Watercolor Paper Flowers

Hello all! Today I will show you how to make watercolor paper flowers :)

You will need:

- Watercolor paint

- Watercolor paper, or Oslo paper

- Scissors

- Hot glue

Just paint the paper with watercolor. I mixed three colors for this one. The more water you use, the more it will blend. And then let it dry for about 30 minutes.

Cut out different sizes of petals with your watercolor paper, ranging from 1 to 3 inches. Slightly curl the sides of the petals with a pencil.

Starting with the smallest petal, Apply hot glue at the bottom of the petal and pinch it. Add a new petal over the previous one, layer by layer.

When you're satisfied with the size, you can stop adding petals. If you want, you can experiment with different petal shapes.

  
Then cut out leaves to complete the look. It will definitely look nicer if there are 2 or 3 more colors for the flowers. You can use these flowers as a nice table centerpiece for a party! And by the way, these will never wilt.

Happy crafting!

Dip Dye Ribbon

Hi all! here's a quick DIY for Valentine's Day: Dip-dye ribbon. I got the idea from Ruffled, except that they used cotton fabric for the ribbons. I used the satiny ones that's why the effect is subtle.

You will need:

- Food coloring

- Water

- Small container like a shot glass

- Ribbon

- Paper towel

I rolled the ribbon and soaked it in water so that the color will be subtle. Add a few drops of food color and water in the shot glass and then dip the rolled ribbon into the dye. If the color is too harsh, just wash it with running water.

Use paper towel to absorb the excess water in the ribbon. Then unroll your ribbon and hang it to air dry. This is how it will look like when your ribbon is satin. 

You can just use kraft paper to wrap your gift and it will look nice with the ribbon.

Next time I'm going to see how it will turn out if I use two colors. Enjoy! :)

Reindeer Christmas Cups

After drinking coffee from your favorite coffee shop, don’t just throw your paper cup away. You can still use them for craft time! This craft project is inspired by the Jingle All The Way Cup from Meri Meri.

 I figured I can make this myself and so I did. :)

Materials Needed:

-    paper cup

-    brown paper (better if in 2 different shades)

-    red and black construction paper

-    white glue

-    scissors

Wrap a piece of paper around the cup and trace the bottom and top of the cup. After tracing, the result should not be a straight line, but two curved lines. This will be your template. Use this for cutting the brown paper.

I sketched my design on my notebook first so I know how to cut the pieces of paper. I even made different deer heads to see which one works.

So for my design, I wrapped the light brown paper around the cup as my first layer. The second layer was the darker brown paper, trimmed to form the “nose bridge”.

Then I drew and cut circles on red and black construction paper for the eyes and nose. Just use white glue to stick them to the cup.

For the ears, cut the brown paper into two leaf-like shapes and pinch the end. Glue the pinched end to the sides.

Then for the antlers, I traced my design first with a pencil before cutting. Slightly make a crease at the center so that the antlers won’t look too flat when you put them on the cup.

Wait for everything to dry before displaying them. Don’t use these as drinking cups though! These are made only for decoration purposes. I’m not even sure how you can drink with this when the antlers are in the way. :)

I even made him two more friends! The one in the middle was from my previous sketch, and for the one on the left I used the Starbucks paper bag for the deer’s skin, hence the crumpled texture. It’s still cute nonetheless! :)

All done! Wasn't that easy? :)

Hallmark Christmas Sale and Rockwell's Holiday Fair

My friend Allie told me about Hallmark’s Christmas Sale at Brixton Street in Kapitolyo. And since it was just a five minute walk from my place, I checked it out. And good thing I did, because holy hell I went crazy shopping for craft supplies at low prices! 

This was my loot. I bought stuff for myself and also for the craft workshop that Katha Magazine was facilitating that day. (I’ll write about that within the week!)

Want to know what was on sale? Let me show you some of the items that I bought:

Rolls of paper twine for P2.00 each.

Folders and envelopes with printed pattern for P25.00 - 30.00 for a set of 2.

Cute polka dot paper bags from P6.00 to P10.00

Ribbons - I can’t remember the price for this but I’m pretty sure I did not exceed P8.00 a roll.

Bought these scrapbook paper for the craft workshop. The people couldn’t believe it when I got these for P15.00 for a set of 4.

And I also bought these solid colored scrapbook paper for P10.00. It’s basically P1.00 a sheet. Whaaat.

And I bought pretty gift wrapping paper that could pass as wallpaper for P20.00 for 3 sheets.

I expected that all my expenses would sum up to about P500+ but discounts were up to 90% off so my bill turned out to be P387.00 for 41 items. Happy!

The next day, I went to Rockwell’s Holiday Fair. That wasn’t my primary reason for going to Rockwell though, I had to do something for work on a Sunday. I also invited my family to go and start their Christmas shopping.

Anyway, I didn’t have enough money that day because I wasn’t really planning to do shopping. And even though I could just withdraw money from the ATM, I had to control my expenses. Haha! Here’s what I bought:

* A lavender infused pillow that says Reve (which means “dream” in French) and a tiny baby pillow doll from La Pomme. - P200.00, she gave the baby doll to me for free! How nice of her :)
* 20 sheets of beautifully designed wrapping paper sold by Paper Chic Studio - P160.00
* 65% Dark Chocolate made with cacao beans from Davao, from Malagos Chocolate. I’m planning to give this or the ones in can to my officemates as Christmas gifts. - P130.00
* And I bought washi tapes from Hey Kessy and Paper Blush. The washi tapes were at P75.00 each.
* Plus, I got a free post card and press flowers from Hey Kessy!

I spent a lot of stuff this weekend, but that’s okay because it made me so happy! Plus, it’s Christmas time! You gotta prepare your presents this early :)

Magazine Paper Rosette

Hi all! Today I will show you how to make paper rosettes out of magazine pages. It's a fun way to decorate a party, you can use it as an accessory to your present, or you can glue them on a greeting card.

You will need:

- old magazine pages

- or newspaper

- Scissors

- Stapler

- double sided tape/masking tape

So just tear a page...

Then fold it lengthwise like an accordion. I think every fold is about 3/4 to 1 inch

Cut this in half,

And connect the two pieces using masking tape, double sided tape, stapler, glue stick, whatever you have.

Staple the middle portion to keep everything in place.

Then open it like a fan and again use tape to attach the ends of the fan. The end result will be a circle that looks like this:

Experiment with different sizes. We just did 1 magazine page. You can connect two or three pages to make bigger rosettes. You can fold them crosswise to make smaller rosettes. It would also look nice if you group the pages with the same color.

I see this a lot on craft blogs and they use this as backdrop for parties. They're a lot prettier when you layer them. Here are examples I found on the internet:

Chickabug makes paper rosettes in warm summery colors. They layered 2 rosettes in different colors and even glued a circle in the middle.

via Chickabug

Minted hosted a brunch with pastel colors as their theme. This is also perfect for a little girl's birthday or a baby shower.

via The Sweetest Occasion

You can even make it more detailed by cutting holes at the middle section or make it pointy at the edges.

via Ruffled

Googly-Eyed Ghost Lollies

Hello people! How's the trick-or-treating going? This is my last minute Halloween treat: googly-eyed ghost lollies! They're quick and easy, even a three year old can make these.

You will need:

- lollipop

- white tissue paper

- scissors

- googly eyes

- white glue

- wire

First, gather your lollipops.

Cut your tissue paper into 3"x3". I used three layers for each lollipop.

Wrap the head of the lollipop with tissue paper

And secure with wire at the neck portion.

Then glue the googly eyes and wait for them to dry.

And you're done! Cute, right? :)

Halloween season may be almost over but I look forward to celebrating the coming holidays. Are you excited for Thanksgiving? Christmas? I'm already thinking of how to decorate my room with Christmas lights :)