Why, hello Wednesday.
Today, I do solemnly swear to refrain from double entendres, puns and/or knock knock jokes.
Well, I solemnly do swear to try.
I do solemnly swear.
What I will do is share the only remotely spring-y/easter-y decor I have in my house.
Presenting: the Overton Spring Collection.
I know, so very Project Runway of me.
Yesterday I mentioned how I tend to binge on things.
Butterfly Binge meet WCS readers, WCS readers meet Butterfly Binge.
I shared the how-tos and why-fors of the painted wood piece, so let's focus on the other two, shall we?
The smaller one is a shadow box I found at the Salvation Army. It's the one on the bottom right with the lace, pink mat and ribbon roses - three things that I am morally opposed to.
Just kidding, but for real, they aren't my favourite things.
So as I was all binge-y, I started cutting out butterflies with the Cricut.
Wait! Who made this mess in here?
Thankfully, being a paper crafter, it's easy to push my mess out of the way.
Good thing I didn't choose rock or bricks as my preferred medium.
Once I had a load (flock? herd? murder?) of them cut out, I started by trying to glue them together along the body of the butterfly and kind of fan the wings upward.
That worked okay, but being the perfectionist (*ahem*) that I am, I turned to my old friend, Pop Dot.
And just like that, P-Dotty gave my butterflies structure and form just like P-Diddy gave J-Lo street cred, back in the day. (Sorry. I get a little carried away sometimes. I am stopping right now.)
And Bob's your uncle.
Well, actually, Bob's my dad, but everyone looks at me funny when I say that.
The larger piece I made using a piece of MDF (medium-density fibreboard) that I salvaged (pilfered) from the husband's workshop after throwing it there after my original project turned into a failed mess last November:
I realize it doesn't look *that* horrible in this photo.
But it was pretty bad.
I sprayed it brown - MDF sucks up a LOT of paint - I had to give the edges three coats. It's the greedy cousin of my friend, Wood, from yesterday. But it was free (pilfered), so I can put up with a little greedy.
Then I used my ATG adhesive to stick on the patterned paper (Prima) and brown cardstock. I found a quote I liked on the internet and printed it on white cardstock and then roughed up the edges with a Making Memories edge distressing tool.
Then I put my cricut to work and cut out a big pile of different sized butterflies.
Before I committed to cutting any of the patterned paper, I laid the cardstock butterflies out until I found a design that I found pleasing (whenever I say that, I feel like a Queen..."This mutton displeases me, away with it...and off with his head!").
I repeated the pop-dot process that I mentioned above and put it all together.
The bowl I purchased a while ago at the thrift store with plans of painting it or something. And then I thought, "What are you stupid? (sometimes I get a little snippy with myself) You paint EVERYTHING heirloom white or black and it's ALREADY heirloom white-ish. Duh."
So I saved myself 10 minutes and an index finger full of tacky paint from premature touching and left it alone.
I needed something to fill the bowl and had got caught up in all the old book crafts that have been permeating the craft blogosphere in the last year and had recently purchased a couple of vintage-y looking books a while ago.
I tried a couple of things.
Failed fairly miserably and put them away.
Then I saw a couple of Easter baskets that were lined with book pages all cut up.
I can cut paper relatively well.
So I cut a bunch of 1/4 inch (more or less) strips and then lamented the fact that I've wanted a crimper for years and been to cheap to buy one. And then I cursed Michael's because the two times I printed out a half price coupon and drove ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN they were out.
I suspect a conspiracy of some sort, but I have no proof.
I wondered if I could somehow curl the paper. You know, like you can do with that birthday ribbon and a pair of scissors.
Soon I remembered that scissors cut paper.
Then I wondered what if I used a curling iron?
So I did.
And, can I get a hallelujah, it worked.
My husband only raised one eyebrow as he walked through the bedroom as I lay in bed watching reality tv, in a nest of curled book paper, wielding a piping hot curling iron.
He's seen stranger things.
I have to confess something now.
I tried making a few different eggs to go in my nest of fancy paper.
I tried decoupage on plastic eggs.
I should have known better.
I'm still removing glue from the floor.
I tried blowing an egg.
At first this was kind of fun mostly because my younger boy is a bit of a gagger, so I pulled a "Hey! watch this!" as I blew the egg innards into the sink.
Hilarity ensued.
It worked pretty well and I painted it, but it left me kind of light-headed and it took too long and I was getting bored with all this egg business.
So for the photo (and here's the brunt of my long winded confession) I painted two raw eggs and threw them in the bowl.
Let me know if you have any better ideas.
(here is one if you're looking for a jumping off point...see what a control freak I am? I can't even let you offer up your better ideas first.)
I seriously love this.
I wish I had of seen it before I got all hopped up on butterflies.
Here's her blog:
Midwestern Sewing Girl aka Nests Trump Butterflies
Thanks for letting me ramble.
Tomorrow I have a few projects for kids' rooms.
And maybe a download for fun.
Hope to see you here!
