Tea Party Printables
April 23, 2012 at 7:50 am | Posted in Paper Designs, Parties & Holidays | 1 CommentTags: alice in wonderland, children's birthday party, invitations
Jenna’s birthday party is in a couple of weeks, and I finally finished (and mailed) the invitations. We’re keeping the party pretty small since we’ll be headed out on vacation the next week. The theme is Tea Party, which she chose based on her (current) love of Alice in Wonderland.
Here are the files:
Download the Invitation PSD File
Download the Thank You PSD File
Honest to Nod No.2: Washi Tape Journals
April 16, 2012 at 8:27 am | Posted in Children's Activities, Paper Designs | Leave a comment
My daughter is rarely without a piece of paper and crayons in her hands. Drawing has definitely become one of her favorite activities, so I guess I should not have been surprised when she made her own book. Using a few scraps of card stock and pieces of Japanese washi tape (previously being used to display her drawings on the wall), she bound together a simple but adorable little book. That book is the inspiration for a project I’m sharing today on the Land of Nod’s blog, Honest to Nod. Be sure to check it out!
A Birthday Tea Party: Making Paper Flowers
March 26, 2012 at 6:55 am | Posted in Children's Activities, Paper Designs, Parties & Holidays | 2 Comments
Preparations for Jenna’s 4th birthday party are underway. Jenna has loved playing tea party for quite a while, and now that she’s become interested in the Alice in Wonderland story, it’s no surprise that she’s requested a tea party theme for her birthday. My plan is to keep it pretty simple – a table filled with children’s teacups, tiny cakes and oversized paper flowers in the backyard and, of course, a game of croquet.
I started working on the paper flowers this weekend. Wow, they are pretty time-intensive, and I’ve only finished two so far. I’m already thinking of how to best mix paper and real flowers.
I created two petal patterns (one large, one small). For each flower, I cut out 10 large petals and 8 small petals in contrasting papers. For each petal, I glued two petal shapes together using decoupage glue and then coated the outer sides with glue to make them sturdier.
Once the petals were dry, I arranged the large petals into a flower shape and used floral tape to secure them on the bottom side. I repeated this step for the smaller petals.
I generously glued the area near the tape to make them sturdier and less floppy.
I cut a circle using a 1 1/2 inch paper punch and glued that to the center of the smaller petals.
Next, I glued the smaller petals to the larger set of petal to form the flower.
Once everything was dry, I attached a wooden dowel using tape. (Note: I started out trying to attach individual petals to the dowel but found that securing them first – as shown in step 2 – was much easier.)
I covered the entire dowel with floral tape.
And, finally, the paper flowers are done. Two of them, at least!
I Heart: Giant Flowers
March 7, 2012 at 8:39 am | Posted in Children's Activities, Paper Designs, Parties & Holidays | Leave a commentJenna has made it known that for her next birthday party, she wants a tea party a la Alice in Wonderland. I have visions of oversized blossoms and toadstools springing up all over our backyard, children playing croquet and a long table overflowing with stacked teacups and petits-fours. In other words, I can’t wait to start the party planning.
I Heart: Making With Paper
February 29, 2012 at 8:34 am | Posted in Design, Paper Designs | Leave a commentPaper has always been one of my favorite materials, but even I continue to be amazed by what you can do with it:
Children’s Art Thank You Cards
January 23, 2012 at 7:15 am | Posted in Paper Designs | 6 Comments
January is nearly over and I’m a little embarrassed to admit that we’ve yet to send thank you cards to friends and relatives who gave gifts to J+J over the holidays. I’m not the only one, right?
With my trip behind me, I’ve committed to getting them in the mail this week, and today I made one big leap in the right direction: I made custom notecards out of Jenna’s recent art.
Here are a few examples:
Here’s how I made them:
- I selected 4 recent drawings and scanned them into the computer. I opened the files in Photoshop and cropped them to 4 x 4 inches (300 dpi).
- In Photoshop, I created a template based on the size of the notecards (the folded cards are 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 so my template was 5 1/2 x 11). I also set up a custom print size in the Page Set-up menu in the Print window.
- I centered the scanned drawing so that it would print along the bottom half of the page and added the text and a very light border. I had to print a couple of trial runs to get the positioning just right.
- Step 4 – writing and mailing. That’s the hard part …
Customized Journals
January 16, 2012 at 8:20 am | Posted in Design, Paper Designs | 2 CommentsI’m really looking forward to this week’s workshops at the Alt Conference. I’ve signed up for two: Paper Crafts and Printmaking. I’m not sure how I only just found this out, but the paper craft class is going to be taught by Patricia of A Little Hut, a site that has provided me lots of inspiration over the past couple of years. In fact, one of my top posts is about a series of cards I made based on a tutorial on her site. So needless to say, I am super excited about seeing what Patricia has in store for us.
This weekend I got a bit of a jump start on the whole paper crafting thing by making a few custom Moleskine journals to take to the conference. Yes, even my notebooks will match my outfits. And have a mentioned my new iPad case?
Fringed Paper Tree Village
December 12, 2011 at 7:14 am | Posted in Children's Activities, Holiday Ideas, Paper Designs | 3 CommentsTags: christmas, gift wrap
This craft is super easy and can be done with material you likely have on hand. The results are a bit quirky and fun. I started out thinking I would arrange them as a centerpiece on our kitchen table, but now I think I’ll use them for holiday gift wrap.
I started with a paper shopping bag (but any heavy weight paper will work) and cut a series of identically-sized triangles along the folded side of the bag. You can work with any size – I made most of mine about 2 inches in height.
I glued the sides together to create a 3-dimensional tree (or a rocket, as my son described it).
I painted the sides with white and green paint in a very messy manner.
Once the paint dried, I cut the edges to create the fringe.
I made a small batch to arrange on the table, but …
I think I’ll end up using them to wrap presents, like this:
Glass, Paper, Glitter: DIY Ornaments
November 14, 2011 at 6:45 am | Posted in Holiday Ideas, Paper Designs | 6 CommentsTags: christmas, diy, ornaments
We’re putting up our Christmas tree soon, and while there’s no shortage of ornaments waiting to adorn it, I like to make a few new ones every year. Last year, Jenna and I made these clay glitter ornaments, but now that she’s older, we’re trying out something a little more advanced (advanced = messy and breakable).
We started with a box of clear glass ball-shaped ornaments, decorative paper, glue, glitter, tape and a Xyron sticker machine.
Design #1: Paper Lines
I started by cutting decorative paper into large strips (approximately 1″ x 12″) and running them through a Xyron sticker machine to give them an adhesive backing. Next, I cut these into extremely thin strips of paper.
I removed the adhesive backing from the thin strips of paper and wrapped them around the glass balls, letting the paper overlap in places. 
I continued to wrap the strips until I ended up with a design that I liked. I used approximately 5 strips per ornament.
Design #2: Polka Dots
I used some of the leftover paper with the adhesive backing to create confetti with a hole punch.
I removed the adhesive backing and placed the dots on the ornament.
Design #3: Glitter
Now here’s the messy part …
I started by placing strips of Martha Stewart masking tape around several ornaments. 
I painted a thin layer of glue around the center part of the ornament and then let Jenna go to town with the glitter. I used a shallow pan to catch the excess glitter. Surprisingly, very little glitter ended up on the floor.
I threaded yarn through the top of the ornaments and then taped the yarn to the side of a table while the glue dried.
Once the glue was dry, I removed the tape. I’m not sure if it’s because I didn’t press down hard enough on the tape or if we just put too thick a layer of glitter on the ornaments, but the tape did not come off neatly. As a result, our lines are a little “organic.”
Toy Story Mania Birthday Invites
September 20, 2011 at 10:35 am | Posted in Children's Activities, Paper Designs, Parties & Holidays | 2 CommentsTags: children's birthday party, invitations, kids parties, template, toy story
Jason’s upcoming birthday party is based on the Toy Story Mania ride that J + J absolutely loved during our recent trip to Disneyworld. The 4D ride features a variety of carnival-inspired games hosted by the lovable Pixar characters, but the ‘blasters’ used to interact with the games were clearly Jason’s favorite part.
This week I finished the invites and thought I’d share the template for anyone else with a Toy Story-obsessed child. The invite plays more off the carnival theme, but the party games will incorporate more references to the characters in the movie (more on that later).
The fonts in the invite are Big Top and Delouisville, each of which can be downloaded for free. For additional carnival-style fonts, see this great post about circus, carnival and western fonts.
You can create your own invitations by customizing this template in Photoshop. I printed copies onto 5×7 cards and cut them out along the border. Next, I glued decorative paper (approx 4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches) to another 5×7 card. Last, I glued the printed card on top.
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