pink

GUEST PEACE: Felt Flamingo Purse

| mel@apeaceofcreativity.com
Kelly is a mother to two beautiful girls and a self-proclaimed “maker of beautiful messes.” She has been crafting in one form or another for most of her life and gets the most joy out of watching that same creative spirit growing in her girls. She loves unicorns, cake, peonies and anything that glitters. Her trusty hot glue gun never leaves her side.

In my house, there is a lot of pretend play and dress up happening constantly. My oldest daughter is 6 and quite the “girly-girl.” I swear, I have no idea where she gets this from. No seriously, it wasn’t me. I wear only flip flops, have a handful of dresses shoved in the back of my closet and have been using the same purse for the last 3 years. My daughter however…she’s obsessed with dresses, purses, shoes, and even makeup! She has an entire dress-up wardrobe bursting with princess dresses, purses, shoes, wands, tiara’s, you name it. Nothing makes her happier than to put on a fancy dress with accessories and prance about the house, showing off to anyone who will pay attention.

Her current obsession is with purses. Which she will carefully pack with chapstick, bracelets, toys and anything else that will fit, before we leave the house. She will then last a total of 5 minutes carrying her purse around before getting tired of it and wanting someone else to hold it for her. So now purses have been limited to dress-up play at home only.

This project was inspired by my little girly-girl, who clearly is in need of yet another purse. It’s perfect for playtime and gives me all those summertime feels!

You will need:

If you can trace, cut and weld a hot glue gun, this project will be easy as pie!

Start by printing out and preparing your templates.

On your premium pink felt you’ll be cutting out two of the Body Templates and Feather Templates. The number of Feather Templates will depend on how long you need the purse to be as this acts as the strap. I used 10 for mine.

On your black felt you’ll be cutting out the Black Beak Template.

On your white felt you’ll be cutting out the White Beak Template.

On your pink glitter felt you’ll be cutting out two of the Wing Templates, the Head Template and the Neck Template.

Once you have all of your pieces cut out, you are ready to begin assembly!

Begin by taking your Head piece and hot gluing the Black Beak portion on top, lining up the edges.

Next, hot glue the White Beak portion onto the Head, making sure it butts right up against the Black Beak and lines up on the edges.

Look at that fabulous Flamingo head you just made! That Flamingo needs a neck, so go ahead and grab your Neck piece and hot glue it down onto the back of the Head.

Now we’re going to jump over to the body, which will be just as fabulous! So set the head and neck piece aside for just a minute. We’ll come back to it later.

Take your two Body pieces and line them up together but don’t hot glue them just yet! First, you want to line up your Wings on either side of the body, so that the tail feather portion meets up just beyond the end of the body. Make sure they are even on both sides of the Body before gluing down. I also drew some designs onto my Wings to give them more character, so go crazy and be creative with it.

Keeping those two Body pieces together and lined up, grab your Head and Neck piece and glue down the other end of the Neck in between the two Body pieces. Starting from the Neck, glue just the very bottom of the Body pieces together, all the way to where the tail feathers on the Wings meet up. This is where you could also sew if you preferred, but I’m a fan of how fast and easy the hot glue is and I think it holds just as well.

You’re going to leave the top open, so you can place all the goodies in there, but feel free to add a button, snap or zipper if you’re super talented!

For this next part, you’ll need your little model, to determine how long to make the strap. Start off with at least 6 feathers and glue them together, flipping every other feather over so you have a staggered pattern. Add as many more feathers as you need for the desired length.

You’re going to glue one end of the strap to the head of the Flamingo and the other end to the body. You might need your little model again to make sure everything lays nicely. Or that could just be me obsessively checking and getting eye rolls from my daughter. Just go with it!

And you’re done! Can you believe how fast and easy that was?

To see more fun and colorful crafts, follow Kelly on Instagram @rosyposycrafts!

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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: 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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Embellished Letters

| A Peace of Creativity

I am an auntie again!  My adorable little niece is a week and a couple days old and to celebrate this new life, I wanted to share something my mother in law, Vicki, and I made for her.

Vicki told me that she got some letters from the craft store and would love my help in thinking of ways to decorate them for the nursery.
In brainstorming this process, I knew that I wanted multiple textures in order to keep the letters interesting and to give it a really custom and handmade feel.  After a very successful shopping trip, we picked up yarn, tulle, embossed scrapbook paper, glitter, adhesive pearls and chiffon flowers.

To cover the letters in scrapbook paper, trace a flipped over letter on the back of the paper.  After cutting it out, we used spray adhesive to affix it to the letter.  In a matter of minutes, it was dry.

Spray adhesive was also used to cover the “I” with glitter.  We used a couple coats of both just to make sure that there was an even cover of glitter.  Using white glitter on a white painted letter helped to disguise any holes, if there were any.Wrapping the letters in yarn and tulle was by far the hardest step.  I found that by wrapping in the long direction first, as pictured above, and then continuing to wrap in the short direction covered most of the gaps.  A glue gun also helped tremendously to keep the wraps in place as we went along.

Probably the most fun part of the process was embellishing each letter with the florals and pearls in a unique but cohesive way.

  
  

It was a challenge to mix so many different elements while sticking to one style.  One thing I try to do, is to pick one element that you really love and center your design around that.  The fabric flowers were one of the first things we found and our favorite.  Everything else we chose was based on those flowers.We can’t wait to see what they will look like up on the wall of the nursery.  I will have to post a photo when they are hung.

Stay tuned as I really want to try these letters again for a friend’s living room!

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