Lovey cards

Last year I did not have time to do Valentine cards to put in my Etsy shop, this year so far (fingers crossed) I'm having some extra time. I sketched out what cards I wanted to do and have done all but one. I may work on that one this week or not, haven't decided yet for sure.

Since I've been on a roll with my elephant cards I did one for Valentine's Day.

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I then moved on to flamingoes - my card with the single flamingo seems to be a favorite, so I thought people might like this one as well - it's actually not just for Valentine's Day.

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I did floral Valentine cards - fringed flowers - those are pretty.

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And lastly, monkey's - love monkey's. This was a update from a card I used to do with birthday balloons, switched those out for hearts and had him sitting down this time. 

All can be found in my Etsy shop if interested!

Elephants

Happy New Year! Let's start the new year with a blog post - I know, it's been quite some time. 2015 was a busy year, between my graphic design and quilling and family. I don't think I slept enough. I did some quilling throughout the year, but it wasn't till fall when I had to really amp things up. I had a craft fair I participated in in November and a Holiday Market in December at our local Brooks Museum - both were a lot of fun, but that meant I needed lots of inventory. I was making snowflakes like crazy. On top of that, I did continue to work on custom orders. A popular request was for elephants - which I've never done before. I have a friend who requested a card, then a couple ornaments for her little tree. My coworker saw her card and asked if I could create a Christmas version for his daughter. I will definitely be using elephants in 2016, I like the way they turned out.

Beeline Bazaar

Last weekend a friend and I shared a booth at the Hutchinson School's Beeline Bazaar here in town. It's been some time since I participated in a craft fair so I was really looking forward to it. I had two months to build up my inventory and I ended up with lots of cards (which are now in my Etsy shop), new bowls, jewelry boxes, keychains, magnets and bee ornaments. Here are some images from my table set up - with each one I do I try something different.

Sweet Monkey Ornaments

This year is going by so fast and I've been so busy, I wish I could say it was with quilling - I miss it. I was recently asked by a friend if I could create a monkey ornament, she was expecting her first grand baby and their theme was monkey's. I love monkey's, and while I had wanted to make an ornament I needed this request to push me to create one. 

Like all my designs, I sketched out some ideas and came up with these cuties….

These are now available in my Etsy shop for purchase if anyone is interested.

3D Paper Doll in Blue and Yellow

With each new doll I make, I fall more in love with creating them. So now I'm just adding each new one to my collection, I don't think I can sell any of these - they're just too cute. I do plan on adding them as a custom order to my Etsy shop, but that may take another month or so. I'm still trying to figure out hair, that's the hardest part for me so far. And I need to try and make little boy's too, I think they might be a challenge as well.

This little cutie is wearing a blue and yellow polka dot dress and is carrying a matching purse. She fits in perfectly with the others.

NEW! Quilled Angel Ornament

Last year around this time I did some brain storming on new items and an angel ornament was one of them, I never got around to making them but I had it in my book for future projects. A couple weeks ago someone asked if I had any angel ornaments, which was the perfect time to take my sketch and try to create one. I did a couple options which I did not like at all, on my third try I came up with this adorable angel. She comes packaged in a decorated tin, perfect for gift giving. I think she turned out so cute. She's now available in my Etsy shop for anyone interested.

Apple Lidded Trinket Box

I love coming up with new ideas for the lidded trinket/jewelry boxes, I was working on a larger sized one that has a bee on top and a friend of mine suggested an apple - the bee box is a bright green and she thought a green apple would be cute. I have a craft fair coming up mid April and I've been trying to build up inventory, today I had some time and created a red apple trinket box. I also created an ice cream trinket box, so look for that to be posted very soon.

Recent custom cards

I cannot believe how long it's been since my last post - I've been trying to build up inventory for a craft fair in November, in between that I've been continually receiving custom orders - thank you, thank you fabulous Etsy customers. Here are a few recent cards I created, there's lots more to show but I'm behind on taking photo's - definitely on my to do list. 

 

Fringed Flower Pot

I had an idea to make a vase full of round fringed flowers for my mom on Mother's Day. She's trying to sell her house and move into something a little smaller so I didn't want to do anything too big, and I knew I hadn't already made her something like this - I really should make a list of what I've made for family members. The bottom of the vase is around 1 3/4" tall, I glued a piece of styrofoam to the inside to hold the flowers, and covered it with fringed paper to look like grass. I used a thin green floral wire which I twisted, for the stems and glued two fringed flowers together to form the larger round fringed flower - I think they're kind of cute, and I might try it again but with brighter colors, which is more my thing.

Paper Twirlies Team Inspiration Challenge May 2012

I'm a member of the Paper Twirlies team on Etsy, a fairly small group of gals who love paper and quilling. In the past we've tried to participate in team challenges, it's been awhile, but we're doing one this month - an inspiration challenge. With some willing fellow Etsy sellers, a host of pictures have been chosen to keep us inspired. The first challenge photo is brought to us by Clothscapes - here is what she says about her wonderful quilt. 

A dramatic quilt made with cream organic cotton surrounding a graduated square spiral of 84 different shades, beginning with deep purple in the center and moving all the way through the spectrum to end with deep red. The binding is a dark scarlet and the backing is verigated from blue to gold.

I wasn't sure what I wanted to create but I knew it would be colorful and surrounded by white. Lately I've been working on earrings so I've been in a jewelry mode, so I decided to make a ring - although I think this design would look cool as earrings and may have to make some to match. 

Instead of squares I chose to work with circles - I LOVE circles. I choose 6 colors to form the base of the ring, each surrounded by a border of white, for the center I chose a medium gray which actually sits up from the 6 brighter colors.

Custom Cards

Last week I sold 3 cards through Etsy, that was a good week for me. I sold two of my quilled love birds wedding cards - one with custom colors and one of my quilled love tree cards with custom initials.

Custom colors - navy blue with sunny yellow

Custom initials carved in heart :)

Cross Magnets

Over the past couple weeks I've had a few custom orders - one of which was for magnets for my coworker, he wanted crosses. I had purchased these plain little wooden crosses (I think from the Dollar Tree) and thought I could paint them and add roses to each. I painted them with a metallic champagne color, quilled 3 roses for each, and glued a magnet to the back of each; not too shabby since they started out as some pretty plain looking crosses.

Fringed Flower Pens

I recently purchased a quilling book by Alli Bartkowski, (of Quilled Creations) called Quilled Flowers. Really great book, gorgeous flowers. One of my favorite projects uses a pen, ribbon, and a fringed flower. I tried it and showed my creation to a few coworkers, they each wanted some. I used polka dotted ribbon in various colors and I love them all. If you purchase the book through Quilled Creations, Alli herself will sign it for you, an added bonus to such a wonderful book.

A Couple More Jewelry/Trinket Boxes

One of my coworkers had a birthday in March, while I was able to make her a card, I was so far behind I didn't get to make her anything, I knew I wanted to make her a little jewelry box - she has lots of jewelry - and I wanted it to either have a shoe or a dog on the top of it. She loves the color pink so I made the base of the box in pink, turned out the shoe was just not working for me so I moved on and made a doggy. It took quite some time to figure out but I think he turned out kind of cute and she loved it - she said it even looks like her dog, that's a plus since I was hoping he just looked like a dog, let alone her dog. The other box is the third one I created this weekend, bird nest with three little eggs; had to make time for photo's.