DIY Paper Peonies

Don't you just love peonies? Me too! I love fresh flowers and used to buy a bouquet every weekend at the local farmers market to liven up my house. The problem was that they only lasted about a week, and sometimes you just want something permanent! Now house plants are great for that, but why not liven things up with some paper flowers?

These peonies are made from coffee filters and couldn't be much easier to put together. They are also absolutely gorgeous!

The supplies you'll need to make these paper peonies are easy to come by and relatively inexpensive, so you could make yourself a giant bouquet of them for under $10.

Paper Peony Supplies:

• Two sizes of coffee filters. I used some meant for a 4 cup coffee maker and some meant for an 8-12 cup coffee maker. They are probably about 1/2" different in size. You'll need 5 filters of each size (10 total) to make 1 peony.
• Stem wire
• Floral tape
• Scissors
• Two colors of embroidery floss (optional!)
• Embroidery needles (optional!)

Begin by cutting your stem wire to the desired size. I ended up cutting mine to approximately 9 inches. Then put a bend in the wire that looks like the one in the above picture.

Fold your coffee filter in half four times until you have a small wedge like the one pictured above. You can do one at a time, or 2-3 at a time.

Using your scissors, cut a rounded notch into each side of your folded coffee filters. When you unfold it once, it should like kind of like a long, thin heart.

Since peonies have a bit of a jagged look around the edges of the petals, you'll want to try to recreate that look! To do so, rough up the edges of the cut sections using the part of the scissors closest to the joint. You'll sort of sandwich the edges between the scissor joint and then rub the scissors back and forth along the cut line to make that happen. 

Once the edges are roughed up a bit, use your scissors to cut very short lines (no more than 1/8")perpendicular to the cut edges. These two steps are going to make your paper flowers look much more realistic.

Once you've done the above steps with all ten coffee filters, you should have a pile that looks something like this.

Using the unbent end of your stem wire, poke a small hole in the center of each filter. This will make the next steps easier! Next, slide one of the smaller filters up the wire to just under the bend.

Once the filter is up to just under the bend in the wire, lightly gather it upward. Then, twist and pinch the base of the filter lightly around the bent portion of the wire. This should achieve something like what's pictured above (there's no perfect here!).

Repeat the above step until you have gotten through all five of the small filters. At that point you should have something that looks like this! Cute, right? But it's not done quite yet! To get the look of a peony, you really want a big ol' gorgeous flower, so you'll continue the previous step with all of the larger coffee filters.

Ah, glorious! Look how pretty! Now it's time to secure all of your hard work.

Begin by grabbing the filters lightly an inch or two up from the base. This will keep things twisted and gathered, but also give you some room to apply your floral tape.

Now floral tape is kind of a weird creature. It's quite stretchy, and not particularly keen on sticking to anything but itself. Begin applying it by taking an end and wrapping it tightly about 1/2" up from the base of the flower. Wrap around this section a few times until it's secure, then wrap downwards until all of the paper is covered and you've reached the floral wire. Be sure to continue down on the the wire a bit so you get a nice clean line, then cut the tape and wrap the end around until it lies flat.

So there you have it! A beautiful peony made out of coffee filters!

But wait! There's more! Want to jazz things up a little bit? You can do so by wrapping colorful embroidery floss around the floral tape. Here's how:

Thread an embroidery needle with about 2.5 feet of embroidery floss and knot the end. Insert the needle through the base of the flower, just above the tape, and pull through. At this point, wrap the embroidery floss tightly around the tape, working down towards the stem. Once the tape is fully covered, tie off the embroidery floss and cut the end.

If you would like to add an additional color, you can do so by inserting the needle between some of the previously wrapped embroidery floss and then repeat the steps above to your liking. Annnnnnd you're done!

Now that you've got one made up, try making some more! Once you have a few you can tie a ribbon or some yarn around a vase, arrange the peonies and you've got a lovely, permanent bouquet!

Til next time!

-Becca.

P.S: This DIY was adapted from the one found here that I stumbled upon in Pinterest!

DIY Wall Hanging

Hi guys! Today I'm going to show you how to make this super cute wall hanging!

I've been looking for something to hang over my bed for a while now, but am always wary of hanging anything heavy or glass over the bed since I can be a bit of a worry-wart (What if there's an earthquake? What if the cats knock something off the wall while I'm asleep? Oy vey.), so I was pretty excited to put this project together.

It's a pretty quick project and relatively inexpensive to make. You can make it any colors you like, but I chose some bright ones to go with my very bright bedding.

Supplies:

• 1-2 sock organizers, depending on the size you want. I found mine at a garage sale, but you can find them on amazon (this honeycomb one is pretty!), or on ebay (this is the kind I used), or any number of other places!
• Acrylic paint. I used two small bottles
• Sponge brush
• Picture hooks
• Fake flowers (I used about 5 bunches)

To get started, apply a single coat of paint to your sock organizer(s) using the foam brush.

After applying the first coat, let dry, then apply a second coat of paint and let that dry too! Be sure to go through and touch up any spots you missed when you do the second coat.

Next, choose where you want to put your wall hanging, mark, and nail in 1-2 picture hooks. I decided to off-set mine, so one hook was higher than the other, but you could do them straight across if you prefer and hang them level with each other.

Now we're on to flower time! You will want to cut your flowers to a length that's just slightly longer than the depth of the sock organizer. I started by cutting mine, and then realized that when I pulled the flower sections off of the stems they were already the perfect length, so I did it that way.

Once you have the flowers ready, make fist sized bunches and place into the holes of the organizer. I placed them at random until I got a nice pattern going. Place as many or as few as you like. You could fill up the whole thing if you wanted to, but I like the sort of rounded honeycomb shape of the organizers, so I left quite a few spaces empty. Once you've got it to your liking, you're done!

So there you have it! A cute and easy wall hanging that you can make in just a couple of hours!

If fake flowers aren't your jam, you could also fill it with dried flowers, air plants, trinkets, fabrics, etc. The possibilities are endless. I think I might try air plants sometime in the future to change things up a bit.

Til next time!

-Becca

Happy Birthday Katie!

Yesterday was my friend Katie's birthday! Since I love gift giving, I decided I should whip something up, so I put together an embroidered pendant necklace for her.

I'm in love with honeycomb patterns right now and decided to choose reds since Katie is in obsessed with red right now! She loves it enough to feature the color on a recent post on her blog, Katie Marie V, which you can check out here.

If you are interested in putting together your own embroidered pendant, check out my DIY post here.

When I tried to make the hexagons with a ruler, i found it was pretty tough to make them even, so if you are interested in making one yourself, I would recommend investing in a template like this one. 

I'm also in love with gift wrapping, but was strapped for time, so I rustled up a box from a votive candle, a doily, a little piece of cute paper, and some seam tape to get it all wrapped up. I also couldn't find my tape anywhere, so I improvised and used some glue dots! Gotta love the adorable things you find around around the house!

Katie loved her gift, and we all had a wonderful night eating awesome food and sipping on delicious cocktails! I was so glad to be a part of a celebration for such a wonderful lady.

Happy birthday, Katie!

Til next time!

-Becca

String Art Portrait Plaques

Looking for a craft project to do over the long weekend? How about making a string art portrait plaque (or 3!)?

These plaques are super cute, easy, and surprisingly quick to put together! I was inspired by a tutorial I saw on the Country Living website, but wanted to put my own twist on the idea. Since my living room has a lot of beautiful wood in it, I decided to stain my plaques rather than paint them. I also thought it would be pretty cute to make one of Buddy, one of Hank, and one of myself, so I created my own templates.

Creating a template can be done relatively simply in Photoshop using your own pictures, but if you want something quick you are welcome to use the ones I made, which can be found here. They will need to be scaled accordingly for whatever size plaque you choose.

Now, on to making them! You will of course need some supplies:

Wood plaque, wood stain or paint of your choice, hammer, art template, 3/4" nails, waxed cord, rag, sponge brush (not pictured), scissors (not pictured, but come on, you have 'em handy, right? You're crafting!).

Begin the process by staining your plaque. I bought a Walnut colored Soy Stain, which worked great! The directions recommended applying the stain with a cloth, but I found the easiest way to apply it to this plaque was to brush it on with a sponge brush and then rub off any excess stain with my rag. I really loved the way the color came out and found the stain dried fairly quickly.

While your plaque dries, cut out your template. When the plaque is dry, place your template and tape it down. Be sure to use a 
relatively un-sticky tape so you don't inadvertently remove any of the stain when you remove the tape!

Now you'll need to hammer in the nails around the perimeter of your template. If you have any areas with more detail, I would recommend starting with those. For a larger template place nails approximately 1/4-1/2" apart. For a smaller template, place nails approximately 1/8-1/4" apart. They don't need to be perfect, but you'll want to space them as evenly as possible.

My many years of staring at sewing rulers and tiny seam allowances have gotten me pretty used to eyeballing things, but if you're not comfortable doing that, feel free to use a ruler to mark the nail placements before placing your template.

Once you've hammered nails in around the perimeter of your template, remove it! It's string time!

Begin by tying a knot around one of the nails. I chose the one at the base of the design. Then take the cord and bring it to the next nail (you can go on the inside or the outside of the design), pull taut, then loop the cord around the nail, and repeat for each nail until you've completed the other shape of the design.

Admittedly I did my first plaque with the cord to the inside, then tried the next one with the cord to the outside and found that I slightly preferred the look of that one. Live and learn! I still think either way looks great.

Once the outline is complete, it's time to fill in the middle of the design! To do this, just continue pulling the cord taut and looping it around nails, but this time do it randomly, creating lines that go from one side to another (top to bottom! Left to right! Upper right to lower left! Etc!).

At some point while you're filling in the middle, you'll think to yourself, "Golly this looks good!" and then you'll probably keep going for a little longer, and then you'll think to yourself "Golly, this looks less good." If that happens, feel free to undo a few of your lines, which is fortunately very very easy. When you've achieved a design that YOU like, cut the cord (leaving enough excess to tie a knot), tie it around the nail and trim the ends.

Guess what! You're done! Wasn't that easy? Since I stained all my plaques at once, once that was done, I was able to turn out all three of these in about an hour.

Now all that you need to do is figure out where you want to put them. Want to hang em on your wall? Get some of these, nail them into the back of your plaque and hang away! Want to display them on a mantle or on top of a cabinet? Well, you could lean them, but WOAH precarious! So you could get some of these and make a fancy little display that isn't about to fall over at any given time.

I'll be hanging mine in my living room near the front door. I can't wait to get them up!

Til next time!

-Becca

P.S! If you haven't heard, Craftgawker and Whimseybox are holding a challenge right now! The submitted projects that receive the most "Favorites" on Craftgawker will have a chance to have their project turned into a DIY kit with Whimseybox! Super cool right? Well, yours truly has entered, so if you are feeling generous help a sister out by favoriting my String Art Project on Craftgawker!

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