puff paint to get it dark enough on the black tote to pop, but once I got those coats on, I just left it to dry overnight.

The next morning I simply peeled the vinyl stencil from the tote and walla, insta-tote wording!! :)

To spice it up a bit, I ironed on a few daisies (my wedding flower of choice) using my nifty little craft iron! (Again, thanks Kayli!)

The next, and final step is to fill your new Bride Bag with all the wedding planning essentials!!

In went my wedding planning notebook, wedding ring brochures, hand written guest list draft, and our engagement pictures CD.

I literally carry this bag with me everywhere I go!!

At less than two weeks til the wedding, it's so nice to have everything I need right on hand in my handy little Bride Bag!

This picture was taken by my Maid of Honor, Miss Kayli of course, after a LONG day of trying on wedding dresses!!!

As you can see, it'll wear a girl out! ;)

But the Bride Bag in tow means less stress for the bride-to-be!!!

Thanks again to Miss Steph for having me over!!! :)

Always happy to share with my bloggie besties!!!