crafty cuteness

Before my niece Hannah was born, I helped my sister decorate her nursery. She picked a Baby Suzi's Zoo theme and we chose two colors of light yellow on the wall separated by a border in between. Since my sister was mega-prega by that time, I did all the hard work. It turned out really sweet. (Well, except for that one part where my sister didn't know you had to buy rolls of border with the same Lot number and none of them matched up right and I had a near nervous breakdown over it!) So now Hannah, my cute little sleeping flower girl,

is turning six tomorrow (and - oh my word - starts kindergarten next week) and is now sharing her room part-time with her step-sister Payge and it's time for a new, more mature girlie look. So my sister a few weeks ago was taking off the border so she can get the walls ready to paint and in walks Hannah who immediately starts hysterically asking my sister, "Mommy, what are you doing?!?" "I'm taking down the border so I can repaint your room." "But you can't take that down! It always reminds me of my Aunt Dee!!!"

*Note to new blog readers - Aunt Dee is the name I inherited from my nephew Darick who never heard the 'Wen' part of my name, just the 'dy' part, and it's stuck ever since. I love it!

Of course, when my sister told me that story, and it tugged at my heartstrings, I knew I had to get something on her new walls to always remind her of her Aunt Dee. A few months ago I was browsing on Ali Edwards' blog - http://aliedwards.typepad.com -, she's a scrapbooking guru who works for Creating Keepsakes Magazine. She posted a weekend creative project several months ago really cute framed butterfly collage that she made. It was a basic black frame with a cream mat, and she punched out rows of butterflies in all different sorts of papers. Here it is copied from her site. . .

I loved that idea and have had it hanging around in the back of my mind ever since. I decided to give it a little bit more of a girlie personal twist, and here's the result. . .

And big sister Payge has a birthday coming up in September, and so she's getting this a few weeks early. . .

I used pink and green polka dotted papers for the background with the same patterned papers for the butterflies, I just changed them up a bit. The initials are chipboard that I just covered with paper and sanded the edges a little bit. The little butterflies that are not attached to the initials are adhered with mini pop dots so they stick up for a little extra dimension. I added ribbon and a paper flower with a brad to the letters, popped them in frames that I got on sale at Craft Warehouse, and wa-la, girlie new wall additions for the updated bedroom. On Payge's, I cut the big butterfly out by hand. I got new pajamas a while back that have butterflies on them, and the tag that was attached to it was in the shape of a butterfly. I saved it all this time for some odd reason. And now I know why. It was my stencil!

I hope the colors match what my sister has tried to describe to me over the phone. It's the best I can do from 2,000 miles away.

Happy 6th birthday, Hannah Rose Shafer! Your Aunt Dee loves you :)

*preschool graduation earlier this year