Royal Purple Blog Hop

I am so honored to be a part of this blog hop! This is definitely a worthwhile cause, and I'm happy to support it in any way possible. As Vintage 53, I donated some fun jewelry and products from my Etsy store to be part of the grand prize giveaway on Faith's blog. And as Roberts Crafts, I was thrilled to be able to donate scrapbooking supplies to Faith as well. (Including the purple 12x12 leather WeR Memory Keepers album, 4 Cricut cartridges and a ton of other fun scrapbook supplies!) We had a stash of kids art supplies in the Roberts office that I was able to send to pass along to the Bradley House.

Before I get to my card that I created, I wanted to include the text from the other blogs in the hop, for you to see the statistics, and to see what we are doing as part of this  hop. The goal is to raise money to send to the Bradley house to help the families there. 

About 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes occur every year while many more assaults and rapes go unreported entirely. Over 3 million children witness violence in their home each year and those who see and hear violence in the home suffer physically and emotionally. These statistics are sad and overwhelming, but help IS out there for those that choose to break the silence.

Together we can make a difference! Help us instill some hope where very little probably exists and give 24 families a chance at recovery when we are able to donate $1000 dollars to the Bradley Angle House.  Your purple themed card(s) with a hope filled message inside could make all the difference, not to mention give YOU a chance to win the grand prize for this hop. 

Want more chances to win the grand prize?  Additional entries will be given for each $1 donation you include with your card.  Cards must be postmarked by June 30th for inclusion in basket drawings and can be mailed to the following address:

Royal Purple Hop

c/o Vicki Smith

P.O. Box 1496

Millbrook, NY 12545

To start at the beginning of the hop, or see all the blog candy being offered be sure to check out Faith's Blog. Next in the lineup is Erin. 

For my card, I wanted to include not only a handwritten note inside from me, but a strong message of hope on the front, as part of the design. I was walking through the Roberts Crafts store where my office is, and I found this paper with raindrops on it and a saying came to me:


"Through the storm hope will grow"


I thought it was the perfect message that I wanted to convey. That no matter what any of us goes through, no matter what trial, it will only make us stronger and more beautiful at the end of it. Stars shine brighter in the clear sky after a storm. Flowers grow after the rains fall. A candle flame shines brighter through the darkness. There is hope following trials. There is strength in overcoming obstacles. And there is love no matter what. 

(Forgive the bad lighting in the pictures. Normally I photograph in natural light, but I wasn't able to get the pictures done until after dark. The lighting in my room is horrible!)

Here is the message I wrote inside:

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope you are able to send in a card, not only to enter the seriously incredible giveaways going on at Faith's blog, but to send a message of hope to one of our sisters. And if you have a blog of your own, please use the button on the right sidebar that has all the information about the fundraiser we have going on. (Scroll down a little bit, and you'll see it.) Have an amazing day everyone!

In case you get lost along the way, here is the complete lineup:

Faith: http://faithfulecreations.com/
Raven: http://love4stamps.blogspot.com/
Linda: www.thefruitofmyhands.blogspot.com
Brie: http://vintage53.blogspot.com/  <-----YOU ARE HERE
Erin: http://www.spantastikreations.blogspot.com/
Tanya: http://www.ScrappyScavenger.blogspot.com/
Amanda: http://www.scrapanddash.com/
Kimmare: http://kimmarieskorner.blogspot.com/
Jackie: http://jackrabbitscrappin.blogspot.com/
Lori A: http://www.scrappinmystressaway.blogspot.com/
Gina: http://californiascrappin-gcinderella21.blogspot.com/
Monica: http://scraps2treasure.blogspot.com/
Anita: http://anitaandbugs.blogspot.com/
Sue: http://susanascorner.blogspot.com/
Gaby: www.gabycreates.com
Debbie W: http://craftydeb-ddscrafts.blogspot.com/
Jen R. http:/www.memorieswithjen.blogspot.com/
Deborah http://www.scrappingmamma.net/
Ellen: http://www.cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/
Gill: http://creationsbygillm.blogspot.com/
Lori: http://lorisartsyobsession.blogspot.com/
Krista: http://www.kristaspapercafe.com/
Carol: http://www.cardstockscissorsandglue.blogspot.com/
Nancy: http://fancywithnancy.blogspot.com/
Vicki: http://paperandprims.blogspot.com/
Emily: http://www.createserendipity.net/
Kristal:  http://gettingcricky.com/
Amy:  http://amychomas.blogspot.com/

Fabric Flower Project

Ok, back when I made the video with Kristine McKay on fabric flowers, I talked about different things you can DO with fabric flowers. One of those projects was a headband. Today I finally made one! The kids and I are going to be doing family pictures in a few weeks, and I wanted to make my daughter a super fun and colorful headband.

So here we go!

First, gather your supplies. I have strips of fabric ranging from 1" wide to 1 3/4" wide, a headband base, ribbon, needle, thread and a glue gun.

Take one end of the ribbon and wrap it around the end of the headband, keeping it at an angle to wrap around the rest of the headband. Hot glue it in place. (If you have the eye hand coordination to sew it as you go, go for that. I definitely don't have that kind of dexterity, and therefore use hot glue. lol!)

Continue wrapping around the headband, hot gluing as you go until you get to the other end, wrap and hot glue (or sew) down.

This would be cute just like this too! :)

Take a strip of fabric. Fold one end over slightly and secure it with a stitch. Then loosely weave the needle and thread through the length of the fabric.

Once you get through the length of fabric, fold down the other edge and secure with a stitch. Then pull the thread to scrunch the fabric. It will automatically make itself into a circular shape.

Wind the fabric on itself, creating layers. Stitch the layers together.

Tie off the thread and you're done with the sewing on that flower. You can add any kind of embellishment to the center, or just leave it plain. I love myself some bling, so I add things like buttons, rhinestones, brads or whatever I find that I think would be super cute. You could seriously use most any scrapbook embellishment.

This was a scrapbook embellishment that had a foam adhesive dot behind it. I took off the dot and glued it down. Done and done. :)

This was just a brad that I stuck the "brad" part through the center, spread the prongs to "extra" secure it, then glued down the button top to the fabric.

I had a felty button that I glued down. Then I removed the adhesive foam from behind the rhinestones and hot glued them down on the felty button.

This was an acrylic sticker thingy that I just glued down. I didn't end up using this flower on the headband, but I still wanted to show another way to finish a flower. :)

I took a rectangle of lace that had a scalloped edge on one side. On the un-scalloped edge, I weaved some thread through one edge. I gathered it then sewed through it to secure, making a clam shell shape with it.

Take an oval of felt. Glue or stitch the lace to one end of it.

Then glue/stitch your flowers onto the felt, placing them for your desired look.

I took another length of ribbon and glued it to the back of my felt, letting it peek out. When you turn it over you see the loops.

All you have to do now is glue it down to the headband!

I can't wait to see my little princess all dressed up for pictures (with her hair done. LOL) wearing this! I'm making the boys ties to coordinate with the colors in the flowers. It's going to be so much fun!

Other things you could add to your headband would be netting. You could either gather it under the flowers to have as a base, or create a veil. You'd make the veil part how I did the lace for this particular headband. You'd just cut it a bit bigger. Feathers are a lot of fun too! They create such a fun vintage look. I know at Roberts Crafts we're expanding our selection of feathers and felt and we've added fabric! The fabric pictured did not come from Roberts, I bought it before they put the fabric in the stores. But if you check out the Roberts Youtube channel, I made a video of the fabric we have in the stores. I know you want to check out my video editing skills! hahaha (Or lack thereof. ;)

Videos!

Here is the newest video I did with Kristine McKay! The first one I did was a "Make It Your Own" challenge, where she sent me a scrapbook page and told me to use it as an inspiration piece for any kind of project I wanted to make. I LOVE frames, and the possibilities they hold for altered art!

Once I shared that video after it "aired" on youtube, there were requests for a tutorial on how to make the fabric/ribbon flowers that were on the frame. Kristine was awesome enough to invite me back to her studio to film a quick tutorial on how to make them. I LOVE that girl! She pretty much rocks my world, not gonna lie. :)

Here's the video, for your viewing pleasure!



Thanks for watching!! Can't wait to film more with Kristine. I'm so excited she has her new studio, too! She's put so much hard work into it, there will be so many amazing things she will do, it'll be fun to see! :)