"Beautiful Butterfly Bookmarks" For Charity, plus how you can make them for yourself or a school project

Promote reading by giving a bookmark :)

www.fleurettebloom.com

My daughter has been wanting to create something that she could make to help children and families in need by donating to charity. We came up with these beautiful bookmarks to sell, then donate the proceeds. For each bookmark that sells, $2.00 will go to charity, the remainder for more supplies to continue this project. After the donation is made, we will list which charity received it. She plans on working with different charities at different times. It could be a child battling a debilitating disease, a family loosing their home or other charity. My daughter is 7 yrs. old and donated her hair to locks of love last summer, she plans to do it again this summer. If you would like to purchase a Butterfly Bookmark to help others, go to www.fleurettebloom.com. and click on the link Thanks :)

Now, lets talk about how we made them. Maybe you will be inspired to make some of your own just for fun, a school project, or as gifts.

The fun thing about this is, it is also good for the earth, as it has a bit of recycling in it. I started with cereal boxes, they make a great base for the bookmark.

Supplies you will need:

Beautiful papers, ink, ribbon, wire, glue, sparkle glue, and watercolor paint, if you want to paint some plain white paper to make some of your own pretty paper. I designed my own butterflies and shapes with the SCAL program. You could also use the "Breezy Meadow Butterflies" at SVGCuts.com for yours, they have a great supply of ready to cut files for cutting machines. You could also cut everything with scissors, if you don't have a machine to cut them. Either way they will look great. Of course you could also make bunnies, easter eggs, or any other shape you can think up, for the top. So much fun and so many options. :)

Cut your cereal boxes apart, then into 2.5" x 6" strips. Next cut your paper the same size. Sandwich them together, with the cardboard in-between, for a finished look. You can then embellish them with other strips of paper. I like to ink the sides for a nice finished look.

Cut two pieces of card stock for your butterfly base, glue them together, cut the wing outlines, and glue the center of the butterfly onto the base butterfly. (this makes it look as if it's fluttering)

Cut and curl wire for the antenna ( I like to use a little scotch tape to secure them onto the base of the bookmark). Then glue your butterfly on top. When you are finished with that, punch a hole in the bottom and string ribbon through. Now you should have a beautiful bookmark.

They are so delightful and fun, plus functional! Help someone in need by purchasing one from my daughter at fleurettebloom.com.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Stop by often as I will be adding new fun projects all the time. :)

Be sure to click on my Facebook page and post your creations. I would love to see them! :)

Promote reading by giving a bookmark :)

www.fleurettebloom.com

Food for thought "The artist has but one idea, he is born with it and spends a lifetime developing it and making it breath" Henri Matisse

Create A Quick Banner As A Gift

Today was my friend's son's birthday and they decided to come over to hang out. Well, he was turning 11, and loves WWE wrestling, so I thought I would surprise him with a banner he could hang in his room. We had already purchased him the wrestling figure you see in the photo, below. That is where the inspiration for this banner came from. As you can see I used the WWE wrestling colors, and they were right on the box. So use what you have around you, to come up with ideas. Your really don't have pull things out of thin air. Inspiration is everywhere you look, you just have to open your eyes and see.

This is a fun simple, quick project that you can make with or without a cutting machine. Of course a cutting machine makes it a bit easier and faster. All you will need is paper for all the pennants , ribbon and glue. Have fun and be inspired. :)

For my black base pennant I used the SVG cuts file "Pirate Birthday Party"
For the other pieces I used the SCAL software and my Cricut, scissors and my printer.
If you have any questions, leave a comment and I will be glad to help. :)

The photo below shows all the cut pieces without any inking around the sides and corners.  I am a huge fan of inking, I love the look it gives.  For an example of it inked, go to the first picture in this set to see how this piece of the banner looks finished.

In this photo you can see all the pieces are cut out. Figure out how many letters are in the name you are making. you will need one piece of paper in each color for each letter. So, if the name you are making is Kenny like mine, you will need 5 pieces for the base, 5 pieces of paper cut slightly smaller for the second layer and 5 more pieces cut a bit smaller than the rest. Once you have all of those cut and ready, you will need your letters. Either buy some at your local craft store or cut out your own.Once you have all your pieces, I like to ink the sides to give dimension or an aged look. That is totally optional.  Now you are ready to glue everything together, cut your ribbon, thread it through, knot it and you are done!

Click on the images to see a larger, closer view.

This the finished banner.

Banners are such a nice way to show someone how important and unique they are. So, make someone smile and make them a banner. They will be happy and so will you. And as always thanks for popping in. :) Get inspired and created something fun!

Here you can see how I wrapped the tree from the side around to the front. I think it gives it a nice flow from side to front. I love to wrap things around when I can, then when someone picks it up to look at it they, automatically begin to turn the piece to look at all sides.

This is the back of my little bird house box. I used a gate design, chalk/inked it to give it a rusted look. Added some more butterflies and more of the fern at the bottom.

On this side of the bird house I used a gate design, cut out what I needed, added chalk ink to give it a rusted look. I also cut up a fern to give the grassy feel at the bottom.

Hear is one of the sides. I used the "Robins Return" for the tree, along with the "Spring Bird houses" for the curly cue greenery. I also used "Breezy Butterflies for the you know what. lol butterflies. Then I used a gate design file to create the fencing on the bottom. For the grass/ferns I used "Moonlight Meadow" I cut out the fern, then cut it into pieces to create the grassy effect. All these files can be found at SVGcuts.com. They really make some great stuff.

This is the roof of the "Spring Birdhouse" it is completely covered in butterflies. I made my own two sided paper, by watercoloring the card stock on both sides. This gives a really soft and colorful butterfly.  Im sure you could also find some pre-printed paper that would also give this effect if you did not want to paint your own.

So, this paper cutting thing is really fun. I just made one of the SVG files from SVG.com. I put my own twist on it and am very happy with the results. I call this one "Springtime In Paris"For this one I used the new AMELIE'S ACCESSORIES SVG KIT, Breezy Meadow Butterflies, Springtime Bird houses for the curly cues and 3D flowers 2. I think I am hooked :)

Having Fun With Paper Crafting, Painting and Canvas

Since the weather was cold for sometime, and I have not painted anything large lately. I needed some inspiration. Well, I had looked into paper crafting many times over the years for a few reasons. One it's a great way to play around without the big mess and worry of wasting expensive art materials. It's also a great playground for ideas. Then thought it would be fun to do with my daughter and friends. So I bit the bullet and bought a paper cutting machine. After purchasing the machine I found some great software that I could use to convert my images into files that I could cut. Wow, the possibilities are endless. I also found a fun site that sells pre-made SVG files that you can purchase to play with if you just want to make some fun stuff with your kids or create some nice cards, gift boxes or for those of you who may scrapbook this is for you! I was inspired by this great web site I found called SVGcuts.com they have a lot of fun ideas. I started messing with some of their files and voila I had a great new idea, here is what I created. I designed a tribute to Jim Morrison of the doors, It's a mixed media piece combining painting, canvas paper and a sealer. If you look in the skull the design is the graffiti from his grave site in Paris. I also put music notes in the Eiffel tower. Of course the lizard is his spirit or essence coming out of the skull, breakin on through to the other side. Morrison referred to himself as the lizard king and was really into American Indian mysticism. He spent the last moments of his life in Paris. I will be making this into a T Shirt really soon available for sale. Fun stuff. :)