Category Archive for: ‘DIY Projects + Tutorials’

DIY Tutorial: Flower girl headbands

Your flower girls are probably pretty cute already, so just think how cute they’ll be when you put these ribbon flower headbands on them. Prrreeettty darn cute. Yup. Plus you’ll get to use a hot glue gun and that’s pretty fun.

Materials:

Two lengths of ribbon
Material
Thumbtack or button
Material scissors
Pencil
Hot glue gun

Directions:
Step 1: Draw a flower

Draw a five- or six- petal flower on the left (ugly) side of the material.

Step 2: Cut out flower

Cut out your flower and turn it so that the right (pretty) side of the material is facing up.

Step 3: Glue ribbon

Using the hot glue gun, stick one end of the ribbon to the center of the material flower.

Step 4: Fold and repeat

Fold the ribbon over and direct it onto another material petal, gluing it in the center as you go. Repeat this step until you’ve made ribbon petals that match all of the material petals.

Step 5: Make stamen

Stick the thumbtack or button to the center of the flower.

Step 6: Stick ribbon
flower-girl-headband-step-6-stick-ribbon
Using the hot glue gun, stick the second length of ribbon to the back of the flower. You’re done!

Step 7: Repeat

Make more, until your flower girls are as adorable as adorable can be.

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DIY Tutorial: Flower escort cards

Spring has finally arrived and it has got me in a spring mood. So much so that I spent all afternoon putting together rose escort cards. Sure maybe I could have had a picnic instead, but then again they only require three things (cardboard, scissors and a glue gun), are super easy to make, and pretty adorable. In fact I think they’d make a starling addition to any spring wedding (and a spring afternoon well spent).

Materials:

Paper for roses (I used red and pink)
Paper for leaves (I used green and taupe)
Pencil
Scissors
Hot glue gun

Directions:
Step 1: Draw roses

Draw squiggly circles on the paper that you’ve chosen for the roses. If you want all of your roses to be the same size and shape, you can make a pattern and trace it. Otherwise just draw them freehand. Try to make them as circle-like as possible (they’ll be much easier to roll later if you do).

Step 2: Cut out roses

Cut out the shapes you drew in step 1.

Step 3: Cut roses into spiral

Starting from the outside and working your way into the center, cut the roses into a spiral. Cut out a little hole in the middle.

Step 4: Roll roses

Starting from the outside and working your way in, roll each rose spiral as tightly as you can.

Step 5: Draw leaf

Draw a leaf. If you want for all of your escort cards to be the same, make a pattern and trace it, otherwise just draw each leaf separately. Make sure to include a stem on the end (you’ll need this to peg your flower escort cards when they’re finished).

Step 6: Cut leaf out

Cut out the leaf. If you’re not great with a pair of scissors, you can order pre-cut leaves from somewhere like Etsy or even use rectangular or other-shaped tags.

Step 7: Hot glue gun!

Whip out your hot glue gun and go to town on either the leaf or the base of the rose (whatever works for you).

Step 8: Glue rose

Allow the rose to unfurl until you’re happy with its size. Then press the rose into place and repeat until all of your escort cards are done.

Step 9: Finish

Write the names onto the leaves, pin them up and you’re done! If you — like me — don’t have the greatest handwriting, you could also print the names or use a stencil.

Mix it up
Don’t be afraid to suit the roses to your wedding color scheme – they can be green, yellow, blue, brown or any color you like (and attached to any leaf you like).

How To Perfectly Place Rubber Stamp Images

One of the most-commented upon projects this year, the Chevron Invitation Suite, left many of you wondering how to get the chevron design perfectly – and consistently – stamped on your own invitations. Though I’d like to say that I’m JUST THAT AWESOME at stamping, that’s totally not the case.

I simply use dark magic.

Well, no, that’s not really true.

The secret to rubber stamp placement perfection is this doohickey:

It’s the unfortunately-named “Stamp-a-ma-jig” from Stampin’ Up!, a nifty tool that helps position rubber stamps. There are other stamp positioners on the market, by the way, and they all cost under $14.00. Some are L-shaped or differently-shaped. I prefer the T-type like the Stampin’ Up! one because that’s what I learned on.

What It Is: The stamp positioner is a 2-piece tool that consists of a sheet of a reusable plastic and a T-square type bar.

Why You Need It: Wood-mounted rubber stamps, the kind you can’t see through, are often not registered properly on the block. What this means is that the image on the top of the block that shows you what the image is does not match the placement of the actual stamp on the block. They’re sometimes crooked or off by a few millimeters. If you’re going to do any kind of rubber stamping that requires precision placement – especially with stamps that have typography, geometrical/horizontal/repeating patterns – a stamp positioner will save you a lot of frustration and wasted card stock. I’ve had mine for about 12 years and can’t imagine doing any kind of precision project without it.

How To Use It:

1. Place the T-square on your table and then place the clear plastic sheet flush so that two side are flush with the side of the jig and that the corner of the plastic fits snugly in the corn of in the corner of the “t”.

2. Ink up a stamp as you normally would.

3. Using the edges of the stamp jig as a guide, press the stamp firmly down on the plastic and lift it straight up. Be careful not to move the jig or the plastic here. If you do, simply wipe the ink off the plastic and try it again.

4. The resulting stamped plastic can now be used as a template for everything you stamp with this image. Pro Tip: If you’re using a light ink for your projects, it probably won’t show up on the plastic. Just use a black ink or a dark ink on the plastic so it’ll be easier to position the image.

5. For example, this piece of card stock needs some stamped chevron love on the top 2/3 of the paper. I’ve placed the stamped plastic on top of the card stock, positioning it so that the edges of chevron stop on the right-hand side of the paper.

6. Once I like the positioning, I carefully align the jig/t-square thing to the top and side edge of the stamped plastic. It’s important in this step not to bump the plastic or the paper, otherwise all alignment will get messed up. Don’t worry if you actually DO bump things out of alignment; it happens. Just reposition and try it again.

7. Once everything looks aligned, carefully remove the plastic.

8. Ink up your stamp and align it in the jig. Press down to stamp the image on the card stock the lift up the stamp.

9. Voila! Perfectly-aligned image!

When you’re done with the project, the stamp positioner can be wiped clean with any stamp cleaner or oftentimes just soap and water.

Crepe Paper Flower Crown

Hi, everyone! We’re aware that this post is getting cut off at the directions stage. We’re working toward getting it fixed and back online as soon as we can.

One of the emerging accessory trends for 2013 is the return of the boho-esque flower crown as an alternative to the tiaras and headbands we’ve seen for the last several seasons. Though I’ve been dying to make a DIY tutorial, it wasn’t until our friends at CrepePaperStore.com joined us that everything really came together for me to create an affordable, durable crown that you’d be proud to wear.

While I usually prefer real flowers in all-things-weddings, this is a project where faux flowers were actually preferable. In fresh flower test crown trials, I found that real flowers had some serious problems:

Wilting. They’d wilt quickly in warm weather (or even just on a warm head).
Bruising. Light-colored flowers, especially white ones, often bruise very easily. Using them requires lots of extra flowers to replace damaged ones and they must be handled with care.
Allergy Trigger. Oh, man. I’m not usually that sensitive to flowers but some blooms made me a watery-eyed snotty mess after just a few minutes when sitting on my pretty little head.
Cost. Depending on the flowers used, a modest floral crown could easily cost $50 on the low end and upwards of $150 or more for fancy arrangements.

The answer, of course, was to create a crown of beautiful crepe paper flowers. They’re durable, easy-to-make and scale to any size, affordable for most, and won’t trigger those pesky allergies.

Before we get started, it’s important to note that not all crepe paper is the same. There’s the ulta-thin stuff you buy in small rolls at party supply shops (great for party streamers) and then there’s higher-end, quality crepe that comes in sheets or long rolls (great for craft projects). We’re using the higher-quality Italian crepe paper from CrepePaperStore.com for this project.

Also, crepe paper is different from tissue paper. Tissue paper is the lightweight, smooth paper that is used to wrap gifts or cushion packages. Crepe paper is heavier than tissue and has a crinkly textured grain that runs throughout it.

Supplies Needed:

180 gram Crepe Paper in assorted colors

Scissors

Tape measure

Floral Wire

Wire cutters

Floral tape

Flower Templates (link)

Directions:

Embossed Invitations With A Die Cutting Machine

When it comes to invitations, almost anyone with a computer, word processing program, and a printer can create simple-but-lovely invitations on the cheap. Honestly, if you’ve worked with MS Word – even for just a few days – you’ve already got basic invitation-making skills. But what do you do when you want to take a basic home-printed invitation and turn it into something more refined?

What often separates DIY invitations from what professional stationers create usually comes down to two things:

1. Quality of materials

2. Attention to detail

Today, I’m going to show you how using high quality card card stock from our friends at CutCardStock.com, a manual die-cutting machine, and an embossing folder can turn an invitation from simple to gorgeous with just a little bit of effort. The addition of the embossed layers adds depth, texture, and a beautiful design that are sure “wow” your invitees.

If you’ve never used a die-cutting machine before, oh, you’re in for some fun! Die-cutting machines are used in crafting (especially scrapbooking and card-making) to cut words, letters, and shapes out of different materials like paper, cork, soft metals, cardboard, and fabric. They do this by squeezing the material and a die (a sharp metal sheet with a design on it) together through the machine. The machines usually have a platform of some sort along with various thicknesses of heavy-duty plastic plates that form a sandwich around the dies and materials so that the maximum amount of pressure is placed on the die as it moves through the machine. These things help give clean and even cuts.

What’s really cool about die cutting machines is that many companies are offering embossing folders. Instead of cutting paper, embossing folders press a design into heavy papers and card stocks. It’s kind of like letterpress and, yes, you can create letterpress-like projects in a manual die-cutting machine. (We’ll do that another day. I promise!)

The Supply List

1 piece of 5″ x 7″ card stock in Curious Metallic INK (navy) from CutCardStock.com

1 piece of 4″ x 6″ Esse Pearlized card stock in Latte from CutCardStock.com

1 piece of 1″ x 11 1/2″ card stock in Curious Metallic Olive from CutCardStock.com (not shown above), scored at 3 1/2″ from either end

Big Shot Die Cutting Machine by Sizzix

Cricut Cuttlebug Embossing Folder “Acanthus” Pattern with both the 5″x 7″ folder and the 1″ x 7″ folder

Glue dots

1/4″ wide grosgain ribbon, blue color

Instructions

1. The first part of this project is the easiest: create your invitation. In Microsoft Word, create a 4″ x 6″ invitation and print it onto Esse Pearlized card stock. Set the invitation wording pages aside.

2. It’s embossing time! For me, this is the fun part. I love embossing because it’s easy and it provides impatient me with instant gratification. To get started, place a piece of 5″ x 7″ Curious Metallic INK card stock in the center of the embossing folder. The Cuttlebug embossing folders are hinged, so you just flip up the top, drop your paper in, and flip down the top.

3. Note: Each embossing machine manufacturer (and model) is different so the directions might be slightly different for the one you’re using. All die machines manufacturers will have a recommended “sandwich” of plates that should be used with their machine and an embossing folder. For the Big Shot, I used Platform Tab 1, a plate, the closed embossing folder, then another plate.

4. Using the handle, roll the sandwich through the die machine. If you’ve got the right sandwich combination, you should feel some resistance as you turn the handle. It’ll feel tight and that’s good. A tight fit will mean a strong impression.

Half-way through the machine!

5. You might want to sit down now because you are going to swoon over the beautiful card stock you just made. Look at the detail here: the design is evenly pressed into the paper. There are no buckles or missed spots. This is a keeper for sure.

6. Since the 11 1/2″ long by 1″ wide piece is too long for both the machine and 1″ x 7″ embossing folder, we’ll just emboss the two front flaps of the belly band. You’ll need to do each side individually by placing one side of the belly band into the embossing folder, just to the first fold. Close the folder; the un-embossed section will stick out of the folder and the machine as it goes through. Send the sandwich through the machine. Repeat for the other side.

Lining up the belly band, just until the first 3 1/2″ fold

7. Final assembly! Using glue dots, adhere the invitation wording sheet to the front of the INK (blue) embossed card stock, centering it left-to-right and top-to-bottom. Add the belly band, securing it on the back of the INK (blue) card stock layer and folder it around the front of the card. Secure one side of the belly band flap over the the other with a glue dot. Wrap a length of 1/4″ wide grosgrain ribbon around the belly band and tie it in a bow.