Vintage Monday - Pink Stove!

I thought I would show you the newest addition to my studio...a pink Wolverine toy stove!
You already know that I have a red & white one in my kitchen...

...and now I have a pink one to play with in my studio.

I found my new/old toy last week in a little antique shop in the very corner on a shelf.

I couldn't believe that someone hadn't snatched it up before me!

The price was suprisingly very low and it's in really good shape and is the perfect pink!

Sew....you wanna see what I've got cookin' on the cute little red burners?

I've got a saucepan full of buttons boiling over...whoops!

Thread....old and new on the warmer...

A "Pumpkin Tart" pincushion fresh from the oven...

And a yummy sweet stack of fabric...

Wanna come to my house for lunch?....I've got teeny tiny dishes we could use!

No.

I havn't grown up yet.

Yes.

I still play with toys:)

Catching Up with Nanette...

Yesterday I was lucky enough to spend the day at my house with my BFF Nanette of Freda's Hive.
Nanette is just what her blog header says..."One of a Kind"....she came over to my house in the morning so that we could have a nice long visit.
The two of us hadn't been able to get together for a while so it was nice to do some cathing up.

Nanette is a very talented quilt and pattern designer. Her mixed bag is something I would love to have and carry on my shoulder!

This is her newest pattern..."Freda's Flowers"...named after her dear mother.

Nanette loves vintage just like I do. This is her adorable "Kettles in the Kitchen" quilt.

And her "All Dressed Up" quilt....which is just adorable as you can see!

This one is close to my heart....Nanette named it "In the Leafy Tree Tops"...which is one of my very favorite primary songs....love the ric rac branches!

Nanette and I had no one there to take our picture so she snapped one of us together in my living room mirror!

Nanette was snapping pictures all over the place....when I turned around the corner in my kitchen she caught me!

I hope you go on over to Nanettes blog and check out all of her other quilts. I only showed you a few of them!

Click HERE to visit my BFF Nanette:)...I know you'll be glad that you did!

Paper Flowers Tutorial

You all know that I am totally addicted to fabric...no secret right?
What you might not know is I also have a love affair with pretty papers!
Last week I taught a 2 day workshop at Quilted Works in St. George, Utah.
I made these paper flowers to go on top of the little take home packages that I made for each of my students as a thank you.

First I cut 5 circles out of scrapbooking paper....all decreasing in size.
The paper that I used is by My Minds Eye.
I used a die cutter because I needed 30 sets but you can easily just make circles using a circle ruler or a compass. They don't have to be perfectly round either. Your largest circle will be slightly larger than your finished flower. Poke or punch a small hole in the center of each circle.

I laid my circles out on my cutting mat and spritzed them with water. I didn't saturate them...just a fine mist. You can see that the paper will start to curl up a little from the water.

I used a little misting sprayer by Ranger (sold with scrapbooking supplies) but you could just use a regular spray bottle and turn the top to mist instead of spray.

I turned my circles over and sprayed them again.....(you can see Kassidy here helping me with the spraying!)

Then I scrunched up each circle into a spitball!...

Because some of the circles looked similar in size when wadded up, I laid them out in order of size so that I could easily keep track.

I let them dry a little for about 5 to 10 minutes...depending on how wet they were.

When I unfolded them, I still wanted to work with them damp but not too wet because wet paper tears easily!

I started with the large circle and unfolded them one at a time, stacking them on top of each other according to size. I didn't press them out flat but kept them still wrinkled and with wavy edges.....

Like this.

See the side view? You want your circles to be this tall and not smashed down.

You will need a brad for your flower center... of course I chose to use one with bling! ( by Making Memories)

Carefully.....(your paper is still a little damp)... put the brad through all of the holes and close the back of the brad.

Top view...

Side view...

View of 30 flowers!

I laid my flowers out to dry completely.

Remember that however puffy and scrunched up they are is exactly how they will dry....so shape them how you want them at this point.

I decided to make leaves to go on the side of my flowers. I used a leaf punch by Fiskars.

You could easily just cut a couple of leaf shapes but the punch worked out better for me because I needed 60 leaves.

I spritzed both sides of the leaves just like I did the circles.

I let them dry a little bit ....I didn't make spitballs out of them.... I just scrunched them up a little and let them completely dry before adding them to the underneath side of the flowers with glue dots.

These flowers are really fun and so easy to make! I used these in place of a bow for gifts and you could do the same thing....they would also make adorable magnets or pins.

I have made smaller ones before and glued them on the end of a clothespin to use for clips on my message board.

I'm also in the middle of another cute project using these flowers...I'll show you when it's complete!

How about you?

Do you like playing with pretty papers?

I've joined the "Free Pretty Things" linky party...go and see!

You can find other pretty things there by clicking here.