6th Blogiversary!

 Happy 6th Blogiversary! The suggested anniversary gifts for this year are iron and candy, so I had some fun designing a couple surface patterns accordingly. Now available for sale in my shop as fabric, wallpaper, giftwrap, and homewares, here's Nouveau Deco

Sugar

Thank you for following my creative endeavours thus far!

5th Blogiversary!

It's already been 5 years! The traditional gift for a 5th anniversary is wood, so here is a 5-piece collection inspired by the stunning wooden floor of the Blackpool Tower Ballroom in the UK. Ballroom is available in my shop as fabric, wallpaper, gift wrap, cut-and-sew patterns, and homewares!

Treillage

Parquetry Chevron

Steps

Parquetry Tangram

Swoosh

Thank you for following my crazy creative dance thus far! Here's to the next 5 years of Creatively Graceful!

4th Blogiversary!

Appliances, fruit, flowers, linen, and silk are 4th anniversary gifts, so here are two new surface pattern designs celebrating those items! They are available in my shop as fabric (linen and silk are options of course), wallpaper, gift wrap (party time), cut-and-sew patterns, and homewares. I give you Smeg

and Strawberry Blonde. Thanks a bunch for 4 years of readership, and here's to the next years of creativity!

3rd Blogiversary: Leather Shoes

The traditional gift for 3rd anniversaries is leather. Hence, I have decided to celebrate my favourite piece of leather, my shoes, which I have worn pretty much constantly for 3 years. I found the lovely pair at Value Village for $12.99. Ironically, a week later, I happened to see the exact same pair in my size, but I passed them by since I had just bought mine and I didn't realize how much I would grow to love them. Ultimately, they are a metaphor for something that means more than fashion.

I replaced their laces with sheer ribbons, which have surprisingly held up for the 3 years!

 These guys have been to Toronto, Montréal, Québec City, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, many an antique show, and so on! They have been covered in mud, but they just brush off and acquire a pretty patina.

 They are obviously durable, and have aged beautifully. They are so soft now, and have comfortably molded to my feet. These shoes also look good with both pants and dresses, and, best of all, I can walk forever in them.

I hope someone else owns that other pair of these shoes and is loving them. This all to say that quality is what to strive for, because quality lasts. A life surrounded by good, positive, enduring things is gorgeous. Thank you for 3 years of readership--here's to many more years of loveliness!

2nd Blogiversary: Fabric Swatch Giveaway

Happy 2 years of Creatively Graceful! The traditional 2nd anniversary gift is cotton and the modern gift is china, so, in honour of this day, I have created my China Floral design. It is now up for sale as fabric, wallpaper, and gift wrap in my shop. You can head on over to my blog's Facebook page to get the details on how to be entered to win an 8'' by 8'' swatch of it--on cotton, of course!

1st Blogiversary!

 

 Today's the day! The traditional gift for a 1st anniversary is paper and the modern gift is clocks, so here you are: a paper clock, paper slice of cake, paper flower, and paper diamonds! In response to my PaperLove post I received a request for a tutorial on how to make paper flowers like the one on top of the slice of cake. So, for some celebratory crafting:

Materials:

String

Scissors

Thin paper (I used blank newsprint. Weights between tissue and multiuse paper work best)

Step 1: Cut about 8 rectangular sheets of paper and layer them on top of each other. They don't have to be exactly the same size (the imperfection makes for more realistic petals), and obviously the bigger you make the sheets the larger your flower will be. The width is the approximate diameter. These pieces are about 3'' wide.

Step 2: Accordion fold the sheets, parallel to the width.

Step 3: Knot string around the center of the folded sheets, perpendicular to the width.

Step 4: Carefully separate the sheets to arrange them into petals.

Step 5: Sometimes the paper tears slightly on the folded ridges, so cutting the sharp corners off the petals makes the whole flower look more natural.

Also, if you are interested in making these satisfyingly geometric diamonds, I used this post's template, which I printed on cardstock, painted metallic, cut out, scored, and glued together with hot glue. Here's to the coming year of creativity!

Pssst! You can now follow my blog with Bloglovin!

It's Later than You Think

It's definitely true that as I get older and older the years go by faster and faster. We're already coming up to Creatively Graceful's 1st Blogiversary! Here's my illustration of the lyrics to this plucky little tune (I can't listen to it without chuckling) to get you into a celebratory mindset. Woo!