The Grass Is Always Greener........

Busy in my craft room has brought may hours of joy. Easter and Spring swaps to be made and decorations to assemble. Oh how I love this time of year! 

Vintage paper Easter grass is hard to find. I love using the paper Easter grass instead of the plastic. I remember that the vintage grass was a type of wax paper that was very narrow, much narrower than today's paper grass. My wide paper grass looks vintage but not vintage enough for me, especially when I tried to pair it with those adorable tiny fuzzy chicks. It is too wide and dwarfs the chicks. So here's my solution. Cut the grass in half length wise. It works and looks oh so vintage!

Left: regular unaltered paper grass. Middle: straighten the grass out by gently pulling it between you fingers. You can also use your fingernail to "iron" it out by gently pulling it between your thumb nail and the tip of your pointer finger. Right: now fold the grass in half, keeping it aligned, then in half again and one more time, keeping it all aligned. You can finger pinch it to make it stay. Now cut the grass in half long ways, just don't let it slip out of alignment. 

Grass cut in half long ways. Use very sharp scissors.

To give it more of a vintage look, crumple it.

See the difference. On the left- grass uncut and on right- the cut grass. Now you can cut it into any length you want. Sometimes I cut it into 1" pieces and sometimes I leave it the full length.

Little spoolie chick, he is on a nest of full length, cut in half grass.

 Can you tell that  I am addicted to party hats? If you stay in my craft room long enough, you are going to end up with a party hat glued to your head. They are such fun! and oh so simple to make! A little trick: I like to copy my pretty papers onto copy paper using the color copier. This makes the little hat easier to curl (because the copy paper is not as thick as the scrapbooking paper) before you glue it together. And I curl the hat around a pencil, to give it a kind of "memory" so that when I glue it I am not trying to fiddle it into a cone. And if you copy newspaper to make cute party hats or sailor hats, you don't get the ink all over your hands!

Dress up a simple egg cup with ribbon and a handmade rosette. I made mine from plain scrapbook paper, felt circle (used my Cuttlebug to cut out the beautiful, perfect circle) and pink pom pom. Need to make her a party hat! Her grass is non cut paper grass. The larger size grass fits her well.

Pom chick on a spoolie. Spool is plain one from Hobby Lobby. Vintage style flowers are made using my tutorial and eyes were made using my black pearl tutorial.

Sweet little fuzzy chick. His grass is cut in half and suits him well. He is wearing the tiny party hat. And a simple ribbon bow.

Here's some more sweet vintage wrapping for your personal library. Have fun! 

Notice the tiny doll rattles. Elizabeth of Creative Breathing made the most adorable doll rattles from paper clay. They look just like the one on the wrapping paper.

Have a wonderful crafty day,

Holly