Ooh! A Birthday!!

Whew! The month of June zipped by! I trust it was a good month for you. In regard to summer vacation, one month down, two to go. I hope I make it!

This month at "made with love (and paper)" Design Team we are celebrating Birthdays!! And that is our only requirement: Birthday. So if you need some new birthday ideas, stop over and see what the design team has been up to. Remember that you are always welcome to submit your creations to the challenges.

I have been wanting to make one of those really fancy birthday hats for a long time! Now Rachelle have given me an avenue to do so. Once again I procrastinated. But it works for me--the ideas pop right up. I have a friend who's birthday was coming up. It was yesterday, actually. I asked her about colors and styles, not telling her what I was going to make. She said that she likes metalics. I suggested that she might like the Steampunk style. She did not know what that is. So after shooting her some images and definition of Steampunk, she decided that she is indeed, a steampunk gal.

So I created her a Steampunk style birthday party hat. My cave boys are home on summer break and need a lot of direction (remember, they are cave boys!). This leaves me little time to craft. Thus, I greatly rely on remembering what "stuff" I have in my craft "stash." I assembled the pieces in my head. I know that sounds normal and may be the way most crafters operate, but I am a tactile person and really do need to see the items in front of me as I create. When I sat down to make the hat, it whipped right togehter, I think that is one of the benefits of working with the Steampunk style: Whatever you do, it is right! At first I was going to use flowers that were factory made. But, they were factory made and I am a paper crafter and they were perfect. Steampunk isn't perfect. So I went with one of my favorite items to create--the hand-torn, rolled flowers.

Happy Birthday Jill. You do mean a lot to me. I hope you like your fun party hat!

Other details of the hat. The cogs were cut from a pattern created by Dan at My Crafty Life.
I drew the hat form myself and cut it with my Pazzles cutter.
I used stamp pads to "distress" or color the cogs and hat.
For the spiral paper flowers, I used Core'dinations paper that comes from the chocolate covered collection.
All the fun little pieces and doo-dads are from my "stash."
The hat is 10 inches tall.