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Friday, September 18, 2015

Frozen Fever Birthday: Thank Yous

When one receives a gift for a birthday, a thank you card should be sent.

Even if it's a 4 year olds birthday.  With all the ripping, tearing, and flying of the gift wrap, I'm sure there was not nearly enough Thank You's going around at the party!


I designed this from a couple of images found online.  (The background was from Disney Rewards page and the girls were from the Disney wiki page)  I had to make a copy of the castle (with no background), put the girls on there, then stick the castle back over them.  A few etsy sellers had thank you cards with variations of this cute Frozen wording.  

There's room for you to write which gift was given, and space for a 4 year olds signature.  



These will print (3) 4x6 to a page.  There are two versions, one (shown above) that basically says, thanks for coming, and two (not shown) basically says thanks for the gift.

I also designed an envelope for these to fit it...I usually just print directly on store bought envies, but couldn't find my stash so I decided to use up some paper that I'm not very fond of to make up envelopes.  I needed less than a dozen, so it took me about an hour to cut, fold and glue.  TV time :)

Feel free to print these for your own private use.  Links will take you to google docs:

Version 1 card (thanks for coming) click here
Version 2 card (thanks for the gift) click here
4x6 envelope click here
5x7 envelope click here

Happy Crafting!



Saturday, September 12, 2015

Ribbon Sculpture Hair Accessories: Frozen's Anna. A Tutorial


Supplies:  ⅜" grosgrain ribbon in flesh, royal blue, reddish brown, light blue, black, fushia.
2 ¼" grosgrain ribbon in fushia (to match above)
⅛" skinny reddish brown (to match above)
⅛" skinny yellow grosgrain
(if you want the white streak in anna's hair, get some skinny (⅛") white grosgrain)

You'll want to seal all the exposed edges.  You can do this a few different ways:  
1. You can cut with scissors and seal with fray check - easy, but fray check can discolor, 
2. cut with a wood burning tool (i definitely recommend! see my post here)  
3. You can use a candle flame to melt the edges (easy enough on straight edges but you may need LOTS of practice to get even edges on rounded or v shaped cuts)

Start out by measuring one 3" piece for head/body, and one 2 ½" piece for arms in the flesh color.


With the 3" head piece, you'll want to fold over about ½" 


add a bit of hot glue to the short piece (above, on top), then fold over again.  You might want to practice that second fold; because it's small it can be a little tricky to fold and get the edges to line up.  And hot glue doesn't give you second chances...


Now you have your head body piece (I was making two at a time, so that's why there's two shown below!)  Make sure you haven't glued down the loop - you want the hole in the middle to give it the round head shape.  


Now for your arms.  


In the pic above, the arms on the left are not good - pretty jagged and uneven.  The arms on the right are much more even and smooth.  Ribbon is cheap...make it look nice if you can.


On top of your arm piece, lay a 1 ⅝" piece of light blue (depending on how well you cut your hands, this measurement may vary slightly, check your fit on your arms).  You're not going to do anything with this yet, so set it aside.


Now to start on the dress:  Cut 4 pieces 4" long.  The ends don't need to be sealed.
Glue one piece onto your body piece slight off center.  Fold in half and glue to the back.


Add next ribbon slightly off center and overlapping the first.  Finish with the last two ribbons on the outside - try to make it look symmetrical.


Anna has a black shirt that just peaks out underneath her cape.  You'll want to cut a 1 ¼" piece of black.


Fold it in half and glue it down with the fold facing her head.


For the belt, cut two pieces of the skinny yellow at 1 ½".  The ends should be sealed.  Glue it on so that it covers the ends of the black and will form a slight V.  Fold the other edge around to the back side and glue down.  Repeat for other side.


Glue the arms on so that the light blue side faces DOWN.


Now you'll fold the arms down.


They should reach just below the yellow belt.


I used 2" wide pink ribbon for the cape.  I thought it was a little too wide for the doll.


So I created a fan fold in the middle of the back.  It won't be seen once the hair clip is glued on, so just play with it until you get to a width you are happy with.


On one cape, I cut a slit, about ¼" long and then overlapped and glued.  It was easy and worked.

Glue the cap to the back of the doll.


Then fold the edges around towards the front and tack in place.


I didn't buy ⅜" pink for the cape.  I just cut the wide one in half using a metal ruler and my woodburning tool to seal the edge.  Then round the ends, just like with the hands.

You'll want to check your measurements.  The ends of the cape should JUST MEET when they fold over to the front.


Glue it on the back first.  Then fold over to the front and glue down.  You can add a white or black sequin here to look like a button holding it closed.

I wanted my head to touch the top of the black shirt, so I went ahead at this point and added a small dap of glue to the neck area, and glued the chin down.  


The hair on the head is made up of two pieces of ribbon.  The first is 1 ⅜" long and one end should be cut at an angle and sealed.  You'll glue the angle to the forehead, fold the remaining ribbon to the back of the head and glue down.


The second piece of hair is 1 ½".  Start by glueing in the back, fold up around the front of the head and finish in the back.  You may want to play with this a bit before glueing.  


Once you have it the way you like, you can move the ribbon up, add a small bit of glue to help hold the hair in place.


I thought she looked a bit like a cone head, so i folded more of the ribbon back and glued down.  


Braids all one color: cut 3 pieces of skinny brown 4" long.
Adding white to Anna's braid, cut 5 pieces at 4" and one 4" skinny white.
You don't want to deal with ribbon pieces shorter than this...braiding gets complicated.
Braid. Each side will be about an 1 ½".  
I finished my ends with some silver thread wrapped several times around the braid then tied off.  
Clip the ends so they are even.  Glue on the back.


To finish off the clip, cut a piece of coordinating ribbon about 4.5" long.  seal the ends.  Put glue sparingly on about 1" of the ribbon.  Working quickly, open the clip and position the ribbon along the inside of the clip, smooshing it flat.  Add a bit of glue to the back on the clip, fold ribbon in half and smooth flat against the clip and sealing to the other part of the ribbon.


Fold the ribbon around to the other half of the clip and trim.  I leave the other prong of the clip exposed so that it doesn't get tangled in the hair.  Seal the end and glue down.

Position the clip to the back of your Anna Hair Ribbon Doll and glue down. 

Congratulations, you're finished!!


This is my first tutorial, so let me know what you think!  

Happy Crafting!











Saturday, September 5, 2015

Ribbon Sculpture Hair Accessories: Frozen's Anna and Elsa

These things are ALL over Etsy.  Usually priced from $7 to $10.  I decided to Do It Myself.  



Especially if you already have a stash of grosgrain ribbon like me (remember the 7 Disney Princesses from 2014?!) Also Hobby Lobby has a good selection of colors for $3.99, but if you are willing to wait until it's on sale, you save 50%.  and if you only need a little bit of one color, be sure to check out the ribbon near paper crafting, because it's normally $1.99 so during the sale, yep!  only $1!


I made two of each.  For 2 little girls with birthdays that are almost 1 year apart...Also included a headband with a loop so they can be worn as a head band or a clip :)

Happy Crafting!