Blog Candy

Greeting Everyone and Hello Summer!
Wow! it had been almost one year since I created this blog.  On June 30th it will be one year since I started blogging.   To celebrate this exciting moment I'd like to offer a little blog candy.  I had spent many hours preparing for this blog candy.

These are the handmade embellishments that I made.  These flowers can be used as card embellishment or gift bags or anything that your heart desire.

1 dozen of the big roses (red, orange, and pink)
7 dozens of the hand twisted mini roses
 3 dozens of crochet flowers.

Next, is the origami star mobile.  This mobile measure about 10" across and about 18" tall. It used more than 200 feet of polypropylene ribbon. 

 And the last item is a set of quilling jewelry. My latest obsession.  A pair of earrings and a necklace.

Three simple requirement to play along:


1. leave a comment
2.be a follower
3. Help spread the word about this blog candy.


I will or the random number generator will select one winner on July, 7th and I will announce the winner on July 8th.  If you have trouble leaving your comment under one of the account options, choose "Anonymous" option and sign your name at the end of the comment post.


Good Luck everyone!


Helen




P.S. I need to take some time off from blogging.  So there won't be any new post until after the blog candy.

Orchid Opulence Birthday Card

Greeting Everyone,
I can't believe the children are out of school and summer is only a few days away!  And talking of summer, there is a challenge at Pals Paper Arts.  I made this card for a friend and thought I will enter the Pals Paper Arts challenge.  Their theme is Summer.

Doesn't this card say summer to you! I really like how this card turns out and I hope the recipient likes it. I don't know her favorite color so hopefully she doesn't mind this colors combo.

Card stocks are Orchid Opulence and Basic black.  The mini roses were from my stash that I made not long ago.

Thanks for taking a peak!  Have a great weekend!

Helen

Teachers Gifts

Good Morning Everyone,
I've became such a procrastinator.  My older son, Ray, suggested a few weeks ago that I should give my quilling earrings to the art and music teacher.  My thought was they might not like it.  And it would be a waste.  But after some thought and for the last minutes I decided to give the art and music teachers my quilling earrings.  I had forgotten all about my boxes that I had made. I put all my Top Note boxes away. This phrase is so true "out of sight, out of mind."  So I thought if I am going to give them these earrings then I need boxes for the earrings.  So I made these boxes.

I gave in the temptation and bought the Match Box die.  I love it!  Should have bought it a long time ago.  The black and white box looks more like a wedding favor.  I wanted to make the box to match the earrings.  I was going to just gave them to my son to give to their teachers like that but thought something else was missing.   So I made these purses to put them in.  Patti Lee had been making these adorable purses and she is so kind to share the instructions to make these purses.  Thanks Patti!

For my purses, I changed the dimension a little.  See that twisted rose on the match box, it won't fit in the purse that I made using Patti measurement.  So I changed the measurement to 5 1/2 x 6 1/2.  With this change, I still able to make four purses base by following the match box cutting directions.  So I was thrilled.  My finished purse measured 3" across.  The height is a little different depending on how big the top of your purse is.  If you have question, let me know.  I'll be happy to help.

I used DCVW papers.  It's the La Creme stack.  Absolutely beautiful papers and the price, it was a bargain. 

Thank you for stopping by.  Have a great day!

Helen

Brilliant Blue Purse

Hello,

I made this purse to put some of my cards from my stash to give to one of my son teacher.  I decided to try the faux alligator instead of the pattern papers.  The purse looks o.k.  I think if I were to use either black or chocolate chip it would look much better.  The thing is I've thought of using those two color but I am running low on both card stock colors. I am debating whether  to order those card stocks from Stampin' Up! now or to wait until July.  If I order the card stocks now I'll be saving several dollars.  If I wait until July, I will be spending extra dollars since the price of the card stocks are going up for the new catalog.  I have lots of Brilliant blue card stocks. I ordered them for wedding invitations last year but never got to use them.  Hopefully one day it will be used up.

I cut off 1/4" on each side of the purse.  I like this one better.  The purse is still very big but it has a better shape.

Also, I am really excited to receive this award from the talented Michelle at Pink Paper Paradise.  What a fun award!

The rules for this award is:
1. Thanks and link the person who gave you the award.
2. Display the award on your blog.
3. Tell 6 lies and 1 truth about yourself or vise versa.
4. Nominate 7 others and leave a message letting them know.

I will go with 6 truth and 1 lies.

1.  I enjoy blogging.
2. I am 37.
3. I get to play with paper crafts everyday.
4. I  ate bugs before.
5. I enjoy cooking.
6. I read my children books, Diary of the Wimpy Kid.
7.I never went into the water at the beach.

Goes to the end of this post to see which one is not true about me.

I am passing this fun award to the following seven bloggers:

1. Creations by Patti
2. Barbara's World of Whimcees
3. A one of a Kind Design by Rachel
4.Casey's Pitter Patter Chatter!
5. And Another Thing . . .
6. Encourage Joy
7. Gaby's Ideenreich

The one thing that was not true about me is I don't enjoy cooking.  No, we don't eat out too often. It's just that I don't know how to cook and every meal is a battle.


Thanks for stopping by.

Helen

TriShutter Father's Day Card

Good Morning,
I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  Today I'd like to share another
male card.  This is a tri-shutter card.  I thought this card style is so versatile.

I really like this bird.  It's from Spring Song set.  The first card I made I had the bird inside the card so when I closed the card I couldn't see the bird.  So I made another one.  It  looks so empty.  I meant to add buttons but ran out of buttons.  I put the last three buttons on the brief case at the bottom of this post.

I couldn't help myself so I made a brief case to go with the card.  Handsome, isn't it?

The brief case is the pizza box style.  I just added the handle and the round tap punch.  Here is a brief case I did last year.  It was a match box brief case.

Wishing you a wonderful day!

Helen

Quilling Jewelery

Hello,
Today,  I have a few more earring to share you.  I made these a while ago.

Yellow and black earring.  I made this a while ago. I thought it didn't come out so good because the center had such a big hole.  I used the slotting tool.

Then I made this daisy earrings.  This one I used the round wooden clip.  I followed the pattern from the quilling jewelery book.  I really like how this turned out.

I made these earring last week.  I was going to wear them to a wedding that I attended last Saturday but changed my mind because my dress was gray and when I tried on the earrings it didn't look nice as I thought it would.


The strips that I used for these earrings were metallic but it didn't show.  For these earrings I used the needle tool.  It was harder to use the needle tool.  But, hey, practices will make perfect!

Beside making the jewelery, I also practiced  a few other quilling shapes because I wanted to make other designs.  When I first looked at the shapes, I thought the square, the rectangle, and the triangle were hard to make.  They were not hard to make at all. I got them the first time.  The half a circle wasn't too hard either.  I thought the crescent was easy, boy, was I wrong!  I didn't know why I had a hard time making the crescent.  I made so many of them and still couldn't make it.

Thank you for taking a peak.

Helen

Hand Twisted Mini Roses

Greeting Everyone,

I was really got into making roses last week.  So after making the Prima look a like roses.  I thought I made these twisted roses also. I used to make a ton of these roses several years ago.  A few weeks ago for some crazy reason, I didn't know what it was, I couldn't make these roses no matter how I tried.  But last weekend  I was determined to make them again and I got it!

I got carried away and I made more.  See for yourself.  These roses are about as big as a penny.

I haven't created anything for several days except these roses.  I made about two hundred of them. And I painted glitter on all of them.  I need to think of something to do with them.  Make sure to check back to see what I am going to do with these roses.

I saw some people used the quilling slot tool to make these roses.  I tried it but I couldn't make it.  I hand twisted these roses.  It was a lot faster to do the hand twisted technique.

Thanks for visiting.  Have a wonderful day!

Helen

Helen's Prima Roses

Greeting  Everyone,
Ever since I found out about Prima products, I've been drooling every time I saw their roses at the local craft stores.  They are so pretty and there were time I was tempted to buy them with the 40% coupon of course.  But I held back because I thought I could make them.  And last Friday I finally did it.  Well sort of!

Here are my Prima roses look a like.

I have been trying to fine the Mulbery papers but I couldn't fine them so for these roses I just used the printing papers (28lb).  It took me so long to make these five roses (above).  I had a hard time making the center of the roses.  The following day I went around  looking for punch to make the center of the roses but I couldn't fine any punch suitable  for making the center of the roses.  I went to AC Moore and took a good look at the Prima flowers one more time and I made these.

See the center of the roses here are different from the roses in the first pictures?  I like how these roses came out.  So I made a few more in orange.  I am not a big fan  of orange color but I love how these orange roses turned out.  There were actually two different kind of papers being used for these orange roses.  For the two roses on the left I used handmade paper. Rachele at  A one of a kind  brought a bunch of her handmade papers to share with me.  Thanks Rachele! The other three were just regular card stock.  You can't see the different in this picture but I like the roses made from the handmade paper better.  The handmade paper had some textures on it and it made the roses look softer. I know it sound weir. 

The Prima roses had chunky glitter on the roses.  I don't have chunky glitter so I just used glitter glue and I thought they work just fine.   So what do you think of my new roses?


Thank you so much for stopping by today.  Have a wonderful day!

Helen

Father's Day card

Good Morning Everyone,

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.  A quick post today, just wanted to share these quick cards.

Card stock: Brilliant Blue and Summer Sun


Thanks for checking in with me.

Helen

Unmounted wooden stamps

Hello Everyone!
I did this a while ago but never got a chance to share.  It was all started when Stampin' Up! started to sell clear stamps but even then I still wasn't going to unmount my wooden stamp sets. I don't own much stamp sets.  Then one day  I asked my husband to help me put two more shelves (about 2 feet long each) on the empty wall.  I took out all my stamp sets and placed them on the new shelves.  I was surprised how much stamp sets I owned. I had almost 60 sets.  It's a lot since I am not much of a stamper. My husband also noticed my stamps collection so he asked "how many sets did I have, two hundred?"  That was when the unmounting wooden stamps started.  I had seen people unmounted their wooden stamp sets but I didn't feel the need to do it.  But since my husband made that comment, I thought if I wanted to buy some more stamps I better do something about my stamp sets.  That was when I started to unmount most of my stamp sets.  I unmounted the sets that I knew I will be keeping.  Most of my holiday sets I left them the same.  They are seasonal and one day I might want to sell them and they worth more if they are in their original form.

I placed each unmounted set on a sheet of printing paper and put it in a transparency sleeve in a 3 rings binder.   And label it alphabetically.
 Here are a few samples.  I used double side tape to hold the stamp in place.  On the lower right corner is the stamp set name, the amount in each set, and what type of set it was, (SAB, hostess).

 I cleared out lots of spaces.  I had at least 40 stamp sets in the 3 rings binder. When I needed to use the image, I mounted it on the clear block.  I got my clear blocks from the local craft store.  I like them a lot because there are lines on the block which help me line up the image and stamp it straight especially the sentiments.

Thanks for looking.

Helen

CAS - Purse - onally

Good Morning,

I saw this purse here a while ago and on many other blogs and had been wanted to make one.  I finally did it.
Here is my version.

 The chain on the handle was inspired from Michelle at Pink Paper Paradise. I bought my chains from The Home Depot. It was sold by the foot.  I was going to cut every other chain which mean I would waste many chains but my husband offered to help me.  He said he could separate each chain for me without cutting the chains and he did!  Sometime he can be so helpful. :)

I made a box purse before.  You can see it here.   I didn't like the closed box for the cards so I made my purse open like this for easy access to the cards.  There was a problem with my purse.  It won't stand up!  So to hold the two pieces together, I added the band and tucked it under the front pocket.  Problem solved!

 

The inside pockets was inspired from here.  I think I put at least 5 cards on one of the pocket and the other pocket it's for the envelopes.  Now looking at the handle I should have covered those brads. May be next time.

Thanks for taking a peak!  Have a great day.

Helen

Weaving Pineapple

Hello,
A quick post today.  I made this weaving pineapple a while ago but forgot to share.

Amazing how just a simple weaving can be made into different things.  Check out more weaving project here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Helen

Circle Net card

Good Morning Everyone,

I can't believe it's June and the children have only 14 more days of school. I've had mixed feeling about this.  Hopefully my two boys will help me with Faye so I can have more time creating and do a few tutorials.  I had so much fun making the net cards last time.  So I thought I tried to make the circle net.  The circle net is surprisingly easy to make.

 I made double nets just to see how it would turn out.  I like it, so I decided to add some accents to it.  The butterflies were cut from felt.  One day my daughter wanted me to cut her some butterflies.  She played with them for a few minutes and she was done playing with them.  I don't like to waste any craft items, many of you can relate to that,  so here are two of the butterflies.  The crochet flowers were from my stash that I've made when I went to Florida back in March.

I did not cut the circle off the center of the card.  I just drew a circle on the card front then paper piecing the circle and stitched/sew the string.  I wanted  to do a tutorial when I have more time.

Thank you for stopping by again today. 

Helen