Paper Flowers

Wah, I'm so lazy~  I have not blogged for a while even though I have collected so many topics to blog about.  Anyhow, since various holidays are approaching, I'm doing a tutorial on how to make some beautiful flowers out of construction paper.  These flowers can be used as holiday decorations as well as gifts.

Materials:
- Stiff paper (construction paper, card stock, scrapbooking paper...)
- Glue (I used the regular Elmer's while glue)
  Optional:
- hot glue
- toothpicks
- Glitter
- Wire
- Nail Polish
- Pearl/beads

There are many tutorials on the web, so don't worry if mine isn't very clear >.<;

This is version 1.  It is pretty easy to make, however, you have to release the flower so that it can loosen up a little bit after rolling.  The gluing process might be a little tricky, so it is good to use a toothpick to help apply it.

Once done, you can glue some glitter on to the edges to make it prettier, or even better, just apply some nail polish.  The picture below shows a black flower with pearl nail polish.

There are also a couple of variations to my method by cutting the paper differently:

Version 2 makes flowers with uneven edges (like the one below)

Version 3 makes flowers that also look pretty interesting: (this is made by Stuart)

Here's a comparison of version 1 and version 2:

Below are some that are made from patterned paper with pearls in the middle.  The stem is glued onto the flower with a glue gun.

That's all, enjoy making flowers!!!!!

- Mimi

Vintage inspired Fall (Thanksgiving!) nails

As promised, here's my Fall-vintage nail tutorial!  (I'm going to wear it for Thanksgiving...so it's my Thanksgiving nails >.>)

Nail polishes used:

OPI Top Coat and Natural Nail Base Coat

ORLY Instant Artist in Solid Gold, Sally Hansen in Sun Kissed, Essie's matte about you, and Sally Hansen's White On

Procedure:

Apply base coat (and make sure you take time to let it dry)

Optional: use tape to block out the places that you don't want to get painted

Two coats of Sally Hansen in Sun Kissed 

Apply matte about you (yes, I jumped on the bandwagon of matte nails.  This is soooo amazing!!!  It dries like how candle solidifies)

Take the tape off and clean the edges.  Then apply top coat only on the areas that are not painted. 

Next step is to make polka dots.  Since I'm cheap and don't want to buy a dotting tool...I just used the back of a round sewing pin.  

Take a piece of paper out and put a little bit of the nail polish on there so that you could dab the pin with it.  I think it's less messy this way.

Add gold line with the super thin tipped ORLY instant artist polish.  

AND you are done!

Enjoy~

- Mimi

DIY Lace Earrings

This is my first tutorial post!!  Recently, I got very addicted to pinterest, which inspired me to do many projects from materials I have acquired over the years.  I found a very short segment of lace couple days ago in my box of goodies and decided to make them into earrings.

Materials I used are: Lace, Earring Hooks, Pearl Beads, Adhesive Pearls, Wires, Scissors, and Pliers.  

1. Lay out the lace to decide what part of it you want to use for the project.  2. Cut the lace.  3. Plan out where the beads go.  4. Put everything together with wire.  (background acquired from HERE )

Voila!

It's a super easy to do project that will take very little time and it is very foolproof.  Have fun crafting!!!! 

- Mimi