Blue Flowers... anyone?

Hey there... Remember I told you about the Puerto Rico Scrapbook Event celebrated last month? Well... one thing we did was to swap flowers among all scrap-bookers. We identified with a sign saying "swap with me"... or we asked each other if were interested on swapping. I ended up with several handmade flowers, all from different girls, different styles and got to share with some of these girls... so it was fun.

The flowers I made were blue roses... yeah... crazy blue roses and it was fun to make them and to go through all the process (even though I went to sleep very late that night because I wanted to have enough flowers to swap...).

I want to show you how I made them...

First... I identified this fabric I had left from another project and thought it was good for what I had in mind. I think the fabric is organza but don't take my word. But it has to be a light fabric that shrinks when heated. Don't use cotton or any other fabric that does not shrink, but simply gets fired... If you see flames and the fabric simply disappear when heated... Be careful...

I cut several circles in three different sizes from small to medium, and large...

Then, using a candle I carefully burned the edges without letting it burned too far, just enough to shrink the edges and create a darker curly effect.

I put together 3 circles of different sizes for each rose and kept it together with these "flower center seeds" (I don't know how to call them but these are to use for the center of flowers). I decided to use these seeds but it could be something else. You can also glue the circles together and place a button in the center, or simply sew them...

I ended up with more flowers than I could swap, so I will have blue flowers in a lot of projects very soon... Want to swap with me?

It's all in the package!

Hola!!!!



I am out of the island a few days... went to Miami for a business meeting and had my husband come with me to celebrate our anniversary... Yes, my wedding anniversary. I'd never combined business with pleasure but it was just a great opportunity for us to relax and have a little getaway!



So, if this scheduled post works well, you should be receiving this during the weekend...



I think I haven't told you how much I love paper piecing. I really have a lot of fun creating some shapes without any stencil, or recreating shapes from other things. It's just that it sometimes takes so long, and there are a lot of new and exciting tools that make that work so easy, that sometimes it's not worth it, right? But since I still don't have much of that technology, sometimes I like to go the old fashion way.



I wanted to share this little project I did with tea packages...



Let me explain step by step what I did...



First of all... I saw these tea packages in a hotel I was staying in Miami last month:



I am not a tea drinker so I had to read and inspect the package to realize what it was. I found them cute and cool to recreate... hahahahaha...

So I carefully de-assemble the package and put aside the herbs.

I placed it with the outter side facing the back side of the patterned paper / cardstock I chose to use for my project.

... used it as a stencil and outlined it, including the lines to be scored...

I cut it. Since when you outline from an existing shape, you are basically drawing the shape a little bit larger because you are outlining the outter side, I try to cut right in the line.

Then I scored what needed to be scored...

Separately I stamped and painted an image in a white piece of cardstock.

Since I wanted to imitate the original package leaf that came out from the top of the triangle, I bent the cardstock so when I cut the image I got another blank shape. This way I then had two pieces where to hide the ribbon I would use.

I secured the ribbon inside the already scored template, before putting it together... and that's it.

I did this first one with the Santa Claus face, then I did another one with solid red cardstock and added cotton to emulate Santa's hat.

And it ocurred to me these can be party favors filled with candies... or maybe confetti. What about hidden messages like in the fortune cookies? Maybe you can use them instead of table place cards in a party, and put the names instead of my Santa's face. Fill it up with scrapbooking little goodies... or use them as Xmas ornaments. Place dollar bills inside and give as money holders instead of using the traditional flat envelopes. What about hidden clues for a game? And if you use them for the 25 days of Christmas filled with little treats for each day? Wouldn't that be cool?

And this is not all... You can use these little pyramids as Birthday favors... simulating Birthday hats. Add eyes, nose and mouth to make faces... Easter bunnies, little buddies with hats, all in different colors...

Oh... the beauty of creativity. I am sure you can come up with lots of ideas to develop further.

Everytime I go to Marshall's or other places where to find kitchen goodies or treats, I love to look at the packagings to inspire for more ideas... Here are some other packaging I photographed and am sure you would love to imitate in your projects...

Hope you liked the inspiration... Make sure you don't throw any packages you might want to use to recreate or to help you finish up that idea you've had in your mind for a while.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend... and thank you for reading me...