Decoupage

I have never myself done any decoupage but I have some wonderful pieces that my mom did when she was younger. It is the art of covering furniture or little items (like the ones below) with paper (stamps, maps, photographs, etc) and painting them over with a glue mixture or a lacquer, sanding when dry, and repeating for several layers.

You can find instructions on how it's done right here.

Here are some wonderful examples of vintage decoupage that I saw at an antique mall and will eventually duplicate! :)

Map on an egg timer. Use to know how long to brush your teeth.

Stamped box. Very classic. Very cool.

Scratch off to redeem prize

December 2011

A friend of mine got me this mug from Starbucks with a scratch off insert.

I finally carried out my glorious plan to scratch it into a damask pattern.

I printed off the pattern in regular printer paper roughly the size of the insert.

Taped the scratch off paper on the back of the pattern.

Traced the pattern as hard as I could with blue pen (so I'd know where I'd already traced).

This yeilded a light grey outline on the scratch off paper that I traced over with the 'scratcher' that came with the mug.

After scratching out the shapes, I had this wonderful rainbow damask insert for my, now very fancy, mug.

I even scratched a 'C' for Caitlin

Galaxies beyond normal...

December 2011

I set out to perfect the art of paper snowflakes this year. I wouldn't say I succeeded because I capitalized on others' genious... but I really had a BLAST geeking out with more Star Wars snowflake templates than I ever expected to find!!

I even glued the snowflakes on gifts for my boyfriend, brother, and nephews.

Even with potentially dampening distractions of dull scissors and sore fingers on my part, the force was strong at our family gift exchange this year.

Storm Troopers

C3PO



Boba Fett and Clone Troopers



truly the least impressive: Princess Leia



The Sith Lord himself



R2D2 - my fave



a snowflake of Yoda this is



rebel x-wing fighter pilot



I wrapped my gifts in brown paper lunch bags that I cut up. Then I painted the back of the snowflakes with slightly watered down elmers glue to affix them. Mod Podge would work. I was fresh out. It was a little tedious but well worth it.





I wrapped the girl's gifts the same way but with more traditional paper flakes and tied the smaller gifts with string.

 

Perfection

November 14, 2011

Mmmmmm! It is getting colder!

I'm still rushing it along clipping snowflakes at my desk.

I have discovered something so wonderful that I may actually perfect paper snowflake making this year like I had hoped: Templates.
Cheating? No.
Utilizing resources. Yes. Win. Major win.

These are the best templates I found
Free and printable!

Here are the ones I clipped:



Check out the detail!

 Now, being the uber nerd that I am, I did not stop there. I stumbled upon the mother of all snowflakes: THE STAR WARS SNOWFLAKE. Not one, mind you, but two.

Here they are:


Boba Fett and a Clone Trooper



Obviously: Darth Vader

Here's the link to these mothers

Ready for COLD!

I'm laid up in bed (again) this morning. This time it's bowel cramps.
However, I shall make use of this 'down time' to update as I have not had time to the last few days.

I am very impatient for cold weather.
I'm ready to pull out my sweaters and pack up my t-shirts for good! Every morning when I get dressed I have to tell myself repeatedly not to dress too warmly!

As a testament to my eager for the cool, amidst the papers that cover my desk, each representing a task, I found myself snipping snowflakes.

Work

I'm going to try to perfect the art of the paper snowflake before real ones begin to drift and swirl.




Love, Caitlin

Happy Birthday, Belinda!

A couple of my co-workers/friends got together to make (another co-worker/friend) Belinda's Birthday special.
We wanted to decorate her cubicle in a way that was cheery, happy, and sunny. I decided daisies were the thing.  I thought we could cut daisies out of paper and pin them to her cubicle walls.Our color scheme: yellow, white, and green.
I was surfing pinterest and came across this image (Be Optimistic). It occured to me that this is perfect for Belinda! Her nickname is 'Be' and she loves inspirational things.

Then it happened.

I thought of putting inspirational words on each petal of our paper daisies with 'Be' in the center of them.

I am crazy about fonts so I made each inspirational word a different font. The effect was perfect for Belinda and, even for someone who's nickname is not 'Be' it is wonderful for cheering and engouraging!

Great idea for a 'Get Well' cheering up too!

Our dasies had 7 petals each so I had to come up with words in sets of 7s.

Here's what we came up with:

Optimistic

Loved

Yourself

Accepted

Happy

Adored

Inspired

Peaceful

Free

Excited

Energized

Empowered

Renewed

Amazed

Unique

Outstanding

Confident

Childlike

Adventerous

Bold
Relaxed

I created a template in Word making two ovals the same shape & size (make one and copy/paste), each with a text box where I put in the words and changed up the fonts. You'll want to make your words closer to one end of the petal so you can glue an end to the centers without covering any of the words.
Note: once the petals are printed, by holding each page up to the light and folding it in half long ways so the ovals line up, you can cut two out at a time.
I traced circles on yellow paper using a soup mug (that my dad made me in a pottery class) and cut them out.
Then I glued the petals to a blank circle with the words face up (making sure none of the words get covered) and glued my 'Be' circle on top (to make a petal sandwich).

I also made one daisy with
Happy Birthday Belinda from Caitlin, Jenn, and Allison

Here's our result!:

One of 3 inspirational daisies



A Happy Birthday Wish



We also made streamer 'chandelliers' using paper plates with the center cut out hung with fishing line

Here are us girls after we decorated

  

Belinda Loved it!