Stamped Dominoes

I didn't give out many non-family gifts this year but I did want to give my boss lady (don't you like being called the boss lady, Denise?) a gift and since she owns the scrapbook store where I work, I had to give her something handmade! I saw this fabulous stamped domino project on the Hero Arts blog (PS - I adore Hero Arts stamps...hoping to use them more this year) and I knew I'd found the perfect project! This was a super easy to create; I only needed a box of ceramic (at least I think they're ceramic) dominoes, a shadow box frame, and permanent ink. I used Pallette ink from Papertryink but Staz-On would work as well. I first laid out all of the tiles in the pattern that would work for my frame and then selected my images. (I used many of the same or similar images that were used on the Hero Arts blog since I had them!) Once I stamped the images I hit the dominoes with a heat gun, just to make sure the ink was dry and set. I used a glue gun to attach the dominoes to a thin piece of cardboard. And that's it! Fun stuff, right? And I believe that the boss lady enjoyed her stamped gift... :-) Enjoy!! PS - Stamps used on the project are from Tim Holtz, Sweet 'n Sassy, and SU!

Birdie Centerpieces

Remember my post from a week or so ago where I shared a photo of some flowers and birds? Did you guess what I was making? Centerpieces!! Our Pastor's daughter got married this past weekend and I helped her soon-to-be Mother-in-law create the table centerpieces for the rehearsal dinner. They opted to go for a catered BBQ dinner (yum!!) so we wanted to create a fun, outdoors, picnic feeling centerpiece. I did a bit of searching on Splitcoast for ideas and came across a few projects that included paper flowers and metal buckets...perfect for a BBQ!

We started our project by pulling paper, punches, die cuts, and embellishments out of my office...you should have seen the kitchen table - covered!! Turns out I had some pink and brown paper from Papertreyink stashed in my cabinet that I hadn't used in ages. (The wedding party were dressed in pink and black but we went with pink and brown for the dinner) We got busy using a Tim Holtz die to cut out all of the flowers and my Bertie friend got quite a workout cranking out tons of flowers with the Big Shot! Once those were done we also punched out a few glitter 3/4" circles for the flower centers. To create the flowers, we used wooden sticks (painted green with Copic markers) and attached flowers to both sides of the stick so each side would be decorated. A glue gun was required to get the flowers to adhere to the stick. Bertie came up with the great idea to use green ribbon on a few of the flowers to act as leaves. We also covered just one chipboard flower with paper and a big 'ol rhinestone to add a smaller flower to the mix. Here's a picture of the almost finished piece... Cute huh? We also covered a chipboard bird (from SU!) with paper that had been run through a polka dot embossing folder. We added a rhinestone for the eye, colored his legs with Distress Ink, and added a bit of aging to the entire bird. The bride and groom's names were printed on cardstock and attached to a piece of chipboard, along with a chipboard heart. And how about that butterfly?? We used a Martha punch to punch out two butterflies and then used the glue gun to attach them back-to-back on a wire. Since the wire was thin, the butterfly had great movement. Very fun!!

Here's the completed piece at the rehearsal dinner....Bertie found these great little tags that she added in the middle of the bucket. Oh, I should add that we used floral foam to hold everything and loose moss to fill in the bucket. We also had two birds facing left and two facing right...Fun stuff!! We even covered Hershey candy bars with coordinating paper and the happy couple's names. It was a blast!! Now if I could just find someone to watch my kids and homeschool them so I can sit around and create fun projects with paper all day long...LOL! And here's a shot of the very (emphasis on very) happy couple!! Their wedding was such a joyful and blessed event. Maybe because I've known both of them since they were little....ahhh...it was like watching my own kids get married. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house. It was fabulous!! And here's a shot of my most handsome son, the ring bearer, with this flower girl sweetheart. :-) Little Ms. Flower Girl was born just two weeks before my son. These two? They make the perfect pair....They play together really well and their personalities are well suited to each other. They had a blast walking down the aisle together...they were beaming! hee hee Overall, it was an amazing event and we were thrilled to be a part of the special day!! Enjoy!!