Weddingbee

She used the template she created to cut votive wraps from vellum. She was able to fit 4 wraps per sheet. We used beautifully shimmery gold vellum from Paper Source.

Then my mom decided to give the wraps some texture by running them through the Cuttlebug machine. She used a paisley folder to create a gorgeous paisley design on each wrap. Because the Cuttlebug can only take lengths of 6 inches at a time, she had to do the embossing in two parts.

I love the design because it’s a little bit Indian inspired and I think the texture adds such a luxe touch.

Then she set about wrapping each votive with the vellum wraps. She initally used vellum tape, but for some reason, it came apart after a few hours! So she tried an adhesive spray with better results.

And here they are all lit up!

We’re going to have about 5-6 on each table and I think they’re going to look so pretty. Thanks Mom!** I promise I’m not a bossy crafts task-master. My mom loves doing these projects and excitedly volunteers to do them « Hide it

Anyway, when she volunteered to make a cardbox for our wedding, I was super excited because I knew she’d come up with something really lovely. And she did! She found this perfectly nice hatbox from Ross– we loved the pattern and great price ($5!), but the colors were much more muted than our color scheme of burgundy, deep dark pinks, and gold.
 

But my mom had a great idea for punching it up. First, she used a knife to cut a slit in the top of the box. She used a file to sand down the edges and make it a nice, smooth cut.

Then she spray-painted the top gold and let it dry overnight.

She then rubbed an embossing buddy all over the box itself. For those who don’t know, an embossing buddy is a small bag filled with a non-static powder like cornstarch. It prevents embossing powder and glitter from sticking where it shouldn’t. She painstakingly went over the design with the Martha Stewart glue pen and added Martha Stewart fuschia and gold fine glitter over the glue. She said this process took awhile because you had to add glue to a small portion of the design, then add glitter before the glue dried, and repeat.

When she was finished with the outside of the box, she glued burgundy velvet ribbon around the edge and fashioned a lovely bow. She glued a dazzling rhinestone to the front.

Ta-da! A beautiful, homemade cardbox for less than $10. And one I’ll probably use to store mementos after the wedding. What are you using to hold your cards?
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I made some personal stationery cards for the girls at my MN shower, and I decided it was time to REALLY figure out how to use a bonefolder. Here’s the step-by-step!

1. Place a ruler along the line where you’d like your paper to be folded. With steady pressure, use the pointed end of the bonefolder to create a score mark. Press firmly, but not TOO hard, as pressing too hard will just cause your paper to rip in half when you fold it.

2. Remove the ruler, and now your paper is perfectly scored!

2. Fold the paper over, and feel free to use the flat side of the bonefolder to help give a perfect fold.

That’s it! So simple, yet I could never figure it out.

Happy Folding!

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My first several roses I attempted to do according to the video on Martha’s site. It didn’t go well. I almost pulled all of my hair out. Seriously, all of it. I had so much trouble with the floral tape. According to Martha and Cassie you are supposed to wrap each petal around the last and secure it with floral tape. Maybe it was the brand I was using, but it really wasn’t holding. I’ve used floral tape a lot in the past and never had this much trouble. So, I switched to double stick tape and wrapped the flower in floral tape after it was done.

Originally I was not going to post a tutorial because there is one on Martha’s site, but after all the difficulty I had I decided to show you how I was able to get them looking flower like. (you can click on the images to enlarge)

Here are the pieces:
You can download and print the templates from Martha’s site. Her templates show only one petal on each coffee filter, using 8 filter per flower. I cut out 2 or 3 petals from each filter depending on petal size.

Step 1:
Take petals 1 and 1.5 and overlap them. Poke a hole through both layers. Put the wire through the hole, bend it down and twist to secure.

Place a piece of DST (double stick tape) along the bottom edge of the petals.

Roll the petals around the wire and secure with DST.

Step 2:
Roll petal 2 around your bud and secure with DST.

Repeat with petal 2.5.

Step 3:
Roll petal 3 around bud and secure with DST. This one is a little difficult - you may have to play with it a bit to get the petal to wrap around smoothly.

Step 4:
Wrap petal 4 around bud and secure with DST.

Step 5:
This part is very awkward to try to hold onto while taping. Stick 3 of the number 5 petals around the bud and secure with DST.

Repeat with 3 more number 5 petals and secure.

Step 6:
Start to pull apart the flower and curl the petals. I use the edge of my scissors to curl as if I were curling ribbon for a birthday gift. You don’t want to curl them too much or they look like they are falling off the bud.

Carefully pull apart each layer of petals. The inner layers are tighter and don’t pull apart easily. The inner most petals don’t move at all.

As you can see, after this step you have a messy flower-ish type thing.

Step 7:
At this point I use more DST around the base of the flower to tighten up the outer petals and clean things up a bit.

You can also see if there are any holes in the flower where one or two additional petals are needed.

Add these petals and secure with DST, curl.

This is what your flower should look like at this point:

Step 8:
Cut about 8-10 inches of floral tape.

Wrap the floral tape around the bottom of the rose and about an inch down the wire. Pull the tape as you wrap and it will be slightly sticky. If you pull too hard it will rip and if you don’t pull hard enough it won’t stick. This stuff is tricky.

Step 9:
Fin!

This coffee-filter-sticky-awkward-frustrating-never-going-to-end project is definitely time and double stick tape consuming, but I am going to forge ahead.

Here are the first dozen paper roses:
If enough of y’inz are interested I can do a Bee-TV tutorial. What do you think?

Are you using non-floral centerpieces? If so, what are they?
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On the my last day in Los Angeles, my mom and cousin co-hosted an amazing bridal shower for me. It was the most beautiful afternoon and I spent several lovely hours eating some delicious Indian food, hanging out with family and friends, and playing some hilarious games. I couldn’t have asked for a better shower and I was so touched by the love I felt that day.

My mom lovingly made the favors for each guest and they were so adorable that I wanted to feature them here. I definitely didn’t inherit the crafty gene.

Here are step-by-step instructions from my mom:

Supplies Needed:

1. 8 1/2 x 11 inch cardstock (she used 3 different colors)
2. Paper trimmer
3. Bone scorer
4. Craft glue
5. Cuttlebug– I received one as a shower gift!
6. Paisley Cuttlebug folder
7. Cuttlebug flower die-cut
8. Baby mint green ribbon
9. 5/8 inch circular punch
10. Small clear beads for embellishment
11. Corner punch
12. Foam tape

My mom used this tutorial to cut out the boxes:

Then she ran the boxes through the Cuttlebug machine to create the paisley embossed flap.

Then she assembled the boxes and decorated them. You can really decorate them any way your creativity inspires you. She layered complementary colored cardstock on the front of the box and used a mint green ribbon for contrast. Then she used the Cuttlebug’s flower die-cuts to create the beautiful flower in the front of the box. She affixed it to the box using foam tape to give it a 3-D effect and adorned the middle of the flower with a clear bead. Then she tied the front of the box closed with a mint green ribbon.

I think these favors are SO adorable and could be wonderful for any type of shower or even wedding. Yay for my mom and her craftiness. Soon I’ll post about the amazing cardbox she created for our wedding.
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I ordered 8″ rose pink and brown ones from Paper Lantern Store and plan to alternate the colors on the chairs. All I’m missing on the lanterns are the ribbons and bows. You don’t need much to hold the ribbon together that’s supporting the lantern - I tried staples, not so good. Zots, way betta.

We’ll be exchanging vows underneath a tree, so I asked our florist to hang orchids with mauve ribbon that’ll match our centerpieces and my bouquet like so …

And then there was the big question of petals or bubbles? We decided on rose petals. I scoured the net for petal cone tutorials or templates and I came up with na dah that was easy enough. Then I came up with my own simple template! Genius, I say. Genius!

Here’s the How-to:
In Word, I used the tool to make a circle. I edited it to make sure the measurements were a perfect circle (ie 3×3). Then I created a rectangular box that would fit the width of the circle (ie 3″). The line at the bottom was basically a guideline of where to fold and know where the tip was, but it’s not necessary.

Of course I wanted our theme to be splashed everywhere, so I printed my own background on the other side (outside) of the cone. *Sorry I cannot share the graphic as my graphic artist friend spent a really long time creating it for me and ask I do not share. Anything I created though, I can share!*

I cut them out …

Had my Super Tacky Tape handy and went for it.

Top left to the bottom:
1) Fold the template in half and crease it just about 30% of the way up. We’re using it as a guideline.
2) Wrap the right side over to meet the middle crease.
3) Adhere Super Tacky tape on left side and peel off.
4) Wrap the left side around the right, meeting the creased edge.

TIP: You should hole punch before all folding and adhering begins. And then presto! You have finished the petal cone!And voila … these will hang on the seats towards the aisle, alternating colors, just waiting for our family and friends to yes …. CHUCK at us.

TIP: I’d probably go for a 3/16″ inch hole punch which you can find at a Paper Source store, because the regular old paper one was too big. We had to tie the ribbon in a loose knot so that it wouldn’t easy fall through.

TIP: I totally forgot to mention, you can always print the design box area on the back side of the template and just stamp away a design for the back side of your petal cone

You likee??? The template includes two pages: 1) with a box you can insert your own design (to help save ink … not like me who wasted on a whole page) and 2) the petal cone template.  You can download it by clicking the link below.

Cherry Blossom Petal Cone Template

Happy cone-ing!
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Mrs. Bird of Paradise actually did a similar post a while back, so be sure to check that out!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I learned my lesson a little too late. You can hopefully tell from the picture above, the first two columns of bows look much better than the last two columns. While the bows in the first two column were symmetrical, the bows in the last two columns still looked like bows, but they were slanted. My problem was that I only made one loop, like I would when tying my shoelaces, but there’s a better way!

The Container Store has this helpful website that teaches you how (click over for the full tutorial).

Basically you need to make two loops and then do the bunny ears method.

Here’s a video I found on youtube.

Feel free to suggest some better options. Good luck!
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The back of the die is padded with foam. If you press down on the foam, you can feel the metal stencil edge that cuts through the paper.

For my project, I only needed to cut one flower so I trimmed a small piece of paper down and placed it over the shape that I wanted to use. To use the dies, you will need to use the sandwich technique that I showed you in my first tutorial. (A plate + B plate + die tool + cardstock + B plate). Once I finished assembling the Cuttlebug sandwich, I cranked it through the machine.

I removed the top plate and here is what the die cut looked like.

After removing all the surrounding paper scraps, I was left with a single perfectly cut flower.

Note that the top B plate of the Cuttlebug sandwich will have permanent impressions engraved from the metal edges of the dies. The plate warps a bit when it is sandwiched with the dies and will eventually need to be replaced after heavy usage.

I added the flower as an embellishment to another thank you card I made. The card is 5.5″ x 4.25″ and the center rectangle is 4.25″ x 3″. I layered the center piece with different patterned paper and ribbon. “Thank you” is stamped on a small piece of white paper and layered onto a rectangle of celery-colored cardstock that I cut with a pair of scalloped scissors.

Here’s a close up picture. I added a little rhinestone to the middle of the flower to give the card some sparkle.

Go out and buy your Cuttlebug today!
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This Cuttlebug embossing folder is called Divine Swirl.

I cut a piece of paper to the size that I wanted it and then placed it between the embossing folder.

Next, I did the whole cuttlebug sandwich process that I talked about in my last entry and I cranked it through the machine. Out popped a sheet of swirly embossed paper!

This is a slit punch. It punches a half circle through a sheet of paper. By punching a bunch of half circles in a row, I can create scalloped borders for my cards.

Here is the finished product of the scalloped circle punch.

I used it as a border for my swirly paper.

Finally, I stamped a few images on white and guava-colored paper, cut them out, and stuck the pieces onto a piece of brown cardstock for the final product.

Here’s one last close up view. I wanted to give the card depth so I used pop up foam squares to adhere the pieces to the cardstock. I love the effect!

There are so many neat folders and dies available for the Cuttlebug. You can use them for cards, invitations, altered items… The possibilities are truly endless!
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This is an embossing folder. It’s about 4.25″ x 5.5″ (the size of a small greeting card). This particular design is called “Swiss Dots” and it will emboss a dotted pattern onto your paper. Embossing folders for the Cuttlebug cost around $5-6 each.

Here’s another view of the embossing folder. It folds in half and one side of the folder has the negative image while the other has the positive image.

First, insert a piece of paper between the folder like so.

Then place the folder in a “sandwich” between the embossing plates that are included with the machine. The order is: A plate on the bottom, then B plate, embossing folder with paper, and lastly a second B plate on top. The plates are labeled very clearly and it’s more simple than it sounds. The sandwich/plate technique is slightly tedious, but it allows the Cuttlebug to be adapted to other brands of die-cutting stencils and embossing folders rather than being restricted to only Provo-Craft products.

Next, place the plate sandwich onto the Cuttlebug and run it through by turning the crank on the right side.

Remove the paper from the folder and voila! Polka-dot embossed paper.

Here’s an example of a finished “thank you” card that I created for one of my bridesmaids using the embossed paper. I just love the textured element that it adds to the cards.

One last closeup shot.

My only complaint about the Cuttlebug is that I wish they had bigger embossing folders available. 4.25″ x 5.5″ is the size of 1/4th of a regular sheet of paper and it’s limiting in the scope of projects one can create. Michaels sells Cuttlebugs for $89.99, but I’ve seen fabulous deals for these machines. Recently Joann’s had a bug for $49.99 with free shipping. I definitely would not pay full price for one of these. You can find a good deal on one if you look around a bit.

Next, I’ll show you how the Cuttlebug can make ultra-fabulous die-cuts.
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