WELCOME FISKA-BLOG-HOPPERS!!

You have found the next stop on your wonderful orange journey! If you are coming from Kim's Scrap and Stamp Blog you are at the right place if you are just visiting me cause you love me :) check out the Fiskateer Blog Hop starting at Fiskateers.

While all ya'll are hopping away I'm partying with 40 lovely fiskateers (and 4 fiskateens) at the United States of Fiskateers Illinois event!

I wanted to share with you the fun make and take I'm doing at the event. With fall in the air and Halloween around the corner these cute little pumpkins are a perfect project for you little pumpkin or to line up on a windowsill (or as a table favor for a Halloween party or even Thanksgiving dinner :)

You will need:

Supplies:

1-4" x 6" piece of patterned paper (I used some from Fancy Pants)

1-thin little strip 12" long and about 1/16" thick (seriously just a thin little piece) of Green cardstock

1-1/4" x 1" piece of brown yardstick

Glue Dots

2 mini brads

Tools:

Trimmer

A piece of foam (I used one of those foam door hangers but a piece of fun foam works great too)

A flat edge (bone folder or something similar. I'm shown using my pampered chef pan scraper :)

Needle or paper piercer

Optional Supplies:

Ink Pad

glue stick

Start by slicing your 4 x 6 piece into 6- 1" x 4" strips. I used the new Fiskars L.E.D. Trimmer with this project. This was sent to me to use at the US of F event. It's wonderful! Your cutting area lights up not only showing you exactly where you are cutting, but giving you that "extra" bit of light to illuminate the paper, great when you are cropping in a poorly lit area.

After you have your strips, ink them if desired and lay them out so your pattern is "reassembled" (you can skip this part if you want a more random look)

Stack your pieces in order

Using the needle or piercer make one hole in the middle of each end of the stack of strips (about 1/8 of an inch in or so)

Insert your mini brad in the holes, you can open one brad fully, leave the other one closed and set this aside for a moment.

Take your green strip and lay it on your piece of foam. With firm even pressure run your straight edge along the strip. This will curl up the paper giving it the look of a "vine"…for an even more natural look, vary the direction you are pulling, even start and stop. It' fun to see how the paper curls up (and you can always redo it if it's not to your liking)

Take your strip of green and make a loop in the middle. Wrap your loop around that brad you left closed. The green should be on the top of your strips. Open the back of the brad.

Starting with the back strip, start fanning out your strips. You will see the pumpkin shape starting to form.

To make the stem, roll the strip of brown into a coil and insert a glue dot into one end. Place the glue dotted end on top of the brad holding your vine in place. )You might need to secure the tail of the stem with a touch of a glue stick.

There you have it. A cute little pumpkin. It honestly takes longer to explain than to make! And kids LOVE making them! You can vary the colors, and the sizes of the strips for the pumpkin. (With larger sizes you may want to add a few strips to fill out the shape as well as secure the bottom in place (cause they can flop over when they get larger.)

Now what blog hop would be any fun without a prize? I have a wonderful assortment of Fancy Pants Halloween papers and dies, and two coordinating transparencies. To win simply leave a comment. If you are a follower I'll toss in some extra ribbons and such to match! (I'll draw a winner on Monday.)

I hope you enjoyed a peek into what we are doing at the Illinois event. I'm glad you stopped by!

Your next stop on the journey is Scrapulescence

Thanks for stopping by!