DIY Paper Wreath

Here's a little project I whipped up a few days ago which was pretty easy to do, so I thought I'd share it. It's a wreath made of my own images cut out of paper and attached to a cardboard ring. The idea is not a new one, in fact I was inspired by this paper wreath at Williams Sonoma. It's very cute, but I thought I could make one that was a little more interesting.

 

So I printed out a selection of my own fairy tale images on card stock and cut them out, not super carefully actually as I wanted to get the thing done. I was going for a slightly dark but magical fairy tale Christmas feeling. You could use pictures from a magazine or catalog, or clip art, or color copy some vintage images.

Then I made a cardboard ring for a backing, about 14 inches across with an 8 inch center hole. To fill out the wreath and provide some contrast for my cut outs, I used vintage sheet music from my local thrift store, cutting out leaf shapes to glue on first. I always like to kind of lay out my design before I commit to gluing, but I usually end up just kind of winging it in the end. So after the leaf shapes were more or less dry, I added my cut outs with a glue stick. Sometimes ink jet images can run if you use a really wet glue. Oh, I forgot I also glittered my cut outs for a little lot of sparkle.

And here's a close up of the finished thing, can you see the glitter? At all? Oh well, in life, it's very glittery.

 

 

Well, that's all I have for today! This really is a very fun and easy project, and has a lot of room for your personality to shine through. I'd love to see what you come up with!

 

Fancy Matches

Ok, show of hands: who's giving candles this holiday season? Oh c'mon, get your hands up there! The reason I ask is that I would like to share with you my little tip on completing that candle gift with a set of ... Fancy Matches.

Yes, it's a pack of Fancy Matches! There are several great things about these:

1. They are cheap, I paid about $1.50 for a set of ten boxes of 32 each, Diamond Brand.

2. They are easy to do, all you need is fancy paper, a glue stick, a pencil and a pair of scissors.

3. They go with the candle and make a neat personalized touch!

So gather your materials:

Package of boxes of matches
Fancy paper (I used my own paper designs printed on card stock, but you could use magazine pages, wrapping paper, old greeting cards...)
A pencil
A pair of scissors


1.
Take a box of matches and trace around it on the back side of your paper.
2.
Cut out rectangle.
3.
Put glue on the matchbox with your glue stick.
4. 
Stick on the fancy paper and voila, fancy matches!

Just for you, I've created a free little download to help you make some of these Fancy Matches. These are mod and graphic, perfect for holiday gifting. I've also included some for other occasions! Happy Thanksgiving!

Spoon feed me some Spoonflower!

Here is my "Caroline" fabric in blue, printed by Spoonflower digital printing. I'm over the moon! It's really gorgeous. The marketplace is now open so you can go over there and buy this fabric for yourself! Wow!

 

Below are just a few more examples of my fabric designs. They are all from my original artwork, ©2009 Gilt Goods.

Blog or Blahg?

So I've noticed that all my favorite design blogs have tasteful white backgrounds and use the Minima template here at Blogger. Well, I use the Minima template too, and I love how classy and up-scale these blogs look (like here and here) so I thought "Great! I can add that chic, clean, glossy look just by changing my background color!"

I went into layout and changed my background from pale blue to stark white. 

But. Instead of loving the change, I hated intensely disliked it! My blog seemed underdressed, a sad shadow, dare I say it: a blahg. Blahhhh. 

As you may have noticed, I now have an Easter Egg lilac background. Not tasteful, not classy, not cool. But it sure is colorful, and it makes me smile!

Of Snails, Cinnamon and otherwise

Brioche cinnamon snails. These came out SO good! Well, I used 3 sticks of butter. I got the recipe from this book, Baking, from My House to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, which is a totally awesome cookbook. Everything I've tried from it comes out great! Do your family a favor and get a copy.

And speaking of snails, these are my snail labels. The drawings were inspired by antique fairy tale illustrations. I'm rawther fond of them! And how about that ceramic hand? Purchased at my local dollar store several years ago, so Victorian! The labels are in my Etsy shop, if you simply must have them.

Autumn Label Free Download

Well, I'm trying out my new Mediafire file hosting account, and to celebrate, here's a free download for you. It is a sheet of Autumn labels, made from my original photograph and hand drawn graphics. These would be cool to use for place settings at Thanksgiving, or for labeling your jars of home made pear sauce. Let me know what you decide to use them for!

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