Post It Note Christmas Flowers

Here are the simple book page ornaments we've made for our little tabletop trees, including a punched paper snowflake garland, Mod Podged balls and these pretty little origami flowers. I love the look of a vintage black and white Christmas with all these elements.

For cheap and easy Christmas decor, you can't go wrong with recycled book pages. One of my favorite projects are these book page flowers.

I call them Post It Note Flowers because they work up beautifully using a 3" x 3" square of paper, so in a leap of naming logic there ya go. They are really origami kusadama flowers and they've been around forever. I'll give you a link to an origami website at the end of this post in case my instructions lead you hopelessly astray. ; 0 )

Start with a post it note or any size of paper as long as it is perfectly square. IF YOU USE post it notes, you will start with the gummy side at the bottom right and gently separate the layers if they become stuck. I LOVE these in hot pink, but I don't have any paper that color right now.
Fold bottom to top, then sides in to form a diamond, then fold each side out from the middle.
Unfold each side "wing" so it looks like a kite, then fold the top of these side kites inwards so now you will have a middle kite shape with matching side triangles. Fold each triangle once inwards.
Roll into a cone and hot glue the two folded sides in the middle. You need at least five to form a flower shape, tho I have seen them with more. Hot glue all the cones together and don't worry if you have a little gap in the center, even real flowers have a little opening in their middle.

We've made ours out of vintage dictionary pages to go along with our simple white Christmas theme.

And the Live, Laugh, Love ornaments? Simply book pages cut into small rectangles then Mod Podged onto Christmas balls. I hand wrote the words on each ball with a Pigma pen, then sealed them all with clear acrylic. You could also use a Cricut or Silhouette for the words, or print them and cut them out to match the book pages and Mod Podge them on. Simple, pretty and inexpensive. We like!

Here is a link to a real origami website with great instructions and lots of samples for these pretty flowers...

http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/origami_kusadama_flowers

I'll be joining the parties on my sidebar. Come join the fun and see the neat projects posted this week!

Beautiful, simple book page Christmas decor

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and then you know what happens.....time to decorate for Christmas, ladies! Woohoo!

I love the riotous color that comes with Christmas decorating as much as the next creative gal, and yet when Insanely Creative Christy and I started brainstorming about little display trees for our tiny craft mall booth, we decided to try a shabby chic look using, what else, vintage dictionary book pages. Here's the start of our project and we're liking this clean, white, crisp look very very much. So wintry white and elegant, we think.

Of course there's the book page decoupage balls with hand written script that say Live, Laugh, Love, Family, Joy and Peace. We'll try some smaller balls too just for a bit of balance. And don't forget the tiny paper chains. Book pages and hot glue, baby, easy peasy and cheap! The snowflakes are punched then glued together for a REALLY REALLY lovely garland, very simple and beautiful. LOVE IT! For a little extra body we suggest gluing two layers of paper together before punching. We're also trying some garlands of hearts and primitive stars. If you've got some craft punches try them out for some lovely and creative garlands for your Holiday House.

I crashed my stash for the metal star and the 18" twiggy trees, but really, everything and anything is a candidate for this classic, simple look. The paper looks so sweet against the deep green of the trees.


Christy made these gorgeous gorgeous paper flowers, they are so sweet nestled in the branches and give the whole tree a bit of needed texture. We're working on angel tree toppers made of more book pages and a couple of other surprise projects and we're having so much fun! We'll add a few more things and a bit of bling and who knows what else. We're a little giddy that way ;0)

I'll be posting the how tos for these sweet flowers starting this Saturday on the blog parties on my side bar. Please check back, they are super clever and easy to do, you'll want to make some for your own projects!

Have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving holiday, dear friends, and be sure to count your blessings during this most personal time of the year. Life is beautiful. And please, as James Taylor sings, "Shower the people you love with love, show them the way you feel, things are gonna be much better if you only will."

See you on Saturday!

Personal memory book...the BEST family gift ever!

My middle sister hatched the idea for this memory book for our parents, who had unceremoniously wrenched us from our comfortable Southern California subdivision ranch house to the wilds of 60 acres in Southern Oregon's beautiful cascades when I was a junior in High School and my three sibs were just pups.

Talk about culture shock.

That said, it's the best thing they ever did for us besides birthing us and raising us into the hardy souls we are today.

Thus, years later, the project was conceived in appreciation and loving nostalgia. Behold the book of our childhood....


Props go, once again, to Insanely Creative Christy who gave me a crash course in the construction and binding of a simple journal style book. She totally rocks, my daughter does! I used every bit of natural twigginess and embellishment that wouldn't deteriorate in time and then we went for it. The burlap and the scripty paper were a natural choice.


So my classy cool middle sister suggested a beautifully written collection of our memories and asked that I illustrate it with some pen and ink, colored pencil and even watercolor paintings. Ah, what a fine idea it was at the start......


...and indeed, the first pages off the press were pristine and lovely, courtesy of my youngest sister (known as Fantastic Singing Voice Sister) who edited our gleefully giddy emails and contributions to this work and delivered these crisply printed sheets to me for embellishment with fine artwork and beautiful sketches.

I had good intentions, really I did. I pictured wonderful pastel watercolor landscapes of the beautiful hills, creek and fruit trees. But the memories and my own sense of humor just wouldn't let me be so...um....PLAIN. After a quick warning email to my sibs, I just went for it and illustrated the margins with lots and lots of fun sketches. LOTS.


Our first winter was HARD and snow quickly lost it's glamor. We quickly learned that the survey stakes left by our friendly country road crew made great fishing poles and brush beating sticks.


Our mom discovered her green thumb extended to vegetable gardening. A half acre of vegetable gardening. That hill of beans is no exageration. And we raised goats. Even today we love the miserable creatures and think of them with malicious nostalgia, the little buggers.

The main charm of our Oregon home was our very own Creek. Not fenced off like in California, but free flowing and wild and fringed with fern, blackberries, mint and willow thickets laced with animal trails. Brings tears to my eyes remembering that Creek. Love it so.

Ah, the plastic bags + socks + red top rubber boots are still fashion riguer, I hear. We learned fast.

Oregon banana slugs, ahhhhhhh!

And the pros and cons of our country life.....no hot home delivered pizza, no Disneyland trips on a whim, no ballet lessons. But we also did not have gang activity, save for the goats at feeding time, and we did have an endless supply of fresh hot apple pies made with fruit from our own heritage trees and warm tea and hot cocoa and EACH OTHER.

And we'd do it all again, you betcha! Our first summer was spent in a camp trailer with a tin roofed deck built underneath a HUGE pear tree. If you are watching reruns of Twilight Zone or Psycho, there is NOTHING like the sound a ripe pears hitting the tin in a horrendous clash and clatter to give your heart a workout. Ah, sweet memories are made of this.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for abandoning the relative ease of city life and moving us all out into the woods for our own good. We love you.