DIY

Then I glued scraps of blue paper and old dictionary pages on top of the stamp.

I mentioned a field guide I bought at a secondhand bookstore a few posts ago… well I decided to put it to good use by picking out which pages to use according to their color, giving me a floral backdrop for the pages.

This last page isn’t finished but I used purple flowers from the guide to fill up the background. I also always use leftover scraps to create tabs or extra embellishments on the pages. 

Have you done any art projects this week?

I was thinking of who my next featured artist should be when I stumbled upon craft and DIY kits on Etsy and quickly renewed my love for them. I love making paper and sewing kits, especially with secondhand materials like vintage millinery flowers and old book pages. I would love to use up some of my craft collection by designing the perfect gift pack. On my last trip to a used bookstore I got this sweet botanical guide with diagrams of flowers (I’ll post photos later) that would work well in a paper kit. The beauty of these, though, is that they’re already made. Instead of a single artist this week, here are some DIY kits to get you inspired. With these girly and bright kits you can make a flag bunting, gift tags, cross stitch, flower garland, and scrapbook pages. 

Happy Tuesday! I’m getting this week started a little slowly right now. I’ve had a cold and a headache almost every day the past week, and am just now recovering (hopefully for good!). It’s made me really want to stay away from the computer. If you’re migraine prone too you’ll know that bright lights are NOT what you need! 

Luckily, I got through the sickness with some crafting. Last weekend was a DIY weekend for sure. It was my friend’s birthday and she threw a themed party, so I got to dress up like a Grecian goddess (maybe I took a toga theme too far but I’m okay with that) and wear a pretty handmade floral crown! If you’ve been reading since last year (thank you!), you may remember my obsession with floral crowns around Halloween. I really wanted to add it to my fairy costume. Back then, I didn’t realize that even fake floral arrangements can be out of season! Now there are a lot of springy colors, and at the dollar store there are a ton of wedding themed decorations, which is where I got the materials for my crown. I spent about $2 on the headpiece and another two on the banner.

For the head piece I curled up a dollar store garland and cut it to size, then glued the ends. Then I took the tops of flowers from a fake one dollar bouquet, added some leaves, and attached them all with my hot glue gun. It dried instantly and was good to go!

With the banner, I was inspired by this tutorial that suggested cutting fringe into a plastic table cloth. I glued gold ribbon to the fringe and we had a great backdrop to use for photos at the party! It was a really simple version of other amazing fringe garlands I’ve seen around the internet 🙂

On this page I added different tapes and papers, like kraft cardstock.

I love to do this when I’m stressed out (and when I’m feeling creative, or bored, or don’t know what to do with all my paper) because it’s relatively mindless and I can just sit and not think about anything but how I’m going to arrange everything on the canvas. I haven’t finished these last pages.

Sometimes I just want to make the collage, and others I feel like brainstorming ideas for stories or creative writing, or quotes I keep referring to.

If you have a lot of extra material laying around with no purpose — I only bought the notebook — I’d suggest putting it all together in something like this.

Last week’s project was creating this 8×10 tree silhouette out of Kraft paper with a newspaper backdrop.

A friend and I were looking at cool magazine art on Pinterest a few weeks back, so I got one of the newspapers that was going to get recycled at work and have been slowly working on this glue-stick-and-paper-strip intensive craft. Tip: don’t even try to cut in a straight line, just pretend you want that homemade look. Takes the pressure off 😉

I used two Kraft paper cardstock pieces… one for the background, and one where I just made this tree design with the scissors. I cut all the strips from different parts of the paper, glued them on one by one, and finally, pasted the tree on top.

I considered painting the tree a different color, but I kind of like the simplicity here. The next step? A black 11×14 frame with a white or cream matte. What do you think? Framed, posted on the wall, or maybe hanging from an inspiration board?

All you need to recreate this is: paper, scissors, and glue! Just like when we were kids!