Cupcake Tower

First things first...
Are you my 1000th visitor? Scroll down and check the side bar - and if you are, send me an email with your address, and I'll send you a little handmade something to thank you for your support!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch...
A few months ago, I was asked to decorate the new Kaisercraft Cupcake Stand, to be used as a shop display at Scrapbook Shenanigans in Townsville.  I chose to decorate with a red white and green theme, as it was getting close to Christmas, and this is what it looked like. 
Don't those cuppies look delicious?

Well anyways, the Christmassy colours got a bit old after a while, so in the search for something a bit more fresh and versatile, we chose some gorgeous paper from the TPC Studio range "Sunny Bunny" - the paper itself is called "Spring Flowers".  
I cut out the skirts on my Craft Robo, but if you were to do this yourself, you can easily use a border punch to get a decorative effect.  Simple scallops would look fantastic too. 


I used a 3/8" wide emerald green Grosgrain ribbon to wrap the bottom of each tier.  I tried a few different colours, but the green gave the stand a bit more body, so to speak, and defines each tier more. 

Around the bottom, I tied a gazillion  little bows ,(ok, 12... i exaggerate sometimes)... and glued them onto each scallop.

Then I took a whole bunch of handmade roses (I made these with coloured paper, and spritzed them with glimmermist), and using a thin strand of wire, wired them together in a line.

  I then attached each garland of roses to the underside of the tier above.  I only did this on the lower two tiers - the upper tier doesn't have enough room to worry too much about it. 

For the upper tier, I glued a rose directly to the base, and attached a small sprig of green tara vine ribbon behind it. 

I cut short lengths of the vine, and draped them through the rose garlands to add a bit of greenery and softness to it, and then added a few more roses where I thought it needed them. 

Before I take it back to the store, I will re-dress some of the cupcakes to take pride of place on the stand!
You might notice that this time around, I decided to make the "skirts" go upwards, to almost form a fence around the outside.  This is in the hope that Michele will fill the baskets with loads and loads of lollies... hehehe
See you tomorrow!
x Rita
P.S.  Apologies that the last photo is a tad on the blurry side.  Kinda hard to take photos while a puppy licks your face and jumps all over you!

1000th Page Viewer

Hi!
As my little blog rattles towards 1000 page views, I'd like to celebrate this milestone with you!
If you're the lucky reader who is the 1000th viewer (just check the little counter on the sidebar), comment on this post, or send me an email at rita.c.fisher@gmail.com, with your name and address, and I'll post you a special little something!
Thanks for the support!
xx Rita

More Magic Happens!

This layout was super simple, because I wanted the photo to steal the show.  I also wanted to keep it simple, as I had a beautiful shaped, foiled piece of Kaisercraft magic happens cardstock that was screaming to be used up!

From our little fairy photo shoot, this was my favourite of Stephie, so I had it enlarged.
I cropped the photo down to 5x5 inches, and then rounded the corners, and matted it onto a piece of white cardstock.
(a money saving tip is to use old patterned paper that has white on the reverse as your matting paper - i keep a stack of ugly papers that I use for just that!)

Using two chipboard flourishes, I painted them both lettuce green, and then covered them in a thin layer of kindyglitz.  (Crystallina)

I wanted to use a little cluster of flowers, so I used a couple of the new Kaisercraft flowers, and two green tara leaves just to make it look a little bit more real.  I layered these over the corner of the photo, and tucked the two flourishes in underneath as you can see.

The layout needed a title, but I didn't want something too bold.  I chose to use a rub on directly onto the photo, and the one that I used fit perfectly with the photo.  "Little girls have a magic all of their own".  And they do... every time i look at this photo, it just takes my breath away!
Happy Friday!
xx Rita

quick cards

As a busy mama, I often run out of time to make a handmade card to give to the special people in my life on their birthdays or special occasions.  To try and take a bit of the load off, I like to keep a stack of handmade cards in the cupboard that I can pull out and use at short notice.  (Yep, I'm forgetful, and time management is a bit of a struggle some days!)
I whipped these two cute cards up in a few spare minutes I had today. 

First up, I trimmed a piece of patterned paper to size.  I wanted these to be slightly smaller than my card blank, so there's a little border around the edge.  I chose a black card blank for this card, to make the bright colours pop even more.  I used 2 Kaszazz stamps, and Ranger Perfect Medium Pad, with Zing embossing powder in Gloss Black.

I inked my branch stamp with perfect medium, and stamped that on the patterned paper.  To apply the embossing powder, I just dump a big heap on the page, and gently shake it around (over a piece of paper) to get the powder to stick to the perfect medium properly.  There's plenty of different inks that you can use embossing powder with, I just find Perfect medium really easy to work with.

Ok so once that's done, shake the excess embossing powder off on to a scrap piece of paper.  From here, you can just pour it back into the jar.  Heat the design with a heat tool until it's glossy and melted.  I repeated this step with a pretty Happy Birthday stamp as well.  I love embossing, it really makes a simple design stand out from a busy background.  Stick the patterned paper to the card blank with double sided tape.

I made a second card as well, and positioned the branch slightly higher so I could fit the sentiment in underneath it. 

To complete the cards, I added a gorgeous little owl sticker. These ones are an EK Success sticker, in the "sticko" dimensional sticker range.  There is 16 owls in the pack, so enough to keep me happy for a while to come! :) (not to mention pretty kind on the hip pocket!)

Here we have the finished cards.  Two cards for my stash, both super cute, and both finished in less than 10 minutes!
xx Rita

Some Rainy Day Fun

 I had some fun photos of the girls playing in the rain, so I wanted to do a fun, happy layout.  I decided to use a soft floral paper, and layered that with two complementary shades of pink and blue.  

 

I cut diamond shapes from 3 different patterned paper, and folded them over a piece of string to form the bunting.  

 

For the rosettes, cut a thin strip of paper, and scored it at ¼” intervals, then concertina folded it.  Glue the two ends  together and adhere a button or a circle of patterned paper to the top.  If it keeps popping up in the centre, you might find it handy to glue the rosette to a small circle of scrap paper at the bottom, as well as with the button on top.  It’s a bit fiddly, but look C....U....T....E!!!

 

After the fiddly bits were made, the page came together really quickly.  I used a little square of double sided tape under each pennant to hold the bunting exactly where I wanted it, and used Kaisercraft letter stickers to add a cute little title. 

Some journaling finishes the layout off, and will serve to embarrass the girls at a later date to realise they used to drink water from the downpipes, frogs and all! :D 

While not the quickest layout I've ever done, it ticks all the boxes for me.  Fun, funky and fresh!

Hope you're having a great week! 

xx Rita

Fairy wands!

 I've got a whole stack of the Kaisercraft Magic Happens range, as my friend Michele, who runs my local Scrapbooking store, Scrapbooking Shenanigans gave me a pack to make some samples up for her store.
Looking at the papers, especially the foiled papers in the 6x6" paper pad, how could I not make some fairy wands? 

For these I used the Kaisercraft Star album (it comes with 4 stars in the pack) and a length of dowel, which I cut to about 30cm lengths.  I painted the edges of the stars with gold paint, and then used modpodge to stick them each to a piece of the foiled paper.

 I trimmed these out with my craft knife, and then turned them over, and did the same again on the reverse.  I used plainer papers for the back, but I still wanted them to look pretty!

 Using some 10mm grosgrain ribbon, I made them into corkscrew curls.  I'll post a tutorial on here another day soon on how to make corker ribbons and bows, so watch this space! It's dead simple, and so effective! 

 I trimmed the ribbon to length, and then sewed 4 pieces together at the top.

 Using a sheer organza ribbon with a sparkly silver stripe, and satin edging, I wrapped the handle of the wand, leaving some dangly ribbon at the top. Using hot glue, I stuck the corker bunch to the back of the wand, and then the stick on top of that. 

 To finish each slightly differently, I used the chipboard die cut shapes, and some rhinestones to decorate them.

 A little spritz of glimmermist on the ribbons to make them sparkle a bit, and a smear of kindy glitz here and there on the chipboard shapes, and I was done!

Most projects I don't get too attached too, but it was hard to part with these guys! I love how they look!
Hope you like them too!
xx Rita

Magic Happens Butterfly mobile

First of all, Happy Valentine's day to all my lovely readers!  

Todays project is a butterfly mobile, using the gorgeous Magic Happens Collection from Kaisercraft.  

I have a similar butterfly mobile already, so I used it to trace a pattern onto an empty cardboard box.

Using a craft knife, I carefully cut out 2 wings, a body and a smaller butterfly for the "pull".

I then used the "spirit" paper to cover one side of the wings, and both sides of the little butterfly. I used "potion" to cover both sides of the body.

 Just to add a bit extra fanciness, I stamped and embossed the flourish from the Magic Happens Stamp set, using Ranger's Perfect Medium stamp pad, and opalescent (sparkly!) embossing powder.  Perfect medium is great because it stays tacky for a bit longer than many other mediums, allowing a bit more time for you to put your embossing powder on, and still get a good coverage.

 The other side of the butterfly's wings, I covered in some plain blue paper.  I then cut out a design from the "potion" paper, and glued that down carefully.  

 I also added some bling, and some pearl strips, as well as going over some of the flourishes with my Sakura Glaze pen (it's amazing - it's like Glossy Accents, but in a biro!) to give it a bit more texture.  I edged all my cut out shapes with a fine line of kindyglitz, to help it catch the light a bit.
All the pieces are fixed together with fishing line, and I covered an old hacksaw blade in ribbon to make the top bar.  (yep, I'm lazy, but it worked!) I also made a set of antennae for the butterfly from a scrap of copper wire.

 It's very hard to photograph to try and show the movement, but when you pull the "puller" at the bottom, the wings of the butterfly flap gently. 

Something a bit different, and I think, kinda cute.  What do you think?

Happy Valentine's day to all my lovely readers!  And thanks so much for stopping by my little blog - you truly are appreciated!
I knocked up a special Valentine's day treat last night - (and will be saving some for my beloved when he gets home on Tuesday!)

I used a chocolate biscuit recipe from TidyMom and made royal icing to frost them with. (2 egg whites, 3 cups icing sugar, 3 tsp lemon juice).  Because I'm going to my sister's place for morning tea tomorrow, I thought I'd better stay in her good books and make them gluten free, so I adapted the recipe by substituting the plain flour for gluten free plain flour.
I also made sure that the icing sugar mixture I used was Gluten Free.
They were lots of fun to decorate!  Time consuming, but fun!
I think the girls will love them for morning tea tomorrow :)
 I used a flooding method to cover the base of the biscuit, and then used a runnier mix of the royal icing in a darker pink to pipe the details, so they melted together to give a flat design with a design incorporated in it.

There were a few less than perfect ones (hehe!), but all in all, it was lots of fun, and I'm sure they'll be a very popular sweet little treat!
Love to you all!
xx Rita

Craft Room

Today's post is great for two reasons.
Firstly, you get to have a peek into the scrap space that my lovely husband helped to build for me (it's no secret that this is my favourite room in the house!)
Secondly, I had to tidy up a bit before I could take the photos... so now i've discovered that there's actually a desk in here! Woohoo!

 

 This is my main work area.  The desk continues along the other wall, where the computer is, but this is the space that I do most of my crafting in.  You can see the great little craft stand that my sister made me years ago, which is so handy for keeping things organised.  The little chest of 3 drawers holds some sewing equipment, for when I need to get to it quickly.  The 12 inch desk organiser is one of my favourite Kaisercraft beyond the page ideas, and as you can't see half of it, you can probably get the picture that I love it and use it all the time! The tower of little drawers holds lots of things, from handmade cards, bling, journal aids, pens, punches, spare blades for my trimmers and my acrylic blocks.

And the basket on top hold all my flowers (much to the delight of my two little mischief makers!) I have tried all sorts of ideas to organise my flowers, but have come to the conclusion that if they're in a basket they are prettier, and much less hassle to put back in the right spot once the girls have pulled them out!
 

 On the left hand side wall (when you're sitting in my red chair!) I've got a narrow set of shelves that I made from scrap timber.  I keep a good collection of little embellishments, brads, eyelets, etc, in the little clear containers.  All my inks, mod podge, glossy accents, crackle paints, paints, buttons, embossing powders and paints live here.  And if you look closely, you'll see that my nail polish lives there too :) At least it's out of the reach of children!

 Under the desk is a set of scrapping drawers.  They keep all my alphas, spare page protectors, etc etc somewhat organised...

 Then beside the desk I have a bit of a mishmash of furniture.  The plastic containers hold all sorts of things - little rolls of ribbon, sewing gear, felt, chipboard elements and paper scraps.  On a side note, if you're after great ribbon, I buy mine from a great site - Summer Ray .
Their ribbons are great quality, and very well priced.  Her blog is also great, with some great ideas of things to make!

 Ok, so ignore the boxes teetering precariously on top of the drawers...
All my patterned paper sheets live in this paper tower. I got it from the Fox collection and got it for about $55 on special.  The grey cover zips down to hide the paper when you're not using it, which keeps it looking tidy, and stops your paper getting dusty.

Against the other wall is my bookshelf.  It houses all my albums, magazines and other stuff bookshelves should, but I picked up a few seagrass baskets today to keep things a bit tidier in there as well.

 As you can see, they hold my beyond the page project blanks...

Dies, and lots of other stuff that can get pretty untidy quickly.  It's handy keeping these in a basket, so i can pop the basket on the desk, and flick through to find what I want easily.  It's also handy having a spot beside it for my big shot as well.

Well thats it for the grand tour of the craft room!
Hope you enjoyed the sneaky peek!
x Rita

Magic Happens

Things are slowly getting back to normal here.  Our power finally came on late yesterday, so as you can imagine there's been a mountain of washing to catch up on, and a million other things to get done.  Today I decided that some things could wait while I took some "me time" and did something creative - it's been ages since I've gotten anything crafty done!
My project for today is a layout, using the new Kaisercraft Magic Happens collection.  It's all fairies and butterflies, and just perfect for some pretty pics of the girls.
For this layout, I've chosen a sheet of purple bazzil basics cardstock as my base.

I chose 4 different sheets of paper from the 6x6" paper stack, and trimmed them down to 4x4", making sure to save the scraps to make some cute little cards from!  I arranged these squares into a block, and inked the outside two edges of each one before sticking them in place.

I got my hands on this nifty little paper piercing tool online.  However, they conveniently forgot to tell me that I needed a handle for it, so I've used it without, which was ok, but a bit harder to steer, and didn't pierce the paper all the way through,  That was ok, I used a needle to poke the holes right through, and then using a DMC variegated purple/lilac thread, handstitched the top and bottom borders.

 

I really like Kaisercraft rub ons, (they always work!) so I chose to use the rub on border that says "magic, dreams, wish, believe" to add a bit extra to the page, and placed it as shown.
Then using one of the phrases from the diecut sheets in the 6x6" paper pad, I wrapped a little bit of green tara vine around it, and stuck that down in an freeform curve.  

I took another sheet of paper from the 6x6" block and popped out one of the bracket die cuts from the back of the book.  I used the bracket to lightly draw the outline of a shaped block (I have no idea what else to call it!), and then cut it out.  I stamped one of the flourishes from the Magic Happens clear stamp set onto the printed side of the paper with a glue pad, and then sprinkled some pretty lilac superfine glitter onto it.  This is a great technique to bling up some paper that is calling for a bit of extra life in it!

Next I trimmed my photos down, to about 2.5x4", and rounded the corners using a corner rounder punch.  To add a bit of dimension, I used foam tape to raise the shaped block up, and adhered my photos on top of that. 

Last but not least, I used one of the journal tags from the little booklet (can you believe they're only $2? bargain!), added my journalling, and then using my needle, poked a hole and threaded some leftover thread through it, and tied a little bow.  To finish the bow, and to stop it coming undone, I added a little dot of Glossy Accents to it.  As I don't want my text to clutter this layout, it can be slipped in behind the patterned paper!

 A beautiful little layout for pictures of two beautiful little fairy girls :)