Craft Tutorial: Felt TARDIS ornament

I recently discovered Doctor Who and have become a huge fan of the show.  One of the coolest things about becoming a fan of Doctor Who is discovering how many of your friends are already fans of the show!  I had no idea I was missing out on all this magic.  When my friend Claire (who also occasionally writes for this blog!) sent me some super cool Doctor Who goodies from the UK for Christmas, I decided to return the favour with a handcrafted Valentine's Day present.  

Here's how you can make your own TARDIS ornament:

Supplies:
- 1 sheet of royal blue felt
- 1 sheet (or just scraps) of white felt
- 1 sheet (or just scraps) of black felt
- royal blue embroidery floss
- white embroidery floss
- sharp scissors
- glitter glue in black or navy (optional)
- pretty ribbon for hanging (I used sparkly black ricrac)

1. Freehand (or google) an outline of a TARDIS (here's one) and draw it on some white paper.  Cut out two identical shapes from your blue felt (for the front and back of the ornament)

 2. Take one piece and cut out the boxes.  (You'll want one piece with holes cut out, and one piece solid - they will eventually be sewn together).

Cut out scraps of white felt to fit behind the top three windows.

Behind the top three boxes, sew in your white felt using blue embroidery floss.

At this stage, I actually decided to stitch around all the bottom windows as a decorative element.  This step is optional, but I think it looks kind of nice.  :)

Cut out a small piece of white felt as the light at the top of the TARDIS.  Stitch it down with blue embroidery floss.

3.  This is probably the most challenging part.  Cut out a small rectangle of black felt.  Using 1-2 pieces of white embroidery floss, stitch the words "Police Box" - If you're not really an embroiderer (like me) this can be kind of frustrating.  Don't give up.  The crooked letters are totally part of the charm! haha.

Once you've got the letters stitched onto the black felt, use your blue embroidery floss to stitch the entire black rectangle onto the top of the TARDIS.

4.   At this point, you should have something that resembles the photo on the right.  Two TARDIS boxes.  One has the windows cut out and embroidered with the Police Box and light up top.
The other is just a plain blue outline.

Take your blue embroidery floss, and stitch around the sides of both boxes to sew them together.  When you get to the top of the box, stitch in a ribbon to act as a holder.  To make it extra secure, make sure your embroidery floss goes through the back, the ribbon, and the front of the TARDIS.

5.  At the very end, I used glitter glue to add crossbars to the window, and some squiggly lines as script in the third window.
(If you prefer, you could always do this with some black embroidery floss... but I was pretty tired of sewing!)

This is a closeup of some of the details.

Finally, I packed it up with one of my Valentine's Day Doctor Who printable cards and a TARDIS bracelet that I found at Hot Topic.

What do you think?  Easy right?  ;)
Questions? Comments?

If you try this project, link up your pictures or blog posts in the comments below so I can feature them!

Craft Journals

Do you keep a craft journal?  Now that Pinterest is around, I guess a lot of people save their craft ideas right there... but here's a project I came up with before Pinterest, that for some reason, I've never blogged about!

I started with this old folder that I had, and made it a bit more visually appealing.  I added paper, sticker, book quotes and more... just stuff that inspires me and would make me want to open the book.

Inside, the folder (which had a little metal tab to keep everything in place), was divided into sections.  The first section was for tutorials and templates, and I included different ideas that I found scattered around the web, but I also included several sheets of lined paper, so that I could add my own tutorial ideas.
This was particularly useful for blogging, because I could write down what I was doing, and scribble out or add notes as I went along.

I made sure to include dividers with pockets, so that I could slip anything in that didn't fit between the metal tabs.  I have a habit of picking up those little craft sheets from Michael's, even though I rarely make anything from them... so this was a good place to store those.

This picture just amuses me, because even way back then, it was absolutely necessary to have a full tab of party ideas.  I've always loved throwing parties, and I'm super stoked that I've now organized that into my new venture, Superflash Creative.  I would love to help you plan your next party! Just leave me a comment and get in touch.





I'm actually kind of sad that this book didn't end up making the move with me, from Toronto to Florida.  Even though I didn't use it much in the last year or so... it makes me nostalgic.  Perhaps I will just have to create myself a new folder!

So, how do you organize your craft ideas?  Has it changed in the Pinterest days, or do you still keep things on paper?

I'll leave you with this lovely quote from the inside cover :)

October cards

Happy Halloween everyone!
It's been a while since I posted, and all I can say is that life has suddenly become incredibly busy!  Here are a few artsy projects I did over the last month:

A quick thank you card featuring a little embossed "thanks" with coordinating coloured flags.  It's sweet and simple and easy to whip up quickly to drop someone a thank you note!

This is a card I made for my friends Crystal and Josh on their wedding day!  They had a Halloween themed wedding (AWESOME!), so I really got to have a lot of fun with this card.  I got to pull in some of my favourite elements - ribbon, sequins, lace, glitter and rhinestones, and somehow it all comes together seamlessly.

This is probably one of my favourite cards I've made in a long time!

Speaking of Crystal, here's the fun little card that I came up with for her bachelorette party.  I based it on an invitation design that I found on pinterest - I used plain pink paper for the card base (it's made out of a single sheet of 8.5x11 cardstock, carefully measured to make the opening in the middle even!)
I then cut out pieces of pink damask paper, and punched holes for the corset's lace.  I finished it off with some simple eyelets and ribbon.















Finally, this is a page in my journal that's based on something I found on pinterest.  I had fun thinking of all the things that I really love and make me happy.















What projects have you been working on lately?  Link me to them, so I can come check them out!

Handmade Cards: June-July 2012 edition

Here's some of the most recent handmade cards I made - it seems like everyone had a "big" birthday over the last little while - I had cards for a 30th, 13th and 50th, plus Father's Day, and retirement!
I had lots of fun with these ones... some of my favourite features are the stitching in the 30th birthday card, the embossing on the father's day card, and the opening on the retirement card.

 

  

Handmade Cards: The May Edition

May is tied with December for biggest card month of the year.  It just seems like there are so many birthdays, Mother's Day and weddings that happen in May every year!  So without further ado, here are the cards that I made this past month:

The cutest bridesmaid proposal ever (if I do say so myself!)

Ever since he popped the question, I've known exactly which girls I wanted to stand up there with me, and I also knew that I wanted to make me asking them almost as special as him asking me!  I surfed around on pinterest for inspiration, but didn't really find anything I loved to draw from.
The idea struck me when I stumbled upon these super cute Valentine's Day plates at Target, which just so happened to be in the colours we chose for our wedding!
I bought a few of them, not knowing exactly HOW they would be put to use, just knowing that they WOULD be... and got cracking!

It started to come together when I found this frame.  I thought about decoupaging it in our wedding colours, but instead, I settled on decoupaging it with pages from a vintage romance novel (My one bridesmaid, Marlena, actually got a frame that was decoupaged with pages from a French romance novel!)



Then, I discovered this awesome program to use in conjunction with my Cricut machine called Cricut Craft Room.  It allows you to create a layout using cartridges you already own, OR, any Cricut cartridge, which you can then purchase online, directly through the program.  This made it a lot easier to visualize, because I could see exactly how big the letters would turn out.


I took my letters, and very carefully (using tweezers when necessary!) glued them on the inner matting of my frame.  The Craft Room program made it super easy to get just the three letters ("I Do") in a different colour, because I knew exactly where to position the paper on the cutting mat.  I used a glue runner to glue the letters down, because it's easier and less messy than white glue, a glue stick, etc.   You could also do it with mod podge, if you prefer.


I created some paper medallions, using this tutorial over at How About Orange.  Inside the centre of each medallion, I wrote Bridesmaid, or Maid Of Honour.  I then glued them to a piece of textured paper that matched the centre of the medallion, and on the paper, I stamped, "Will you be my"

Because the ribbons are higher than a flat picture, I couldn't replace the glass part of the frame, so what I did was include it behind the art work - that way, if the girls decide, they can replace the "proposal" part of the frame, with a picture of us at the wedding, afterwards!


I put it all together with some Cherry Red & Aqua coloured Jelly Belly's, and some cheesy, wedding related bubbles that I found at the dollar store (wedding cake & champagne).  I used the Cricut and some of my own decorative punches to create confetti out of matching paper.

I included a card that told each girl why I picked her, and how much she meant to me... Then I wrapped it all up in cellophane and hoped they'd say yes!
(They did!)

Feel free to Pin this on Pinterest and draw inspiration for your own bridesmaid proposal!  Please let me know if you decide to do something similar!

 

Crafty Gift Idea: Cupcake Ornament

Christmas is long-gone, but here's an idea for next year! (I couldn't post this earlier, because I didn't want the people who were getting this gift to see!)  It's a simple gift for a baker, or a crafter... or just someone who likes a little sparkle on their tree - a cupcake ornament!

There are a few different tutorials for this on the web, but this is how I did it.  It's really simple and quick - the most time consuming part is waiting for the glue to dry!

Materials:
- 1 cupcake liner (mine is from Ikea, because they tend to have really cute ones there)
- 1 styrofoam ball
- 1 small plastic red ornament
- glitter
- white glue
- hot glue gun (optional)

Directions:
1.  Carve an indentation, the size of the small ornament into the top of the styrofoam ball.  Use either white glue or a hot glue gun to add glue to the indentation, and press the red ornament into it, on a slight angle.  (I just used white glue - if you use the hot glue, make sure you work quickly, as it will dry fast)

2. Spread white glue over the bottom half of your styrofoam ball, and slide it into the cupcake liner.  Try not to press too hard on the liner, because you don't want all the natural creases to go away.  Let the glue dry overnight.

3. The next morning after it's all dry, add your first layer of sparkles.  Do this by spreading glue all over the top of the ornament, and sprinkling glitter all over.  Make sure you add some right around the seam of where the red ornament is.  Repeat 3 times, waiting for the glue to dry in between.  On the third time, you can be a little more creative, adding droops or swirls, like cupcake frosting would have.  You can even use a different colour of glitter.  The only thing limiting you is your own imagination!


Then, you're pretty much done!  Find a nice box to present it in... and give to the cupcake lover in your life!

Masquerade Ball - party idea!

Sorry for the few and far-between postings! Life was really busy for me through the month of October - hopefully November will calm down a bit before the Christmas rush! 



My birthday falls on the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, which is pretty awesome!  But sometimes, it means that friends go home to visit their families, since it's a long weekend.  So for my birthday this year, my boyfriend and I decided to host a Masquerade Ball.  We threw it on the weekend after my birthday, so it was between Thanksgiving and Halloween, and hosted it at my parents house, because their basement rocks.  We coordinated our colours (red, black, gold, silver, white), and asked our friends to come in fancy clothes, with a mask.


Our sweet table was set up in a corner (with some awesome candelabras that my boy bought me for my birthday - and bleeding candles that he made!).  We stuck to foods that were red, black and white, including a candy buffet, white chocolate cranberry cookies, and (not pictured at left) - white frosted cupcakes and dark chocolate brownies.  We bought some helium filled balloons, in red and gold, to fill the space further.




We tried to have decorations as far as the eye could see.  The main table was set up with a white table cloth and red runner.  We made candle holders out of wine bottles (with more bleeding candles) - and the bookcase behind was adorned with some feather boas, skulls and creepy cheesecloth, along with some extra masks we picked up at the dollar store for decorative purposes (and for any party poopers who showed up without a mask to pose with!)




Over by the bar, we took some bottles that we bought at the dollar store and made our own paper labels for them.  We filled each up with a different type of alcohol or mix (tonic water, vodka, cranberry juice and rum, I believe) - and these were set up on display, so that guests could either serve themselves or be served with other drinks behind the bar.



Naturally, we had loot bags for all the party-goers, and the golden skull you see at the back is actually the prize for best mask! 

I will try to post more pictures from the party later, but if you need to see them right now... check out the Masquerade Party set over at my flickr for all the awesome pics!

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