Lilliputian Envelopes

Wow Martha!  You’ve really outdone yourself this time.  The next time I get invited to a Lilliputian’s birthday party, I’ll be ready to give them the cutest card/envelope ever!!!

Before you make a snide remark that I probably missed the instructions that state you should “enlarge” the template, I didn’t.  I looked everywhere and didn’t see any. 

Whoops!  I take that back.  As I was writing up my recap, I re-read the instructions and she states that you should “Photocopy a template to your desired size.”  My suggestion: BE MORE CLEAR.  Why not something such as, “The templates provided in this book are for ‘little people.’ You need to enlarge the templates in order to write any other word besides ‘hi.’”

Templates provided in the back of the book

Keep in mind that the grid you see below is in INCHES.  Each square is a square inch.  Hopefully that gives you some perspective because while I learned in Geography class a long time ago, they used to place a pack of cigarettes in the picture to give a feel for the size of the object, I don’t smoke, thus no cigarette packs around.

I'm not too into crafting alone, so Lauren came over, we had a beer and she created some 'Just Moved' cards (since she'll be moving to Cincinnati shortly).  Boo.  What is it with all of my friends moving??? 


Below is the template that she recreated, FREEHAND no less, next to the one provided in the book.

My Lilliputian envelope, and Lauren's "normal"-sized envelope

There were four templates total, and in the following picture, I displayed them in their original Lilliputian size as well as an enlarged size.   

And it wouldn't be a complete blog post without one more Hipstamatic picture of the finished project.

To seal the envelopes, I just used a circle-punch on a coordinating piece of paper and then glued it on.  It's not resealable, but I think it's kind of cute!

Hey, I just thought of a bonus for the tiny envelopes!  You could use the left-over confetti from a 3-hold punch to seal them!  THEY'RE THAT SMALL.

Shake Your Pom-Pom

Okay.  I have to admit that I was a little leery of this project.  My BFF Lauren made some of these for my baby shower and I fell in love with them.  It was one of the first things I noticed when walking into her house... these airy, little, flowery orbs.  So cute, so classy, so what I aspire to be.


When I first mentioned to her that I would be tackling this project, she thought it would be best to do it at a time in which I was a little more "stable."  I was in the process of weaning Peaches McGee and was a wee bit hormonal.  She explained to me that she had broken a pair of scissors while making the pom-poms.  Probably not the best idea to have scissors in the hands of a hormonal woman, right?  Luckily for Peaches, the hubby, and the dog, I heeded her advice and just now did them.


In her book, Martha writes about her paper pom-poms and gives you two separate options - large orbs or napkin rings.  I was still a little worried for the safety of my family, so I went with the smaller napkin rings, i.e., more manageable.


They were pretty straight forward and turned out fairly well!  My first project where I don't really have any complaints (okay, I always have some), but I fear that this post will be fairly boring.


Oh well.


Read on anyways!


I chose a reddish color tissue paper to go with my linens for Mother's Day brunch.

Martha's directions for the napkin rings call for four 10-by-5 inch pieces of tissue paper, and yes I used a ruler:

Then you are to accordion-fold the paper with 3/8 inch folds (yep, used a ruler again):

Then you slip some floral wire (she calls for cloth-covered floral wire, but good Lord, it makes no difference), over the middle of it and twist it.


Next you trim the ends into a rounded or pointy shape.  I didn't take a picture of this step.


Bite me.


Next is the, oh-so-fun part and you separate the layers, pulling them from the center.  The directions are less than ideal for this part, but if you know what it's supposed to look like, you can figure it out.


Below is one with pointy ends.

Again, the directions for creating the actual napkin rings were vague at best, but I just used the same floral wire, secured it around a rolled napkin, and then secured it around the center of the "flower."


Et le piece de resistance:

All That Glitters...

Is MESSY!  Geez – I think that’s going to be my last “glitter” project for quite some time.  I’m still finding glitter.  Oh, and a quick tip.  Refrain from using bowls, etc. that you also use for food.  Unless you are looking to bedazzle your food.

I decided to tackle the Glittered Eggs project (or to be more PC – the glittered “sphere” project) just in time for Easter.  I have an apothecary jar that I have probably already blogged about, but just a refresher, I fill it with decorations appropriate for the upcoming holiday (whichever that may be).  For Easter 2011, I had it filled with plastic eggs, but it was ugly and uninspired.  Enter the lovely Martha.

The project calls for blown-out eggs and OF COURSE, one of the tools that Martha lists in the book is for an egg blower. 

Yeah.  Sure, Martha – let me just run to my craft room and get my trusty egg blower.  WTH?  Who owns one of those???

Oh, and she also suggests using quail and goose eggs.  Oh.  Okay.  Sure, I’ll do that.

On the bright side, I was lucky enough to have my Aunt Penny invite me to her house to work on the project.  She watched Peaches McGee while I huffed and puffed and almost passed out blowing out eggs.  I got through almost 2 dozen and I’m embarrassed to say how long it took (and I can’t remember – lack of oxygen from blowing, I’m sure).  Below is a picture of what happens when you blow and squeeze an egg too hard. 

Yep.  That’s egg yolk running down my hair.

The remainder of the project was done at home, and here was my setup.

Note the glitter in the dinner bowls.  *sigh*  At least I was smart enough to use plastic spoons…

After brushing on craft glue, I dipped and spooned the glitter per Martha’s directions.  At first I used a mixture of clear glitter and colored glitter because I was worried that I would run out of the colors and I had so much of the clear stuff.  That was a big mistake.  Any other person probably would have realized that CLEAR DOES NOT SHOW UP ON WHITE.  Dur. 

So, I repeated my mistake, not once, but twice, and after three eggs, realized I would have to use “pure” glitter.  Here’s a picture of the biracial glitter egg…

After learning my lesson, I used only the colored glitter and I think they turned out pretty cute! 

To display them, I made a little nest of green “grass” and set them gently on top.  I finished it off by tying a bow around the jar that matched the ribbon I used for my Easter Topiaries. (I’ve included pics of those as well)

P.S. The best part of the project was Peaches McGee learning how to “blow.”  While watching me almost kill myself with the eggs, she started blowing too.  So cute.

Baa Baa Black Sheep

Have you any wool felt or mohair yarn handy?  I didn't, so I used what I had in my craft room... regular old felt and acrylic, fuzzy yarn.  Sorry Martha, not all of us have millions of dollars to spend on items we'll only be using once or twice.

So the project calls for making two pom-poms.  One bigger than the other and then sewing them together... I purchased the pom-pom maker at Michael's and looking at the directions, thought it would be pretty straightforward.

Thank God for YouTube!  They had a step-by-step instructional video on how to make the puffy little balls, because it wasn't so "straightforward."  Here are what my two balls look like (for some reason, that sounds really wrong)...

On with the project.  After sewing the two balls together, you use embroidery floss and a needle to sew in a little nose and then you glue on little ears made of felt and finally, you glue pipe cleaners on to the "body" for the legs.  

Miss. Martha of course is extra fancy and asks for "wool" felt (because it makes such a difference?) and she also advises you to "cover" the pipe cleaner legs in felt.  It was 9:30 when I finally got to the pipe cleaner legs and they matched the rest of the black sheep, so screw it.  

That being said, it turned out okay.  Although, I did cheat and used the Hipstamatic app on my iPhone again to make it look even better.  Here it is!

I plan on making some more of these, but I am going to purchase white ACRYLIC (i.e., cheap) yarn to make some white sheep to go with my black sheep.  I'm an equal opportunity sheep maker.

Paper Box or Origami?

Another project, another a) not so great finished product, b) even worse set of directions!

Since I was busy with Peaches McGee's first birthday, I thought I would tackle an easy project: paper boxes.  The directions were pretty straightforward (and yes I read through all of them before starting the project), and the picture made it look like I'd have a useful set of cute boxes when I was done.

I started with the first box (there are seven total) which is the smallest.  Probably not the smartest thing I've ever done, but the picture in the book (here's a link to it which I can't post due to copyright issues, blah blah blah), didn't appear to be too small.  Maybe one in which you could put paperclips or something in it.

Try one earring, and a stud earring at that.  The thing is frickin' tiny.  And the measurements DO NOT WORK.  The lid would not fit onto the box no matter what I did.  For a tiny box like that, I went through an entire sheet of 12" x 12" scrapbook paper.

However, I outsmarted that woman.  I went online and searched for origami box instructions with a lid and found AWESOME step-by-step instructions (check them out here).  

I used these instructions for the next three sizes of boxes and they turned out great!

I then decided to try the instructions for a bigger-sized box since I wouldn't have to use tweezers to fold the paper or a magnifying glass to see what I was doing.

Still lame.  While I was able to get the measurements to work, it wasn't sturdy and the lid would not stay on the box.

So here are the pictures which totally glorify the project because of the cool "Hipstamatic" app for the iPhone.  I'm just tired of looking at all the other craft blogs and seeing these GORGEOUS photos of their projects and mine looks totally heinous in comparison. 

Now, can you tell which one used Martha's directions and which used the origami ones?

p.s. It is very annoying to learn that most (if not every) project in the book that I purchased is online.  Thanks Martha.  I really love spending $35 (okay, I got it through Amazon for less than that, but it's the price on the back of the book) on something that I can get for free!!!

p.p.s.  I also am a little irritated that in the book she calls them "Paper Boxes," but on MarthaStewart.com, they're "Origami Nesting Boxes."  According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong) ;), "The goal of this art (Origami) is to transform a flat sheet of material into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques, and as such the use of cuts or glue are not considered to be origami."  YOU CALL FOR GLUE MARTHA, so it is NOT origami.

Whale of a Step Stool and Ribbons o' Plenty

And, I'm done!

Just put a coat of polyurethane and I'm about ready to set it on fire.  Because I like it?  Nope.  Because I hate it.

Ms. Martha has only one whale on her stool and I'm trying to figure out how the template that she provides, enlarged by 113% (per instructions that, yup, I read), covers the stool.  I'm guessing that either she found a stool from a dollhouse, or maybe one that she uses for her dogs.  

A refresher of what I began with

Then, I sanded down the paint drips, added two coats of primer, two coats of a sky blue satin paint, then three coats each of a light and dark blue acrylic craft paint to the top - all because I wanted to make things as difficult as I could for myself so that I could complain about it. 

I then painstakingly cut out the whale template using two different pieces of blue scrapbook paper and "decoupaged" them to the stool.  I didn't like how it was looking (a little plain if you ask me), so I cut out Milla's name using "Sorority" lettering - as my husband likes to call it.  You know, the letters with the dots on the ends.  Cute, but cheesy, yes! 

Lastly, I put on a coat of polyurethane just for good measure!

One last thing that I had to share... I have a tendency to buy a lot of spools of ribbons.  They're always in those bins at the front of the craft store and they're so cheap!

They were starting to take up some precious real estate and were getting messy, and then all of the sudden, I had an epiphany.  I was looking at a shoe rack that I had purchased a couple of years ago that used to hang on the back of our bedroom door.  Nick HATED that thing because if you shut the door a little too forcefully, the entire rack of shoes would come crashing down.  Let's be honest.  I was typically the one closing it a little too forcefully, but those are just details.

Wellllll.  Those spools fit perfectly on the wiry dowel-like shoe racks - and for those that didn't, I made them fit (with a little elbow grease).  This is what it looks like, and the best news is that I now have TONS of space to put a bunch of new ribbon because there are three more racks just like this one (with a tier in front and back!). 

By the way...

Just an update on the projects... I'm at a stall with the dresser.  That usually happens when there isn't a dresser to actually decoupage.  I found one on Craigslist but obviously they're in a hurry to sell it because they still haven't gotten back to me.

I've put the third and final coat on the Whale Step Stool, and plan to decoupage it tonight! Once again Martha, you make it look so easy, but your directions are for Shih Tzus.  I'll post pics as soon as it's done.

I haven't been getting much sleep lately due to mastitis and Miss. Peaches McGee deciding that she'd rather eat at night rather than during the day.  Evidence that I'm not getting enough sleep... I was trying to turn down the television and silently cursed my husband for taking the batteries out of the remote (so that the little one can play with it), when I realized that I was adjusting the volume on the video monitor.