Hey guys - how was your Memorial Day weekend? While it would be great to have a post chock full of all of the DIY projects I got done over the long weekend, that would mean I would have had to actually get a bunch of DIY projects done over the past three days. Which I so did not. Instead, I put the long list of house projects aside and just enjoyed the weekend - we went on a long bike ride, hit the beach, planted our new vegetable garden, had a cookout, and did our fair share of lazing around. Loved it!
My only house-related accomplishment was making a few new rosettes for my daughter's room. And I took some step by step photos while making them to share how it's done. Making the rosettes is easy and they're such a fun, inexpensive way to dress up walls in kids rooms or to use as decorations for birthday celebrations. You may remember that I used a grouping of them in my daughter's room over her chest of drawers in place of art. The two rosettes that were white with a gold design ended up looking light brown from afar:so I made two new yellow ones to take their place - much better!
I got the idea for making the rosettes for my daughter's room from this colorful, fun display at Paper Source:They even had printed out instructions there about how to make the rosettes but their method didn't work very well for me so I figured out a better way.
The first step is to find some great papers to make the rosettes with - I used a combination of wrapping paper from rolls as well as sheets of decorative paper from Paper Source (they have so many amazing ones to choose from!). Decide on how many inches you want the diameter of your rosette to be - this will be the number of inches wide to cut your paper. For the length of your paper, it depends upon how full you want your rosette to be, but usually about 2 1/2 to 3 times the width of the paper works well. It's better to err on the side of your paper being too long - you can always shorten it later.
If you're using wrapping paper, simply cut one big sheet to the width and length that you have decided on. But if you're using sheets of decorative paper, unless you're making a small rosette, one sheet won't be long enough so you'll have to glue/tape two sheets together. The final rosette looks best if you make your two sheets the same length (i.e. each sheet is half of your final length).
For example, I was making a 14" wide rosette so I needed a sheet that was 14" wide by about 36" long. My paper wasn't 36" long so I took two sheets of wrapping paper and cut them both to 14" x 18". Once I glue them together, it will make a 14" x 36" long piece.One word of advice when cutting your paper - if it has a pattern, your rosette will look best if you cut off the pattern at the same point on the left hand side as you do on the right hand side since the two edges will come together in the end:Now for the folding - it's done accordion-style (like when you make paper fans), folding the paper along it's width (short side). With the patterned side of the paper down, fold up about 1/2" - 3/4" of it, and create a sharp fold by pressing down along the edge. Then flip the paper over and make another same-sized fold. Keep flipping and making folds until you reach the end of your paper. Be careful that you're not making your folds bigger as you work your way down the paper. You'll want your last fold on your sheet of paper to face down (like on the right side of the pic below). If it faces up, cut off a single fold so that it faces down.If you are working with two sheets of paper instead of one long sheet from a roll of wrapping paper, you'll now want to do the same thing with your second sheet except you'll place this sheet patterned side up to start your folding:Now you'll overlap your two sheets and attach them together - I originally tried double stick tape to do this but it didn't hold well so I ended up using ZIPS clear adhesive lines. They are like Glue Dots but are lines instead of dots - they're super sticky and hold really well. They used to sell them at Michaels but ours doesn't carry them anymore so I order them from Amazon.
Run an adhesive line all the way down the length of the end fold on one sheet and adhere it to the end fold from the other sheet,creating one continuous sheet with accordion folds:Then simply gather the folds tightly together, turn the rosette over so that the patterned side is down, and tie the accordion folds in the center with embroidery floss or doubled thread:Now flip it over and pull the ends together on both side to see how you like the look of your rosette. If it is too full, cut the tie you just made in the middle, cut off an equal amount of paper from both ends of your accordioned paper, and retie. Then use the ZIPS lines or tape to adhere the two paper edges to one another to create your final rosette. To hang the rosettes, I simply nailed small hooks into the wall and slid the hook under the tie at the middle of the rosette:If you're layering rosettes like I did, sometimes the center of the rosette is going to be layered over another rosette so you won't be able to attach it to a hook there. In this situation, create a loop with thread or embroidery floss that is tied to the back center of the rosette:Then attach the looped thread to a hanger above the spot where you'd like your rosette to go. Adjust the length of the loop as needed to adjust the height of your rosette.Easy to make, fun to look at, and so much less expensive than pretty much any other type of artwork. I spent about $50 on the papers for my rosettes and have quite a bit left over for wrapping gifts. If my daughter gets bored of it in a year or two, there's no guilt in getting rid of it and doing something new!Hope you all have a good start to the work week - it's always nice to start of the week with only four days until the weekend!
