Wine Charms

Although our wedding is not until April, I couldn't wait to make these mr and mrs wine charms. Below is a tutorial.

1. Choose your font and print a stencil. I chose to use Carolyna Pro black, my most favoritest of favorite fonts ever. EVER. You could obviously choose a picture here, too.

2. Bend your wire as you trace your stencil. The thicker and sturdier your wire, the more difficult this will be. Use a pair of pliers to help. And don't forget to leave some length on one end for the part that goes around the wine glass (no idea what it's called).

3. Drink! Place your wine charms around your wine glass, pour yourself a drink, and enjoy!

Happy Crafting!

Paper Roses

Another long-time to do list item was finally checked off today. I've had the copies of music ready to use for almost 3 years now!!! Below is my step-by-step tutorial, which I found somewhere on the internet 3 years ago, printed out, and kept... So sorry I can't link to it, but I can't find it. :(

1. Gather some pretty paper. I decided to use some copied sheet music. I was in the teacher's lounge one day almost 3 years ago making copies when the music teacher walked in to do the same. The music he was copying looked "musicy" to me, so I asked if I could have one. Easy peasy.

2. Optional: Stain your sheet music. Pour some hot water into a 9" x 13" pan with a dark brown or black tea (I used a dark brown tea in order to get the soft creamy color, use black tea if you want something darker). Soak your sheet music in the tea for some time. Confession: I have no idea how long I left mine in there for. Maybe an hour or two? It could have been half a day, though. I was doing so many crafts at the same time!

3. Hang to dry. I tied up some string on my neighbor's house, then hung my sheet music using clothes pins. They only needed an hour or so to dry, but mine were in the sun and it's pretty dry out here.

4. Cut spiral flowers. I'm not sure how else to describe what to do here except, cut in a continuously smaller circle until you get to the the middle. I used my scalloped scissors, which created a pretty cool effect.

5. Wrap the spiral cirlcle flowers tightly around a pencil. When you do this, the spiral will naturally want to wind down the pencil. To avoid this, wrap tightly at the inside end of the spiral, keeping the bottom of your flower tight and allowing the top to become looser. This is how you will get a rose look, as opposed to just a tightly wrapped piece of paper. I also used hot glue every once and a while to help it all stay in place.

6. Glue stem. Glue one end of a green wire to the inside of the paper flower (where the pencil was). I created a little loop at the end in order to help the wire stay a little better.

7. Arrange. Cut the wire stems to your desired length and place your paper flowers in a vase. Viola! I put mine on a shelf next to all my Jane Austen books. Yes, I have read them all. And yes, they are all pretty much the same. ;)

Happy Crafting!

Wine Cork Monogram

I've had "make a wine cork monogram letter" on my to do list for quite a long time, so with a 3-day weekend, I finally decided to check it off!

Here is my step-by-step tutorial...

1. Arrange your corks. I chose to do a serif style letter and to randomly turn the corks each direction. You could also print out a font you like and arrange your corks on top. Or even buys wooden letter and glue your corks on top of that.

2. Glue. I used my hot glue gun to glue piece by piece. I found it helpful to line my corks up on the edge of the table (or the edge of anything straight) in order to keep them lined up right.

3. Decorate! I chose to place my wine cork monogram letter on a shelf in the kitchen next to a bunch of other wine stuff. Made sense to me. ;)

I hope that tutorial was helpful! Happy Crafting!

Bugs and Kisses

I know. I've been MIA for pretty much ever. There's been A LOT going on at the Deslattington house, so I haven't had much time for anything crafty... A much needed update will be posted soon.

Today, our friend Melody celebrates her 1st birthday! D and I are driving down to San Diego for the big celebration, and I couldn't be more excited! Remember the obsession I have with baby clothes? Well my obsession with baby birthday parties runs just as deep. It's a serious problem. Because her party is themed "Magical Forest", I decided to go with a bug on her card... I didn't have much time to figure out a way to cut or stamp a beast, so bugs were the best I could do. ;)

Happy Crafting!