My First Topiary

Alicia — Thu, 26 May 2011 14:33:26 +0000

I made a wreath using rosettes made from book pages:
And I liked it so much that I decided to apply the same idea to a topiary. I’ve been wanting to try this for awhile, but I didn’t have the necessary supplies on hand. But then I had a thought and decided to give it a try. I’ve had an old vase metal vase around for awhile. I’ve had kitchen skewers in my cupboards for months. I have fabric strips rolled into balls that I’m never going to use for anything…

So I parked myself in front of Netflix on my lap top. I set my lap top on my kids’ Lightening McQueen table, and I glued the kitchen skewers together. Then I glued them to the fabric ball.

I’m out of glue sticks so I couldn’t properly finish the project. It still needs rosettes on the backside of the fabric ball and some rosettes to go at the base of the skewers.

I actually think the skewers and the vase need some paint, but that will come later on when I’ve decided on JUST the right shades.

Also, I was just thinking… I wonder what a picture frame would look like covered in those paper rosettes? I think I’ve taken the rosette idea as far as sanity will permit, but someone else should definitely try it! I wouldn’t put a picture in the frame. Or glass, actually. I would just hang it on the wall.

Find a tutorial on how to make paper rosettes HERE

Dream Journal

Alicia — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:30:35 +0000

I have a cousin who writes. We like to get together and talk about writing because it’s comfortable. I feel 100% comfortable telling her all about my crazy writing things like “sometimes I get mad when my fictional characters don’t drop me a line. I mean, I’ve devoted so much time to them and they never come around! All I’m saying is that an email would be nice.” See that? Crazy talk. But not to her.

All my life, I’ve had off-the-wall dreams. My college roommates used to gather around to listen to my latest weird dreams. Aside from being radically nuts, my dreams have always served one great purpose: they’ve given me writing ideas. I once had a dream that completely dissolved my writer’s block and “fixed” every big problem I had with my novel.

That being said, my cousin just turned 17. For her birthday, I decided to make her dream journal. I’ve never attempted anything like this before, but I am really happy with how it turned out.

Did you know that they make SPRAY ADHESIVE?!?! My life is never, ever going to be the same. EV-ER. I started out with a $1 notebook.

I sprayed the notebook and put fabric on it, tucking under the raw edge on the side and folding the rest of the raw edges under the notebook cover.

I then took a complimentary piece of scrap fabric and stitched the words “Dream On…” into it. Obviously, I didn’t follow any sort of pattern at all. I didn’t even use an embroidery hoop because the fabric was too small and I was too lazy to get up and get it anyhow.

I spray-adhered it to the cover and then I added some ric-rac to the binding.

I repeated the process on the back (minus the cruddy stitching).

To cover the raw folded-under edges on the insides of the covers, I just glued the first and last pages to the inside covers. Like so:

It probably would have looked better if I’d taken a perfectly cut-to-shape piece of cardstock and covered it. But I made this journal around 11 pm and there’s no such thing as cutting anything perfectly that late at night. Not for me.

I hope she likes this little journal and I hope she gets some use out of it. In any case, I know for a fact she won’t think I’m crazy for giving it to her. Love that girl!

Story Lady's Crafts » Paper Crafts

My First Topiary

Dream Journal