Point Of Inspiration - Modern Eggs

The internet is a funny place - so huge and yet at times it feels likes we're all pulling inspiration from the same pool of creative ideas. This can create some challenges but also, some beautiful results. I love seeing what inspires others but also what it inspires them to create!

Here's a fun duo of modern eggs that demonstrate how the online creative community inspire each other in some delicious ways!

I'm a big fan of Baba Souk and love the seasonal wrapping papers Stephanie creates. For Easter, she shared this fab modern egg print (amongst others - go download them here) designed with Marie-France Auger.

Which then inspired Sara over at Tell Love and Chocolate to bake up these gorgeous Easter cookies. So good, right?

I guess you can have good design and eat it too!

Washi Tape Easter Egg Cards

One more Easter card project for you to try... we're cutting it close here, but there's still a few days left to create a stack of these!

Simple washi tape stripes on neutral card stock make for lovely modern eggs.

To make your own, all you need to do cover a fold piece of card stock in half. Cover one side with strips of washi. Then cut your card into an egg shape, making sure to leave a small connected piece at the fold.

Sweet, simple & straightforward. That's how we like them!

Washi tape & Easter are such a great pair. Don't you think?

Happy crafting!

The Kirigami Project - Week 16* - Easter Eggs

*My internal calendar went a bit haywire while planning April's designs and this one was originally scheduled for the Tuesday AFTER Easter. So we're jumping ahead to week 16 and then we'll jump back to week 15 next week.

Designed to look like striped Easter eggs around a flower, I think it's a fun seasonal project to try but also subtle enough that you could make it at any point during the year.

The final design actually reminds me of something else entirely ... though I can't quite put my finger on it. An electric fan? What do you see?

To create your own Easter-inspired kirigami, use the template above and the 6-point folding pattern.

Happy crafting!

The Kirigami Project is a collaborative creative project from Marisa Edghill of Omiyage and Geri Jewitt of The Languid Lion. Marisa creates the kirigami designs and Geri whips them into template shape! Each week In 2014, we will bring you a new kirigami design to fold and cut.

Washi Tape Easter Bunny Cards

My favourite part of Easter (besides, you know, the Mini Eggs) has to be the sudden abundance of bunnies everywhere you look. Hello adorableness! So I simply couldn't resist crafting up some bunny cards for Easter. Aren't they cute?

When it comes time to shape-specific crafting, it's always helpful to have designer friends. Geri from The Languid Lion whipped up these bunny silhouettes for us. (And she's got even more bunnies for you over here and here! But first... bunny cards!)

Start by gathering your supplies. You will need:

• Bunny template (download here)
• Washi tape
• Waxed/Parchment paper
• Scissors
• Marker
• Blank card
• Pom pom or baker's twine (optional)

Place bunny template face down on piece of waxed/parchment paper and tape in place. Flip paper over and trace bunny shape onto the back of the waxed/parchment paper using a fine tip marker. You want to be able to see the outline through the paper.

Remove template. Flip paper so that marker outline is facing your work surface. Cover bunny shape entirely with strips of washi tape. Make sure that each strip slightly overlaps the one before it.

Flip paper back over and cut out the bunny shape.

Starting from the bottommost strip (the first one you laid), carefully peel the bunny shape off of the paper backing and apply to the front of your card.

Once the basic bunny shape is in place, feel free to customize your card. Try adding a message banner - cut notches out of each end and write your message using a fine tip permanent marker. (Ultra Fine Sharpies are my favourite for writing on washi tape without fear of smearing).

Or why not glue on a cute pom pom tail? I made this one out of baker's twine, but you could simply apply a standard small pom. Here's a clever trick for making mini twine pom poms.

 

Want more bunny love? Find a super sweet place card project (and another template) over on The Languid Lion - perfect for your Easter brunch. And then pop over to Oh My! Handmade Goodness for bunny gift tags, the finishing touch for Easter treats!

Or perhaps you prefer Easter Eggs to Easter Bunnies? Try this card project instead.

Thanks Geri for the adorable bunnies!

Bunny Bunny

Bunny Ears - Country Living / Bunny Cookies - La tana del coniglio
Bunny Surprise Balls - Martha Stewart / Bunny Finger Puppets - The Purl Bee
Bunny Bags - Oh Happy Day / Bunny Macarons - raspberri cupcakes

Not sure that I believe in THE Easter Bunny, but I sure am enamoured with Easter bunnies! Oh, and this guy too!

Need more bunny? These napkin rings are perfect for subtle bunniness. Your Easter morning egg needs one of these. Or maybe bunny egg costumes are more your style? Either way, I'm sure we can all agree that this rabbit's a cutie!

For more bunnies - and other Easter goodness - hop on over to our Easter Pinterest board!

Guest Post: Easter Gift Tag Printable

We're thrilled that Geri of The Languid Lion is visiting us today to share the sweetest DIY and Free Printable for Easter Tags. Hope you love this project as much as we do!

It seems that Spring might just be taking its time getting here, but these adorable tags will certainly getting you smiling!  It all started with the idea of creating some Easter tags featuring an bunny illustration by me and, of course, some washi tape... well, here they are.  Aren't they cute?  I had soooo much fun playing around with them and creating the template (yep, I'm a bit of a nerd), which is made especially for the large tags that Omiyage carries.  You can also get all of the washi tape & Baker's Twine shown in the tutorial there, too!

Ready?  Ok... here we go!

THE SUPPLIES:

• Large shipping tags (either white or cream)

• a printer

• PVA or craft glue (or glue gun)

• scissors (and/or craft knife, not shown)

• washi tape and clear tape

• Baker's Twine - I used the Fresh Colour Collection

• cotton balls 

Print out the first page of the template & line up your tags within the outlines given.  

TOP TIP: **It's always a good idea to try printing Page 2 onto the outline page WITHOUT the tags while you make sure how to load your printer; plain paper is a LOT cheaper than wasting tags!

I tried two techniques to print these tags; using clear tape or washi tape to secure the tags to the template & print them out.  

When using the clear tape, the benefit is that you simply run two strips of tape across all of the tags and you're done; the downside is that printer heated up the glue of the tape and tore the tags slightly when I removed them from the template, which is easily covered by the washi tape later.

When using the washi tape, the benefit is that you only have to tape once; the downside is that you have to figure out your decoration placement first and tape each tag individually.

I used both techniques and found them to be about equally pleasing!  Print Page 2 of the template onto the tags, being sure to figure out to place the tags in the appropriate tray & alignment of your printer (for example, mine is face up, bottom first).

As a cute little addition, I added a cotton ball tail to the bunny. Editor's note - you could also use a small pom pom as a tail!

I also made a little bow with some Baker's Twine for the bunny's neck, attaching it with the same glue as the tail and finished off the tag by threading some more Baker's Twine through the tag hole (the craft knife or a hole punch works great)!

Download your free Easter Tags & happy handmaking!

Geri Jewitt is a designer gone rogue from Corporate who now owns The Languid Lion, creating handmade & eco-friendly stationery, decorations & illustrated art prints for those of us who celebrates love & the art of handmade.  She is also the editor of The Lion's Den, a blog where she writes about love, life & handmade.

Connect with Geri via Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and see what lovely things she's been pinning over on Pinterest!

DIY: The Decorated Egg

floral eggs - a creative mint / whimsical easter eggs - alisa burke
watercolour easter eggs - spoon fork bacon / tissue paper dyed easter eggs - squirrelly minds

Happy Monday! Have you decorated this year's Easter eggs yet?

Here's a little inspiration for you colour lovers.

calligraphed eggs - oh happy day / sharpie eggs - obviously sweet
strongman egg - sweet bestiary / chalkboard eggs - liebesbotschaft

And for those of you who prefer to see things in Black & White!

Happy decorating!

Will you be decorating eggs this year?

DIY Easter Projects

Mix & Match Easter Egg Sculptures - Mr. Printables

Bunny Hand Puppets - the purl bee

Bunny Goody Bags - Probably Actually (project template - mer mag)

Salt Dough Eggs - Design Mom

Seems like Easter is just around the corner - is it just me, or is 2013 flying extra-quickly? Where did those first 2 weeks of March go? It's the perfect time to start crafting up delightful things for the return of the Easter Bunny! Love these clever projects that you can paint or sew.

Looking for Easter projects to do with washi tape? Try our Easter Egg cards, paper pouches or straw toppers.

Happy crafting!

Washi Tape Easter Egg Card

Here's a really simple technique for making washi tape shapes - perfect for crafting up your own greeting cards. Since Easter is just around the corner (how did that happen?), it seemed like the perfect time to make Easter Egg Cards. Of course, you can use this technique to make any simple shape out of washi tape.

Materials:
Washi Tape
Blank Card
Parchment / Waxed Paper
Scissors
Print out of egg shape (or other desired shape)

First, you need to draw or find the shape you want to recreate on your card. Here's the egg shape I chose and sized down to about 25% before printing. Want to create a different shape? Simply do a web search for the desired shape - you can filter the search by choosing the line drawing option.

Trace (or draw) the shape onto parchment or waxed paper. I use the paper backings of our shipping label pouches - they work perfectly!

Flip the parchment/waxed paper over. If you tape over the ink, the ink can transfer to the tape.

Cover your whole shape in strips of tape - no need to be neat, you'll be cutting those torn ends off. As you lay the strips, make sure that each one slightly overlaps the one before it - this will help to keep your shape intact when you remove it from the paper backing.

Once shape is covered in tape, cut it out.

Carefully peel the shape from the paper backing. Start with the piece of tape you applied first and the whole shape should peel up as one piece. If you did not place the tape in order, or if you peel from the last strip of tape, the shape will come apart.

Stick your egg shape to your blank card. Et voila! You've made an Easter card!

If desired, you could stamp an Easter message on the card or try making a collection of smaller egg shapes rather than one large one.

Do you use your washi tape for card making? 

Happy Easter!

1. Neon Dip-Dyed Eggs - Oh Joy / 2. Easter Egg Piñatas - Corner Blog

3. Thread Wrapped Eggs - Martha Stewart / 4. Kirigami Eggs - Better Homes & Gardens

Wishing you a Happy Easter this weekend with four of our favourite egg decorating ideas spotted this year. Other than washi tape eggs, of course! 

We'll be back on Monday with a little Monday Morning Eye Candy and shipping will resume on Tuesday after the long weekend.

How will you be celebrating Easter this year? We'll be celebrating with our annual egg hunt, family time, and lots of hot cross buns!

DIY: Origami Bunnies

1. Puffy Bunnies - Origami Fun

2. Origami Rabbit - Happy Folding (via How About Orange)

3. Origami Bunny Box - Origami Spirit (via How About Orange)

4. Origami Bunny Garland - Dandee

Need more Origami bunnies?

How about more bunnies for folding, origami bunnies filled with cake, bunnies on envelopes, adorable bunny gift tags or even a bamboo origami rabbit brooch?!

DIY: Dress Up Straws for Easter

This Easter, why not dress up your paper straws?

Washi tape Easter egg straw toppers are super simple to create.

You will need:
- paper / washi tape / paper straws
- scissors / hole punch / pen or pencil

Here's how:

1. Make an egg template out of cardboard or thick card. Ours is approximately 2.5" / 6.5cm tall.  Draw it, trace a cookie cutter or find it online - whichever way works best for you! Trace your egg template onto paper. Regular printer or copy paper works just fine - you don't want to use anything too thick or the decorated eggs will be difficult to get onto the straws.

2. Decorate the eggs with your favourite washi tape designs. Cut out the decorated egg shapes.

3. Using a standard hole punch, punch a hole in the top and bottom of the egg.

4. Feed a paper straw through the holes in the egg.

Ta da! Your paper straws are all dressed up in their Easter best!

DIY: Easter Paper Pouches

What's pretty, stripy & filled with something yummy?

Our DIY Easter Paper Pouches, of course! We've taken our Heart Paper Pouches and given them an Easter facelift (thanks to Andrea & Jessica for the inspiration/motivation).

These are super simple and fun to make - though those of you who are afraid of your sewing machines (I see you!) will have to get friendly with your machines on this one. It's not really a hand-sewable project.

Ready to make your own? Here's how:

You will need:

- kraft paper

- washi tape

- your favourite Easter goodies

- cardboard or thick paper for template

- scissors / marker / sewing machine and thread

1. Create an egg template.* Trace the egg shape onto kraft paper. Use a dark marker so that it's easier to cut out the eggs later on.


2. Cover the egg shape in strips of your favourite washi tapes. Don't need to be neat as the edges will be cut off. Repeat until you have as many decorated eggs as you need.

3. Cut out the egg shapes. If you've used a marker, you should be able to flip the kraft paper over and have a clear outline of where to cut. At this point you'll also want to trace and cut out plain eggs to use as the backs of your egg pouches. For each pouch you will need one decorated egg and one plain egg. Though you could decorate both sides of your egg pouch, if you're feeling extra-fancy!

4. Time to sew! Take one decorated egg and plain egg and line up back to back. Head to the sewing machine and sew around the edge of the egg, leaving a space large enough to slip your Easter treats into. About 2" / 5cm should do it. Fill with treats (but not too many!) and then sew up the gap in the side of the pouch. Finally, trim off the extra pieces of thread.

Want to hang your egg pouches up? Try attaching a loop of ribbon, rick-rack, or twine to the top of the egg as you sew!

For more detailed step by step images, check out our DIY Paper Heart Pouches tutorial.


*Does drawing your own template make you anxious? Why not try using an egg-shaped cookie cutter or look around online for one you like! I drew this one by first tracing around a circle shape and then modifying it from there.

DIY: Lovely Washi Eggs

I was going to write you a post all about decorating eggs with washi tape for Easter.

I was going to tell you all about how easy it is. No dye, no mess, no need to muck about blowing the insides out if you don't want.

I was going to weave a tale of cutting, tearing, collaging and sticking.

But then, you see, I came across these washi tape eggs from Lovely Indeed. And they are! Lovely indeed, that is. In fact they're positively the loveliest washi tape eggs I've seen.

So I won't tell you how to make your own. But I will tell you to go visit Chelsea and read all about her DIY Washi Tape Eggs and, while you're there, do tell her just how lovely they are!