Queen & Co - Indulge Your Creativity

Mini Felt Fusion!

 The long awaited Mini Felt Fusion has arrived! Queen & Co is proud to release this fabulous new 3/4 inch Mini version of one of our favorite products.  There are 16 fabulous new designs and all are self adhesive, we haven't made it easy to choose - check these designs out, all will be shipping to stores soon!

BUT the best news!  We have a new contest to reveal within the next week and winners will receive Mini Felt prize packs - check back soon!

         

 

Funky Fun Summer Bag by Sherry Wright

With Summer quickly approaching who couldn't use a fun and quick new beach bag. This project takes about 20-30" and very minimal sewing. First go to any store and pick out a dish towel in a fun and summery pattern.. this will be your bag. Next pick out some coordinating ribbon, felt, brads, and sequin flowers and follow these easy steps:

 

1. Fold dish towel in half. Sew up sides and then sew closed ends on right and left sides to make purse bottom.
2. Cut two lengths of ribbon and sew on for handles.
3. Embellish purse front with felt trim around top edge. Attach felt with self adhesive already on felt and add fabric glue for extra adhesion.
4. Attach coordinating flowers to outside of purse using brads being sure to layer and coordinate.

Have fun, I'd love to see what everyone comes up with!

 

Glitter foam & Queen & Co embellishments....

The cool ideas just keep on coming.  DT member Kristin Hayne knew she'd probably be a little late when submitting this idea to me for the blog but it was just perfect for the Mother's Day card she was making at the time.  She asked if I still wanted to feature the idea although Mother's Day had passed and I said Oh YEA!  Definitely!  Just because Mother's Day has passed it doesn't mean that we can't all play with the technique! 

We all like a little glitter foam fun! lol

ADDING GLITTER FOAM...

to your existing embellishments is super easy.  Simply take your brads or Fab Flowers and make designs with the glitter foam.  After tracing or dotting your embellishments, allow them to dry for at least 3 hours.  After they are completely dry, layer the embellishments however you wish. It is a quick, fun and creative way to spice up plain embellishments and add a nice texture and dimension to any project!  ENJOY!

A quick tip from Ginger Williams

A quick tip from Ginger Williams: I like to leave the backing on my white colored felt. I often feel it seems a little translucent otherwise; especially when working with a light colored background. Leaving the backing on helps the felt to really pop off the background papers--plus it add just a little extra hint of dimension that I really love. It is still a breeze to attach with brads, spray adhesive, liquid glue or a sewing machine. On a darker background this seems to matter less as the contrast between the light and dark colors is still quite high.

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!