Celebrate The Occasion - Butterflies

This week at CTO we're challenging you to use at least one butterfly on your project.

I am (slowly) working on a feature wall in my daughter's bedroom that will showcase her love of princesses. I'm using the Lori Whitlock double bracket frame (found here) and Miss Kate Cuttables princess files (found here).

You can see here that the frame is thin and it was pretty easy to put together. I'm sure after making around 12 of these I'll be a pro at it!

I mounted the mermaid with foam squares to the "photo" area of the frame. The waves (SVG Cuts) around mounted flat to the face of the frame and the crab (found here) is mounted with foam squares. I used the print and cut feature on my Silhouette Portrait to cut these elements.

My butterfly is a layered cut, but I only used the top layer. I used the finger to curl the wings.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. PLEASE be sure to stop by Celebrate The Occasion for a VERY important announcement.

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges - Foam Tape

For the next two weeks at Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges we're asking you to create a project using foam tape

Here is what I created to inspire you!

I used the Get Well Soon collection by Nikki Sivils. The sentiment and lollipop both come from the punch-out sheet. The lollipop is mounted with our challenge element, foam tape. To add a little extra visual interest I wrapped some thin, brown ribbon around the card and added a bow to the lollipop stick.

There you go, less than 10 minutes and you've got a cute, simple get well card!

Celebrate The Occasion - Memorial Day

Our challenge for you this week at CTO is to create a Memorial Day inspired project.

For my project, I'm going to share my husband's citizenship party with you. On February 28 my husband took the oath and became a citizen of the United States of America. It was a HUGE day for our family. The following Saturday we through a Welcome To The USA party, here are some of the projects I made.

We served hot dogs, blue corn tortilla chips, red salsa and LOADS of sweets!

I served the tortilla chips in brown paper lunch bags that I trimmed down with my rotary trimmer fitted with a scallop blade. I then used Barn Door distress ink and Stampers Anonymous "Americana Silhouettes" stamps to dress up the bags. I was using a vintage red, white and blue color scheme so the tan paper bag, blue tortilla chips and red ink fit in perfectly.

I used the Tim Holtz alterations "Tattered Florals" die and 7 gypsies paper to create this centerpiece. All the pieces were distressed with a combination of tea dye, frayed burlap, vintage photo, fired brick and broken china distress inks.

The desserts we served (and my mom made) included red and white cake pops, brownies with red and blue M&Ms, dipped pretzel rods, Rice Krispie treats with red and blue sprinkles, strawberry short cake push-ups, blue and white sixlets and burgundy hard candy sticks.

I used two for theses lanterns on the buffet. Inside is a piece of kraft cardstock that stamped with one of the Stampers Anonymous stamps. I used my distress markers in broken china, fired brick and vintage photo to highlight the different words in the subway art stamp. Then I simply tired burgundy ribbon and jute cord to the handle and inserted a vintage-looking flag (from Oriental Trading).

I kept the tables really simple using black table roll to cover the gross tables. The runner is a deck swag (again from Oriental Trading) that I cut down (I was able to get three tables/swag). For the centerpiece I used a mason jar with five flags arranged in it. The pieces of paper you see on the tables are questions from the immigration interview. It was a lot of fun to see how much people know about our history and government.

Like I said my party was a citizenship party but these ideas can easily be used for a Memorial Day party or Independence Day party.