colors

Sparkle Wine Charms

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a small compensation if you make a purchase using the links below.

Wine, glitter and unicorns.  Really, what’s not to like??? I know, I know, you don’t really want to hear about another unicorn anything, or do you? I have to admit, I am actually not much of a unicorn lover but I love all of the rainbow color combos that are coming out of it.  In honor of the unicorn craze, here are my unicorn sparkle wine charms.

You will need:

I love glitter but it can be such a mess. Line a baking sheet with foil and line up your pendant bases. I love the feminine scallops on these.  They remind me of unicorns. To scoop the glitter out of the tube, I used a seafood scoop/pick.  It’s the perfect size to reach into the tube and it picks up just the right amount of glitter. Carefully cover the base with glitter.  I sprinkled a larger size glitter on top but you can experiment and mix with other colors as well! Once you’ve covered the bottom, make sure it is leveled out as best as possible. The seafood scoop worked great for this. Now add a thin layer of your enameling resin.Once you’ve covered them all, pop them into the oven at 325 degrees for only a couple minutes or until you see the resin has cleared.  Once cooled add another layer of resin and repeat in the oven. Continue to do this until it is smooth and completely covered.  After the first cycle, don’t worry if you see craters in the glitter when you take them out. Fill those areas with more glitter as needed to cover the base, but I would only do this after the first cycle.

The resin will harden almost immediately and give you a smooth surface while letting the glitter sparkle through.

With a pair of needle nose pliers, attach the jump rings to the pendants and then attach the charm rings.

And that’s it! Invite all of your unicorn friends over for that glass of bubbly and make sure to follow me on Instagram. I will be giving away a set of Unicorn Sparkle Wine Charms and details will be posted today!

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GUEST PEACE: A Gold, Glam, and Fab Bridal Shower

| A Peace of Creativity

My dear friend, Yadira, is engaged to be married next month and she recently had her bridal shower hosted by Linda and family.  This fam could open their own event planning business with talents in multiple areas! Needless to say, they threw a gorgeous bridal shower.  Here is a peek into her gold, glam and fab shower!

A re-purposed wood sign and thrift store wire screen painted gold by Linda’s daughter and the bride-to-be’s BFF, Katie. Photos hung on the screen by Jordan Hazel.Linda’s husband, Reid and craftsman extraordinaire, painted and put together the posts surrounding the main banquet table.Outdoor bar cart complete with a hand stenciled “Bubbly Bar” sign and lots of rose!Gorgeous floral centerpieces by Linda’s friend, Elizabeth: roses, lisianthus, ranunculus, stock, coffee bean and geranium leaves

The gold containers were spray painted gold by Reid and complimented by paper goods purchased from Etsy and Cake Girls.Catering by Linda’s son, Daniel: smoked salmon, parmesan crisps with a goat cheese mousse, chicken salad on wonton skins, toasted points with micro greens and vinegarette, bruschetta, mini eggplant sandwiches, and mixed greens with carrots, cucumbers, and grilled chicken with a ginger citrus dressing.Linda’s daughter, Sarah, made the naked cake from scratch to accompany the mini eclairs and cream puffs.Custom photo backdrop complete with an old painted bench by Reid, tissue paper tassels, and gold frames.Katie spray painted old wine and beer bottles to place as accent pieces around the garden.Favor bags: pink tea bag with a pink rock candy stickWhite lanterns and glass and gold tea light holders hung from the poles above the table for a dreamy and romantic feel.The beautiful bride-to-be and her flower crown by Elizabeth.  We can’t wait for you and Mike to tie the knot!

Linda is a Southern California native and a passionate party planner in her spare time. Every event she holds is perfected down the the smallest detail.  She has a beautiful eye for color and shabby-chic, rustic decor. She is a loving wife, mother of 6 and has 8 grandchildren!  That’s a lot of parties!

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Guest Peace: Cakes & Cookies

| A Peace of Creativity

Tiffany is a full time working mom of 3 amazing kids ranging from 8 months to almost 8 years old. She has loved cooking and baking since she was a kid. After completing her master’s degree in business, she was still drawn to cooking and baking and decided to attend culinary school. Tiffany had her first child towards the end of her culinary education and since then making treats for family and friends has been her culinary outlet.

I started dabbling in cake and cookie decorating when my oldest son turned 3. I had very specific ideas of how I wanted the kid’s birthday cakes and treats to look which made the ones I purchased pretty pricey.

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As I decorate my treats my older kids often sit at the table and work on their own creations. They usually end up using the extra fondant like play dough which gets messy but it is fun quality time.

Most of my designs are based on what the client requests. And by clients I mean my kids, nieces, nephews and close family friends.

One of my latest projects was a doll cake for my niece. She knew exactly what she wanted and gave me detailed instructions. It was so much fun.

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The typical design process starts with the client telling me the theme of the cake. Then together we look at pictures so that I am sure to include important details. Once that is done I sketch out a rough drawing of the cake and create a game plan on how to accomplish the design. With the exception of the dolls, I try to keep everything edible.

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Larger figurines on my cakes are made out of rice krispy treats. What’s the point if you can’t eat it, right? If krispy treats do not work I use extra cake or even cookies to get the job done.

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Taste was also a huge factor in how I wanted to make my cakes and cookies. I was never a huge fan of fondant until I happened across a recipe for marshmallow fondant. What a game changer! Delicious and I could make all sorts of fun design with it.

For the cookies, I use candy melts for the simple designs. Candy melts on sugar cookies are wonderful! There are times when royal icing is necessary though. I try to keep the designs simple so that the cookies do not need extended drying times. There is nothing tasty about a dry cookie.

My fondest memories are cooking and baking with my grandma over the weekends. It was never anything particularly fancy but my grandma had a way of making the simplest things amazing. Now as a mom of 3 I want to create similar memories with my kids.

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Mermaid Princess Party

| A Peace of Creativity

While I was (very) pregnant with the twins, my best friend’s daughter was turning 3 and having a mermaid party. I really wanted to help even though I could barely walk through the store at the time! I didn’t know what I was going to make at first but I knew that I would use whatever I could find at the dollar store in one trip.

Looking for anything mermaid or princess, I decided to pull together some centerpieces.My daughter and a I spent some quality art time together dipping shells in fuschia, aqua, and green glitter…

and we carefully placed them in the bowls on top of the glass beads with the mini tiara combs.I wrapped jeweled ribbon around the top of the bowl and glued small styrofoam balls to look like pearls.After everything was done, each centerpiece probably cost about $3 a piece. Such a steal and perfect for the mermaid princess’ special day!I had some leftover shells and pearls. How cute are these for some table confetti?


For more mermaid princess crafts, check out these tiaras and wands!

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GUEST PEACE: NIGHTENGAIL ART

| A Peace of Creativity

Gail_newGail is a native of Florida, but has now adopted California as her own, thanks to her love of avocados and mountains (one of which Florida is lacking). She has been working as an in-house book designer for over 8 years and works on freelance illustration projects in her spare time. She has illustrated one educational digital picture book and hopes to publish one of her author/illustrated stories one day as a classic picture book. For her, picture books bring together her love of illustration, typography, and printing–and she will yammer on about them for hours if you let her.

For the past number of years, I’ve made it a habit to create nursery art for friends, family, and close coworkers when I find out they’re expecting. I’ve tried to make them a bit fancier each time in an effort to push myself to get better at my art and build a portfolio of work. More complex = more time, and recently I’ve run into a dilemma. Between the day job, my own personal art projects, and the number of IOUs for friends and expected little ones, I found that I had more of these art pieces than time to create full colored illustrations for. To find a solution, I had to simplify: pen-and-ink drawings, maybe a hint of color. That is all.

Elephant_watercolor_closeup

Swatches_scrapI decided to make use of what I had lying around: scrap watercolor paper (Arches, 140 lb), remnants from larger sheets that I cut down to sizes needed for various finished projects. I cut the remnants into 5×7 sizes, with any smaller pieces heading straight to the scrap bin, to be used later to test watercolor mixes before I apply them to finished pieces. Each large sheet of watercolor paper is too expensive to let anything go to waste.
Dog_closeup_eraserDrawings were done in pen-and-ink, sometimes being sketched out first in pencil, sometimes drawn freeform and impulsively. That is particularly true with some of my favorite animals: foxes, elephants, giraffes. They are fun to draw and I’ve probably drawn them a few too many times.
Once drawn, I add a touch of color to accent but not detract from the final images.
Ladybugs
The images come from a combination of what I know a person wants as an image and what I’m in the mood to draw that day. They are a nice change of pace from the portfolio pieces that I redraw and redraw until I am (sometimes) happy with them. These are play.

Those of you familiar with Mel and her new years announcement might be able to guess which one of these I created for their nursery.

Dog_Closeup

To follow Gail and her artful adventures:
website: http://nightengailart.com/
twitter: @nightengailart
instagram: nightengail

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GUEST PEACE: Fabric Leaf Coasters

| A Peace of Creativity

246676_4716433631114_1290277048_nJulie a fifty-something, married, full-time working mom of recent college grad Eric and college junior Ali.  After two years, she is starting to discover some good things about the life of an empty nester:  expanding from focus on the kids and career to her place in a larger world, with time to appreciate both natural and designed beauty.  So she crafts and bakes now whenever the inspiration strikes…. why not?

I needed coasters for our high rise condo and have always liked fabric coasters.  I searched online but couldn’t find fabric coasters that I really liked, so thought I’d try making some myself.  I wanted to add an organic touch to our contemporary decor, so I chose to make coasters that mimic various leaves:  maple, palm, gingko, etc.

1.  Sketched a few different leaf shapes onto felt and cut them out.

2.  Cut out a matching shape in a complementary felt color.
3. Embroidered the “veins” on the outward side of each felt leaf.  I used both metallic and matte embroidery flosses.4. Hand stitched the two sides together (right sides out) and embellished with a crystal droplet bead for a little bling.
I love how they turned out!  You can use different leaves or colors for different seasons.  Or different holiday themes:  Hearts, flowers, snowflakes, etc.  Maybe even initials or words.  They cost pennies to make and they’re both decorative and functional!

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A Hot Air Balloon First Birthday

| A Peace of Creativity

When my sister-in-law told me she wanted my nephew’s first birthday theme to be “Growing UP, UP, UP”, I was super excited. The possibilities with hot air balloons seemed endless. To start the process, I gave her a selection of color palettes and asked her to pick her favorite. I find that this is the best place to start. When you begin an event, you most always have an idea of a few colors you would like to use, but finding coordinated hues can be difficult. That is where searching color palettes online comes in handy and you can base the entire event off of an inspired palette.

For invitations, I like to incorporate a 3D aspect using foamy double-sided tape. In this case, I found mismatched prints that went with the theme and cut out number ones. Pair with red envelopes and they are ready to send! The other item that I was in charge of was the Happy Birthday banner. Using the same font from the invitations, I printed and cut out letter stencils on cardstock.  Those stencils were used on a thick, red scrapbook paper.
For the bunting, I cut letter-sized, brown, kraft colored paper in half and created another stencil to cut out the triangular shape from the bottom.  Punch two holes on the top and string! To add more color and make it a little more dynamic, I picked out 3 coordinating prints and 3 solid papers in the same colors.  Having the color palette on my phone made it easy to make sure I was picking out the correct shades at the store.
Spray adhesive really worked best on this project as the craft glue was creating wrinkles in the paper. The party was at a beautiful park in the neighborhood. To separate each word on the banner, I used the extra invitations and as a finishing touch, added some red, burlap ribbons.
My sister-in-law created this adorable banner of all of the monthly photos using scrapbook paper and string to attach and decorate the baskets. In a stroke of luck, Oriental Trading Co. had these paper lantern, hot air balloons in the exact colors we needed. They really added to the space and were super easy to assemble and take down.
It was a beautiful day only made better by celebrating the very first birthday of the sweetest little nephew.

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GUEST PEACE: A Pineapple & Flamingo 30th

| A Peace of Creativity

The last few months have been full of milestones here on A Peace of Creativity with a Kickstarter launch, the arrival of Mel’s niece, and her mom’s 60th birthday. Today I’m sharing another milestone – my little sister’s flamingo-and-pineapple-themed 30th birthday.

The decorations were a mix of DIY projects and curated discount store finds, but the hit of the party was definitely the pineapple made of gerbera daisies from my florist friend at Westwood Flower Garden.

 From the beginning, I knew I wanted to keep the color palette limited to bright pink, green and yellow with touches of gold.

I like hitting a few different discount stores when planning parties, especially if it’s a seasonal event. These awesome flamingo goblets and “sunglasses” were $0.99 and I couldn’t pass them up. Just remember that if you’re really sticking to a theme, don’t try to justify things that only sort of fit your vision just because they’re so inexpensive – in the end you’ll end up with pieces you don’t really love and they’ll detract from what you’re trying to accomplish. I had to remind myself that pineapples and flamingos aren’t the same as luaus quite a few times No matter how cute those coconuts were, they didn’t fit this time around!

My favorite project was making the cupcake toppers – they served the dual purpose of bringing in more pineapple decor and adding a homemade touch.

To make them, I scanned a hand-drawn picture and added a circular border (using PowerPoint, believe it or not!) and then used the same size circular border with letters to spell out a message. I printed it all on glossy photo paper, cut out the circles, and used a circle punch to cut slightly larger circles from sparkly scrapbook paper. A little bit of glue, paired with a toothpick secured with washi tape, and they were done!

The perfect way to relay a birthday wish! As an added sentimental touch, I displayed the cupcakes on a tray that my dad made many years ago.

A party in my family is never complete without fabric bunting. I found pineapple fabric and selected other coordinating prints, folded all the fabric so I could cut out triangles with the flat side on the fold, sewed a seam about ¼” from the fold, and then strung them on string across the patio.

I spent most of the morning setting up the yard, but if you were in the Los Angeles area on July 18, you know what happened – rain! At least my tassel garland stood up to it!

The garland is fairly quick to make and so easy to customize in the colors of your party. I folded each sheet in half and cut strips starting from the bottom edge and stopping about 2-3” from the fold so then when unfolded, there was a solid strip down the center.

Starting on one side, roll or fold the tissue paper into a tube and then twist the center (the way you would wring out a towel).

Fold it in half and then twist the top so it forms a loop. At that point you can string them on rope or twine using knots to keep them in place; I’ve also seen people use glue to keep them evenly spaced.

IMG_4650 My sister’s favorite fruit is watermelon…which just so happens to be the same color as flamingos. A flamingo-shaped cookie cutter was the perfect way to add another personalized touch.

Pineapple extract added an unexpected surprise to my mom’s homemade butter cookies.

We were all a little disappointed that we couldn’t join these guys in the pool (I think one of them took it all a little too seriously!)

But, the most important part was that we all made the best of the situation and my sister had a great 30th birthday!

393197_10100930939217166_496989639_nLauren and I have been best friends for over 20 years and she is my “go to” person for any and all things crafty. Her technical mind mixed with a love of design makes for a beautiful and easy execution of whatever she decides to create.

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Personalized Pillows

| A Peace of Creativity

It’s time for another felt project!  After making the Chicka Letters, I wanted to use the same concept to create personalized pillows for some of the dear little ones in our lives.

20150620-namepillows-01Using the same font but in a smaller size as the Chicka Letters, I printed and cut out letter stencils from the computer.

20150620-namepillows-02From my abundant supply of felt, I tried to pick complementary colors for each letter of the name.  I love this pillow cover because it allows the colors to pop and brings a youthful and modern balance.

20150620-namepillows-03In order to center the name on the pillow, I simply folded the pillow in half height and lengthwise and marked it with a pin.  This gave me a guideline to work from.  After placing all of the letters down, I then measured the left and right margins in order to make sure they were of similar length.  A plastic cutting board inside the pillow case allowed for an easier pinning session!

20150621-namepillows-05This is a case where an embroidery hoop really comes in handy because the pillowcase is pre-made.  Using the hoop kept the opening of the pillowcase wide enough to stitch in and out. And, it’s done!

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