I am so glad that it is almost Spring! Soon leaves will start budding on trees and flowers will appear en masse. Fresh flower trimmings will brighten indoor spaces, but only after I scold my kids for picking all of the fresh blooms from the landscaping. Sigh.

If you are a Pebbles Blog regular, then you know that I love making home décor pieces with regular ol’ wooden embroidery hoops. Inspired by the brightly colored flowers in the Home Grown collection, I dug into my stash of embroidery hoops to create a simple piece of embroidery hoop décor. BONUS: Embroidery hoop décor also doubles as dog toys! Double sigh.

Guess what? There was a fussy cut made to create this bright, floral wreath. Yesss!

Pebbles makes flowers easy. The only supply I used to make this wreath was a package of die cut flower chips. There are 80 flowers and leaves (bonus!) in this package, which is more than enough to go the entire way around a hoop to make a more grand wreath. And they are so pretty, too.

An easy way to plan your bouquet is to trace the embroidery hoop onto a piece of cardstock and play around with the floral arrangement. This gives you the freedom to experiment and change your mind before anything becomes semi-permanent. TIP: Take a picture of your final arrangement to use as a reference when putting your flowers onto the embroidery hoop.

Layer the larger flowers with foam dots to help create a bold focal point. Rather than assemble your paper flower bouquet directly on the embroidery hoop, cut out a little piece of the circle to use as a base. This will help ensure that your bouquet follows the curve of the hoop. Trim any excess away after you have assembled your bouquet.

Add a bit of extra sparkle and dimension to your flowers by highlighting the flowers with glitter glue. Yep, the very same stuff that you hoarded as a kid is still a very useful craft supply.

Attach flowers to the front and back of the cardstock as you create your bouquet. This will add depth to your bouquet and help you get the flowers in just the right place.

After your bouquet is assembled, use foam dots throughout to add dimension to your bouquet. I used several foam dots to separate different flowers and pop up leaves to give the bouquet more depth.

Happy Spring!
Amanda

Supplies:
HOMEGROWN PRINTED CHIPBOARD PIECES 100/PKG EPHEMERA FLOWERS
ZAZZ! GLITTER GLUE .5OZ
Embroidery hoop

Mini Wreath Ornaments

Dec

1 Comment

I love looking at thematic, color coordinated Christmas trees, but nothing brings me as much joy as the hodge-podge of handmade ornaments that adorn our family Christmas tree. Each one brings back sweet Christmas memories. Every year I add to the mix by making new handmade ornaments. Inspired in part by a broken embroidery hoop I had laying around in my craft room, I decided to make mini wreath ornaments this year.

Holiday wreaths come in a wide variety of themes and can be made out of just about any material. I had some fun with patterned paper from the Home for Christmas collection and put together a couple of mini wreath ornaments for the Christmas tree.

I am a sucker for red and white striped peppermints. Using regular ol’ circle punches (3/4″ and 1/2″) I punched out several peppermints from a sheet of 12″x12″ paper and adhered them to a DIY wreath base (below). I adhered a satin bow and made a loop by adhering a piece of ribbon to the back of the ornament.

I added some texture and dimension to the wreath by popping up the smaller punched peppermints with foam. And although I had fully intended to save them for “later”, I also added some peppermint enamel dots. Aren’t they yummy?

If you don’t have a mini embroidery hoop to use as your ornament base, die cut several rings from chipboard and adhere them together to make a sturdy wreath base. So easy.

Having made full-size paper leaf wreaths before, I thought it would be fun to shrink everything down and make a mini paper leaf wreath ornament. I simply punched a bunch of holly leaves from patterned paper and adhered them to an embroidery hoop. Voila!

After gluing the broken embroidery hoop back together, I affixed glue dots around the hoop in small sections. Starting near the top of the hoop, I adhered the leaves to the glue dots, making sure to vary the orientation of the leaves as I went along. Don’t forget to add a pretty bow.

Happy Holidays!
Amanda

Supplies:
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS DOUBLE-SIDED CARDSTOCK 12″X12″ HOLLY JOLLY
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS DOUBLE-SIDED CARDSTOCK 12″X12″ O CHRISTMAS TREE
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS DOUBLE-SIDED CARDSTOCK 12″X12″ PEPPERMINT SWIRL
HOME FOR CHRISTMAS SELF-ADHESIVE DOTS 45/PKG CANDY CANE
PREMIUM RIBBON VALUE PACK .375″X4′ 24/PKG

Colors Of Fall: Easy Autumn Wreath

Oct

1 Comment

Hi friends, it’s Wendy Sue here with you today, to share my latest paper creation – this bright and colorful autumn leaf wreath! I love watching the mountainsides in my little valley as the leaves on the trees change from vivid green to gorgeous shades reds, oranges, and yellows! It’s so beautiful! Unfortunately, the colors don’t seem to last very long. My solution? Create my own colorful autumn wreath with PAPER leaves – then I can enjoy the bright, colorful leaves for as long as I want!

Creating a wreath like this is really quite simple and you can make your own in just a few easy steps. In fact, this project is SO easy the kids could help you – or better yet, they could make wreaths of their own!

I used a Silhouette cut file to cut my leaves and wreath base, but the shapes are so simple, they could easily be cut by hand – use whichever method is easier for you!

Begin by cutting a wreath base. This is simply a “donut” shaped circle. It can be as big or small as you like, and it definitely doesn’t have to be perfect – it’s going to be hidden anyway.

Now you’ll want to cut a bunch of leaves from your favorite colorful papers – I chose papers from the Home Made Collection 6×6 Pad. The leaves don’t have to be fancy…just kind of a squashed oval.

Now you’ll want to fold the leaves in half – I used a scoring board and bone folder, but you could simply fold them, give them a good crease, then unfold them slightly.

Now just start layering all of your leaves onto your wreath base. Use a drop of glue to secure each leaf as you go.

If you want to include the mini banner, simply place some flag stickers onto a piece of twine and attach it to the back of the wreath – add small letter stickers or use a marker to hand-write whatever you’d like your greeting to say.

Supplies:
Home Made 6×6 Paper Pad (732644)
Home Made Cardstock Stickers (732611)
American Crafts Hemp Twine

Special Delivery Collection with Guest Sheila Burns

Mar

23 Comments

*Be sure to hop over to Facebook and enter our Special Delivery giveaway!

We’re kicking off a week of AMAZING projects featuring the Special Delivery collection. Here to start things of right is Guest Designer Sheila Burns, from Part Time Pretties, with a trio of paper craft and scrapbooking ideas using the line.

Sheila is a wife, mom and crafter! She works with many mediums from knitting to paper crafting and scrapbooking. She’s also an avid blogger, providing craft inspiration to others many times a week.