One thing every cardmaker and scrapbooker has in common is the mountains of paper scraps we can't seem to part with. This black and white floral paper (Floriade 9-up) was left over from a cardmaking project from years ago but as a hoarder, I still had it in my stash. During my recent studio de-clutter,  the time had come to make a decision; "De-stash" or "Use it" . It occurred to me that these images would look great as framed art for my studio so I chose "Use it" and suddenly, a new studio decor project was born. All I needed were some frames with a 10cm (4") opening. I found a sleek, modern black and white frame and a pair of elegant silver and pearl frames at a local homewares shop that would suit my decor perfectly. This is the simplest of projects: just slip out the printed paper template from the frame, place it on top of the image or photo you want to use and mark the four corners with a pencil. Remove the template and trim the image with......

In my last post I showed you the jute wrapped initials we decorated for the engagement party. Today I have a variation on that idea.   By the time I got to the last of the decorations I had almost run out of jute so I needed a way to tie these initials into the theme that didn't need so much string. With all the curves on the ampersand it would have been a challenge to wrap the whole symbol with jute anyway, so running out was a stroke of luck! I decided to paint them red, white and blue, the theme colours for the party. It was quick and easy and with the exception of the blue paint, it used materials I already had on hand. Once the paint was dried, I selected areas of each letter/symbol to wrap with string and secured the beginning and end with hot glue. And all it needed was the addition of the roses and a bit of ribbon to tie it into the theme..... simple and effective. The roses are made from copy paper using Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die. We hired a huge marquee for the pa......

Today's project is for the romantic at heart. Candle light is one of the most important ingredients of a romantic Valentine's dinner for two and what could be more appropriate than a heart of tealights. You can make this simple "heart wreath" in no time at all and all you need is a hot glue gun and some tea lights. I suggest you make this project on a sturdy surface that you can transport easily to the dinner table as the hot glue is not very strong. I've used a combination of 20 unscented Glimma tealights in red and scented Tindra tealights in shades of  ink from Ikea. Just lay the tealights out in a heart shape and play with the colour arrangement until you are happy. Take a sheet of paper larger than the heart and press it down over the top so that it leaves an outline of each tealight. Place the paper on a firm, portable surface and move each of the tealights into its position on the paper. Glue each tealight to the one next to it. Gently remove the pape......

What says Valentine's more than anything else? Well, there are hearts.... and of course, there are chocolates. But if there is any one thing that symbolises romance it would have to be red roses - the flower of love! Can't afford a dozen long stemmed roses this Valentine's Day? Well how about some artificial roses to dress up your dinner table instead. I picked up mine for just $2-50/bunch from Crazy Clarks.   To pad the bunches out I added some hessian (burlap) ribbon from Joann's and some red picks - mine are a combination of Christmas decorations and party picks from decorations that I'd stored away from parties past, but you can pick these up from your local party store for just a few dollars. Here's what I did. Firstly, I cut lengths of hessian ribbon, placed the ends together and threaded a length of 26 gauge wire along the edge. You want to make sure you're about a centimetre from the bottom edge so that it doesn't fray.  Pull the wire to gather t......

A few days ago I shared the monogrammed napkin rings for the engagement party and I'll have more table decorations for you in the next few days but today I'm turning my attention to decorating the party room. To tie the bride and groom's favourite colours of red and blue together, we used hessian/burlap and a white lacy edging. Continuing with that theme, we created some bunting to be hung across the doorways and over the gift table. It's a quick, easy and very inexpensive decorating idea. The total cost for 4 lengths of bunting was under $5 and all we needed was hessian/burlap, a stencil, paper doilies and acrylic paint. Using a template for the triangles makes it easy to get them all the same size and also helps you get the best economy from your hessian. I found it also helped me keep the weave of the fabric straight which will make the stencilling step much easier. Use a permanent marker to trace out one triangle for each letter or space that you will need. Cut out ......

I got carried away with drawing butterflies last week and made so many that I decided to use them for the final frame in my black and white butterfly series. You can see the other ones here , here and here . Not being much of a sketcher, I found it challenging to create a pair of identical wings. But what I discovered is that the wings don't need to be identical. As long as the outline of the butterfly is symmetrical, then your eye doesn't notice the differences in the pattern from one half of the butterfly to the other. And the easy way to get a symmetrical butterfly is to use a die cut! Anyway, here it is: the final black and white butterfly shadow box in the series. For this project I die cut 7 Sizzix butterflies  (retired design) and 1 Cuttlebug butterfly . Then I went to town sketching/colouring butterflies with a Pigma Micro Pen  for the black-on-white butterflies and Inkssentials White Opaque Pen  for the white-on-black butterflies. To help with the patterns, I di......