Nifty Chinese Boxes

Good morning lovelies!

Sorry for being absent the last few days. I have been super swamped with orders as of recently. At the beginning of the summer I decided that I would do two farmer's markets a week, and now it is finally starting to take it's toll.

I feel so blessed that I am busy, but it also means that I don't have a lot of free time to create new tutorials. So, I promise there will be a few new and great tutorials coming very soon!

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Last Friday I did a blog swap with Kim from Bugaboo, Mini, Mr. and Me.

 We decided that with each "swapped" tutorial we would come up with a "secret" ingredient that would be the main focus of our projects.

Pretty cool, huh?

Kim's  "secret ingredients" included: napkins, fabric, and/or paper.

As I began to let the creative juices flow my attention was drawn to a ream of one hundred chinese boxes that I purchased over four years ago.

They were an impulse buy. ;)

I've used a few of the boxes over the years for birthday party favors, christmas gift boxes, and as doggy bags after dinner parties.

However, I think they keep on breeding because I keep finding them stashed in closets and in dark corners around the house.

Now I've started to use them as gift boxes in my farmers market booth.

To design your own gift wrapped chinese boxes you will need:

Bakers twine

Crinkle Shred Paper

Stamps and Ink

Chinese Boxes

tulle, fabric scraps, and ribbon

Embellishments of your choice ;)

I first stamped along the box using rubber stamps and my favorite ink pads.

Once the ink dried I then wrapped tulle around the boxes, attaching the tulle to sides using a glue gun.

Then I took ribbon and wrapped it over the top of the tulle.

Once the ribbon was in place I then attached fabric scraps and tickets to the box.

Finally, I wrapped bakers twine around the box to add some spunk to the gift boxes.

Then I placed crinkle shred paper and items from my shop inside each box!

Now surprise that special someone with a great gift that will hopefully last longer than Chinese takeout!

 And don't forget, later this week we will do another swap using my "secret" ingredient!

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Wanna get a double dose of me today????

 Head on over to Angie's pad at The Country Chic Cottage to learn how to make your own Limetini Ice cream!

Blog Swap with Kim.

Hey Friends! Hope ya'll are enjoying this beautiful Saturday. I have a very, very special treat for ya today. Kim from Bugaboo, Mini, Mr. & Me is here, this chick has got some serious skills. Very serious.

And because we are all 'bout the serious business Miss Kim will be back next week too.

Pretty cool, huh?

Well we are going to do two blog swaps that we focus on a "secret" ingredient. buwahahaha (insert: evil laugh).

Now I will pass the torch to the one. and. only.......Kim!

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Hi Spunky Junky Junkies!  I'm a huge junkie myself, and I blog over at bugaboo, mini, mr & me.  I've been a big fan of Halsey's ever since I made my first comment and discovered she was just as super nice in virtual correspondence as she is on her blog!  We've been talking about doing a swap for a while, and wanted to switch things up a little, so we decided to each pick a "Secret Crafting Ingredient" and swap not once, but TWICE!


My secret ingredient is up first.  What did I pick?  

source

Napkins!


More precisely, I chose napkins or handkerchiefs, paper or fabric.  See how much there was to play with??


I happened to have two packs of BRIGHT red and orange napkins that I got at Walmart a bajillion years ago, thinking "I could make something cool with these bright colored napkins" but then losing momentum mid-brainstorm.


I revived the napkins for this project and finally decided to make a wreath.  Here was my inspiration:

Source

Source

And after a lot of experimentation, some throwing my hands up in despair, a bit of fake cursing, and a dash of almost trashing the entire idea and throwing it all in the garbage, here is the end result of my napkin poppies:

You've gotta have:
napkins (preferably red and orange.  You know, poppy-colored)
scissors
hot glue gun
stick wreath
black beads or buttons


Now, I will start by showing you how to create the poppies.  I started by making several different shapes for the petals and gluing them together.  If you are the kind of person that likes precise measurements and so forth, you probably will not like me.  I don't measure.  But I will try to be as explanatory as possible, and really, it's pretty easy.  
We will begin with the four-petal poppy design.
Start by laying your napkin out.  For the purposes of this tutorial, anytime you see the napkin laid out like this, the corner of the napkin that becomes the middle when opened will always be at the bottom left - the folded part of the napkin along the bottom.

Cut a rounded petal-shape out of the "middle" corner of your napkin.  

I wanted to make my petals have the ridges of the poppy petals in the photos above, so I decided on an according fold.
Begin your according fold on the very side.

Then, making teeny tiny folds, go across the petal, making sure that the folds aren't straight up and down, but rather begin at the bottom of the petal and kind of fan out.  (Except at the very sides of the petal.  Those go straight up and down.)

When it's all folded up it'll look like a shriveled chili pepper.

Unfold it and use your scissors to cut along the curve at the top of the petal - just cut bits out at random intervals to make it look more natural.

When you unfold the petal, it'll look like this.

Now you have to glue it together to give it a more poppy shape.  Below is one possibility, but you could also just play with it until you get the shape you like.

Next, we'll do the three-petal poppy.  Start by laying your napkin out the same way, and then cut a shape like so:

When you unfold it, you'll get two pieces that look like this:

Fold them in half and then do the accordion fold.

When the accordion fold is finished it'll look something like this v-shape:

Unfold it and use your scissors to make the curve jaggedy and wavy again:

When unfolded, it will now look like this:

Now you need to glue it.  Here's how I did it, but again, you can experiment and glue it the way you like:

Now for the two-petal poppy.  Begin with your napkin laid out as above.  Cut two little bumps out of the side without the fold.

When opened, you get two pieces that look like this:

Fold them each in half and then accordion fold them up.

Use your scissors to make the curve all jaggedy and wavy.

And glue to make a poppy shape.  Maybe something like this:

Of course, you can make single petals as well to create a whole flower or add to the pieces you've already made.  Just cut out an oval shape, fold in an accordion fold, make the curved edge wavy, and separate all the pieces.

Then you can combine your petal shapes in different ways.  For instance, you can put a single petal with a double and a four-petal.

And it will look a little like this:

Now, you've got your stick wreath.  (In actuality, you can use any wreath form you want, but I liked the stick wreath because it went with the "natural" element).

And one at a time, glue your poppies to the wreath.

You can bunch them as close as you want or spread them out a bit.  Mine aren't bunched too tightly, but they are positioned so you can't see a ton of the sticks in the front.

Just keep going.  

And when I was done with the red ones, I positioned some orange ones here and there for a pop of color.

Take your black beads.  Mine were from this old bracelet I never wear.  I just cut it apart.

And each individual poppy gets at least one black bead,

but the bigger poppies get more.

The black beads are pretty essential to making the wreath look like it's made of paper flowers and not just crumpled up tissues.

See?

And there you have it!  It's finished!  Hang and impress your neighbors.

Just want to thank Halsey for swapping with me and thank you all for reading along!  Stay tuned next week for what I made with Halsey's secret ingredient!  Oh, and don't forget to come say hi!

Feature Friday

Seriously, it's already Friday? It seems that as soon as the warm weather arrives the days start to fly by--before I know it football season will start, the snow will return, and my shorts will disappear into my closet for another eight months.

BUT, while the weather is good and in prime condition for outdoor spray painting projects I thought I would motivate ya'll today with some awesome projects!

Enjoy!

And if you haven't had a chance yet, check out this week's giveaway for a chance to loose three inches off your waist in one hour.

No jokes.

I promise, pinky promise. Cross my heart....

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Tiffany Desk-Tattered and Inked

Epic Room Makeover-My World Made By Hand

Air Mail Pillow-City Girl Gone Coastal

Map Curtains-One Life to Love

Old Door Revamped into a Sweet Table-Embracing Change

Striped Curtains-Southern Lovely

Learn How to Fix Up a Dumpster Dive Dresser-Skitt A Skatt Furniture

Link Party Rules:

*Link to a specific post, not your homepage, or a giveaway.

*Post something that you have done in the last month and not something that you have posted previously on SJ.

*Check out at least one other lovely and give them some sugar! Everyone loves comments and compliments.

*Grab my button and put it somewhere on your blog!

*Come back next week to see the featured projects