I posted this craft over at Paper Crave recently, but I was so happy with how it turned out that I wanted to share it over here, too. My inspiration for these cupcake liner trees came from the cover of Martha Stewart Weddings’ 15th anniversary issue, which featured a gorgeous sugar flower cake by Sylvia Weinstock on the cover. I thought that the ridged flower petals looked a little like cupcake liners, and that planted the idea for this craft in my head.

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If you’re looking for packaging ideas for small Father’s Day gifts, then you’ll want to head over to Paper Crave, where I share a Father’s Day packaging project that you can put together in a snap. These shirt and tie gift boxes will hold things like fishing lure, small electronic or kitchen gadgets, watches, gift cards, and more. Download templates for a necktie, a bow tie, and for the gift box, too!

photograph by Lisa Rigby

Do you remember the secret project that I hinted about a while ago as my excuse for being absent from this place for a while? Well, I realized that I never did tell you about the project. Yeah, my memory’s not what it used to be.

My new (or new-ish, at this point) project, a collaboration with Maddy Hague of The Inspired Bride, is a wedding-centric online magazine called Nonpareil. The magazine focuses on the DIY details of weddings, though many of the projects found in the magazine can be used for all different types of occasions, not just weddings. So far, we’ve featured everything from felt flower boutonnieres to budget centerpieces, and we also share many free printables that can be used to recreate the projects shown in the magazine.

We just launched the second issue this week, and I’m super excited about all of the cool projects from the awesome contributors that worked with us in both this issue and the premiere issue. My feature from the current issue is a “dessert table” that features bath and body products instead of food, and it was so much fun to put together. I also loved working with Lisa Rigby, who perfectly captured the mood that I was going for in her photographs.

You can get directions for making all of the bath and body products that I used in the feature, and you can download all of the labels, signs, and other printables if you’d like to make your own dessert table with a twist. And be sure to check out all of the other pretty tutorials and downloads while you’re visiting!

Have you ever started a project thinking, “This is going to be so cool! I’m totally going to finish it in a few hours, and I’ll probably end up making half a dozen more because I like it so much,” only to find yourself, weeks later, still working on the same project with not much of an end in sight? Yeah, this was one of those projects. However, I did finish, and I love, love, love the result, so it’s a very happy ending.

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I first made these pom pom pumpkins last year when I did the flowers, but by the time I posted the pom pom flower tutorial I felt that it was probably too late in the season for the pumpkins, so here they are this year! They make cute little accessories for bookshelves and other nooks and crannies, and I think that they’d look nice coupled with a table place card at a fall themed wedding or Thanksgiving dinner, as well. Plus, they’re very easy to make, so you can have a whole patch full of pom pom pumpkins in no time!

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Now that you’ve made jars upon jars of tasty jam, you may want to dress some up to give away to friends and family as gifts, and you’ll definitely want to label them so you’ll know whether you’re opening a jar of strawberry jam or raspberry jam.

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