How-To: Butterfly Themed Birthday Invitations

The time has come and little C is turning 1!!

{ I know, I can barely believe it myself. Where has all the time gone? }

To celebrate this milestone, I have a butterfly themed party planned for her. Or should I say, for myself? Because, let's face it, this party is really for us, we survived!!

Now, before you get all excited about this card making "how-to," I am not an expert card maker and will never claim to be. I just like making things :)

Here are all the supplies I used:

• 8.5" X 11" Cardstock in Soft Side - Smooth
• Friskars paper trimmer
• Friskars flower punch
• Butterfly stamp
• Invitation info stamp (not pictured)
• "Handmade By" stamp (not pictured)
• Carter's baby girl confetti
• Mod Podge (not pictured)
• paint brush (not pictured)
• Black ink

To start, I punched out all the pink flowers and cut the pieces I would need to make the invitations.
Purple - 8.5" X 11" sheet cut and folded in half for the invitation itself.
Yellow - 3" X 3.5" for the butterfly stamp.
Blue - 3.5" X 4" to matte the yellow.

Next, I stamped the yellow pieces with the butterfly and the inside of the invitation....

then the back with a "made by" stamp.

After the ink from the stamps dried, I glued the yellow butterfly piece centered on top of the blue piece with my paint brush and mod podge.

Then, I glued the confetti in the center of the pink flowers.

Finally, I glued the butterfly piece centered on the front of the purple invitation and then glued the flowers to the top left corner of the invitation.   

That's it! Done! 

All that is left to do is fill out the info portion inside of the invitation! 

I like to add a picture with my invitations, so I will have a wallet or 4x6 printed out and use clear sticky photo corners on the top half of the inside, or I may just place it freely in the invitation. Everyone loves pictures!

Hope this adds some inspiration for your creations!

Pattern: Simple Crochet Flowers

Of course, my first pattern that I decide to share on here would be inspired while creating something for my beautiful little girl :)

 I had an idea to crochet flowers, string them together and make garland to use at my daughter's 1st birthday, then move them to her room and hang from her closet or window. Since I already knew what colors I wanted, I went out and got the yarn, or in this case, 100% cotton. I chose the cotton because I felt that it would last longer and hold up better than your basic acrylic yarn.

Now, I needed a pattern! And boy, oh boy, did this become a task. After spending way too much time searching and testing small flower patterns with the cotton, I became discouraged. In the end, I came up with this simple flower by taking bits I liked from a couple of patterns and adding my own personal favorite techniques.

Materials

• Lily Sugar 'n Cream in:
• robin's egg
• lavender (scented)
• chamomile (scented)
• rose pink
• yellow
• 5.5 mm crochet hook
• scissors
• blunt eye needle

Let's start with a picture tutorial, then at the end, you can find the pattern written as a whole! :)

Tah - dah!! There it be! It's hard to resist making tons of these!

Pattern:

• ch 5 - join with sl st to first ch and form a ring
• ch 2 - 15 dc in ring - join with sl st to first dc - fasten off ONLY if you are doing two different colors
• with a standing sc, join new color to any dc - 6 dc in next st - sk 1 - *sc - 6dc - sk 1 * repeat from * to * around - join to first sc - fasten off
• weave in ends

That's it! Simple, easy and pretty! Just the way I like it! I've used basic crochet terminology so hopefully it is easy to understand. If you have any questions, please let me know!

Have fun making endless creations with these little flowers!!

Happy New Year!

Myself, my little family, blog and shop, would like to wish you a belated Merry Christmas and welcome you all to 2014!

Here's to a new year full of ambition, growth, love and many adventures!

My goals for 2014 are to expand the shop, become a better blogger (yet, again! I feel the failure at blogging lately and sharing what I have been working on, is due to the lack of having a proper desk/office area. I may need to work on that.), and enjoy many adventures with this little family of ours. We have plans of camping, exploring our surroundings, building a garden (CROSS YOUR FINGERS THAT THIS HAPPENS!) and much, much more.

I have already been planning little C's 1st birthday party in February! I am working towards a shabby chic butterfly theme that is 1 year old friendly. 'Excited',  is one way of explaining how much I am looking forward to this! Here is a sneak peek at some items I have started.

These colors!! How could you not love them?!? 

I may have taken many pictures of these flowers.....

 Here is a single flower so you can get a good look at it. I appreciate how simple the flower is and how fast it worked up. I am hoping to string them together to make some garland for around the tables or maybe a photo area. Then, she gets to keep them in her room :) Multi-functional!!

If all turns out well, I may add it to the shop!

I am also making her invitations and more decor/party favors for the girls and boys. My other crazy ideas are to make her cake and cupcakes. There will be practice cakes, of course..... All basic and simple, yet cute. Like I said, crazy ideas and the possibility of failure is likely. Wish me luck!

UPDATE 1/06/2014: You can now find the pattern for these flowers here!