Hanging Up Springtime Swap

Sarah at Gypsy Mermaid Life http://gypsymermaidlife.blogspot.com/ is hosting a Hanging Up Springtime Swap. In this swap, each participant has to create a dress, hat, gloves, bloomers, bird and a butterfly. They have to have either a tea party or a garden party theme. After you create your items, you send them to Sarah. Sarah is going to take everyone's items and hang them from a clothesline. So, in a nutshell, you send in your six items, and then you get six items back, each from a different person. How neat is that! And a big thank you to Sarah for her great idea and all of the time she is putting into this for us so that we all have a wonderful spring hanging.

I had to think for a little while before I committed to this great idea. I have never made paper clothes and thought it might be too much of a challenge. This swap really pushed me artistically though and I feel like I have really grown from this experience. Actually, I am really proud of my finished items and really put my heart into it all. It is also good that I work best under pressure because I have fell behind due to the flu, which I am still dragging from.

The bird was the last one that I did. I didn't think I would ever be able to make a decent bird, and this one just somehow came all together for me. A vintage piece of jewelry was my inspiration.


Choosing the right paper was a huge consumer of my time but it finally came all together. I ended up adding lace to the bottom of the dress, and then I decided that I really wanted it to show some fullness. At first, I layered paper, but then I decided to "poof" the top layer out. I love this embossed paper and it just turned out perfect in my eyes.

Here is the "poof".

At first, I layered the paper and made a cut to try and show some dimension. I like the finished product with the added top layer.

I did the same thing with the hat. I also loved this velvet trim that I had. After applying adhesive, it was really easy to bunch it up. I like the effect this had.

Each item also contains a tiny pearl. Gives it that little bit of bling that I like to have.

The back of the butterfly has the embossed paper, as well as the bird. For the butterfly I just layered on different punched shapes made from the papers that I used.

The gloves were a big challenge. I didn't think I would be able to make attractive gloves, but I love the end product. I then used a pretty cord to attach the gloves together and the back is lined with floral paper.

If I had these in my size, I would so wear them. I love the way my little bloomers came out. I didn't think I would be able to make them look too good, but then I just added many, many layers of paper and lace. And of course, I had to put a little pearl on these as well.

Again, I thank Sarah for challenging the artist in me. This is one of my favorite projects I have done so far and I really hope to have her challenge me again down my creative road.

Have a great creative day!