Last fall I had the opportunity to take a crepe paper moth orchid class from a master paper flower creator. (Seriously, check out her Instagram!) It was an incredible class and I was very excited to take the pages of notes I took and turn them into my own orchids. Once Christmas projects were done, I finally had time to create them. Then some friends bought their first home and I knew just what to give them! A custom orchid arrangement that won’t die! 🙂 The finished piece was about 27 inches tall.
How I Made the Arrangement
I found a great ceramic vase at a thrift store. It was originally a glossy green and I gave it a modern upgrade with white and 24-carat gold spray paint. I love how it turned out! It was tempting to keep the vase, but it was so perfect for these orchids.
I filled the vase with floral foam and topped it with cardstock so I could glue the white quartz pebbles I found at a local dollar store.
The flowers and buds were made using Lia Griffith doublette in Vanilla/Chiffon. I actually doubled up the doublette (so four layers total) so the flowers would have some thickness. For the pink centers, I used the palest pink in this chalk set and the light purple pen from the Staedtler Triplus Fineliners (love them!!). The stems are doubled or tripled up 18 gauge wire. The leaves are using a very heavy DCWV green crepe I have in my stash that worked out well. I also used Lia Griffith Crepe Paper in Cypress (from this pack) to wrap the stems.
Two of the three rhizomes.
I used wire to have the looped stem attach to the brace.
From above
The back
The arrangement in it’s new home.
This was such a fun project to put together! I’m loving learning more about crepe paper flowers!
For Christmas this year, I made another little storybook titled, “The Cupcake Caper,” for my nieces and nephew featuring a story and game they made up (with some help). I think it turned out so cute! The story is about three bakers who travel the world giving away cupcakes. Then their plane gets kidnapped! To get their plane back they have to bake the world’s largest cupcake. Will they be able to do it? Spoiler: Of course they will. 🙂
The kids loved opening it up (it was wrapped up in multiple boxes, ha!) and seeing a story featuring themselves. It was so fun being able to read it to them. The two year old can tell you who everyone is in the book. So adorable!
It was so fun to read it with them on Christmas and watch them excitedly look at their paper characters build a bigger and bigger cupcake to find the “Miss Megan.” The oldest niece was so excited to see the last HUGE cupcake! hahaha!
To create a copy of the book, I took photos of the pages and uploaded them to Shutterfly and created an 8″×8” photobook.
Do you have a fun, special game or tradition in your family? How have you documented and recorded it?
I wanted to create something to support International Mast Cell Disease Day that was a few weeks ago. I thought it would be fun to do something a little different for me. This year (and last year) I created quilled artwork that shows how I feel living with this rare disease. And typical of me, I didn’t quite get it done in time. Ha! (I’m currently trying to hard to get a big Christmas gift done on time!) But it’s finished and I’m happy with it!
So here it is!
Hope in My Heart
“Hope in My Heart” Quilled Paper, 12×12-inch. 2020.
This quilled artwork piece features a paper heart is wrapped in a purple ribbon with white polka dots, which is the official mast cell disease ribbon. I hope that as more awareness is raised about this family of diseases that more doctors will take it seriously and be willing to treat it. I hope more treatment options will become available and perhaps even a cure will be one day available. Raising awareness and raising money for this cause can help bring these hopes closer to a possibility.
I thought of this ribbon wrapped heart last year while I was working on ideas for this next piece.
Hope in the Morning
“Hope in the Morning” was created as a submission to the 2019 Rare Disease Art Contest. I felt very inspired creating this piece. While I didn’t place in the contest, I was really happy with how my submission turned out.
My home is nestled at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and each morning I get to watch the sun rise over these glorious mountains. Each morning it fills my heart with happiness and hope in the new day. And each sunrise brings the beauty and hope of a new day where symptoms are manageable and new treatments can be discovered.
“Hope in the Morning” Quilled Paper and Gold Leaf on Canvas, 16×20-inch. 2019.
Both pieces are a style of paper art called quilling. I just love it. Its not my usual form of paper art, but it suited the look I wanted for both pieces. Its always fun to try and explore new art forms, right?
“Hope in the Morning” Quilled Paper and Gold Leaf on Canvas, 16×20-inch. 2019.
If you would like to help patients like me, please consider dontating to TMS, the foundation that supports Mast Cell Diseases. 💜💜
If there is an interest, I might consider making digital prints available in my Etsy Shop with proceeds going to TMS. Interested in the original of the Hope in My Heart? Please email me.
Today I’m sharing some Egret Orchid Stems made from paper and wire. Such a fun project to put together. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out!
A real Egret Orchid. Such a stunning flower.
I have a friend that is a plant killer (her words, not mine) and I wanted to give her a plant she couldn’t kill. I also wanted to try out making out a 3D flower and thought I’d make my own design.
Looking online at different flowers, I came across this beautiful Egret Orchid and knew this was the one I wanted to make.
How I Made Them
I took the photo of the Egret Orchid and imported it into my Silhouette Software and traced it, fiddling with the settings until I got a version I was happy with. I also had to simplify the cut lines and delete a bunch of edit points to make the shape manageable. I used this tutorial from Silhouette School (love that website!) to learn to trace images. I use this function all.the.time. I even trace shapes from my library if I need an outline. Such a versatile function!
Once I had the top wing portion and the bottom petal portions created, I found some other orchid shapes in the Silhouette Design Store I could use to create the rest of the orchid shape. I cut them out, inked them for dimension, and glued them together.
The vase was really easy to put together. I inked the paper with several colors to give it a cement look and then glued the pieces together. Inside the vase is floral foam to hold the wire stems. Next time I would put the floral foam inside before I put the vase together. It was a little tricky getting the floral foam inside the narrow top. I also would have liked to have weighted the bottom with something so it wasn’t quite so light. I did pour some of the little pebbles in the bottom, but that’s not enough.
I used the leftover hexagon from the top of the vase to cover the floral foam. I covered it in the black rocks and poked some holes where I wanted to place the stems. I then stuck the leaves in. I used hot glue to secure the stems and leaves and added more rocks to cover the glue.
Vase with floral foam to hold the stems and leaves
Hexagon center covered in small back pebbles to cover the floral foam
Vase with the hexagon cover put in place.
Wire stem structure
Stems wrapped in floral tape and stuck in the vase.
To create the two main stems, I took a three-foot piece of 12 gauge floral wire, folded it in half, and then twisted it to make it stiffer. For each of the flower stems, I took shorter pieces of 22 gauge wire and did the same thing and wrapped one end around the 12 gauge stem, leaving the other end free. One branch for each flower or bud. Then I wrapped the whole thing in floral tape to make it look like one stem. The twists in the wire give the stem a cool, natural texture. The flowers are hot glued to each of the smaller stems.
The leaves were simple. I wanted a leaf that was similar to the Egret Orchid’s actual leaves, and found one in the Silhouette Design Store. I elongated them in Design Studio and cut them in a medium green paper. Then added several different green inks to give each of them dimension. I cut lengths of 22 gauge wire and attached them to the back of the leaves with hot glue. I left the wire longer than the leaf so I could use it to stick into the floral foam. When the glue was dry, I used the wire to shape the leaf so they had some life.
Leaves in the Vase
Leaves in the Vase
Paper Egret Orchid
Side of Paper Egret Orchid
Back of the Paper Egret Orchids
I’m pleased with how the paper Egret Orchid stems turned out. Figuring out how to do the flowers took me a long time, so I’m really happy with how they turned out. I learned some things and next time I’ll do some things differently, but I thought this little project turned out pretty good.
Last year I made a pretty, white Tea Light Christmas village for my mom. She loved it. But it turned out much bigger than either of us expected–so there’s some question where she’s actually going to display it. 😂
The simple elegance of the white cardstock make the touches of green and red pop. I love it.
I just love the village all lit up!
How I Made It
I cut the houses using my trusty Silhouette Cameo. The houses are available on the Silhouette Design Store by artist Marji Roy. The designs are also available on her website in other formats if you don’t have a Silhouette. The village tutorials are here. They were pretty easy to put together–but the most time-consuming parts were adding the scallops to some of the roofs. The houses are about 4 inches square, and the hexagons are about 6 inches in diameter. As I said before, the project got bigger than I expected. No one that knows me is surprised. ha.
For the windows, I used vellum to give them a frosted glass effect. It hides the view of the light strand but lets the light shine through. For the Church, I gave the vellum windows a watercolor effect so it looks like stained glass.
The village includes:
20 buildings,
a plethora of snow-covered trees,
a covered bridge,
fences and park benches,
gazebos,
a couple of moose,
a horse-drawn sleigh,
a TARDIS (haaa),
a little nativity scene (I cut off the button loops),
little nutcracker soldiers (also cut off the button loops),
and an ice skating rink.
I used white glitter on the roofs and the edges of the trees to look like fresh snow. The bows have red glitter added to them. I realized after that using red glitter cardstock would have been better. Adding red glitter to the bows after they were cut was messy!
The hexagon bases, also from the Artist’s website, are a great way to hide the lights and add dimension to the village. I used the tutorial on her website to set up the village. There’s a hole in each base that allows the strand of lights to be threaded up and into each house. Because I used bendable fairy lights, it was easy to feed the lights into each house.
This was such a fun project to work on! I’m just enamored by this little (or not so little) white Christmas village. I’m tempted to make a slightly smaller version for myself, but I still remember my hand cramping from all that gluing. 😂
