Made It! Monday - Felt Flower Wreath

Here was the inspirational pin:

This gorgeous wreath was created by Nest of Posies. I love vibrant colors and the black and white stripes - so eye-catching!

But I love how you can take a great idea and still make it your own.

Here's how I put it together:

You'll need:

• Wreath. (I bought mine at a craft store, but then saw this idea that will only cost you $1.)
• Felt. Since this is going outside, I just used the cheap craft felt - I think they are 9" x 12"?
• Fabric - I didn't have any striped fabric, but I found this fun zebra print bandanna for $1 at Michael's.
• Scissors
• Glue Gun

 There are so many different ways to make felt flowers and if you do a quick search on google or pinterest you can easily pull of a plethora of great tutorials.

I chose to make just 2 types - pompoms and roses.

To make the pompoms:

1.  From the longest side of your felt, cut a strip 2" wide. Lay down a thin line of hot glue on the bottom edge (long side) and fold over.
2. On the folded edge, make 1/4" wide cuts all along the length of your felt strip. Cut on the fold towards the raw edge, stopping before you reach the hot glue. It doesn't need to be exact, but leave maybe 1/4" or so un-cut.
3. Then, start rolling it up from one side, securing with hot glue as you go.
4. Here's how the underside will look.

If you'd like a bigger flower, add another felt strip - just continue rolling where you left off. You could even use another color for an extra fun look.

To make the roses:

1. Cut a circle of felt. (I traced a circle using a dessert plate, about 6" in diameter, which produced a 2 - 2 1/2" rose. To make a larger or smaller rose, simply change the size of your circle.)  Cut the circle into a spiral, about 1/2" wide.
2. Starting from the outside edge, start rolling the felt. To make the rose petals, twist/fold the felt as you roll it. It's a little hard to explain in words exactly - but it truly isn't complicated, once you give it a try you'll figure it out lickety-split! Secure with hot glue as you go...
3. Here's how the underside will look with the twisting and rolling.
4. And here's the front.

For another felt flower design, roll your spiral, but don't twist it - cute!

Next, the wreath:

1.  Cut your fabric (bandanna in this case) into strips, approximately 3" wide.
2. Wrap around your wreath base, securing with hot glue here and there to hold in place.
3. Arrange your felt flowers as you like them, and attach with more hot glue (oh boy, I love that stuff!)
4. Voila!

This was sort of a two-for-one pinterest challenge, because I've been wanting to make some felt flowers forever! Turns out, they were super easy. I have a stash of nice quality wool felt in super yummy colors and can't wait to use my new skills making some fun felt flower pins, and maybe some hair clips.

But that may have to wait a bit, as I already decided what to make for this weeks challenge - it's something practical, simple, and makes a great gift....



Look What You've Made!

I absolutely love it when my Resin Tutorial readers take some time to tell me about their journey into the world of resin and to share what they've made.

So there will be a new blog feature showcasing your own amazing designs!

To start things off, check out these stunning flower resin pendants, created by Chris, who sent me this lovely photo:

Chris said this was only her second attempt, and they turned out beautifully! Working with delicate flowers like these presents a lot of challenges including preserving their vibrant colors once embedded into the resin and also keeping those fine, soft petals from folding, breaking, and shifting. Chris did an amazing job - so very pretty!! ♥

So for all the rest of you out in blog-land, I would love to see some of the fun things you've made! You can email photos directly to me at jen_skinner@charter.net

Ooh, I can't wait to see more wonderful resin!

Welcome Home Wreath

I've seen so many lovely wreaths in the blogosphere lately, and I really, really wanted one. If you look closely at the ugliness of our front door (which I cropped out as much as possible) you'll see how much we really needed a cover-up!

Here's my $4 dollar-store wreath. If you had any of this stuff on hand, you could make it even cheaper. The dollar store has these skinny, skimpy wreaths, so I bought two - one smaller and one larger and nested them together to beef it up a bit. I also bought a roll of moss-tape which I wound around the larger wreath. (I think it would have looked just as nice without though, so I could have totally saved a dollar and bought, say, another plastic organizing bin. Seriously, I need to stop buying those!)

The red flowers were also $1, attached and snuggled closely together for extra fullness. They also had a nice ivory shade of the same flower, and I think a mono-chromatic scheme would have looked really classy, but we needed the color pop.

I made the three paper flowers from my pages of my collection of old, destroyed books that I'm slowly tearing apart for various uses. I used the same book and a piece of scrapbook paper to create the mini bunting banner and paper bow. The bunting and bow are coated in mod-podge for added protection against the elements. I left the paper flowers untouched as a little weathering could only enhance the look (I hope.)

All components were assembled with hot-glue for super-duper easiness (though I burnt my finger at the VERY end, completely needlessly I might add!)

So anyway, if you've got a hankering to craft your own wreath, hope this adds to the inspiration pool...

The Half Hour Light Tent

Two months ago, fed up with window sill photography, I took the plunge and made my own light tent. There are many DIY tutorials that provide a much more aesthetically pleasing finished product, but in my case, I didn't feel like measuring, outlining..etc..

This one took less than half an hour to finish. I used only what I happened to have on hand at the time...

Materials Needed:

• cardboard box
• scissors/knife
• white acrylic paint
• paintbrush
• waxed paper
• tape

I used a serrated knife to remove the top flaps, then cut square holes in three sides of the box.

Next I painted the inside with white acrylic paint. I had less than half of a 2 oz. bottle left, so the coverage was kind of thin and not too pretty, but it still works great. Acrylic paint dries super fast, so it was great to use for this project.

Look! So easy, a three year old can do it!

Next I covered the two side holes with waxed paper. I folded a long sheet into thirds for extra thickness, then secured to the box using packing tape.

I left the top holes uncovered so I could take shots with the camera straight down, but if you wanted to put a light straight down instead, you could cover that as well to diffuse the light.

Ah yes, the light...

For my first attempt using the light tent, I used lamps with our regular GE Reveal light bulbs. Ugh...the pictures were terrible. I played with all the white balance settings on my camera to no avail and thought the whole light tent had been a waste of time. Until I read that you need to use 'cool natural light' bulbs.

These were $9.99 each and worked like a charm...

I sill favor taking photos outside in natural light; out in the fresh air with the kids playing in the yard...

But this will get me nicely through the end of the cold season and also enables me to take pictures any time of the day.

Here are some more DIY light tent tutorials to check out:

http://www.pbase.com/wlhuber/light_box_light_tent
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-make-a-inexpensive-light-tent
http://www.diyphotography.net/homestudio/super-simple-light-tent
http://www.roughfisher.com/2009/01/diy-light-tent.html