Thirty souvenirs aka I´ll do something with that ... eventually

Tatiana´s Asian style 15th birthday party was a learning experience. First we went through a tutorial to learn how to keep your ideas organized in Pinterest boards. Then we spoke about actually making a Pinterest project for the decoration and now we´ll see how to present the party favours in a cute way with a twist of fun.

Tati was born in the year of the cat, so she chose little porcelain cats with symbols of good health and prosperity. There were four different models.

As a dash of oriental with a twist of fun we added one fortune cookie with each cat.

I needed to make thirty party favours to distribute among family and friends. I had been collecting jam jars for a while "to do something with them". Their chance to get showcased arrived. Always remember to cover your working surface when paints or glues are involved!

After the first two layers ofcolour I noticed something was NOT working. The bubblegum pink paint just slid around the jam jar lid. It had no staying power and the green that looked fine at first looked thin when dry, letting the original dark blue go through. Time to stop, wash all the paint from 30 lids and start again with white acrylic base. After three layers of white base and three layers of colour it looked good enough. Two more layers of sealer and we were good to go on.

My mom helped at this point, folding silk paper rectangles that I had cut in coordinating colours.

On each folded paper I placed a cat and a fortune cookies and put all in a jar, so you couldn´t really see what was inside.

The jars were a teaser during the whole party as they were on the kitchen table with the snacks. 

Which is the best party favor you ever got? Do you still have it?

Something I found on Pinterest that I actually made

This month was my girl´s 15th birthday and I used Pinterest to keep the ideas for her party organized. Here is a tutorial on how to make Pinterest boards. I started with just one for the party and then moved things around to keep decorations and food separated.

Tatiana wanted an Asian themed party so the first choice we had to make was the style:

a) traditional: in red, black, white with touches of gold
b) panda: all black and white with touches of green for bamboo
c) kawaii: bright colours

We went to Chinatown in Belgrano to see what was on offer there. Sooooo many cute little shops with everything from paper lamps to food.
If you know my daughter, you will have guessed she chose bright pop style and you´d be right. :)

bubblegum pink, apple green and turquoise paper lamps

      With the style decided we perused the boards with the search with things like: "birthday party japanese style", "birthday party chinese style", "asian party", "japanese decorations" and such.
One of the decorations that got my eye was this one from The WannaBe Southern Belle . As we have one bare wall in the diningroom it was perfect for us.
We bought crepe paper with the colours of the rainbow

Yes, I know that blue and green are in the "wrong" place but it looked prettier. ;)

Without unwinding the paper cut each paper each 6cm (a bit over 2 inches) to have a long band 6cm wide.

Tape the bands to the wall with masking tape and cover the ends with fluffly clouds cut out of white printing paper. I coloured the edges with a light blue ink pad.

On the day of the party Tati wore her chinese red silk dress with golden dragons ...

and we put some chinese food on the table mixed with some local food, for all tatstes.

 

Bonus: we put the rest of the bands to separate the kitchen from the daily diningroom.

Tell me: have you ever found a project on Pinterest that you have actually made? 

I made this #01

Remember when you were a kid & shared your creations with delight? I´ll share mine today. 

Each Monday Jamie from Jamie Ridler Studios invites you to share what you’ve made over the week before. It can be anything – a flower arrangement, a crocheted cap, a painting, a poem, a party, an outfit, a cake! Write a post about it and share it here (click here to add your link) 

Last year Susana from Diseña tu vida made three matching jackets for the girls based on the Matryoshka vocaloids.

The girls being photographed at an animé convention

Using that one to create the newspaper sewing pattern I cut the pieces from black fabric for the arms and white fabric for the body and hoodie to create a panda bear jacket.

Daughter pinning fabric - October 2013

The assembly part was not as difficult as I had predicted during  the six months that I had the pieces on hold. Yes, six. I was slightly scared. Honestly ... terrified, I tell you. That was until I started putting them together. I just showed up and did the work. I discovered then that the body was too short. Mmmmmmm What to do?

I added a strip to the bottom of the jacket. Doubled for it to have a tidier look. I ironed it and measured it to fit the waist.

When I added the pockets I niticed that it would be both better looking and safest for the sewing to tag them inside the seams. Although I discovered that after sewing the sides. Never mind. Simple sewing that side and tagged the rest. ;)

I admit I already knew how to sew a zipper, from my cushion making phase some 18 years ago (Mati was a baby then) so that was not hard. I will also admit there was some design problem that made the hoodie uneven. It will look better next time. Because there IS going to be a next time. Now I know it can be done and in the words of Srinivas Rao from Unmistakable Creative "I didn´t die, went bankrupt or went to jail" which are his parameters for trying out things, then I know I will try some more patterns.

The finished panda jacket

What is waiting for you in the "To be finished" pile?  

New creative project: the final product

In January I showed you a practical way to organize the first stages of a new creative process with a calendar and sticky notes. Here´s the next step.

I was working on a year long photography prompts project. I wanted to see the whole twelve months at a glance to be able to balance the prompts and see there were no repetitions.

At this point I considered different approaches: random prompts vs. themed prompts was no contest. I´m soooooo structured that themes pleased me more than random prompts thrown at the pages.

Next: themes by month? It had charm but with an international group of participants we didn´t have the same national days and events. Not even the same seasons! Btw: the first original "Life on the Go" group that I started for Art Every Day Month in November liked it so much that it is still alive! That group is now closed to new members, but you can still participate following the prompts on my Paula - Buenos Aires page.

Ok, so groups of 12 related prompts, on the same day each month. The first creative part was over. On to the nitty gritty.

Write, write, write, think, ask, have tea, brainstorm, write some more.

Once I got all the 30 groups of 12 prompts they still looked a bit all over the place. And I had this idea. Divide the themes into bigger themes. In this case: personal, home, outdoors and classic prompts (verbs, descriptions, songs, events, that kind). Write one theme on each colour coded sticky note and put the colours together.

As it is a very personal voyage of self discovery I started each month with the personal prompts, followed by the home and finally going out into the big world.

Time to write each prompt where needed. Take the first group and put one on each month, following the theme flow. Same with the second and on until the 31st (shorter as not all months have 31 days).

The last step is to write it all on a Word document and ask my kids to teach me how to make a PDF out of it so I can share it with you!

A Christmas wreath by Cristina Svihalek

This week we are focusing on:
Intention: Love
Decoration: Door
Room: Kitchen
Tradition: cards

I invited my friend Cristina from Creative hands to show us how to make a cute Christmas wreath. Here is what she had to say:

An original idea to reuse all the wine bottles´ corks is to make a Christmas wreath. The decorations may vary: ribbon bows, grapes, flowers, fruits and Christmas ornaments like in this case.

Materials

·   * Corks. Maaaaaaaany corks. Celebrate, toast, enjoy and keep the corks. ;) Keep them all!  

 * Wicker crown: prefer the wider ones to support all the corks.

* Glue gun

* Christmas ornaments

* Ribbon
*

Process

First get a ribbon (remember to use a strong one as the crown will be heavy) through the crown to be able to hang it when finished. Glue the corks in different directions: vertical, horizontal, diagonal. Play and create shapes with the corks´designs.

Keep going, you are almost there! ;)

The last step is to choose a decorative element, which we will glue to the corks. I chose red fruits. Make a bow with the ribbon and add some Chritsmas tree´s branches. I painted mine white with acrylics.

Ready! Choose a place to hang your crown and enjoy it. What about your door? Of course you can place it on a wall, maybe in the kitchen or a conservatory. 

Thanks Cristina! It is a beautiful touch to welcome our families and friends this season.
If you want to see more Christmas ornaments visit Cristina´s Facebook page: Manos Creativas (Creative Hands).

AEDM Day #30 and Gigly´s tutorial

Each time November 30th comes round I want to sing like Dora, the Explorer. "We did it!"

Today is November 30th and I can say that for the 7th time I have completed Art Every Day Month in November hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas. This year I chose scrapbooking: 30 days = 30 layouts.
These are the last two working tables and the last two layouts:

More layouts for Tati´s 13th birthday.

Edited to add a picture of the 31 layouts together:

With the satisfcation of the completed project I can go straight into the Advent season and to start it off I invited Gigly from the blog "Adornando mis recuerdos" to share an idea for our Christmas cards.

This is what she brought for us:

I will share this tutorial for a Christmas card with you.

Cut cardstock to 12" by 4" and fold it in half for the base.

Cut 3 pieces of white cardstock in 3 3/4" by 5 3/4 ".

Create the background with distress inks and let it dry.

Before stamping apply the "embossing pillow".

Get ink on your background type stamp and stamp it.

Emboss with gold embossing powder.

On the back of the coloured cardstock draw a tringle.

Cut with the cutter and ink the borders.

Glue the coloured cardstock over the embossed one. Make the banner with sticky alphas.

Tie twine to the base of the card and put the banner over it.

Emboss gold onto a white cardstock.

Punch the star from it and put on top of the tree.

Glue the last piece of white cardstock to the interior of the card. 

Hope you liked it and you make it yours by choosing your own colours.
See you soon!
Gigly

I´m ready to work on my cards! If you are local you can give Gigly a call to visit her shop "L´Atelier". She is lovely and her product line very interesting.

Take advantage of the weekend to make your Christmas cards and with teh scraps make the gift tags!

Just a few of the fliers I will send the winner
plus book pages and scarpbooking paper scraps

GIVE AWAY news: as part of my plan for next year I need to know who I´m writing for and as a thank you for your participation here I´m putting together a package with local fliers, pages from magazines and books, great for art journalers.

What do you have to do? Simple: leave me a comment to know you are here. :) I´ll add you to a list and I´ll select one winner by one of those random apps on November 30th (that´s today!) and publish the winner on Dec 1st.
You want more chances? Follow my blog by Google connect (Find that in my side bar)
Yet another one? Like my page on Facebook!