Little Pink Studio

Handmade gifts

Hello! While Christmas is not yet a distant memory, I thought I should pop in here and share some of the handmade gifts I created for friends and loved ones this year. Some were swaps, and some just gifts. I love to make gifts for people, and am always happy when I have the time to be able to do that. The angel piece above I made for my Momma. 

I participated in a stocking swap with my sweet and talented friend, Heidi. This is the stocking I made for her. (I'll share the beautiful things she sent me in a separate post, as they reallly deserve their own post!) We've both been bitten by the pretty planner bug so inside I included some things she could use in her planner, a vintage book, and some vintage trims. I also made her a couple of gifts to go along with the stocking. The stocking was a burlap stocking that I altered. It had ruffles at the top, and I dyed those the light pink, then added more layers of ruffles by adding the vintage lace in between each ruffle. I then covered the stocking with all sorts of vintage lace and a sweet image printed on fabric. 

I made these super sweet glittered deer head mounts for Heidi and another friend as well. 

I meant to make a few more of these, but ran out of time. I sitll may though, as they're not really just for Christmas, I think. 

I found myself smitten with the idea of making little shadow boxes out of vintage ornament boxes. Not a new idea, but rather my take on them. 

It seemed once I made the first one I really couldn't stop and was raiding our boxes of vintage Christmas decorations. I will just have to pack those ornaments away a little differently now. Ha. And yes, you read that right. "I will have to", meaning I have not yet put away our Christmas decorations. It's on the agenda for the weekend though. :) 

These sweet shadow boxes were actually easier to create than they were to photograph for me. They're very 3 dimensional, and there is lots of "snow" and glitter inside in case you can not tell. I replaced all of the vintage plastic with new transparencies as the plastic wasn't in great shape, and the transparencies are more clear. So each box is as if you're looking into a window with a little winter magic on the other side. I'll be looking for more boxes this year, in hope of making more of these next year. 

This little vintage elf was another gift I made. He lives w/in a small glass "cake plate" now. This is how he appears without the glass top, and below is how it looks with the top on. 

I had a few more of these planned as well, but you know, that time thing.... 

I am bound and determinded to still finish a December memories book as well, and will share that as I go. I can't wait to show you the wonderful old book I repurposed for it. It's so perfect! 

I have a few more things to share and will hopefully have them up on the blog before Valentines day. Ha. Maybe I'll even get more posted this week. I'm crossing my fingers. 

Back soon, Cerri

 PS, I have compltely caught up on orders that were waiting to be shipped while we were on holiday, so if you placed an order during the break, it's on it's way! Yay! Thanks for your patience with that. Y'all are the best, and I appreciate my customers so very much!

Vintage darlings swap: Part 2

Hello! Yesterday I shared with you the snippet roll I received from the vintage darlings swap, and today I wanted to share what I made for Laurie. The above photo shows my snippet roll rolled up on the spool. 

And here's a not so great photo of it hanging up. For this swap, we were supposed to make our snippet rolls 18" long and about 2" wide. I used a vintage spool that was a bit wider, so my roll is closers to 3.5" wide. 

Being 18" long, photographing the whole thing is a bit hard, so I'll share it with you by sections. I used a strip of vintage wool blanket binding as my backing, then added vintage lace all along the front. This lace ended up being mostly covered up as I added more vintage lace and the photos and embellishments. 

Confession: I mostly glued my snippet roll together. There is actually very little hand stitching done on it. For me, it was just easier to put it together this way. 

The "L" is a vintage initial tag. Not sure what the original use for them was, but I have a few of them. They're dark brown, and I felt that the brown stood out too much so I covered it with a bit of vintage dotted swiss. I stitched that on after the glue was dry. :) Love the little pink velvet flowers. What is it about vintage velvet? I adore most everything made with vintage velvet. 

I love the photo of this little girl, it's one of my favorites. The satin buttons and bit of lace under them are part of a vintage wedding dress. I hoard those, and only have a little bit left. More vintage millinery, several different types of vintage and antique lace, and a sweet vintage bird. 

More vintage laces, a bit of ruffled dotted swiss, and that super sweet tatting. 

I covered the top photo with more of the vintage dotted swiss, just to add a bit of texture. The sweetheart finding is one from my shop, and I loved that sweet lavender brad and bit of crocheted applique. 

A bit more vintage millinery and more vintage laces and that is it. For my photos, I just made a collage of the images I wanted to use, and printed them on muslin, just like I do my collage sheets.  I love the way the photos look printed on muslin, I feel like it lends to the vintage feel of the photos. 

I also sent Laurie a vintage flash card I had stamped with my favorite vintage rubber stamp. I hope she loved the snippet roll I created for her. 

And because I love you, here's that photo I said was my favorite on my snippet roll. Just click on her to make her larger, then right click and save her to your computer. 

Back soon, and happy crafting! Cerri 

PS, I am bound and determined to finish my studio reorganization this weekend, so hold me accountable ok? I'll hopefully be back with some update photos. :)

Vintage darlings swap: Part 1

Hello! Recently my sweet friend Heidi asked me to participate in a "snippet roll" swap. I wasn't really familiar with snippet rolls, but once Heidi directed me to some links, I was in! I love vintage lace, embellishments, and of course vintage photos of little "darlings", so it seemed like a fun swap. I was paired with Laurie Jackson and this is the lovely snippet roll she sent me. 

If you are not familiar with them either, a snippet roll is a little piece of stitched art that is attached to a spool for hanging. They are made with bits of vintage lace, millinery, embellishments, etc. But the canvas is small as it is attached to a spool and will roll up on the spool when finished. Since I can't seem to throw away scraps of antique lace, (I just throw them in a large glass jar) this was a great way to use those scraps. It was a lot of fun to make, and they can be made in an evening. 

Laurie made her snippet roll really long, and filled with all sorts of pretty things. 

I like how she painted and shabbied up her spool. I didn't think of that when I made mine. So I thought this was a nice touch. 

Love the sweet millinery in this section!

And that little lavender velvet flower is probably my favorite part. It's just so sweet!

Such sweet beads, and can you believe that teeny tiny frozen charlotte doll? 

Don't you love it?! I have to tell you, making these snippet rolls was a lot of fun, and I really want to make some more, and I would love to swap a few more so that I can hang several together in my studio. I always love to have a little bit of creative art made by the hands of fellow crafters and artists in my home. It just makes me happy. 

I'll be back tomorrow to share the snippet roll I made for Laurie. 

Have you ever made one of these? Link me in the comments if you have, I would love to see! 

xo, Cerri

Snail Mail

Hello! Have you been aware of the fact that "snail mail" has been making a big comeback these days? I kept seeing all sorts of cute snail mail packages on instagram and pinterest, and lots of penpal things as well. I had penpals when I was a teenager, and even at one time had a penpal that loved to send me lots of little paper goods and misc. things in her packages. I always enjoyed writing letters and putting together little packages for my penpals, and it was exciting to have international penpals long before the days of email and the internet being so readily available. It was so much fun to receive a letter in the mail from France, or Germany. Although I hadn't really thought of penpals or snail mail in years, I was happy to see it making a comeback. My friend Rachel and I agreed to be penpals and send each other letters and little bits of stuff, and so now at 43, I have a penpal again! 

For my first penpal package to her I wanted to send her a little organizer that would hold all sorts of snail mail supplies that she could keep in one place and take on the go with her as well. 

I found this plain passport organizer and thought it would be perfect, especially if I could alter it a bit to be more our style. I added vintage fabric and trims, and what you see above is the result. 

I also covered the very blah grey mesh inside pockets with bits of vintage lace as well. Then, I filled her organizer with vintage and new stationery, tags, cards, some of my wood veneer cards, and other paper bits. She should have everything she would need to write letters in her little organizer! 

For my letters, I decided to make some little envelope booklets to hold my letters and mail tag answers. I just took some vintage envelopes, folded them in half and stitched down the middle. This allowed me to create little pockets to hold my letters and such. 

I used a mixture of vintage and new stationery, as well as little scrapbook bits to make my letters and tags. 

This was so fun I was thinking of taking on a couple more penpals. If you'd like to be penpals with me, and send each other little letters and happy mail packages from time to time, shoot me an email. If several people are interested, maybe I'll assign some penpal partners. :)

What about you? Have you been bitten by the snail mail/penpal bug? 

xo, Cerri

Hello!

Hello! How have you been? Goodness I did not mean to be away from my blog for so long! I really need to start blogging more, I miss my blog! We just always seem to have so much going on around here, that it ends up being so much easier to just use instagram to keep in touch. But I really will try to be present here more. '

Speaking of instagram, a little while ago I was asked to participate in an egg carton swap. It was a little different for me, as I did not really know the swap leader, but I would have felt bad saying no. It was to be a swap with spring related crafting items in an egg carton. It was after Easter, so not neccessarily an Easter swap, just spring.  The swap leader randomly assigned partners by drawing names, so that was also a bit different for me, as I did not know my partner at all, and wasn't sure that we had the same styles either. So, at first I was a bit stumped as to what to send. Her instagram feed did not show any crafting at all, and her questionare only stated that she liked pastels, butterflies, and bunnies...So, this is what I came up with. 

I spray painted the egg carton a pastel yellow, and made a cute label for it with pink polka dots. 

I used some pink and blue plastic eggs left over from Easter, and little cupcake wrappers in the sections where the goodies would not fit inside an egg. I did know my parter liked vintage items, so I tried to incorporate as many vintage items as I could. 

And of course some pastel crafting items. 

I hope she liked it all! It's hard to do swaps with people you don't really know as I always want to make sure they like the items sent! I love to put together packages, but I think I will stick to swaps where I know the recipient and partners are paired with similar styles and likes. :)

I'll do some more cathcing up in the next day or so. I am going to be a vendor for the first time at a artisans makers mart at the end of this month, so I have been crazy getting ready for that. I'll share more info on that and some peeks into what I plan to take to it soon!

What have you been up to? Any summer crafting happening at your house? 

xo, Cerri

Petite May Basket Swap

Hello! How is your week going, so far? I wanted to host an Easter basket swap this year like I have done a few years in the past, but with being sick so much I was unable to get to it. A couple of years ago I participated in a petite May basket swap and it was lots of fun, so I decided to host one this year! I know it's a bit short notice, but I think we can do it. 

I gathered some inspiration from flickr, where the May basket group was hosted and here are a few of my favorites. 

(All of the original photos and links can be found right here. Many of the photos belong to ladies that are no longer blogging so I wanted to be sure to link to the source of the photos)

Lots of gorgeous inspiration there, right?

This will be a one on one swap, unless you would just like to have more than one partner and if that is the case, let me know. To participate, you will need to create, alter, OR embellish a petite basket and fill it with the kind of art goods your partner would love. I want each basket to be special, with attention paid to the smallest of details. (Like packaging things sweetly, etc.) NO JUNK. I don't want anyone to fill their sweet little baskets with things they just don't want anymore, but rather treasures that their partner will love. 

All baskets will need to be in the recipients hands by May Day. (May 1st) 

If you'd like to join, and can can meet the expectations, then please shoot me an email telling me your name, address, where you can be found on the web, and your likes or style. Send the email to cerri at thelittlepinkstudio dot com. Also, please be sure to let me know if you are willing to ship internationally since our time is short.  I will take sign ups only until Sunday evening so then I can quickly assign partners. I want you to have plenty of time to get your baskets ready. 

I do hope you will play along, I just love a good swap, don't you?! Please feel free to add the button at the top to your blog and I'd love for you to share if you would like!

Cerri xo

PS, I almost forgot to mention: If you have a 12-13 year old gal that would like to play along, please let me know. My niece loves to do swaps with me, and I know she would love to play along for this one as well. 

Craft-a-thon with my niece

Hello! Hope you're having a lovely weekend. Before we get too far into the new year, I wanted to share with you my craft-a-thon week I had with my niece. Every year my niece and nephew come spend time with us during the Christmas season and we do things like bake cookies, make gingerbread houses, craft, watch movies, and drive around drinking cocoa and looking at lights. This year, my niece stayed a whole week with us, and we did some serious crafting. :) Here she is in my studio. She stayed in her jammies and wore a Christmas hat most of the time. 

We made more wine glass snow globes. I think I liked hers best of all. If you can't tell, there's a little mouse and bunny kissing inside her globe. 

We also made this one as a gift for my Mom's birthday. Isn't it sweet? Desi and I did a holiday swap with my sweet friend Lilia and her daughter which was lots of fun! (My niece's first swap!) The girls swapped handmade ornaments and little trinkets for each other, and Lilia and I swapped ornaments and art supply goodies. 

A few more shots of our creations and fun. That bottom photo is the silly amount of marshmallows we like to put in our hot cocoa. I can spoil her that way, because I'm just the aunt. 

I cherish these times with her and hope that she always will also. 

xo, Cerri 

PS, As a few of you have already figured out, I extended the free shipping sale on qualifying orders through the weekend. It will end on Monday at midnight. I'll announce the winner of the giveaway then too, so don't forget to enter if you haven't done so yet. I love reading about your favorite Christmas gifts. 

More on the birthday box swap...

Hello! I've been meaning to share with you all the boxes I received clear back in June, and things kept getting in my way, but I wanted to be sure to share the lovely boxes I received. I received this box from Kris, we've been partners a few times and it's always nice to swap with her. She made her box to look like a little birthday cake. Isn't it cute? 

And she of course filled the box with lots of fun things to play with as well as a sweet collage and party cone. So cute. Thanks so much, Kris! (these are her photos, that I borrowed from her blog)

Next up was a lovely box from Diane. I was touched at how much Diane worked to make my box in the whites and neutral colors that I love, which I know is not at all her normal color palette of choice. She did a great job, don't you think? 

She too, filled her box with lovely little treats. Thank you, Diane! (these photos were also borrowed from Diane)

You can see the boxes I made for these lovely ladies here.  I think I also mentioned that my Mom joined in on this swap as well, and since she doesn't have a blog, I thought I would share her boxes for her. 

Mom wanted her boxes to look like little wrapped presents, and I think she did a lovely job. 

She filled her boxes with things she thought her partners would enjoy. 

I love all of the vintage items she used on this one! So sweet!

Mom and I worked on our boxes together, and that is something I always cherish. I love being able to sit and create pretty things with her. It's neat that we love all the same things, but really I just love spending that special time with her. Isn't that what crafting is all about? 

Cerri xoxo

Birthday edition matchbox swap

Hello! I've planned a few "catch up" posts to show you some of the lovely things that have been happening since I last blogged, starting with the matchbox swap I participated in. Heather paired me with two lovely gals that have completely different tastes/styles/wants, so that was a bit of a challenge. 

First up, I was paired with Diane, and she loves the candy colored pastels and cute kitschy things. 

This was the box I made for her. I painted the box pink, and layered it with some pink, white, and blue vintage trims. I added the sweet image of the little girl, as she looked like she was excitedly awaiting something and this was a celebration box. 

And this is a peek inside her box. I added vintage trims, wallpaper, vintage candles, resin flowers and buttons for her sweet creations, and more. You can see the rest of the content of her box on her blog, if you would like. 

Next up was Kris. We've been paired in swaps a couple of times, and I always enjoy swapping with Kris. She wanted her box to be in all whites/neutrals. That was a bit of a challenge since the theme was vintage birthday and vintage birthday items were not typically white. Ha. 

I layered her box with vintage laces and ruffles and a bit of vintage millinery. I stamped the image of the sweet gal on a sheer fabric. (the stamp I used was the hat club cube stamp) The "Bonne Fete" was an ugly gold cake topper and I painted it and then added platinum Stickles to give it an aged silver look. 

Since there were not a lot of vintage, white birthday embellishment to be found, I decided to create some of my own for Kris's box. 

I stamped these tiny canvas tags with a mixture of my new and vintage stamps, and then accented them with Stickles. 

An "aged" silver star with a bit of vintage tulle and a vintage candle. (cut down to fit the star)

I also made these shabby chipboard embellishments by painting, sanding, spritzing, and embellishing them. 

Inside her box I also tucked some vintage wallpaper, more vintage lace, a lovely tea stained rose, vintage pale pink candles, and more. 

I wrapped up both boxes in these pale pink polka dot bags and a lace ballerina tag I made. The gold one for Kris, and the green for Diane. 

I hope they both really enjoyed their boxes and goodies from me. Mom and I were both in the swap and we had a lovely time working on them together. I'll show you what these gals sent me tomorrow, and I'll also share Mom's boxes as well. And if you would like to know how I made those sweet ballerina tags, check back with me next Tuesday for the restart of my Tuesday Tutorials. 

See you soon, Cerri xo

Ornament swap

Hello! When Cassandra asked me to join her Christmas ornament swap, I was happy to. I love swaps. Were were paired into groups of three, and we were to each make 3 ornaments for each of our three partners! I was happily paired with Terri, Kris, and Heather, all lovely and talented ladies. Our group had a creamy white/neutral theme, but it appears we also had an unspoken bird theme going on. :) 

The nest above was from Terri, as well as the following two ornaments. 

All, beautiful, right? I was already lucky with this package, but there was more to come! 

The ornaments above were all from Kris. The last one, the little girl on the snowflake was an original illustration by Kris, and it looks just like my niece, so I think it might just go to her. The next lovely ornaments were what Heather sent. 

Thank you ladies!

To see the ornaments I created, please click here. 

Check back with me tomorrow afternoon for a new ornament tutorial. 

Cerri xoxo