Queen & Co - Indulge Your Creativity

Young Motherhood

An absolutely gorgeous layout celebrating being a mother, by design team member Wendy Reed.  Wendy successfully combines various colours in Felt Fusion to create a visually stunning layout.  Add some brads and jewels and the layout is complete.  I'm sure the secret to Wendy's success with this layout was pairing the colourful felt with a black & white colour scheme.  Whatever the secret, we love the layout!

 

A Queen & Co Bouquet...

Happy Mother's Day!  This gorgeous project was designed by Jennifer Perks as the perfect Mother's dAy gift, but I couldn't help noticing how perfect it was for something else as well - read on and you'll see why I left it so late to post this tutorial - it's perfect for other things as well!

Although the school year is only half way through here in New Zealand, I know that things are starting to wind up in schools in the Northern Hemisphere.  As we huddle down into the long winter months, the northern hemisphere breaks for summer break.  Thoughts turn to sun and summer and teacher gifts.  We hope this fun and funky project by Jen Perks will spark some inspiration - it's all 'stepped out' here for you.. have fun!  (and thanks, Jen!)

For this project, I used flowers cut from Q&Cos felt fusion and the new Q&Co felt brads to create a potted Mother's day bouquet. Not only does it look pretty sitting on a counter, but it's functional, too!  The "flowers" are actually pens!

To make the "flowers" gather your materials: different colors of floral felt fusion, ball point pens (do not use felt tip as you have to keep the caps off), floral tape, scissors, felt brads, and pop up glue dots (the thicker the better).

Cut your flowers out of the felt fusion. For my project I chose mostly solid looking flowers. Open ones would also look cute. You could even try "filling" them with patterned paper! 

Put a felt brad through the center and open the back. Place a glue dot at the top of your ball point pen and push the flower onto the adhesive. There will be extra glue that hangs off the edge of the pen. I sort of pulled it over the edge and smoothed it down. This is what it will look like:

Next, wrap the pen with the floral tape. The cool thing about that tape is that it sticks to itself. If you don't have floral tape, you can run ribbon through a xyron and wrap it around the pen (you could really get some cool colors/patterns). I went for speed. The assembly of the flower pens took mere minutes, which is a good thing since I made about 25 of them!

When you get to the end, cut the tape and smooth it down. It'll stay in place. If you worry about it coming undone, you could use a small piece of adhesive (glue stick or dry) to secure it.

I picked up the small flower pot at Ikea for about 50 cents. I really wanted a colorful one but they didn't have any in this size so I decided to dress it up a bit using the "Bug" felt fustion. I loved the graphic look using the black on white created. To add just a bit of sparkle and color, I added some jewels to the centers of the flowers in the pattern using 3M liquid adhesive. I also created a tag with a scallop and circle punch, adding two sprinkle brads on either end. The tag is adhered with two glue dots.

And here is the finished product. I see these a lot at the front desk in the schools where I work but they usually have a huge silk flower at the top (it's pretty hard to accidentally walk off with one of them!). I really liked how this twist on the idea turned out--they are so funky and colorful topped with the felt flowers and brads in their center!  I can totally see this in a scrap room, can't you?

One thing you can also add is a little ribbon "stem". I didn't have enough ribbon for all 25 of my pens but made one that way especially for my daughter, who has a special message for all our blog readers out there who are mommies

Wishing you a very happy Mother's Day

Time for a few cards?

Just a few quick cards to inspire you late in the week - it's never too late to pull together a few brads and lettering to make some cute cards for any occasion.  Design Team member Lisa VanderVeen shows us how cute themed brads can look - thanks for the inspiration, Lisa!

Having it all.

Having it all - such a fitting layout for so close to Mother's Day.  Journaling reads: " My conclusion after a year back at work:  You can't have it all.  Something has to give.  My promise to you is it's not going to be you."  Such a gorgeous sentiment in this layout by Design Team Member Lisa VanderVeen. 

Note how Lisa has used black pen around some of the Queen & Co elements in this layout.  The felt fusion and love letters look great with that extra pop, trio brads finish the layout off nicely.

What a bright and colorful reminder of what Mom means to us.  The sentiment captured in this layout by Kristin Hayne is beautiful, as is her embellishing by Queen & Co felt fusion ribbon, and trio brads.  Thanks for sharing, Kristin!

Mother's Day Project

More Mother's Day inspiration, this time from design team member, Ginger Williams.  Although there are only sooo many Mother's Day projects I can make, I know I'm finding plenty of inspiration from these projects we are featuring. 

This Mother's Day project was made by Ginger for a friend who just found out she is expecting and has been very sick.  What a cute little 'pick me up' for her first Mother's Day!

Thanks for sharing, Ginger!

Brightening up your scrap room.

I thought I'd share this tip here, although we are in the midst of Mothers Day inspiration.  Anabelle O'Malley has another fabulous tip - this time for your scraproom.  Enjoy!

"I thought I'd share a fun tip for storing Felt Fusion. I found that once I opened a pack of felt, I hated folding it back up to put away. Inevitably, it got tangled up and finding the exact piece that I wanted was a hassle. I decided to make a space in my room to hang it up! Several years ago, one of my students painted a bunch of clothespins for me to use in my classroom to hang up student work. Since I don't need them in that capacity anymore, but still love them, I decided to use them. I glued them to my closet door. (Now, these doors are old and junky and I don't care about them getting messed up. But if that's not your thing, you could glue them onto a strip of wood and mount it somewhere in your room). Now, when I open a pack, I just clip up my felt. My table is facing my closet, so I can always see what I have to use. Plus, the fun colors and patterns make for some fun and funky decor in my scraproom!"

Quick Mothers Day project

Just another quick mothers day project by Sherry Wright. Sherry uses the vine felt and Queen & Co Jewels on this project.  Who couldn't love this card?

Mother's Day

Mothers Day is not too far away so I thought we'd start posting some gorgeous mothers day projects here on the Queen & Co blog.  The design team have been busy working away at various inspirational bits and pieces, check back over the next few weeks to see more!

The following layout is by Anabelle O'Malley.  The tropical felt fusion is one of my favourites, and again it looks so good on this layout!   I love how Anabelle used a tiny piece of felt and four of the Queen & Co brads to do the small detailing up in the top left corner here.  Awesome!  Queen & Co jewels finish this project off beautifully.

The quote is as follows, thanks for sharing, Anabelle!
"When you are a mother, your are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice. Once for herself and once for her child." Sofia Loren.

Altering Brads - by Sherry Wright

I'm always trying to think of new ways to add texture and interest to my projects. For this card I wanted a unique place for the sentiment so added a rub-on directly onto a large brad. It's super easy to do and can be placed anywhere on you card or layout (flower centers, borders ect..). With all the rub-ons available and different colors and shapes of Queen & Co. brads the possibilities are endless.