Get Your Craft On: Felted Christmas Garland

Today I am starting a new monthly column on the blog. I will do one of these "Get Your Craft On" posts at least once a month. Something you should know about me. . . I love crafting. Not just scrapbooking, and card making, and Project Life, but just regular crafting. Home decor, hair accessories, and anything else that inspires me. Today's crafty item is not based on something I came up with, in fact, the entire project, including instructions were followed to a tee by a fellow blogger. You might have heard of her…Elise Blaha Cripe.

This project all started in October with me pinning various things made with felt to my Pinterest board. I was really wanting to make some kind of felt banner for the house, and then I stumbled upon this article by Elise Blaha Cripe for making felted garland, and I quickly switched gears and jumped on board. I just love Elise's style, and we have very similar taste in many things, so it is easy for me to get on board with just about any project she chooses. She ended up using the garland as a runner across her dining room table, and since our kitchen table is the same size and color, I knew this would also look great in our home.

I followed her step-by-step tutorial, but chose different colors for my felt. I wanted it to have some traditional Christmas colors, but also a gold-ish color and aqua, so that it would go with my home the rest of the year, (I plan on keeping this out throughout winter.) Of course felt does not come in gold, at least not on December 10th at my local Joanne fabrics, but if you do find real gold colored felt, please let me know, I would seriously buy it. Since gold could not be found I went with a soft carmel color, two shades of green (really wanted sea foam instead of lime, but again had to pick from what they had,) red, cream, and dark green. I also grabbed an aqua fleece fabric, not felt, but it still worked really well.

 felt purchased

 felt cut into strips

banner laid out on table top.

Time to complete: 90 minutes

Making this table runner went by so fast. I did the entire project (including cutting out all the felt while I watched most of "Love Actually." Don't you just love that movie.

Cost:

Thanks to a great felt sale ($5 yard) and a 20% off an already reduced items coupon. . . I got all six pieces for $4 yard, but since I only needed 1/4 yard of each…it came to $6. The string I already had on hand. I still have almost 1/2 left so I have another project up my sleeve for that. I will share that sometime in the next week or two. Just know it will be using the same felt in the same fashion, but on an entire different item. Any guesses?

Let's talk crafting. Have you been making anything fun lately? I would sure love to hear about it. Anyone else excited to see a crafty article on the blog? I know that I sure am! I will be back tomorrow with some more December Daily pages, December 17th and 18th. I sure hope to see you then.

Happy Craftin'

xoxox

Toni

Crafty State Cut Outs and Bookmarks using American Crafts Lucky Charm

I spent a few hours yesterday evening finishing up a couple of projects that I wanted to complete before our vacation. I was able to use one of my favorite scrapbooking paper collections of all time: American Crafts Lucky Charm. I love this collection, it is so dreamy and magical! The colors are what drew me in initially; navy, seafoam, coral, and pops of yellow, and pink. I am so there!!! To make the first project I am sharing today I pulled together a bunch of paper scraps of Dear Lizzy papers. I hate to waste such a pretty pattern, so I was determined to come up with something to use these for.

 After pulling out my supplies, I looked through the Silhouette Studio software and found two cuts that gave me a great idea. I have been wanting to make some new cuts of Washington State and North Carolina for awhile now, and I was ready to dive in. Here is what I came up with.

North Carolina

Washington State

These states have a lot of significance to me because North Carolina is where we currently live and Washington State is where all of our family is located. We lived there until 2 years ago when we relocated almost 3,000 miles away. I really like how my old heart-shaped buttons worked to pin the areas where we live/use to live in the prospective states. Glad that I finally found a use for those adorable buttons!

How to Make State Cut Outs:

• Go to the Silhouette online store and download the state cut outs that apply to you. If you don't have a silhouette you could find a state that is sized correctly on your computer, print it out and trace it out carefully onto white paper. Then you would use a craft knife very carefully to cut the shape out. I used THIS cut file and THIS file. For my project I sized the state cuts to be 7.5" wide (since I have an 8.5" x 10" opening in my frame.) I used white 12" x12"American Crafts paper for my Silhouette, it cuts so beautifully. I just set my Cameo to the heavy cardstock setting and set my blade accordingly. Make sure to leave room around your state cut out so that you have a white frame on all four sides, I just roughly placed it in the center of my paper.)
• Next, take scraps of your favorite scrapbook paper (I used American Crafts Lucky Charm and cut them into strips that are about .5"wide x 8" long.)
• Place these strips on a plain piece of white computer paper and arrange
• Adhere the paper strips down (I used both American Crafts this to that permanent adhesive and pop dots, this way some of them would raise up slightly higher than the others.) It gives it a little added dimension.
• Next place your state cut out on top (make sure it is sized to fit your frame.)
• Stand back and enjoy your work, and give yourself a pat on the back for using up your pretty scraps!

Since I still had a few scraps of paper left, I decided to make some bookmarks for Isabelle and I to take with us to Washington State next week. We both love to read, so they will be used frequently. They only took me about 30 minutes to whip up and I really like how simple and colorful they are. They just make me happy.

How to Make Bookmarks:

• Cut background patterned paper scraps to 7" x 2." 
• Use small strips of paper left from state project (or other scraps about .5' wide) and layer on top of the background paper. 
• Adhere paper strips once your like your design
• Attach circular embellishments using adhesive (the one on the left is from the American Crafts Lucky Charm bits pack and the one on the right is cut out with a Martha Stewart 1.5" circular punch from Lucky Charm paper.)
• Add vintage ticket stubs with tiny attacher
• Add Lucky Charm Self Adhesive Buttons
• Add twine to both bookmarks and tie, cut strings to desired length

Products Used:

• Silhouette Cameo
• American Crafts Dear Lizzy Paper: Noteworthy, Wild Hearts, Pretty Poppies, Raindrops, Falling Star, Blue Skies, Dream Catcher, and Star Gazers. 
• American Crafts Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm bits and self-adhesive buttons.
• American Crafts This to That permanent dot adhesives and foam dots. 
• 2 heart shaped buttons
• 2 vintage tickets
• Twine
• Martha Stewart 1.5" circle punch.

Let's talk crafting. Have you made any home decor items lately? What about bookmarks? Is it just me, or is pretty paper just the most exquisite thing in the entire world? I swear I frequently dream of patterned paper (true story,) I once dreamt that I lived in a stationary store. One of my favorite dreams to date. What about weird paper-related dreams? Just me??? If you have any questions about how to make the above items, please do not hesitate to ask below. I love to help. Until next time, Happy Craftin,'

xoxox

Toni