Wardrobe refashion: Freezer paper stenciling

Most of September is just a blur to me. I spent so many days in limbo, waiting for Porter to be born that the days all ran together and before I knew it the month was over! I've been meaning to post about these since the first week of September, when I did my class on wardrobe refashioning (previous posts here and here).One of the reasons I volunteered to teach the class in the first place was that it would give me a good excuse to finally try out freezer paper stenciling, a technique I've been reading about throughout blogland for a couple of years. I've long been acquainted with crafting with freezer paper, ever since I taught my roommates how to make tissue paper envelopes back in our freshman year of college. In case you've never used freezer paper before, it can usually be found in the same grocery store aisle as the foil and plastic wrap. It's wide white paper on a roll that has been treated on one side with a coating that makes it glossy and water-resistant. The neat thing about that coating is that when ironed, it melts and becomes adhesive, opening up all kinds of crafting possibilities.
Complete instructions for the freezer paper stenciling technique can be easily found through an online search, but the premise is this: draw or print a design on the paper side of the freezer paper and cut out a mortise (reverse) mask. Iron the freezer paper onto your fabric, glossy side down, thereby adhering the stencil to the fabric. Paint as you normally would with a stencil and when the paint is dry you can simply rip off the freezer paper to reveal your design!For my designs I used a mixture of sources. The crow was the outline of a clip art illustration from a book, the toadstool was hand drawn, and the black cat and owl were clip art from my Microsoft Word program. You can use any kind of design, but it's important to remember which parts of your design will be positive and negative space! (Ask me how I know this one.)For the owl, cat and toadstool I used regular opaque fabric paint. For the crow I used really beautiful silver Lumiere fabric paint that I bought at JoAnn's. It didn't photograph well but it's a beautiful metallic silver! I haven't washed it yet so I don't know how it will hold up but the shirt itself cost less than $5 so it won't be a huge tragedy if it cracks.

I found freezer paper stenciling is just as easy and addictive as all of the other bloggers said. What a great way to hide a stain or a flaw or just to spruce up an existing (but boring) piece of clothing!

Easy Framed Halloween Vinyl Decor

During the week or so before I delivered Porter, I had several days of nothing to do. I had nothing scheduled because I didn't know when I'd actually go into labor, and I was too physically awkward to be moving around much, so I returned to my default setting--if all else fails, CRAFT!

I had this very cool Spooky Brocade vinyl Decor Elements from Stampin' Up! and was looking for a fun way to use it in my Halloween decorating. My mom and I tossed around some ideas and came up with the idea of placing it on the glass of a picture frame. (I also thought it would look neat on a framed mirror, especially if you could give the back of the mirror a cool antiqued effect.) It just so happened that I stopped by a garage sale the weekend before and found a piece of framed art that was just the right size! Here's what it looked like before:
My transformation wasn't very complicated but it was satisfying! I used cheap black acrylic craft paint to paint the frame itself. I could have used some of the black spray paint I had out for another project that I'll share later, but that would have meant removing or taping off the glass, and at that point I just wasn't up for anything that took more than the minimum of effort.
Initially I had thought about leaving the frame empty, so the wall color would show through the glass. However, I felt like the brocade design got a little lost so I found a piece of Halloweeny patterned paper in my stash that perfectly fit the frame. I applied the vinyl decal to the front of the glass (so easy, it's just like a big sticker), and added the Making Memories velvet sticker letters below it. The glass is just standard thickness but I like how there is a bit of depth separating the vinyl design from the background paper. And because I can't just leave well enough alone, I embellished the brocade design with a few small adhesive gems (eyes on the bat, the large spider's body and the swirls at the sides).
I reassembled the frame and added a black grosgrain ribbon bow at the top with my hot glue and staple gun (those don't show in the photo). Now, to find the perfect place to hang my new piece of Halloween art!

I believe I mentioned something about being obsessed

Made using Lisa Pace's tutorial here. My JoAnn's sells precut lengths of brown floral wire, which was perfect for this project because the brown worked well with the neutral tones of the buttons & papers. I used a combination of vintage book pages, dictionary pages, ledger pages and various scrapbook papers to back the large clear buttons. The buttons are these--I found mine at Archiver's.

Half-Blood Prince movie review & button flowers

Last night The Mister and I had a rare weeknight date--we had the opportunity to attend a 6 p.m. preview showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! I must admit that I felt a bit smug when I was walking in at 5:30 pm, past all the costumed folks who were already queuing up for the official midnight opening show. The movie was great! I'm still processing it (and I need a rewatch of #5) but I'm thinking that so far it's the best film of the bunch. The only criticism I have so far is the movie's explanation of who exactly the Half-Blood Prince is--it is different from the explanation in the book, and the way it is presented felt really cursory and almost like an afterthought: "Oh yeah, I guess we have to tell the audience what the title of the movie is all about. Here, let's just throw in this line at the end."

I always thought in the book that it was pretty flimsy anyway; it felt like J.K. Rowling thought up a really good suspenseful-sounding title that unfortunately was only a minor plot point. It seemed like such a big deal because after all, it's the title of the book--but finding out the identity of the Half-Blood Prince was kind of a let-down. In the movie it is explained in one line of dialogue spoken by one character and seemed thrown in at the end with no relation to the rest of the story. That could be the fault of the editing process and really it's a minor quibble, since I thought it wasn't particularly well-done in the book to begin with.
I have a new craft addiction: making button flowers! What better way to justify having such a ridiculous stash of buttons? They're easy and you get instant gratification--you don't even have to wait for glue to dry! I've had such fun picking through my buttons to find just the right combinations for layering.

This black, white and apple green bouquet is a little treat for a friend who had a birthday a few days ago; I made them to match her kitchen. I just hope she doesn't read this before I can get over to her house later today to drop them off!

If you want to try your hand at making your own button bouquet, there's a great tutorial here (although I do them differently and don't twist the wire between each button grouping). Next up, I want to try some bouquets using paper-backed clear buttons like these by Lisa Pace. I also love this version with book paper petals by Cathe Holden. Give them a try--but I'll accept no blame if you become addicted too!

Pink and Blue, all the way through

First, I promised you a contest!

Yesterday I hit the 20-week mark in my pregnancy. Halfway through, and it's all uphill from here, right? LOL I'm currently in that second trimester honeymoon period, where the *ick* has disappeared, my energy has reappeared, and I can still bend over to tie my shoes! Things are good. On Monday I have my 20-week ultrasound, and we're going to take Maren along so she can see the baby too. We're planning to find out the baby's sex, and we're excited to finally know so we can start talking about names and know if we have to redecorate the nursery!
So here's the contest--guess the baby's sex! All you have to do is leave a comment guessing whether I'll have a girl or a boy! On Monday after my appointment, I'll draw a winner from all the people who guessed the correct sex. At this point I'm not sure what exactly the prize will be, but I promise I'll pick something fun! How about--if it's a boy the prize will be blue and if it's a girl, the prize will be pink. You have until I get back from my ultrasound on Monday to enter!

Next up--more pink and blue in the form of the collage I made for the Marie Antoinette Bits & Baubles swap. I love working on these collages because it's so fun to go through all of my trinkets and stash to find things to fill 12 little squares. It's much less intimidating to fill a 3"x3" square than worry about a whole canvas! This one was especially delightful because of the theme--who doesn't love to work with sparkles, feathers, pinks and blues, and all manner of foof and frills?

Here's the finished collage:

and here are closeups of the two halves:
Some of the things I used have been in my stash for years--we're talking 10 or more! Projects like this are perfect for packrats like me!

The fog outside my window means we're gearing up for yet another weekend of lousy weather around here. Every single weekend in April has been wet in some form or fashion, and I've had just about e-damn-nough of it. I think we're having a case of "be careful what you wish for" because our Jan/Feb/Mar were bone dry and everyone was so worried about what that meant for our summer. Well, April took care of it all--we received 3.22" of water in April alone (out of 4.22" for the YTD) and I think most of that has fallen on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday! This is putting a serious damper on the start of the garage sale season.

My yard & garden are a total disaster but I can't plant anything yet, for fear that it'll get snowed upon again. This past week the "nice" days were beset by 30-mph wind gusts, making it less-than-ideal for digging in the dirt or even being outside at all. A few intrepid tulips and daffodils have made their way out of the ground and survived the snows, but for the most part it still looks brown and bare around here. This, folks, is why Spring is my least favorite season in Colorado. Bleh. I envy all of you who already enjoying gardens, flowers, and leaves on the trees! It feels like that is still a LONG way off for us.

Hope your weekend is sunny and dry!

Eggs, Sparkly-side up

It's funny--a month ago, I couldn't wait to get out my Easter decorations but I held off, thinking that if I did it so early I'd be sick of them by now. I think I should have gone ahead and gotten them out then because as it was, I finally dragged the Easter box downstairs last Friday. There it sat until Wednesday, because I just couldn't muster the interest to do anything about it! I finally did set out a few of my very favorite decorations, but 80% of my Easter decor stayed in the box. This is strange for me, as I normally LOVE to decorate for each holiday (and I have some Easter stuff that I really adore) but this time I just didn't feel like taking down and putting away everything else first and then putting it all back out after Easter. I guess this way it will all feel like new when I get it out next year.

One of the few things I did get out of the box were my two big foil egg candy containers. (And you know, as I'm typing this I could have sworn that I have three of those eggs--where is the other one? Hmm.) These are two of my favorite Easter decorations and every year I desperately wish I could find more at the thrift. I was inspired by Andrea's gorgeous eggs and decided they needed to be fancied up a bit.This is how they ended up. As I look at them I think maybe they need a bit more trim around the openings but mostly I like how they came out. On the aqua egg I used some of my favorite pink foil Dresden trim and on the purple egg I used some fun aqua blue velvet ribbon that I bought at Archiver's. Each sports a vintage earring jewel and I finally managed to use some of the vintage millinery flowers I've been hoarding.


They were fun and easy and I definitely like them even more now that they've been gussied up. Now I just need to find a few more giant foil eggs to add to my collection!

Another fabulous sparkly egg came my way courtesy of my sweet and talented friend Shara! Would you look at this glittery goodness?
I love it! I adore the glittery little birdie on top and the fluffy tissue festooning trim. It's the perfect color to coordinate with my foil eggs!

Wishing you all a lovely Easter weekend!

Bunny crafting

I've mentioned before lately that I feel like my crafty mojo took a hike when baby #2 took up residence. I haven't completely shaken that feeling, but it's getting a little better! I wanted to share a fun little Eastery treat I made for a dear friend.
I literally woke up with the vision of this project in my head...stumbled downstairs in my jammies and started dragging things out of my craft closet. This is a 5" square stretched canvas. I covered it with vintage ledger paper and a stacked rosette made of a cute pink cupcake paper and vintage blue crepe paper. The crepe paper rosette is edged in pink German glass glitter and the middle has another bit of ledger paper and a gold foil dresden bunny. The edges are finished with some of my favorite pink foil dresden border.
I'm very happy how it turned out and think the recipient is pleased too. ;) I have another 5" square canvas in the closet so I believe maybe I'll do another one before I put all the bunnies away.

Vintage postcard garland and Valentine's wrap-up

Oh, my poor little abandoned blog! I'm not sure I've ever gone so long without posting but truly I haven't had much to say. I've been sick for quite a long time now due to germs Maren toted home from preschool and I'm just now feeling a bit better. At the same time, The Mister has been recovering from surgery and even the dog has an ear infection, so productivity levels around my house have been hovering around 0%. If it couldn't be done while laying on the couch under a blankie, it didn't get done at all.

I know we're two days past Valentine's now but I did want to show the one and only thing I've crafted in the past three weeks. My mom and I saw some cute garlands in a boutique for around $35 each and we knew we could do them ourselves for much cheaper. We were right--we already had everything we needed! So nice to do a project without having to run to the craft store first.
First, I found a few vintage postcard images from this awesome Flickr group. Next, I resized them and printed them out onto matte white cardstock. I just guessed on the size, making sure to get the approximately even (the original files were different sizes). Next, we ran them through the Xyron and adhered them to sheets of chipboard. We covered the backs with pages torn from a very old dictionary just to make them a bit more finished.

We punched holes in the top corners using a Crop-a-dile, then embellished the edges with sparkly red pipe cleaners, which we glued on using Zip Dry glue. We tried a few other glues (hot glue, tacky glue) but the Zip Dry was perfect because it dries quickly and is a bit thicker in consistency so it didn't run all over. As a final touch we embellished the images using a glue pen and some sparkly iridescent glitter. I tied mine together with pink Martha Stewart seam binding ribbon.

It was an easy craft with satisfying results, perfect for a gloomy day and not so involved that we couldn't visit while we glued. This garland could easily be adapted for any holiday you can find vintage postcard images for, which thanks to Flickr should be just about any of them! I don't normally decorate for St. Patrick's day but I think I have some sparkly green pipe cleaners kicking around my craft room, so maybe I need to make a St. Patty's garland just for fun!

Our V-day was nice, even though we weren't feeling well. We beat the crowds by going out for sushi on Friday night, the Mister brought me an enormous, gorgeous bouquet of flowers and Maren got a balloon that is bigger than she is.

Now that I have a bit more energy I'm hoping to get back to doing something interesting enough to blog about! Until then, take a look back at the cute thing I received for last President's Day. It's still one of my top 5 favorite things I've ever received in a swap!

Crafty inspiration from Blogland

Even though several of my beloved magazines are folding, thank goodness there's still more than enough inspiration to be had in blogland! Last week I saw these Bookmark Bijoux from Andrea Singarella and was smitten! I already had all of the materials and I spent a happy hour playing around with two of my favorite things: velvet ribbon and vintage bling.
I love an instant gratification craft! Fun, easy, and pretty results.

More great craftiness from blogland last week:

• This gorgeous pearly heart from Heather Bullard. Aren't the colors of those pearls just gorgeous?
  
• Joli Paquet is back! I loved their Christmas projects so I can't wait to see what they have cooked up for Valentine's Day. Tiffany Kirchner posted this darling vintage-style pop-up card.
• I swoon over these velvet-and-pearl strawberries from Holly Doodle Designs! I want to learn to make these; I don't think they're too difficult, I just need to find a pattern and some pretty velvet.
  

What about you, friends--have you been doing any crafting lately?

Soldered Santa #2

I think I'm finally getting the hang of this soldering thing. Sure, my pieces are still a bit rough around the edges and my technique could use improving, but at least I'm to the point that I'm pleased with what I've made and don't want to throw it immediately in the trash.
This is a little ornament I made for my friend Shara. The Santa is a vintage gummed package seal and the back is a vintage Dennison label and lots of twinkly silver German glass glitter. The bead on the bottom is from an old earring. I'm pleased with how it turned out and I hope Shara likes it too! Once I clear the mounds of Christmas crap off my desk and get some glass ordered, I'm hoping to make some Valentine pieces. On one hand I hate to put away all of my vintage Christmas pretties but on the other--as I expected--I'm just ready for the mess to be gone. From the slew of organizing post around blogland, I know I'm not the only one!

Soldered Santas, a beaded bouquet and crafty links

A few weeks ago I had an opportunity to make some ornaments for a few lovely friends and wanted to show you what I came up with because I'm pretty thrilled about how they turned out! I knew that I wanted to try soldering again--I'm determined to get good at it, by golly. I rummaged around in my supplies and found a few scraps of one of my all-time favorite scrapbooking papers, some metal Making Memories snowflakes, and the cool Tim Holtz tags I bought in Phoenix at Mystic Paper. I soldered a jump ring on the top to hold the ornament hanger and also on the bottom, where I hung a pretty iridescent bead taken from a vintage earring. I tied on a bit of matching red seam binding and tucked them into organza bags. I love how they look and hope the recipients like them too! I definitely feel a bit more confident in my soldering abilities now as well.

Along with the vintage glass bead garland yesterday, another vintage Christmas item I always look for when thrifting or antiquing is glass bead picks. I covet them so very much, but for me they have been just about impossible to find locally and they are pretty pricy on eBay--I guess I'm not the only one out there who loves them! When I walked into my favorite local store, Patina this was the first thing I saw and truly, it was love at first sight:I've never seen anything like this and I probably never will, as it was handmade. It's a bouquet made of all different shapes, sizes and colors of mercury glass beaded picks, tinsel, and vintage glass ball picks. Oh, it is glorious! I love it so, so much (like everything else I've ever bought at Patina) and I'm not sure I'll be able to bear to pack it away after Christmas--it might have to stay out for a while so I can look at it more!

Looking for something cute, vintage-style and crafty to do with the kids? How about these darling little snowman scenes from Holly Doodle Designs or these neat vintage-inspired chenille candy canes from Jerusalem, via Vintage Indie.

Tonight Maren and I are going to make snowman hat cookies for her preschool class party in the morning. We're going to use the instructions for Pilgrim hats but forego the yellow buckles for something a bit more wintry. If they turn out hopefully I'll have a picture for you tomorrow!

Vintage cookie cutter garland and two more fun Christmas links

I mentioned a little while ago how smitten I was with this tutorial over at Joli Paquet. I was able to find the repro vintage cookie cutters at Home Goods and armed with more vintage cutters from my collection and ribbon bought for half-price at JoAnn's the day after last Christmas, I set about making my own garland.(Sorry for the lousy photos--it's hard to get a good one since there's always light coming in) Making the garland couldn't have been easier--just measure the ribbon, find the center and string on the cookie cutters! I knew I wanted to hang mine on the curtain rod over my kitchen window but the valance I had up, cute as it is, didn't match. Luckily, the same friend who lent me the other valance also gave me this cute gingham curtain trimmed with fat white rickrack, which turned out to be the perfect background for displaying the garlands.
I started out by making the bottom garland but when I finished I still had plenty of cookie cutters left and another spool of ribbon, so I made another! The only thing I did differently from the tutorial was leave off the buttons, for no other reason than pure laziness!

I love how the garlands turned out! What a fun, easy and satisfying craft project and a cute decoration!

The Christmas countdown clock seems to be ticking a bit faster for me today because in exactly one week we'll be on the road to Utah to spend the holiday with our families. That means I have to get all the gifts purchased and wrapped, get us packed, packages mailed, do any baking, gifts to friends, etc. by Saturday. Yikes! I wish I was one of those people who does their Christmas shopping all year round but that just doesn't really work for the people I have to buy for, so I'm usually scrambling at the last minute

Hopefully you're further along in your preparations than I am so you have a little time to check out my favorite time-waster website this Christmas, Betamaxmas. You'll love it if you're a child of the 80s like me! Be sure to check out the TV Guide for the programming lineup and move the antennas on the TV to make the picture fuzzier or more clear.

If you're still crafting and need some great vintage Christmas images, check out Clearly Vintage, a blog that has new vintage images each day until Christmas! She also designs a line of vintage-inspired rubber stamps that are really neat.

And one more thing for those viewing this on a blog reader--I've updated my blog roll on the left side to include a whole mess of blogs that have great vintage Christmas inspiration. Go check them out!

Window frame card display project

A few months ago my sweet dad helped me hang an old flea-market-find window on my wall, and I've been patiently waiting for inspiration to strike so that I'd know how to embellish it. The other night I was looking through some ideas I'd torn out of magazines a while ago and found it--my inspiration! Within about 30 minutes I'd collected all the supplies, put it together and was admiring the finished product! I rarely finish a project that quick (or at all..ha) so it was particularly gratifying.

Here's the inspiration:
This was torn out of a BH&G Holiday Decorating special magazine from 2003.

Here's my frame:I used double-sided tape to attach the ribbons to the top and bottom of the frame. I used a small square of the same tape to attach the cards to the ribbon--there may be a better way to do this but I wanted to get it done.
The greeting cards are all thrifted. The round card on the bottom left is gorgeous--all lovely Victorian embossing and soft green velvet ribbon (that was from an antique store and was more than I usually pay for cards but it's just beautiful!). The round item on the bottom right is an old coaster, and the two Santas in the middle are vintage die cut decorations. On the top of the frame I have three vintage bottlebrush wreaths I found at a thrift last month. Two of them needed new ornaments but that was easily remedied with tacky glue and a few items from my collection. I had been looking for a way to display them and this was just perfect!

There's so much Christmas goodness out there in blogland right now that I'm almost overwhelmed! If you're a fan of the Barenaked Ladies, here's a link to a fun interview with Ed and a free download of the boys singing a very funny version of "Jingle Bells". (PS--if anyone knows how to permanently download that to your computer, will you leave a comment? I'm stupid when it comes to stuff like that).

The Purple Pansy Boutique

At this point, I think it's pretty much a given that November will stand out in my 2008 blog archives as the month with the fewest entries. I've been super-busy behind the scenes--crafting my little fingers to the bone to get ready for this, the thing that has consumed most of my life for the past two weeks.

A couple of friends and I organized a home craft boutique that we held last weekend. Not only did we put the whole thing together, but we were vendors too, leading us all to have "what did I get myself into?" moments. It all went well but it was a ton of work--and we're doing it again in a week and a half! Here are some photos of my displays (click on the photos to enlarge them):
I made two different types of items: rickrack dahlias with vintage buttons and vintage ribbon corsages, (both brooch and wrist style) made with gorgeous ribbons and vintage jewelry.

The rickrack dahlias were carded and hung on a fab vintage aluminum Christmas tree that I scored a few weeks ago for a mere $8!
The corsages were either wrapped and place in a large rustic bowl or pinned on my old dress form.I am happy how my items and my displays turned out, and the items that don't sell will go into my etsy shop. Speaking of which, I'm going to start working on getting some things listed tonight--I've got lots of fun vintage Christmas goodies just waiting!

Altered Soap Bottles: A Tutorial

A few weekends ago (when I was swamped) I taught some craft demos to the women at my church, including this one for Altered Soap Bottles. They are so easy and inexpensive and they make great little gifts! I thought I'd put together a little blog tutorial to show you how they're made.The trick to these soap bottles is that the art inside appears to float magically in the bottle. Okay, maybe not magically, but I guarantee you that when people first see these, they can't figure out how you got the words in the bottle! The secret is transparencies--the kind you'd use on an overhead projector.

Step 1: Design the insert. Because I have no idea what I'm doing in Photoshop, I used my Microsoft Word program. I knew that I could fit nine inserts to a page, so I did a little measuring and math and made nine text boxes to fill up the page (note: you will want to make your text box lines palest gray so they don't show up later--I learned this the hard way). Then I used a fancy font for the wording and downloaded a free dingbat font to make the snowflakes. (Getting those right was the hardest part, something I'm sure would have been easier in Photoshop.) Then I just copied and pasted the text into the eight other boxes. I printed it out, took it to a copy shop and had a transparency made. Easy!

It is important to note that for this project, you must use either a copier-generated transparency or one made on a laser printer. INK JET TRANSPARENCIES WILL NOT WORK! The ink will not hold up in the soap. Also, you do not have to use a computer to create your art. You can use rubber stamps or even have your child draw something cute--anything can be made into a transparency!

Step 2: Prepare the Soap Bottle. The soap I like to use for this craft is the Equate brand from Wal-Mart. The soap is clear, the labels are on the outside of the bottle, and best of all, they cost less than a dollar each! If you'd prefer to use another kind, just look for a brand that has the printing on the outside on a sticky label so it can be removed.

The labels can be peeled off fairly easily by hand. Remove any sticky residue with a product like Goo Gone or Un-Du. Unscrew the lid and lay aside the pump stem.

Step 3: Insert the Transparency. After you have cut apart the sheet of transparencies, it still may be necessary to trim them slightly to fit in the bottles. Simply hold the transparency up against the bottle to get an idea of how much you may need to trim off. Sometimes I find it helpful to round the top corners to mirror the rounded shape of the bottle.

Next, roll up the transparency with the printed lettering on the inside and stick it down into the neck of the bottle. (Note: some of the bottles have manufacturing lettering printed on the outside of the bottle, near the top edge. You might try to remove this with fingernail polish remover or just make sure that is the back side of your bottle.)

When the transparency gets down into the soap, it tends to unfurl by itself. If yours needs a little help, use a skewer or even the stem of the pump to gently unfold it and move it into place. Replace the pump, making sure the stem is BEHIND the transparency.

Tie on a ribbon and a cute tag and it's done! These bottles make great little gifties because they're easy, inexpensive and can be mass-produced if necessary. I'm going to make these as Christmas treats for the teachers in Maren's classroom. Another thing I love is that they can be easily personalized for the recipient--who doesn't love a personalized gift?

Here are some other examples to give you some ideas:

This one was given to my mom as a birthday treat from some ladies at church. I love how they combined the different fonts! Cute.

On this one, the pumpkin is a rubber stamped image. I couldn't find an image on the computer that I liked so after I printed out the lettering, I carefully stamped a pumpkin on each box.

This was one of my prototypes for the demo and I actually used black StazOn stamping ink on a piece of a report cover instead of a printed transparency. The black ink has held up just fine but a similar transparency I stamped using brown StazOn ink completely disappeared! I also embellished this one with a blue eyelet. It seems to be holding up for now but I'm not sure about the long term. You can also embellish the transparencies with small silk flowers, but make sure they are colorfast first. I think it would be fun to try using scrapbooking rub-ons or those adhesive vinyl shapes you can put on your walls. In either case, they would need to be applied on the back side of the lettering so that both will show. Anything that is colorfast and can be rolled up to fit in the neck of the bottle is fair game for embellishment--be creative!

I hope this tutorial has been helpful! If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer.

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Also....to celebrate the beginning of October and the 'official' beginning of the Halloween season (yippee!) tomorrow I'll be announcing a GIVEAWAY! Be sure to come back and visit so you can enter!