Paper Hunt Magic, Task One and Tag Wallets!

Soooo. I've spent the last couple of days resting out my fatique by taking cold and flu medicine and sleeping like no tomorrow. I feel much better Alhamdulillah! And feel a little refreshed and energized. So with that thought, I'd like to share what was the product of our Tag Wallet Class :)

We kicked off a little late, but that didn't stop the creative thoughts at all. I had two students, Anne and Iqra who had been looking forward to the Tag Wallets for the longest time I had actually suggested the Tag Wallet Module to Iqra as she was new to working with surfaces and took a while on decisions. Figured we'd start with something a little easier and small... She had ten seconds to make her decisions while with me. :)

Anyhow, my requirement for the class was, bring embellishments.. any and whichever you have along with a 12x12 piece of paper. These guys had lovely chart paper with them, but given class had already started late, I didn't want them to waste time on measurements and trimming. I came up to the studio. Pulled out two random sheets of paper and came down to class with them.

I handed Anne the green one and Iqra the pink. Without further delay, we began our folds for the tag wallet, working out the creases and importance of scoring. These guys managed to perfectly within a few minutes. That wasn't the hard part at all. :)

I feel I put the two of them with a couple of challenges, despite the Keepsake being super easy to do:

• they had no idea I was going to give them random colors to work on their project
• they had to make do with embellishments they found in their stash
• nothing was newly bought, nothing was exclusively purchased for the project, ie in terms of color
• again, because of time constraints, I just handed them my box of scraps... they had to pick out shades and tones of colors that matched their theme. 
• There were only two punches these young ladies worked with, the scallop and ornate.
• The tags were cut out by hand by tracing out a template off one of mine

Both began working on their tag wallets. They wanted to distress, to make their tags. I had shown them my engagement Tag Wallet... to have an idea of all the crazy and fun things you can do to make your work stand out. In the process, these are the things they came up with. I think they did a fab job. The only say I had in their projects was to make them think a little about placement or contrast. The rest was their call. They learned how to make little ribbon flowers to embellish their projects with, since the embellishments were limited. Iqra pulled out aces from her stash which was by luck, a compilation of pinks and beads and girly things. Anne had some lovely vintage buttons and trinkets in her stash.. which went great for her Tag Wallet. :)

It's amazing what these two did with their scrap pieces of paper and assigned colors. It worked out better because both of them had voiced out their fright of colors and how picking the right ones was always hard. Going into monochrome narrowed down decision making. Picking the right pink or the right green to go with the tag wallet was also important. Well done, you two!

I hope you're less afraid of colors and your own creativity. You can do wonders when you put your mind to things :) It was a two hour class, which carried on for almost 4. They didn't want to eat, they didn't want to take a break.. They just wanted to craft and create. :) Which is the way to go! 

Happy Birthday Iqra :) hope your birthday was one of the best experiences ever ;)

I keep getting queries on classes and tutorials... and while the last two weeks have been class-ilicious, I suppose I can do another round after Eid inshaAllah. *given I am in town*

MONOCHROME PAPER HUNT PROJECT

TASK ONE

Now for the Paper Hunt. If you'd like to join my next class over at the blog, here's what you need to do.

You're going to create a scrap file. Which will have bits and bobbles of paper, card stock and left over invites, tissue paper, etc.. This can comprise of a4 paper, chart paper scraps, wrappings, left over gift wrap paper, textured paper, other materials (leather, canvas, fabric)

You're going to sort them by color.. you can do the rainbow, with reds, blues, yellows, greens, etc.. you can also separate your blacks and greys and browns, and take them into whites, off whites, ivory and creams.

This is similar to the scrap paper stash I had sorted last week. :) You're organizing what you have to make building your projects easier!

Once that's done. You're going to bring out your stash of embellishments. Pins, stones, studs, rhinestones, glitter, laces, buttons, keys, ribbon etc. Could be left over charms from an old bracelet, beads... pretty much anything you want to stick on to your project :)

You can sort these by color too. :)

Once you've completed task one. Leave a comment below, so we can start task two! with a link to your stash. Snap a photo, upload it to your Facebook profile, make it public. You can leave the link with the comment, so we can see what you came up with :)

I'm posting a link to my scrap paper project here:

http://firefly-girl.blogspot.com/2012/07/scrap-paper-scissors.html

Roses I

Given I'm on a crafting spree and in between pretty much farigh... I figured I'd post more tutorials. Back in March I had begun to, but then with Umra, wedding preps, the wedding, and the post wedding frenzy, and the move to Hong Kong.. I really hadn't the time or space to do so.

So now that we're back to it. I'm going to share paper roses... well rather, how to make them :) There are two varieties, both look beautiful. The difference is one looks a little different and is done with a paper punch and crazy scissors, the other one is pretty basic, and I think most of you reading probably want to start off with something that doesn't require an imported paper punch. :) I'll post the tutorial on the punch roses next time. :)

These are the roses I did for my Print Making Minor in University. I did them on boxboard, newsprint and drawing sheets... some were even newspapers! All had impressions of my prints.

So let's get to it now!

You're going to need:

scissors

paper... printed ones give amazing effects!

glue

a pencil

I'd have done a video tutorial, but i haven't the tripod.. mine broke :(

I had this paper left over from the other day, so I decided to make the rose out of it.

Draw a 5 pointed flower like this... it really does not have to be perfect. :) Ideal size would be 2 or 2.5 inches. You can go larger or smaller :)

Fold your paper in 3 panels, so you get 3 flowers when you cut one out. Being a little time saver here.

I'll be erasing these pencil marks.

See.. 3 flowers.

There they are.

You're going to slit down between two petals on the first flower.

One the second and third flower, you'll cut one petal, and two petals as show above.

Now you pull out the uhu.. The flower with the slit, add a drop of glue to one petal, and paste the other over it. 

You'll get something like that.

Do the same for the next few pieces, glue one petal over another.

For the two petal cut out, just roll it like you would for a cone... adhere on the corner edge.

You'll get something like this.

To achieve the 'rose' petal feel, I curl my petals under. Super easy to do, just use your fingers to bend the petal outward and under.

Those are your petals forming into the rose bud...

Once you've done this for all 5 pieces, you can start stacking them for your rose.

Just add a spec of glue in the center on each layer.

Now two of them are going to be super narrow and long, you can snip those. :)

Once they're all on there... you'll have something like this :)

I distressed mine... 

Wasn't that a breeze? Leave your comments below, would love to have some feedback, especially if you try these for yourself :)