Up, Up and away.

I totally love Hot air balloons right now. I looked up some projects about hot air balloons and found THIS   Super cool right??  Then I saw THIS  I really liked the idea of hot air balloon being on the chipboard. My husband is really tall and our ceilings are, well, not. SO hanging anything from the ceiling is a no go.

Here is my completed project, Tutorial to follow.

I recently got some awesome October Afternoon
paper. When I saw this cloud paper I thought I
would never find a use for it. I think it works perfectly with the hot air balloon.










Here is a picture of the template my hubby made me on the computer, printed on a 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.

the "bulb" is 10 inches. The length is 8 inches.












I traced this pattern onto all of my patterned paper. I made a chipboard template. Now I will have one for a long time.

I traced and cut 8 of them.

Next, I folded them in 1/2 length wise. I then glued them back to folded back.

Here are several photo's of them after they have been glued waiting to dry.

 Here I used my crop a dile to add a small hole for threading seambinding.

Here are all the sections glued together.

Now I took a 12x12 sheet of chipboard and paint it or cover it with paper. I chose to cover it with black cardstock.

 next I covered it with this October Afternoon sky paper.

 

 Next, I glued the spine to the paper. If you don't glue the spine down it will flop around.

 Here it is after I glued it down. I also glued the two most end pieces to the back-round.

 Proud of my stitching on this.

 Here it is with me attempting to get tall enough to stand over it and take pics.

I placed a strip of pearls for the body of the butterfly. I had never sewn thru chipboard before. My VERY elderly sewing machine required some assistance, but I really like the way it turned out.

 Here is a close up of the distressing. I punched out a cloud and tucked it in. I really went to town on the edges.

 I love this seam binding. I get it from Cheep trims. It come in 100 yard spools for about 10 bucks. I have white and black. I dye the white one all the time.

A few years ago I was given these "learn Chinese cards" and I have been slowly using them in my projects. I just love them. The bling in the bottom corner came from ETSY. 

 Here are some flowers from my stash pile.

Here is a close up of the trim I used and the lace.
I really hope you enjoyed this and make one for yourself. If you do leave a link down below in the comments.
Happy crafting!!
Haley

I see the light

This year we made the switch from incandescent light bulbs to florescent, leaving me with some recycle craft materials. So, I started browsing the internet for ideas. I found a steam-punk website where they took Christmas tree bulbs and made hot air balloons.  That inspired me to make hot air balloons using the light bulbs my husband was going to (gasp) throw away.

It was so easy to make. I made several of these for presents.