More Can't Buy Me Love creating!

You know, sometimes you get in the grove and you are creating away. Then suddenly you need something in a specific color and you can't find it. You don't have all the embellishments on hand that you have pictured in your mind (or you can't locate them in your stash). I hate when that happens. Usually I can come up with a suitable substitute but not always.

For Valentine's, I don't really decorate, but I decided to at least make a little banner to hang up and actually managed to hang it before Valentine's but just haven't managed to share it here.

I used the "Can't Buy Me Love" kit! I was hanging out with my fellow Scripters - Carol and Virginia. All I had with me were my basic supplies and the kit. I wanted to cut out the banner pieces in a scalloped shape - just to make it more girly and frilly. Since I didn't really have anything with me to use for my shape - I just grabbed the plate Virginia had put yummy chocolate chip cookies on, and traced it's edge. Thank goodness she had a cute plate, huh?

I just didn't have the right shades of pink and blue cardstock with me to go with the yummy Jenni Bowlin paper. So, I just worked on the Jenni Bowlin paper and waited for all the other extras.

I left my project alone for a week or so and then dug everything back out. Sometimes leaving it alone is a bad thing, but for me - when I went back to it, I was ready to finish and hang it up then!! Then I remembered I still didn't have any cardstock to match - at least not to match what was in my head.

So, off to the kitchen I went. I got lost in blogland last week and saw where someone was dying coffee filters to make flowers. They used food color to tint the water and dipped the coffee filters in and then laid them on a cookie sheet and popped them in the oven to dry. I had no food color! I did have icing color so I thought I could try that. I filled a giant pot with warmish water and used a toothpick to add some color to the water. It took much more than I thought, but in the end, I got the result I wanted.

I took my coffee filters (once they were dry) and crumbled them up and stitched a few together in different colored layers. In the end, I got this:



You can't really see it - but it does say BE MINE on the very middle two pieces. Here's a close up of my coffee filter flowers:



I wanted to hang it in a doorway, but having a tall husband puts a cramp in my banner style! So, I picked a doorway we don't really use (the back door).

So next time you think you don't have just what you need - head into the kitchen and whip something up. Of course, you could also use tissue paper since it comes in a wide variety of colors. I've started just buying tissue paper when I see something different, a different color or pattern, just to hold on to, just for when I need a specific color and don't have time to dye something to match. Coffee filters are super cheap though and this was a really easy way to get the colors i was looking for!

So, what do you do when you don't have just the item you need? What are your solutions?

Lisa