Lorrie Everitt Studio

GreenCraft Magazine and a blog giveaway!

2012-02-02T06:22:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited to share some news about a couple of exciting things that I've been up to lately. First, I just received my new copy of GreenCraft Magazine by Somerset Studio in the mail and a few of my projects have been featured in it!!!

My glass tile earrings made from travel maps were featured first ... you might remember them from here and the tutorial here.

And to my surprise, five more projects were featured near the end of the magazine. Two on this page ... my Archie comic scrabble tiles and my vintage light reflector gift tags ...

and three more on these pages ... my bottle cap tutorial is here and I'll have to post sometime soon about my photo blocks and recycled tea container!

I have been crazy busy with Creative Bag lately. If you don't know about Creative Bag - it is the best place to buy all of your packaging, party, wedding supplies - they have three retail stores in Toronto, Mississauga and Pickering as well as a website. We were just at the National Bridal Show last weekend ...

it was so much fun. We are doing a giveaway on the Creative Bag blog for one of our most popular items at the show it's called "diamond wrap" (see those fat rolls of rhinestones ... they are 10 yards long!!)

and all you have to do is hop over to the blog and enter to win. Just follow me on the Creative Bag blog for a chance to win. Leave me a comment on the Creative Bag blog and get a second chance to win! But do it soon because I'm going to be drawing a winner tomorrow (Friday February 3, 2012) morning. I've got another free Valentine themed download that I'll be posting tomorrow on the Creative Bag blog and if you are a chocolate lover ... I promise you won't be disappointed!

push pop cupcakes for a Valentine party

2012-01-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

I was so excited when I saw the push pop containers arrive at Creative Bag last week. Have you seen them yet? Apparently they are the next "big" thing since cupcakes! My daughters and I had fun making mini cupcakes to fill inside them on the weekend and I created a tutorial to show you how to make them for the Creative Bag blog this week that you can see here.

Here's a close up of what the container looks like ... can't you just see these at a birthday party, wedding or any celebration involving food!!

To display my push pops I put a piece of styrofoam in a container and filled the container with sugar. I carefully punched holes in the styrofoam with a screw driver keeping in mind where I wanted to position the push pops. Then I added the push pops.

I posted earlier that I am now writing for the Creative Bag blog too. You can view the blog here. If you like my personal blog, I hope that you will follow me at the Creative Bag blog too ... I have some free downloads there (I'll get them on this blog soon too!) and I plan to do some giveaways, contests and lots more!

paper pops tutorial and my holiday wrapping is done!

2011-12-23T06:27:00.000-08:00

My holiday packaging projects are done and I'm ready to start our holiday baking with the girls after they come home from school this afternoon. Yum!

I have one last tutorial to share with you - paper pops! I made a few of these to attach to larger gifts that I was wrapping. I also added paper pops to some tin wine containers that I purchased from Creative Bag.

1. gather your supplies: (scrapbook) paper cut into long strips and circles, bone folder, scoring board (optional but handy if you are going to make lots of these), circle paper punch (again optional - you can cut out paper circles), and glue (gel medium my adhesive of choice - hot glue or white glue will work too)

2. you will need two strips of paper for each paper pop {mine were 2" x 12" each but you can cut yours wider or thinner depending on the final size of paper pop you want to make} and you will need to score each strip of paper with your bone folder every 1/2" {or 1/4" for smaller pleats}

3. after scoring, fold each strip like an accordian

4. glue the two folded strips of paper together as shown and 5. glue again to form a circle

6. once the glue is completely dry, you will push down on the paper so that it flattens and creates the paper pop ... it's a little tricky at first and will not stay that way until you glue a circle to the front and back to keep the paper pop in place.

7. apply a generous amount of adhesive to the backs of your circles and position onto the paper pop

8. you can decorate the centre of the paper pop however you want!

Here you can see the difference between scoring your paper every 1/4" {on left} and 1/2" {on right} ... you will get less pleats with the 1/2" fold but it will be thicker. Either look is fine - it's really up to you.

Here's another picture of the tin wine container with a paper pop ... because the container is metal you can add a magnet to the paper pop it you want!

Here's a paper pop on a present ... this paper pop has a bottle cap embellishment from an earlier post/tutorial in the middle. I used pop dots to adhere the paper pop to the kraft paper.

I used natural kraft paper as the base for all of my larger wrapping projects and then added divine twine and handmade tags to dress them up!

I attached fake polariod pictures of who the gift is for to some of the pictures and attached them to the divine twine using small wood clothespins that I decorated with glitter tape. It's a simple look but it goes with the rest of my holiday packaging!

I hope that you are done your holiday shopping and ready to complete your holiday wrapping!

I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. Cheers!

holiday packaging details & my paper flower and decortated bottle cap tutorials

2011-12-21T11:26:00.000-08:00

My holiday wrapping continues! This time I wanted to share with you my little tin gift card holders.

Again, I purchased these plain metal containers at Creative Bag and I used the digital scrapbooking kit I purchased here to create the art to decorate them. I printed my designs as 4x6 photos at Costco but you could do this on your inkjet or laser printer. I've used patterned scrapbook papers to decorate these gift card holders as well. All you have to do is cut your paper into 3 3/8" x 2 1/4" rectangles and round the corners with a corner cropper. This same size will work for the outside and inside of the tin ... it's important to round the corners of the paper to fit the shape of the container.

I prefer to use a gel medium to adhere the papers to the tin. Golden (medium matte) gel medium works great and there are lots of other brands of gel medium available at most arts & craft stores. Modge podge will also work or if you don't like to use "glue" you can use two sided tape.

I decorated my tins with paper flowers, decorated bottle caps and of course, divine twine & buttons to match my other holiday wrapping projects.

Here's a couple of quickie tutorials to show you how to make the paper flower and bottle cap embellishments:

1. gather your supplies: scrapbook paper, large circle punch (or you can cut a circle by hand), scissors, and a mini mister (or something to spray water)

2. punch a circle from the scrapbook paper - larger circles create larger flowers, smaller circles smaller flowers (the ones shown are 2 1/2" diameter). You will be cutting a spiral shape from the circle - if you do not want to do this by eye you can draw a shape similar to the one pictured to map out where to cut

3. cut your spiral out

4. I like to trim any edges that are not smooth as you can see in this photo

5. lightly mist your paper so that it is slightly moist - not wet - this will help you to manipulate the paper

6. from the centre of the paper, form a small cone shape and begin rolling the paper into the centre while the paper is still damp

7. continue to roll ... the tighter the roll the more layers you will make ... you can always go back and make it tighter if you feel the flower is too loose when you get to the end

8. you can also loosen the paper if it is too tight. Super easy right?! Let the paper dry before you use it as an embellishment in your projects. While it is drying ... go grab your paper punch and make some more! These are easy to make while the kids at swimming/skating/dance lessons.

Want to know how I attached the paper flowers to my tin gift card holders? My secret is to use a big blob of Golden gel medium ... but this time I use the heavy gel (matte). You can most likely get away with using the medium weight too but I like to make sure that my projects look good and stay together long after I have given them away.

9. & 10. use a wooden stick to apply a large dab of gel medium

11. place your flower on top of the gel medium and press it down into shape ... you can relax the paper and let it open a bit if you want at this point. The gel medium will dry clear so don't worry if you see a little bit of it at the base of the flowers.

12. I think that a grouping of 3 or more of these flowers is sweet. You can add rhinestones, small buttons or glitter to the centres of the flowers if you want. I often add small scraps of green ribbon or paper for leaves.

And now for the bottle caps ...

1. gather your supplies: paper (photo, scrapbooking paper, etc), 1" circle punch, bottle caps (recycle ones you have or use new ones without liners) and diamond glaze (I used Glossy Accents - available at most craft and scrapbooking stores).

2. first you have to cut a 1" circle from whatever paper you are using for the design in your bottle cap. I flip the punch over so I can see exactly what I am punching out.

3. pour a small dab of diamond glaze on the inside centre of your bottle cap to adhere the paper circle

4. press the paper down and leave it to dry for an hour ... you want the paper to be completely bonded to the bottle cap because if not, the paper will move during the next step and will not lay flat.

5. & 6. once you know that the paper will not move we will apply a thin coat of diamond glaze to the top of the design to seal it and give it a glossy finish. Tip: DO NOT SHAKE your bottle of diamond glaze ... it will give you bubbles and you do not want bubbles. If the bottle is plugged, use a pin to poke the top and allow the glaze to run freely. Start by adding a generous blob of diamond glaze in the middle and then gently move it around to cover the entire surface. It will dry clear.

Allow your diamond glaze to dry for a few hours ... if you touch it too soon you will leave a finger mark. Once it is completely dry you can add a magnet to the back if you wish. I use E-6000 glue to attach the bottle caps to magnets, wood & metal.

Warning: if you are using these bottle caps as embellishments on gift card holders, do not add a magnet to the bottle cap. Sounds like a cute idea but the magnet will deactivate any electronic gift cards that you put inside and you don't want that to happen. I glued my bottle caps to the tin containers.

You can see more of my other wrapping projects over here ...

4 more sleeps till Christmas;)

Holiday wrapping inspiration ... with canvas bags

2011-12-19T14:18:00.000-08:00

My Christmas wrapping continues! I bought these adorable cotton bags at Creative Bag and I added iron on transfers to personalize them for my great nephews this weekend. The boys are both under the age of 5 and I could see them using these bags after the holidays to hold toys and books.

You can buy iron on transfers at most craft stores. I like to purchase the blank iron on transfer sheets that I can print on my ink jet printer. The art that I created for my bags are from the same digital kits that I used to make my Christmas cards and tags. You can find the digital art here .

If you have never made or used iron on transfers before, I have two tips to pass along:

1. Read all of the instructions before you print on the transfer paper ... even if you have used iron on transfers in the past - not every transfer is the same - for example I had to print "mirror" image on mine so that the words would read properly after ironing.

2. Test a small transfer on a scrap piece of cotton fabric to get use to how long to iron and when to peel off the paper backing. This is important if you are doing transfers on tee shirts, bags or any other finished items.

Here's another close up of the bags ... you can see that I personalized each bag with the boy's names. I attached more of my Christmas tags to these bags using divine twine and safety pins.

You can buy these cotton bags in different sizes which is great because I can see using these for lots of different things - party loot bags, wedding favors and custom packaging. I'm sure that you will see these in many of my projects in the new year!!

Christmas packages tied up with divine twine

2011-12-15T05:34:00.000-08:00

My Christmas cards have been mailed out and I'm working on my Christmas packaging projects this week. This is a picture of the (80) cards I created this year.

I'm really in love with Divine Twine right now and knew that I had to use it as a detail in my handmade cards. I was quite happy that Creative Bag sells the larger (240 yard) rolls of twine because I am going to be using lots of it in my holiday wrapping projects.

Aren't these colours yummy? I decided to go with the blueberry colour because I knew that it would co-ordinate with the digital Christmas kit that I purchased earlier from Design House Digital. I would normally design my own graphics for our cards but this year I didn't have time and at $8 for the complete kit, it was just too good to pass up. The little owls were so cute and I adored all of the fun colours.

Creative Bag also has these sweet little "bitty bags" that I thought were amazing. They are perfect for loot bags, class gifts, wedding favors ... and I'm sure that you will come up with more ideas. They come in a couple of sizes and lots of colours. I'm using the blue and white ones for some of my Christmas packaging projects this year ...

Isn't this just the sweetest little paper gift bag! As you know I am not afraid to use paper on my sewing machine ... you may have noticed that I have machine and hand sewing on my Christmas cards again this year. I saw something similar to this on Pinterest and I could not resist doing it with the bitty bags for Christmas. No one is going to be peeking inside their Christmas presents without me knowing it this year!

Here's a closer detail of the top of the bag and my gift tags. I used plain manilla mailing tags as the base for my gift tag. The little owl tag was created in Photoshop using elements from my digital kit and then printed at Costco as a 4x6 photo. I try not to use my ink jet printer for projects like Christmas cards and gift items. The colours are so much nicer when they are printed, they last longer and they are actually cheaper to print this way. You can see that the divine twine has been wrapped around the tag and I used the same buttons that I had on my Christmas cards to hold the twine in place on the tag. The glitter tape is a decorative element but it also had a functional purpose - I used it hold the tag in place while I was sewing the bag closed on my sewing machine.

I am working on a few more Christmas wrapping projects this week that I'm going to share with you and I hope that you will pop back again to see what I am creating. I'm also posting my projects over on Creative Bag's blog so you can catch me there too.

linking up here: blackberry vine's Tuesday-to-do | Someday Crafts

bag headers for holiday gift giving

2011-12-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

Here's an easy little packaging project for the holidays that I hope you will try out. I love to create simple paper headers and attach them to clear plastic bags .. they are perfect for party loot bags and teacher/class gifts. In my examples, I used the lip-n-tape bags from Creative Bag because I like that you can reopen the bags if you need to and they come in lots of different sizes.

I created another freebie for you to use if you'd like to make some of these yourself. Again the art is for personal use - no commerical use. You can download it by clicking on the link under the photo. I designed the art so that you could personalize the header on the front and/or back using graphic software. I'll tell you more about adding a handwritten message on the back in a minute.

download the pdf here

So let's get started! First you will need to print my download on your colour ink jet or laser printer on white heavy weight card stock. These are the tools that I used to create my bag header: paper cutter (if you don't have one you can use scissors), pencil, ruler, bone folder, scoring tool (optional) and a stapler.

The first step is to score the folded edge of each of the headers. You want to use a paper scoring tool if you have one or the pointed edge of a bone folder. The dotted lines indicate where you will need to fold. Line your ruler up along the dotted lines and gently score the paper. Once that is done, you are ready to cut out the headers on the paper cutter. The solid crop marks on the art indicate where to cut. Note: if you do not have a paper cutter, use a ruler and pencil to outline the headers and cut with scissors. Next you will fold the headers in half where you scored the paper. Go back ove the folded edge of the paper with the bone folder to create a clean flat edge.

I designed the header so that it could be adapted to fit a number of different bag sizes. You can trim the right side of the header to fit the width of the clear bag you are using if the header is too wide. As you can see, I used a pencil to mark how wide I needed my header to be for my clear bags ... I wanted the header to be slightly larger than the bag. Cut the header using the paper cutter and you are now ready to add the "goodies" to your clear bag.

I left space on the back of the header to add a handwritten message if you want. I would suggest doing this before stapling the header to the bag. Once you have added your goodies to the bag you will want to seal the bag. Then simply add the header to the top of the bag so that the clear bag is sandwiched in between the folded header. Then staple the header and bag together. I placed three staples on the header near the bottom edge - one along each bottom corner and another one in the bottom middle.

I often make these for friends in our neighborhood and attach them to their doors as a little surprise during the holidays. The kids love them at Halloween! You can see that I personalized the header with our family name. I also added a hole and ribbon so that I could easily tie them onto a door handle.

Just to give you another idea for these bag headers ... I've used them in previous years for non-food items like mini calendars (see above), packages of handmade cards and picture cds!

I hope that you are having a wonderful, creative day!!

holiday gift containers {part one}

2011-11-24T12:11:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I've got some exciting news to share ... I started working {part-time} at Creative Bag this fall and they recently asked me to be a guest blogger for them. I'm thrilled to be able to share my packaging and wedding themed projects on their blog and I hope that you will pop over to www.creativebag.com and visit me there too! There will be project ideas, tutorials, lots of inspiration and the occasion {free} download! My first blog post should be up by the end of the week.

So let's get started with one of my favourite ways to "wrap up" a gift using a clear tin pail ...

Creative Bag has a great selection of tin containers. There are so many different shapes and sizes available that the hardest part is figuring out which one to use. For this project, you will need a 3"x 4" clear tin pail - a gift card fits perfectly inside this size. I used a patterned paper inside the pail to decorate the container and to hide the gift.

download here

The pattern paper is actually something that I created to fit the 3"x4" pail and to share with you. You can download my pdf file by simply clicking on the link under the picture. Please note that the art is for personal use only and cannot be used for commercial use.

You can personalize the my pdf file with your own message in any graphic design software. I've included a second version to download with the words "love, joy and peace" for those of you that would like a generic holiday message.

Here's what you will need for this project: a 3"x4" clear tin pail, assorted ribbons, some clear rhinestone stickers, scissors, single hole punch, scotch tape, two-sided tape, a piece of twine and of course, my download. The first thing you need to do is print the pdf file on a colour inkjet or laser printer on a heavy white cardstock.

The next step is to cut out the rectangular band and two circles. You will not need the square tag for this project but hang onto it for another day. Cutting Tip: I like to use a paper cutter to cut straight edges but if you don't have one, scissors work fine too.

The easiest way to insert the paper band into the pail is to roll it first and let it open up inside the container. You can gently twirl the paper around until the design is positioned where you want. I like things to stay in place so at this point I added a tiny piece of tape to the inside of the paper band.

Now we will add the paper circle with the bird design to the tin top. Here's where you can get a little creative by adding a couple of small clear rhinestones to the design. The next step is to add a few pieces of two-sided tape to the back of the paper circle, peel the adhesive tabs off the tape and position the paper in the centre of the tin top.

I like to tie lots of assorted ribbons to the pail handle. I select my ribbon colours based on the colours in the papers and the metal colour of the tin (in this case: red, white, brown and silver) and I always mix ribbon textures (organza, satin, gross grain). Cut the ribbons so that they are about 6 to 7 inches long. You will also need a 9" piece of twine ... I used a thick brown twine but Creative Bag just received a new order of divine twine in tons of great colours and they would work too!

You may have noticed a small washer attached to the handle of your pail. I hope that you didn't cut it off and forget where you put it. That little washer is used to open the lid of your pail if you haven't already figured that out. We will attach it to the handle of the pail first so that it will hang the down the lowest - it should be long enough to easily reach the lid when attached.

Now the fun begins, simply tie the ribbons to the handle - there is no right or wrong way to do this so just start tying! I don't find that it is necessary to knot the ribbons - I just tie once!

Once you have all of the ribbons on the handle, group them together on one side. This will help the handle to stand up. At this point you should trim the ends of all of the ribbons .. angle, straight ... whatever you like.

The last thing that you will want to do is add the plain red circle tag. You will have to add a hole with a hole punch and finish with a thin ribbon for hanging. It is best to write on the tag before you tie the tag onto the handle. I will often make a bunch of these containers and leave the tag inside until I am ready to add the gift.

Here's another picture of this project using the second download with the "love, joy and peace" message. Just remember you can add your own message to the plain design ... for example: "happy holidays from the {your} family" ... using your favourite graphic software program.

I love these containers because nobody throws them out ... they are either re-gifted or reused as storage containers.

And here's one more picture of this project using scrapbooking or wrapping papers instead of my download. You can add lots of other elements to decorate the container such burlap ribbon and snowflakes (all available at Creative Bag). I'll do another post in a couple of days showing you how to decorate these clear tin containers with patterned papers so that you can recreate this project anytime of the year ... think birthday parties, wedding favors, teacher's gifts!

I hope that you will check back here for more holiday inspiration in the next few weeks. And if you get a chance to pop over to Creative Bag ... come back here and leave me a comment. I'd love to hear your comments.

I am working with Creative Bag's Wedding division (I'm smiling right now) and I am so excited about some of the new product lines that we will have in stock over the next few months. Check out my wedding board on pinterest and you'll see how much I am in love with all things wedding right now!!

I hope you have a happy {creative} day!

Tee shirt scarf tutorial

2011-11-05T14:47:00.000-07:00

Here's an easy upcycling project that will turn your favourite tee shirt into your new favourite scarf!

Here's how to make a fringed scarf:

1. All you need for this project is a tee shirt and a pair of scissors. But if you are a bit of a perfectionist (like me) ... you may also want to use a disappearing ink fabric marker and a ruler.

2. Start by cutting straight across both layers of the tee shirt just under the arms. *You can see that I drew a straight line with my fabric marker before I started cutting.

3. Now you are ready to start cutting the fringes. Turn the tee shirt around so that you do not cut the finished edge of your tee shirt. Start your fringes about 1" from a side seam. You will create your fringes by cutting straight up the front of the tee shirt to about halfway. *Again, I used my ruler and fabric marker to draw a line half way up the fabric so that my fringes would all be the same length.

You can make the fringes as wide as you would like - just keep in mind that the fabric will curl at the sides.

4. Continue cutting all the way around the tee shirt. Take your time so that your fringes are all similar in size and length.

5. Now you are ready to wear your tee shirt fringed scarf!

I'm going to make some more of these with my teenage daughters so that I can keep this one for myself. I think that this would make a great project for a girl's crafting party.

upcycled magazine rack

2011-10-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

I've been inspired by some of the diy projects that I've pinning to my "restyled projects" board on pinterest and thought that I'd share one of my recent restyled projects with you.

This upcycled magazine rack was a metal rack that my Mother-in-law "rescued" from the garbage at an electronics store ... I thought that I had some "before" pictures of this to show but I must have deleted them from my camera. The metal rack was in good shape and I my Mother-in-law thought that she and Grandma would like to be able to use it in the kitchen to hold cooking magazines ... they just didn't like the advertising that was on the rack and thought that I could do something with it.

Here's the front and side views of the rack. I covered everything that was originally painted black on the rack with pages from an old dictonary using gel medium. I didn't cover the silver/chrome parts because I thought that they looked fine. I antiqued the dictonary paper with distress inks (vintage photo) to give the piece an aged look.

Here's a close up of the bottom front of the rack.

I printed an art poster print at Costco and used gel medium to attach the poster to the front panels of the rack. I distressed the poster using Tim Holtz distress inks so that it would blend into the dictonary papers on the sides. The collage art was created on my computer using my own digital elements and some digital scrapbooking papers that I purchased.

I wanted the birds to stand out a little bit so I covered them with "glossy accents" by Inkessentials.

Because the rack was metal I thought that it would be cute to include some paper flower magnets. The magnets are decorative and functional. They display recipe cards and shopping lists.

There are lots of great tutorials on how to make paper flowers online ... there are some on my pinterest boards if you want to try to make them yourself. I used gel medium to attach the paper flowers, paper leaves and some ribbon & lace scraps to wooden game pieces. FYI - my magnets of choice are rare earth magnets ... just keep them away from your computer and credit cards.

Here's one more shot showing the top of the rack with three of the magnets and the gift tag I attached.

I have a couple of other restyled projects that I am just about finished that I will share with you next time! Are you working on any restyling projects for your home? If so, I'd love to know about them ... I'm always looking for new ideas to add to my pinterest boards. Happy crafting!

pendant trays with glass inserts - tutorial

2011-10-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

I'm totally in love with pendant trays and glass inserts right now. There are so many different pendant tray shapes for necklaces, earrings and rings and don't even get me started on all of the different colours of metal. The vintage copper is my favourite at the moment.

Here's a little tutorial on how to use the pendant trays and glass inserts to make your own jewellery!

It is almost the same as my glass tile tutorial here but we do a couple of different things at the end.

Let's gather our supplies first! You will need a pendant tray and glass insert, something to use as art (I create my own digitally and print the jpeg file at Costco), glossy accents (or your favourite brand of diamond glaze), E-6000 glue, an xacto knife and small emery board. I work on a self healing matt and I use wax paper to protect the matt when I am using the diamond glaze or glue.

The first step is to add a small amount of diamond glaze to the back of your glass insert. The back of the glass is the flat side if you have a puffy glass insert. You want to cover the entire back of the glass insert but do not add too much diamond glaze to cause it to drip down the sides.

NOTE: You do not want any air bubbles in the diamond glaze so DO NOT shake the bottle (ever). I also suggest that you turn the bottle upside down before you start so that any air bubbles move to the top. If your diamond glaze does not flow easily, use a pin to clear the tip.

Next you are going to flip your glass insert over and place it on top of your art. Do not press down on the glass. You can gently slide the glass over the art to position it. It is important that you watch the positioning of your glass for the next 10 to 15 minutes to make sure that it does not slide while it is drying. The diamond glaze will take many hours to dry ... I usually start these at night and let them sit overnight before I start the next step.

Once your piece is completely dry you are ready to cut the excess paper from the glass. Use an x-acto knife to cut around the shape of your glass insert. If you have any excess diamond glaze on the sides of the glass you can use the x-acto knife to scrap it off at this point. Then use your small emery board to sand any extra paper from the glass ... you can see more details on how to do that here in my glass charm tutorial.

I like to add a thin coating of diamond glaze to the back of my glass tile at this point. No one will see it but I think that it protects the art. It doesn't need to be thick and don't worry if you have any air bubbles. Once this is dry (in a few hours) you are ready to add the glass insert to the pendant tray.

Apply a small dab of E-6000 glue to the centre of the pendant tray. Place your completed glass insert into the tray. Take some time to position your glass insert so that it is the way you want it to look and then press down on the glass insert. Leave your piece to dry for an hour or so.

Once the E-6000 is dry you are ready to add a chain and wear your new necklace. This same technique for the pendant trays works for earrings and rings as well. Again, this is another "additive" project ... once you make one everyone will want you to make one for them too ... which is fine because you will love making these and they make great gifts!

I have a bunch of these blank pendant tray kits for sale at Scrapbook Queens.

They are also sold in the jewellery section of better craft stores and of course at bead stores!

Have a great weekend.

new jewellery findings

2011-10-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

I have been super busy this fall with lots of projects on the go. I just need to find some time to organize my photos and my thoughts so I can share a few of them with you.

I feel like a kid in a candy store with some of my new jewellery findings. I'm especially excited about my new pendant trays for necklaces, earrings and rings. I've also got some amazing glass domes that are perfect for making your own paper weights ... I'm thinking teacher's gifts at the moment.

I'm putting together another little tutorial to show you how to use the pendant trays with the glass inserts ... I will post it later this week.

Scrapbook Queens has my new jewellery findings and glass domes in stock now.

I'm also working on class projects using my jewellery findings and glass domes for holiday gift giving classes. The glass domes make wonderful paper weights and I was thrilled to find the perfect box to hold my paper weights at Creative Bag.

The picture above is a close up of my little gift box for the glass dome paper weight. The small mod box from Creative Bag was plain ... so of course I had to make it my own with paper and ribbon scraps. I think that I will have to include one of these gift boxes as a part of the paper weight class ... they were just too much fun to make.

I'll let you know when my class projects and dates are finalized. You can see more information about my classes here .

Hoping that you have a happy and creative week!

tea time with my scrapbooking supplies

2011-09-20T15:30:00.000-07:00

I love tea. Decaf Earl Grey with lactose free milk is my favourite.

This is a tea box that I decorated at the cottage a few years ago. It was just a plain wooden tea box and I'm not really sure where I got it from. It was not an antique or I'd remember everything about it.

I used my scrapbooking papers and some embellishments to decorate the outside and inside of the box.

This is the outside of the box. I used modge podge to glue all of the scrapbook papers to the box. If I was making it again today I would have used gel medium instead of modge podge but either will work. I sanded the edges of the paper to give the box an aged look but also to make the corners tidy.

I didn't do a lot of decorating on the outside lid of the box because the box is usually open when I use it for company and when it is not in use it's in the cupboard. The picture in the metal frame is the sunset in front of our cottage ... my favourite place and time to sit and drink my tea.

Here is the inside of the box ... you can see that I stained the wood ... it would have taken too long to add scrapbook papers to each of the dividers and I figured that they would be covered with the tea bags most of the time so it was not really worth the time or paper. I found scrapbook papers with numbers on them that fit perfectly in each little section (I love numbers).

This is my favourite part of the box and the reason I wanted to decorate it. I used a picture of my oldest daughter when she was 3 years old to decorate the lid. She loved to play tea with her stuffed animals ... she had a play house at our old cottage and she would pull all of the wicker furniture out of the play house and set up a tea party under our umbrella. I loved those days.

I had to be very careful when I chose elements to attach to this layout because I didn't want them to fall off or get hit by the tea bags.

I've been using this tea box at the cottage for about 5 years. I really should look for another tea box so I can make one for home. I'd love to find a picture of myself and my grandmother drinking tea together when I was smaller ... that would be a great keepsake.

I hope that if you have one of these boxes hanging around in your home that you will think about personalizing it with something that makes your heart sing.

I'm teaching this weekend at Scrapbook Queens in Mississauga and I am hoping that some of the new scrapbook papers for Fall and Holiday have arrived! I'm starting to think about Christmas gifts already. Have a great week!!

I believe

2011-08-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

I believe in pink.

I believe that laughter

is the best calorie burner.

I believe in kissing,

kissing a lot.

I believe in being strong

when everything seems

to be going wrong.

I believe that happy girls

are the prettiest girls.

I believe that tomorrow

is another day,

and I believe in miracles.

I love this saying by Audrey Hepburn. I came across it again today as I was learning how to "pin" on pinterest. That site is totally addictive ... check it out if you haven't already!

Today was my birthday. My daughter took a couple of pictures of me so that I could remember what I looked like today. I added Audrey's quote to the photo because it is so "me".

owl always love you

2011-08-22T13:12:00.000-07:00

The count down to back to school is on in our house as we begin our second last week of summer holidays. Lists for school supplies and fall clothing have started to appear on the kitchen table and I know that time is starting to run out to get everything ready for the new year.

With bts in mind, I thought that I share a sweet little project that you can make with the kids ... it's another decorative clipboard. I made some of these one afternoon with the kids on our street and they loved it. They are going to use their clipboards to keep track of school notes and memos on their desks at home.

These are simple to make using scrapbooking papers, some distressed ink, paint and old buttons for the eyes. I use Claudine Hellmuth's studio multi-medium matte as my adhesive of choice for most of my mixed media pieces. We added letter stickers and scrabble tiles to make fun sayings. And of course we had to decorate the silver clip at the top ... mine has a ribbon and bottle cap magnet but some of the girls used ribbon and large flowers.

After I finished the clipboards, I decided to use my "Emily owl" design to create some wall art and project samples for a mixed media class that I am going to offer this fall.

I ended up making a few variations of the same design because I love to show how you can make a basic project kit your own with just a few simple changes.

This first piece would be adorable in a bedroom ... I love the quote "always kiss me goodnight". The paper flowers were fun to make and I added some rhinestone bling just because I don't think you can ever have too much bling! (for a boy's room take out the flower details and change the paper for the owl's body to something more graphic)

This next piece was created with a bright blue background which immediately gave the design a totally different look. And instead of a quote I used a large chipboard letter covered in silver glitter to customize this for someone special. "E" is for Emily owl!

I'm sure that you are getting the idea now. This last picture is of the three samples that I recently put on display at Scrapbook Queens for my fall classes. I have not scheduled dates for my fall classes yet but as soon as I do I will update my class website and let you know. If you are interested in being on my class email list ... send me an email and I will add your name to the list.

I hope that you enjoy the week with your kids if they have not started school yet and find a little bit of time to do something creative with them to get them excited about the new year.

World Photo Day

2011-08-19T10:14:00.000-07:00

So today is World Photo Day and I thought that I'd share with you some of the photo tricks that I have used this month. I love this new picture that my daughter took of my husband and I on the beach. My husband, Peter, is not always the most co-operative "model" and my best shots of him are when he is not looking or is doing something with the kids.

Here's how my daughter, Haley, and I worked together to get a picture that I would be happy to print. I set my camera to "action" and then I told Haley to just keep clicking ... then after a few {boring} photos I leaned into Peter and gave him a kiss on the cheek. As you can see Peter was a little surprised and he loosen up and gave us a natural smile.

As much as I loved the final photo ... I didn't like the person & two seagulls in the background by my head ... so I opened up Photoshop and started to work with my "clone stamp tool" to clean up the background. If you have never used the clone stamp tool before I'm going to suggest that you check out Rebecca Cooper's blog simple as that for her clone stamp tool tutorial ... it's easy to follow and she has some great tips on photography and using Photoshop.

Here's one last picture of my daughters on the beach.

I hope that you get your camera out today and take a few pictures to remember the day. By the way, 4x6 photos are on sale for eight cents at Costco (Canada) until the end of the month ... another good reason to take some photos! And Scrapbook Queens is having a sale starting today ... so another good reason to take some pictures, get them printed and scrap them!

We do not remember the days ... we remember the moments.

happily ever after ... wedding inspiration

2011-08-16T09:05:00.000-07:00

Don't you just love fairy tales and happy endings ... I do ... and I was so happy to attend the wedding of our friends' daughter recently. Breann married her Prince Charming {Kyle} and their wedding and reception was amazing.

I collected a number of old frames to use at the reception as part of the decor. We removed the glass, painted the frames white and added chalkboards. The sign pictured above was a gift I made for Breann and Kyle. I hand painted the words so that the "happily ever after" will never rub off or go away. I also made another one with the words "thank you" ... it was used in the wedding day photography and I am just waiting to see the wedding photos so that we can print the thank you notes.

One idea that we had was to set up a photo booth at the reception. Breann fell in love with this yellow and grey fabric {which ended up being our inspiration for the wedding stationery} and we knew that it would make a beautiful backdrop for photos inside the hall. We purchased enough fabric so that I could sew two 8' panels together ... we wanted to make sure that we had enough width for group pictures. We hung the fabric in the reception hall, added some chalkboards and chalk, a big white frame and lots of silly props and that was all it took to "get the party started"! This would be great for a kid's party too! ... just let the fabric and props set the party theme.

Here's a picture of myself, two daughters and a friend's daughter ... can you tell we were having a lot of fun at the wedding?

I had a case of vintage mason jars that we filled with fine beach pebbles & candles to use at the bar. I created the paper flowers using extra* papers from Breann and Kyles' stationery. A little bit of Tim Holtz's distress ink in yellow (scattered straw) and grey (weathered wood), some pop dots and a ribbon to tie the flowers to the jars was all it took to make these candles complete.

I think that these would be cute for an anniversary or birthday party too ... just remember to keep the paper decorations away from the flame!

*Just have to tell you that we had "extra" stationery because a few weeks after we printed the invitations we found out that Breann's youngest brother was going to be representing Canada in the World Junior Swim meet in Peru ... and he would be swimming in Peru on her wedding day. Long story short ... the wedding date was moved ahead by two weeks, I made new invitations and I we have 200 extra wedding invitations to "play with".

I hope that you find these ideas inspiring whether you are planning a wedding or a party!

Have a great week.

cake pop tutorial

2011-08-09T16:12:00.000-07:00

We just got back from two weeks of holidays at the cottage. Everyone had a great time and the weather was great. We had a couple of rain days that were filled with reading books, working on craft projects and baking with the kids.

The girls and I made cake pops one afternoon .. so yummy and so much fun to make. I took photos as we worked and so I could create this mini tutorial!

Note: we found that our cake pops were a little on the big side ... I'd suggest making the balls slightly smaller than the ones in the photos!

These sweet treats are so yummy and would make a great treat for a birthday party,

shower, wedding or any excuse that you have to entertain! You could decorate these treats in colours and shapes for the holidays ... I'm already making notes for how I might decorate these for Halloween and Christmas!

map art to wear

2011-07-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

I {heart} maps ... always have and always will. I collect them when we travel. Maps make great keepsakes to scrapbook, journal or smash!

And lately I've been using them in my jewellery! They make great keepsakes ... like one I made above with a New York City subway map and a heart glass tile.

I made a few of these heart shaped charms with different subway stops from my trip there last year. I kept the one with Grand Central Station for myself. I was inspired by merchandise crafted with old New York City subway maps at a store located in Grand Central Station. After visiting that store, my friend Karen and I collected every subway map we could find to bring home with us.

I also tend to rip out the maps from my daytimers after the year is over. They are too cute to throw out and I'm a pack rat! I'm so glad that I have been able to use some of these smaller maps to create these tiny charms for earrings. The ones pictured with London and Paris were created for my oldest daughter as a reminder of her school trip to Paris when she was in grade 8. We were grounded at the London airport due to poor weather conditions and didn't make it to Paris until the second day of our trip. She will always remember that part of the story from our trip with these little keepsakes.

One more pair of earrings ... I think that these would be good for a Beatles fan ... they feature London and Liverpool!

So if you are off travelling somewhere this summer ... save a couple of maps from your destination ... you just may want to make a keepsake that you can wear!

If you live in the Mississauga (Ontario, Canada) area, I just added the heart shaped glass tiles and small earring sized glass tiles to my product line at Scrapbook Queens ! I am going to add them to my etsy shop for everyone else in August when I get back from the cottage ... if I have any stock left!

One last piece to share before I head off to the cottage ...

I just made these Betty & Veronica earrings ... they match my Archie scrabble tile bracelet that you can see here. I made some of these Betty & Veronica earrings and necklaces with my girls - we can't wait to sit out on the beach with these!

photoshop actions - just playing around

2011-07-07T09:19:00.000-07:00

This picture of my daughter was on my post yesterday ... it was attached to my fashionista clipboard ... and I thought that I'd share with you what I did to create this photo.

To be honest ... I'm not totally sure what I did ... I am still learning! I do know that I was playing with my Photoshop Actions. I was reading about actions on Rebecca Cooper's blog - she has some great tutorials there for Photoshop that are quite easy to follow. It was there that I stubbled across Pamela Topping's website and her Photoshop Actions. Pamela has some free goodies if you are interested in trying out some actions on your own photos.

I encourage you to pop by to visit both of these talented ladies if you are interested in learning something new ... Rebecca is doing a giveaway on her blog for one of Pamela's Action packages ... oh what fun! I'd love to win any of them but if I had to pick just one I think that I'd go for "Secret Treasures"!

fashionista clipboard

2011-07-06T17:28:00.000-07:00

Here's a new project that I just completed ... it's a mixed media collage clipboard and I'm not sure where it is going to end up but I think that I will hang it up in my little display area at Scrapbook Queens for a while this summer.

I have been in a creative mood the past couple of days and really wanted to use these fabulous scrapbook papers that I bought at Scrapbook Queens about a month ago. The papers are from Basic Grey's Sweet Threads collection ...

and I knew that I would use them in a mixed media piece at some point this summer. I was inspired to use the papers when I stumbled upon Julie Nutting's new book ...

it's called Collage Couture and it's amazing! Julie used a lot of different Basic Grey papers in her projects in the book ... including the sweet threads paper I have been hanging onto!

I've been using scrapbook papers as clothing in my mixed media collages for years but I have always painted the bodies, faces and hair and just used the papers for the clothing and accessories. What I loved about Julie's book is that she shows you how to use paper for the bodies too ... what a great idea! She still paints the hair and features of the faces so there is still some painting but not as much. It's like playing with paper dolls - remember how much fun you use to have doing that?

So here's my little project in a bit more detail ...

I covered my clipboard in various papers, a little paint and some distressing inks to create my background. Then I added a "paper doll" that I designed using Julia's basic techniques. I love the idea of using pages from one of my old dictonaries as the body for my little fashionista.

.... here I've removed my notes so that you can see the clipboard a little better ...

The circle is actually a piece of sheet metal that I covered with more of my "sweet threads" paper. I wanted to be able to add smaller papers with a magnet to the bottom half of the clipboard and this worked perfectly.

So after adding a little bling, some vintage jewellery, a few flowers and vintage buttons and of course some lace and ribbon ... my piece was ready to be used to organize and display some of my papers and a photo ...

here it is again! I think that these would be great to make for a home office or studio. I may make these with my daughters for their bedroom study areas ... I can see a bunch of them grouped together like a fashion show! I'm also going to work on some similar projects that I can teach in the fall ... I'll keep you posted on that when I have more details worked out.

I hope that I have inspired you to check out the new Basic Grey papers at your local scrapbooking store and maybe take a look for Julie's new collage book at your local bookstore!

Happy crafting!

linking up here: Whipperberry

my "Mad Hatter tea party stands"

2011-06-29T17:48:00.000-07:00

I got a little creative today with my "odds and ends" of vintage china and crystal pieces that have been waiting to be upstyled into something new and useful. I love the look of beautifully decorated cupcakes displayed on tiered stands and I decided that I'd try to make a couple of them to use when we are entertaining this summer at the cottage. Let's just say that I made a couple of them and I found they are useful for more than just displaying cupcakes ... I'm going to call these my "Mad Hatter tea party stands" ...

Here's one of my finished pieces ... and as you can see, I'm using it on a dresser to display some of my jewellery. I'm going to make another one for my studio because I think that it will look sweet on my desk ... maybe I'll make one with little tea cups that I can fill with treasures waiting to be used in my art.

Here's how I made my Mad Hatter tea party stands ...

I used three different sizes of plates - a dinner plate, a lunch plate and fruit nappy. I also used two crystal pieces to use as supports - a candle stick and a salt/pepper shaker (with the top removed).

To adhere all of the pieces together I used E-6000 glue.

Note: I washed all of the dishes and made sure that everything was very dry before I started.

I arranged the plates from largest at the bottom to smallest at the top. I did the same with the crystal supports, the candle stick was the larger of the two supporting pieces so it was used on the bottom layer. I placed a ring of the E-6000 glue on the bottom of the candle stick and then adhered it to the centre of the dinner plate.

Allow the glue to set for a few minutes before you move onto the next layer so that the pieces don't slide around on you ... now is a good time to start a kettle of water to make a tea if you are following along with me!

... then add some E-6000 glue to the top of the candle stick and place the medium sized plate over top of the candlestick - being careful to centre the plate over the larger plate. Quickly remove the medium sized plate and turn it over. You should see a ring of glue from the candle stick on the bottom of the plate. At this point I added more E-6000 to the bottom of the plate because I wanted to make sure that there is a good bond between these items. Let the glue dry slightly ... go finish making that cup of tea and bring it back to do the next step which is to place the plate on top of the candle stick. Allow this layer to dry before going onto the next step. You can drink your tea now!

Now you will repeat the process for adding the candle stick to the plates but this time you will do it with the salt/pepper shaker. You need to make sure when you adhere the salt shaker to the middle plate that it is directly over top of the candle stick or your tiers will look off balanced. You also need the top of the salt shaker to be flat so if it isn't - remove the top piece.

Once you have placed the smallest plate on top of the salt shaker ... take a look from the top and make sure that all of the plates look centred ... similar to my picture ...

and check again that the centre supports have not shifted. Once everything is perfectly lined up ... let it dry!

I can't wait to make some cupcakes with the kids at the cottage this weekend and display them on one of my Mad Hatter tea party stands!

Happy Canada Day to all of my Canadian friends! I hope that you have a great long weekend.

I also wanted to share with you a very inspiring magazine called "Mollie Makes" - it is from the UK - and I just found by chance last week ... I think that you will love it! Here's a promotional video that they created to launch the magazine ... very creative! I love their tag line too .... "for people who love the crafty life".

scrapbooking with my vintage buttons

2011-06-23T07:33:00.000-07:00

I love to collect vintage buttons ... and I'm always looking for ways to get them out of the vintage canning jars I store them in and onto my art.

I was inspired by some posts that I've been reading this week at Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. Summer Fullerton has been using buttons in her projects and I thought that I'd share with you some of the pages from my scrapbook(s) that include my vintage buttons.

The first picture is one of my daughters, Robyn, when she was little and still liked to pose for Mommy!

This layout was done a few years ago but the picture was taken about 17 years ago. It was one of my favourite pictures of my younger brother with my daughter, Haley, when she was a few months old.

... as you can see I like to hand and machine sew on my pages - I love to make the stitching part of the design.

I can never pass up a container of pearl buttons at the second hand store or antique store ... I used a few of them here on this layout featuring my daughter Robyn playing with a friend's son one rainy afternoon at the cottage.

This layout features a large vintage button at the top and three smaller buttons at the bottom. I used a series of summer pictures from the cottage to work with the words that I added to each photo.

I love this saying ...

"Dance as though no one is watching.

Love as though you have never been hurt before.

Sing as though no one can hear you.

Live as though heaven is on earth."

here's another shot of this layout at an angle so you can see the button details.

One last page ... I love this layout ... the colours were inspired by a project that I was working on at the time for April Cornell. I did a number of marketing, visual merchandising and licencing projects for April a few years ago and this was one of the pictures from a photo shoot that we did in Canada. We used one of my friend's baby as a model in the clothing and on the linens. Although I used vintage buttons on my page, they reminded me of buttons that April would use in her products ...

... they also served another purpose ... to hold the ribbons that I wrapped around a painted chipboard letter in place!

I hope that I have inspired you to do some scrapbooking, take some photos of your kids or do something with the buttons you have been saving for a special project.

before I go ... I wanted to share this photo that I tore out of a wedding magazine last year for inspiration ... another great idea for using buttons in a creative way. Wouldn't this be cute on a summer hat! I bought a bunch of coloured buttons at Scrapfest in the spring and I'm saving this project for a rainy day at the cottage this summer with the girls. I'll let you know how it goes!

new inspiration ... smash books

2011-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay ... so I'm probably the last person in the world to know what a "smash book" is ... although I've been hearing "whispers" about them at Scrapbook Queens for a while now. One of the girls at the store, Deneen, posted this youtube video about K&Company's smash books on facebook and as soon as I saw it this morning I was hooked.

It seems that I've been making "smash books" for many years - not realizing what I was doing ... they are filled with inspiration for lots of things ... decorating, crafts, quotes, type ideas as well as my doodles and personal thoughts. They are not as "pretty" as the smash book samples that I saw on the youtube video ... and to be honest ... I just threw out a dozen of them in the past week because I was trying to purge things that have been taking up space in my craft supply area.

This is kinda like how I fell into scrapbooking ... I was making scrapbooks as a teenager in the 70's ... remember those large newsprint books that you taped newspaper clippings, photos and whatever into! As soon as the scrapbooking industry started ... I was hooked because as an artist, I wanted to make beautiful scrapbooks ... ones that did more than just document my life ... I wanted to scrapbook to grow artisically as well.

Now that I've seen the smash books and all of the fun accessories that go with them ... I know what I'm going to do with the shoe boxes full of scraps that I've been squirreling away for no good reason other than they may come in handy for a scrapbook page - someday!

Oh no, I think that I am in the early stages of smash book fever!

recycled tee shirts

2011-06-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

As the summer weather has finally arrived, I found myself going through our closets this morning to see what short sleeve tee shirts still fit, what needs to be donated to the second hand store and what can be used in a craft project!!

I discovered that my youngest daughter, who only seems to own tees with holes in them, actually has a few tees hanging in her closet with the hangtags still on them. I really can't wait until she has children someday. So, between Robyn's {favourite} tees and a few of my own, I found myself with a new supply of materials for craft projects.

I bought this cute Mickey Mouse tee shirt over ten years ago at Disney World that was too worn out to donate but I loved the screened logo too much to throw it out ... so I used it to create another one of my sewing kits in a bottle. I did a quick tutorial on these a while ago, you can see it here. I used a mini canning jar this time ... it is just the right size for a few spools of thread, some needles and pins.

I've already packed my mini sewing kit in a jar to take to a class I'm teaching on Saturday ... we are making ribbon bracelets and this will come in handy during class.

fyi ... there are still spots available for this class if you live in the area and are interested ... I'm only teaching this class once because my vintage materials are limited. Any supplies that I have left over after class I will use to make these bracelets to sell in my etsy shop.

I know that my oldest daughter talked about making a blanket out of her old graphic tees ... I think that we saw that idea on one of the Twilight movies. Bella's mom made one for Bella ... come to think of it, I have a feeling that Jacob's mom may have made one for Jacob too and that is why Jacob is always walking around without a shirt on! ;)

If you have posted any project ideas with graphic tees that your older children can't part with on your blog (or know of other blogs that have) ... please let me know! I have a feeling that we are going to have some ideas flying around our house after school today. Have a great weekend!

book of me ... scrapbook club part 2

2011-06-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night I will be attending the "book of me" scrapbooking club at Scrapbook Queens. This month's topic is "fashionable me". I'm really kind of a casual "jeans and tee shirt" girl but I love my accessories!

I pulled together a couple of pictures of myself to scrapbook and styled a shot of my favourite accessories ...

I've had my cowboy boots forever and they are more comfortable than running shoes so I wear them everywhere all year round. My two other favourite accessories at the moment are made from recycled materials made by Little Earth - a cool belt made from soda bottle caps, a tire and seat belt buckle and the other is a purse made from two California licence plates.

I added a polariod frame to my photos that I downloaded here from Shadow House Creations. I grunged up the frame to age it because it was too white and I wanted the polariod frames to match my digital collage that created for the second page ...

This is the digital collage. I called it "the sensible fashionista" ... which describes me in a sense because I don't really consider my self to be a fashionista (especially compared to the fashion designers and buyers that I have worked with over the years) but I have developed a style of my own that I feel comfortable with. Most of the images for my digital collage are from the Graphics Fairy.

So I've sent off my images to Costco to be printed in the morning and I can't wait to scrapbook them tomorrow night.

I'm going to pack my Tim Holtz sizzix alterations sewing room die to use on one of the pages as well - I'm thinking that I may cut the judy out of a piece of leather ... I use to wear leather and suede pants a number of years ago and I am having a difficult time parting with them!

linked to brag monday at the Graphics Fairy

{restyled} tote bag with zipper flowers

2011-06-10T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick project that I wanted to share with you.

I found some inexpensive zippers at the second hand store recently and was just waiting for the right project to make some zipper flowers. There are three great tutorials for making zipper flowers at Craftaholics Anonymous if you are interested in making these yourself.

I thought that I'd make a zipper flower and use it as my starting point to restyle a fabric gift bag.

This is the "before" picture of the bag ... my husband received it as a gift at a business function that he attended a few weeks ago. The bag contained two bottles of wine (I'm assuming that ... since the wine bottles never made it home!) and in need of a makeover.

To restyle the bag, I used a fabric label by Amy Butler (I purchased a package of them from Michaels a few years ago), one of my zipper flowers, buttons, ribbon and embroidery floss.

I started by hand sewing the fabric label to the pocket with embroidery floss so that I could cover up the business logo.

Then I added the zipper flower, ribbon and buttons on top of the label. I wanted to achieve a handmade look to the bag so I frayed the fabric label a bit and left top knots with the embroidery threads on the buttons.

You will find the zipper flower tutorial that I used for my flower here .

Here's another close up of the final design.

I was going to keep this tote bag for myself but I think that I will fill it with a couple of bottles of wine and give it to a friend this weekend.

guest hosting at Craftaholics Anonymous today

2011-06-08T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone ... I'm so excited to be guest hosting at Craftaholics Anonymous today! Linda has an amazing site that is full of amazing tutorials and crafting ideas. I hope that you will pop over to visit and say hello!!

Craftaholics Anonymous

I also wanted to share with you my scrabble tile Archie bracelet ... I just finished it this morning ...

... isn't it cute!

My scrabble tile charm tutorial can be found here.

Here's the "gang" ... Mr. Lodge, Mr. Weatherbee, Ms. Grundy, Dilton, Jughead, Betty, Archie, Veronica, Reggie, Moose and Pop. I also cut a small "Archie and the gang" comic book from an advertisement for the books as a 12th charm.

Have a great day!

playing with photoshop filters

2011-06-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

I was checking out some blogs today and found this quote that I just loved ... "Tell me, what is it that you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"

As soon as I saw the quote I knew that I wanted to add it to a photo of one of my daughters. I've been spending a lot of time with both of them talking about what they want "to be" when they grow up and where they want go to school.

I found this great photo of my daughter Robyn from a few years ago ... she was sitting on the side of our boat and I noticed that the sun's reflection seemed to be dancing on the water in front of her. I played with the picture in Photoshop CS3 and tried out a bunch of different filters before committing to the one that you see ... artistic/watercolour.

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we know and understand,

imagination leads us to all we might yet discover and create." - Albert Einstein

If you have Photoshop on your computer, I'd like to challenge you to pick out picture that you love and play around with it for a while to see what you can do. Send me a link so that I can see what you created.

If you are still learning how to use Photoshop or are looking for some Photoshop tutorials to show you how to do something , I would recommend that you check out pugly pixel for some really simple Photoshop tutorials. I was looking at their tutorial today for creating a photoshop letterpress effect and it's on my list of things to try out next!

Busy as a bee ...

2011-06-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week around our house ... lots going on with everyone and I'm trying to get ready for the Bread and Honey Festival in Streetsville this weekend. I'll be there with Scrapbook Queens!

I was at the store today pulling together my product to take to the festival ... we are setting up tomorrow night! I will be taking most of my display pieces from the store so if you are at Scrapbook Queens on the weekend - my product and class project samples will be in Streetsville so you will have to "buzz" over to visit us!!!

I was watching the SQ team pack up product this afternoon and it looks like there will be lots of show specials and demos. I'm planning on taking some things to work on ... so if you live in the area and have a chance to come see us ... we'll be at the Arena!

Have a great weekend!!!

memories of New York ... and friendship

2011-05-27T06:31:00.000-07:00

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."

... a beautiful quote to brighten up this rainy spring day.

I took this photo last spring when I was in New York with my friend, Karen.
I won a trip to New York to see the Martha Stewart show and I took Karen with me as my guest ... I wrote about our trip here.

Karen and I had a great time and I am so happy that I was able to take her with me ... it is a trip that I will remember fondly ... forever. I was looking through all of the photos that we took of our trip last night ... we both shot a lot of pictures as we walked around New York City ... this is one of my favourite pics of Karen ...

I added the quote "we do not remember the days ... we remember the moments" to this picture.

Karen and I both loved the flowers that were for sale on the streets ... I would take photos of the shop fronts and she would take close ups of the flowers. I caught her off guard as she was taking a photo of some of the flowers ... I remember calling her name and this is the shot that I got as she looked over at me ... Karen, smiling as always.

Karen is not feeling very well right now and I know that she will not able to read this post ... but I wanted to let her know that I am glad that she is my friend.

Book of Me ... my first pages ...

2011-05-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

I recently joined a scrapbooking group called "Book of Me Club" ... we are meeting at Scrapbook Queens once a month to work on a scrapbook about ourselves. I am creating my book from a Tim Holtz's Grungeboard book. I have decided that each "topic" will have two pages and one of the pages will always be a digital collage. I love making digital collages right now ... it's a great way to use all of the images that I have been collecting from The Graphics Fairy as well as ones that I have created myself. You can see the digital collage that I created for this month's topic above!

The Graphics Fairy is a wonderful source for very old (royalty free) images that can be used for any of your crafting, home decorating or digital projects. Karen, THE Graphics Fairy, is so kind to share her images with us {for free!} and if you ask nicely ... you can request if she has images that you have not been able to find on her site ... she has helped me out a couple of times!

So here is my first two pages ... you can see that I printed my digital collage on the right side to fill the whole page (5x7) and I used an assortment of vintage findings and scrapbooking elements to pull together the other page.

The old library pocket was from a Hardy Boys book that I purchased from a library book sale near our cottage a few years ago ... remember when they used a date stamp to tell you when the book was due and you could see how many other people had read the book before you ... that was cool ...

and the little eiffel tower charm that I added to the tab on the grungeboard was from a key chain that I purchased in Paris when I was there with my daughter on a school trip a few years ago. I have been saving that charm for something special ... I'm so glad that it has finally found a home!

If you are into scrapbooking ... traditional, digital or hybrid ... I hope that you will think about creating a book about "yourself" too. I'm going to try to post each month what I have been doing ... to keep me on track and perhaps ... to inspire you too!!

Have a great week.

Visit Brag Monday at the Graphic Fairy!

scrabble tile charm tutorial

2011-05-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

I have been playing with my scrabble tiles and came up with a new way to make my scrabble tile charms that I thought that I'd share with you. I've been making these for a while using premade "glaze drops" but I have figured out a way to make them without the glaze drops and I'm equally as happy with the final results.

Here's what you will need to make these scrabble charms ... scrabble tiles, bails, diamond glaze (i.e. Inkssentials glossy accents), a strong adhesive (i.e. E-6000), small xacto knife, self healing cutting board, small emery board, pencil, clear piece of acetate and a picture. I decided to use some of my old Archie comic books for this tutorial. You can use small photographs or anything paper/art that is small enough to fit on the scrabble tile.

Step 1. Trace around a scrabble tile on a piece of acetate. Cut the acetate with your xacto knife so that you have the exact template of the scrabble tile. I used a permanent black marker to go around the edges of the acetate template ... it is small and easy to "lose" when you are working.

Step 2. Next you will use the acetate template to figure out where you want to crop your picture. Once you are happy with the image, trace around the template with a pencil and cut out with an xacto knife on your self healing mat.

Step 3. Apply a small amount of diamond glaze to the back of the scrabble tile ... I put the picture on the back of the tile because I want to be able to see the letter on the other side when I'm finished ...

... spread the diamond glaze around on the back of the tile so that it covers that back entirely but does not go over the sides. You don't need a lot of diamond glaze for this part ... just a thin layer. Then place your picture on top of the glaze, press down and wipe off any diamond glaze off the edges (if any comes out). Allow this to dry for about a half an hour.

Step 4. If your picture is a little larger than your scrabble tile don't worry because this step will straighten that out. Using an emery board, you will lightly sand (with small downward strokes) the four edges of the tile to remove any excess paper.

Step 5. Now you are ready to add a top coat of diamond glaze ... simply add a layer of glaze right ontop of your image. You want to cover the entire image but be careful not to put on too much glaze that it starts to run over the sides. This layer will take many hours to dry ...

... trust me ... many hours. If you touch it to see if it is dry and it isn't ... don't worry about that mark that you just made. Once the glaze is completely dry, you can apply another thin layer of glaze to the entire image and that will cover up the finger print!

Step 6. Now we just need to attach a bail to the back of the scrabble tile if you want to use this tile for a necklace, bracelet or earrings. Using a strong adhesive such as E-6000, attach the bail to the top of the scrabble tile and allow it to dry according to the directions on the package. And now you are done!

Here's a few of my charms for girls that want to be Betty or Veronica ... I always wanted to be Betty! I think that I'm going to make a charm bracelet with the whole gang.

I have made these scrabble tiles with photographs, digial art, maps and books and I'm sure that there are lots of other good ideas out there for finding images to use on these scrabble tiles.

These are great to make with the kids too ... depending on how young they are you may have to do the cutting steps with scissors instead of the xacto knife. I hope that you enjoyed this tutorial and are tempted to make one or two for yourself.

linked up here: all thingz related , studio jru , whipperberry , blackberryvine

new classes

2011-05-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

So happy that spring is finally here ... and summer is just around the corner. I am soooo looking forward to weekends at the cottage with family and friends. With that in mind ... I have just updated my class website with my new classes for the rest of this month and June.

I have three new classes that will be offered in June ...

"live, laugh, love" is going to be a fun and inspiring mixed media workshop that will teach you all of the techniques that I used to create the Judy lampshade that I talked about here. The finished project would make a nice piece of wall art for a child's room.

"enjoy life ... this is not a dress rehearsal" is another mixed media project that I just loved designing. It's a mix of everything that I love ... a great quote, fashion and vintage details. In this class we will use a Tim Holtz judy and combine it with linen, ribbon, lace and vintage rhinestones to make our own "little black dress".

And this last class is a special one because I am only going to offer it one time and for five people. I've been making these funky bracelets for about a month now ... I was very inspired by Ann Tatum whom I read about in my current issue of Somerset Studio's GreenCraft magazine. Ann has been making jewellery from vintage findings and her measuring tape bracelets inspired me to finally use the Tim Holtz measuring tape ribbons that I had been holding onto just waiting for that "perfect" project. In this class I'll share with you how I adapted Ann's original idea to create my own versions of these unique little bracelets. Because we will be using some of my vintage findings in this project, I only have enough materials to make five of this exact design.

All of my samples are on display at Scrapbook Queens now ... I just updated my little area at the front of the store!

There is still room in three of classes on Saturday May 14th ... Scrapbook Queens will be celebrating National Scrapbook Month in the store that day with a Queens Crop as well ...

I will be taking time off from teaching this summer but plan to start some new classes in the fall ... I'll keep you posted on those dates and new projects sometime in August!

If you are in Mississauga this Saturday be sure to check out Scrapbook Queens' Garage Sale ... I dropped off a couple of boxes of goodies yesterday and I noticed a lot of great stuff!

Have a wonderful Mother's Day this weekend!

Ohhh ... I almost forgot to tell you! If you like the digital scrapbooking elements that I used to show you my new June classes ... you can find them at Design House Digital! They have a free blog hop for this amazing kit ...

The Design House Digital website is down right now ... too much traffic? ... but you can get to the blog hop by visiting Robyn Meierotto's blog and "hopping" from there to the other great digital artists' blogs! This kit is great ... lots of great colours and elements ... I'm going to use it to digitally scrapbook my Mother's day pictures!

Wills + Kate ... all we need is LOVE is all we need

2011-04-29T07:28:00.000-07:00

(illustration is from Google's home page this morning)

I got up a little early this morning to watch William and Katherine's wedding ... my husband thought that I was crazy but I didn't really care. I wanted to see Diana's sweet little boy get married.

I can still remember getting up early to watch Diana and Charles' wedding many years ago. Diana and I were both born in the summer of 1961 and she died on the day of my 36th birthday (another day that I remember, sadly). I always thought that Diana was a wonderful Mother and it is so nice to see that her boys have grown up to be such nice ("normal") young men.

I think that Diana would have loved the wedding ceremony and the kiss(es) on the balcony.

I was cutting wedding invitations this morning for a friend's daughter's wedding as I watched the wedding on television ... the invitations needed to be cut and it seemed like the thing to do ... especially as I waited to see the royal couple come out onto the balcony at Buckingham Palace. I guess that I will now have the memory of cutting wedding invitations in my pajamas as a part of this day.

I hope that you have a lovely day!

(element from my "eat cake and party on" digital kit ")

easter postcard from Paris

2011-04-21T07:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter everyone! This adorable little postcard is from my collection of vintage cards. I picked this one up in Paris a few years ago when I was there with my daughter on a school trip. I forgot all about it until I was going through some amazing royalty free Easter images on the Graphics Fairy blog.

Karen .. aka "the Graphics Fairy" ... always has some amazing images that can be used for crafting projects. And I just noticed that Karen has added two more blogs that she promotes crafts and diy projects that have used images from her blog ... you can view them here and here!

I have been incredibly busy the past couple of weeks and unable to do any Easter projects myself or with the kids ... but here's a couple of ideas that I've seen lately and I would like to try if I have time on the weekend ...

This first one is from the Scrapbook and Cards Today's blog. There are some sweet downloads for Easter cards and scrapbook pages and there's lots of project how to's.

I also loved the Easter wreath that was featured on craftaholics anonymous ... the tutorial is by Catherine at Design Editor and it's just too cute. I am going to have to stock up on these little chicks for next year.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend and don't eat too much chocolate!

Scrapfest in Kitchener ... oh what fun!

2011-04-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

I have not been blogging much for the past two weeks ... I was so busy getting ready for Scrapfest in Kitchener last weekend that there was barely time to do anything else. Scrapfest is over now but I am still charged up after meeting so many wonderful people at the show. It was the first time for Scrapbook Queens to have a booth at a show so it was very exciting ... and a little overwhelming for all of us but we had a great time! I could not get over how many nice people there were to talk to ... both attending the show and exhibiting at the show ... it really was a lot of fun.

Here's a picture of our Booth on Friday night just before we started packing up for the evening ... thanks to Sue Sykes for taking the photo of our booth and this next one of us ...

This was our Scrapbook Queens "set up crew" ... from right to left ... {princess}Gabriella, {queen}Irena, {king} Joe, Deneen and myself. Thanks again Sue for taking these pictures ... we love your articles in Canadian Scrapbooker magazine!

Here's a shot that I took of my product display ... my glass charm necklace kits were a big hit as was my judy floor lamp with the floral shade. And as promised, I will include some additional pictures of the lamp in this post for everyone that was interested in taking pictures of it.

My digital "eat cake" kit on cd that I launched at Scrapfest along with my glass charm necklace kits are now for sale at Scrapbook Queens. I'll do another post later in the week about the digital kit! For anyone looking for my glass charm necklace tutorial you can find it here.

Here's a picture of my lamp showing the apron and some of the shade. I hung 24 different charms from the bottom of the shade to show some of my art.

We did a draw for one of my glass charm necklace classes at the show ... if you did not win the class you will have another chance to win one of my necklace kits if you follow Scrapbook & Cards Today magazine. I meet the magazine's publisher, Catherine Tachdjian at the show (she bought two of my charm necklace kits!) and I donated one for a giveaway on the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog. Good luck!!

Here is another shot of the lampshade and charms ...

and another close up of the paper flowers and butterfly. So many people asked if I would do a workshop to make one of these shades ... it took me three nights to complete the shade and I really don't want to work out what it would cost me to reproduce it. But I am going to try to work on a project that will use the elements I created to decorate the shade on a smaller scale that can be made into a workshop. I have a few ideas that I think will work so once I have created a final piece I'll let you know more!

... one more pic ... this one is of the "brooch" that I added to the apron ... I created it with a couple of my vintage rhinestone pieces, some scraps of ribbon and a Tim Holtz crown. I just adore the Maya Road black organza and satin ribbons that I added to the apron ... they are two of my favourite ribbons right now and I have a feeling that they will be finding their way into a lot of my projects in the near future!

That's all for now ... if you didn't visit us at Scrapfest on the weekend ... I think that Scrapbook Queens and I are going to be at another event in June and I will let you know more about that as the details unfold!

Have a great week!

Donna Downey Class at the Art House Studio

2011-03-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of meeting Donna Downey this weekend and taking one of her classes at The Art House Studio in Kitchener. Donna was extremely fun and entertaining. I had a one hour drive home after class and I was feeling so inspired that when I was pulling off the highway I realized that I was in "autopilot" and had been dreaming all the way home.

This was Donna's sample for the Friday night class ... "a life inspired". Donna's iron ons were great ... it was the first time that I had used them. I'm made my own before but these ones were great because you could layer the iron ons ... something that you can't do with the ones you make yourself. And the "inspire" iron on has a velvet like texture that is so nice. You get two in the package so I have another one to play with on another project.

I wish that I could have taken some of Donna's classes on Saturday because the project samples for those classes were amazing too. Many of the ladies that were in my class had signed up for all of Donna's classes this weekend ... I'm sure that they had a great weekend.

This is my finished project ... I didn't finish my project in class because I wanted to sew my photo to my canvas page so I had to complete it at home on Saturday morning.

I realized on Saturday morning that I had lost the inspiring words that Donna had supplied in the class so I had to cut out my own words from one of my books. I felt very inspired after talking to Donna so my words say "believe in yourself always" ... and I wrote about the class on the side of the canvas so that I will always remember where I created this piece.

I took this picture before class started ... don't you just adore the groovy aprons! On the left is Karen from The Art House Studio she made her apron, of course that's Donna in the middle and on the right is Lisa from Scrapfest who is wearing a Donna Downey apron.

Donna has a great blog/website and I especially love her "inspiration wednesday" posts ... check out her last inspiration wednesday post here. I found this post very inspiring ... I love to see her in "action" ... Donna has such a great sense of humor ... she is sooo entertaining! Donna had her journal with her so I was lucky to see the original art from this post. I have to tell you that it was just a beautiful as what you see on her post. I love all of the details and the layering.

Thanks to Karen of The Art House Studio for putting this weekend with Donna together. It was a night that I will remember for a long time. You can see our Friday night class picture here!

and the winner is...

2011-03-22T06:07:00.000-07:00

{add drum roll here}

Debbie Saenz! Congrats Debbie ... I'll get your prize in the mail as soon as I get your mailing information!

My charms kits are in Scrapbook Queens now and I will be selling them at Scrapfest in April. I'm still working on my finishing touches on my display unit for these charm kits ... it's a little over the top and I'll post photos once it is complete!

Thanks so much to everyone for visiting my blog, leaving comments and linking up with me!

glass charm tutorial and 1st anniversary blog giveaway

2011-03-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

I love to make and wear my glass charm necklaces and I thought that I'd share with you how I make them.

Before I start ... I'm going to give you a little warning ... making these charms can be additive and you will not be able to stop at just one!

Let's gather our supplies and tools ... here's what you will need:

a) artwork sized to fit the glass tile - my photos are professionally printed on matte paper

b) glass tile, a bail and a chain necklace

c) scrapbook paper cut to fit the glass tile

d) diamond glaze - i.e. "Inkssentials Glossy Accents"
e) strong adhesive - i.e. "E-6000"

f) x-acto knife, emery board, straight pin, wax paper and self-healing mat

Let's get started! Cut your photo slightly larger than your glass tile and set it aside.

One side of your glass tile will be very smooth (front) and the other side has a slight texture (back), place the smooth (front) side down on the wax paper. Now you are ready to apply the diamond glaze to the back of the tile.

Things to remember when you are covering the tile with diamond glaze:

1. you don't want any air bubbles so it is important not to shake the bottle

2. if you do get an air bubble, try to pop it with a pin or move it off the edge of the tile

3. you want to cover the entire back surface of the tile with glaze but not so much that the glaze goes over the edge of the tile

Once the tile is covered with glaze, the next step is to flip the tile over and set it on top of your artwork.

To flip the tile, begin by picking it up with one hand as you see in the photo above. Quickly turn the tile over and grab the tile with your other hand.

Place your tile on top of your art being careful not to press down on the glass tile. If you see any air bubbles or notice that the edges are missing a bit of glaze, you can gently slide the tile over the art to move the glaze around a bit ... do not lift or press down on the tile.

The diamond glaze will take a while to completely set and for the first few minutes the glass tile can "move" especially if the surface you are working on isn't completely level. Watch your tile closely and if it does shift simply slide it so that it is positioned where you want it to be.

Leave your glass tile to dry for about 4 hours ... drying time will vary depending on how thick you applied the glaze. The next step is to remove the excess paper from around the glass tile. Using a sharp x-acto knife, cut the paper as close to the edge of the glass tile as possible on a self-healing mat. You can also cut away any excess glaze from the sides of the glass tile.

Using your emery board, sand the paper along each side of the glass to clean up the edges and remove any excess paper and glaze. To file, always use long downward strokes ... never file back and forth in two directions.

Squeeze some glaze onto the back of the glass tile and place a small piece of scrapbook paper on top. If needed, once the glaze has dried, sand the edges of the scrapbook paper.

Next, add the E-6000 adhesive to the back of the bail.

Pick up your tile and figure out which side is the top of your tile. Turn the tile around and attach the bail to the top centre back. Press down on the bail and set it aside to dry for a while.

Gently squeeze some more diamond glaze onto the back of the glass tile. Be careful not to put glaze on the bail. This step gives your back a nice glossy finish and seals the paper. Let this dry for a few hours before wearing. Please note that these glass tile charms are not waterproof or water resistant.

Add your chain necklace to the bail and your glass charm necklace is ready to wear!

This weekend was the first anniversary of my blog and I wanted to do something special to celebrate so I'm going to do a giveaway!

One lucky person will win one of my glass charm kits ... it includes one glass tile, one silver plated bail, one silver plated chain necklace and one of my original set of four {prince} charming art. You can see a finished charm necklace from this kit in the photo along with a picture of the kit (front and back).

Here's how to win:

1. Become a follower of my blog ... if you are already a "follower" you've already been entered!

2. Get another chance to win if you leave me a comment!

3. Link my glass charm tutorial to your blog and you'll get another chance to win ... just make sure to tell me about your link so that I will know!

I'm going to pick a name at the end of the day on March 21st and post the winner on March 22nd!

Good Luck everyone!

I'm linked up to the following parties:

Whatever goes Wednesday at Someday Crafts

Tuesday To Do at Blackberry Vine

Anything related Tuesday

in the studio - sneak peek friday

digital scrapbooking party

2011-03-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

I've been busy this week working on a project that I'm going to launch in April at Scrapfest. Not to give away too much ... but I have designed a line of digital files that you can personalize and print yourself ... and the kit has a PARTY theme!

There are lots of great projects to make ... decorations, invitations and other goodies. I am in "print test" mode now and I'm looking forward to making samples of the projects so I can photograph them.

I love to scrapbook so it was a no brainer that I'd also add into the kit lots of digital papers and elements so that you can create digital scrapbooking pages too! Although the kit has a party theme to it I think that the elements can be used to scrapbook more than just a child's birthday party!

I'm going to Costco to pick up these four 12x12 pages later today ...

I can't wait to see how the colours look and add them to my album!

I've got a busy weekend coming up ... teaching two classes, prom dress shopping with one daughter and playing taxi driver for the other daughter who has a birthday party to attend. It's also my 1st anniversary for my blog tomorrow and I'm still trying to think of something neat to do to celebrate!

I'm linked up to In the Studio today!

DMOIY wedding stationery and glass charm necklace kits - in my studio this week

2011-02-25T12:42:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks in my studio and I thought that I'd share some of the projects that I'm working on right now. The first project that I'm really excited about is the wedding stationery that I designed and had printed for a friend's daughter ... it's a DMOIY (do most of it yourself) project ... the bride and her "crew" are coming to my house tomorrow to start cutting and putting together the invitations. I printed the wedding stationery and most of the reception materials all together ... we are just waiting for the address labels and wine labels to arrive later today.

I'm really happy with the way these turned out ... the graphics and colours have a "classic urban chic" feeling ... and I'm totally in love with the column textured paper that these were professionally laser printed on. I can't wait for the bride to see them! We have two hundred invitations to make ... that is about 800 of the 1200 sheets of paper that I had printed ... we have to cut, fold and put them together ... oh yeah, and the envelopes need to have liners and address labels added. I think that I may need to stop by the wine store tonight! ... oh, wait a minute, maybe no wine until the girls have finished cutting :)

The other project that I am working on right now are my glass charm necklace kits. I created art for over 20 different kits that I'm going to sell at Scrapfest in April. I've printed all of the art and now I have to cut the papers. I can't make the kits up yet because I'm still waiting for my glass tile supplies to arrive ... I ordered them over two weeks ago and I'm hoping that someone at the post office will decide it's okay to deliver them to me soon! I am planning to make up about 200 kits to sell at Scrapfest and Scrapbook Queens. I'll let you know more about these once the kits are all made!

So I'm thinking that my paper cutter and I are going to be good friends over the next few days ... that will give me some time to think about a design for my new resume so I can start applying for a new job.

I'm linked up here today!

Valentines, butterflies and flowers ... oh my!

2011-02-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

If you are still working on Valentine gift ideas, you can check out my earlier posts for a free download of

Valentine chocolate wrappers and gift container inspiration . The vintage postcard image above is from the Graphics Fairy - Karen has lots of royalty free images that you can use for last minute valentine cards.

I recently hung one of my new mixed media collage projects up at Scrapbook Queens to promote my newest class called "mixed media butterfly collage" ... this collage is filled with lots of 3-d butterflies and we will using the new Echo Park "Be Mine" papers on a wood canvas.

This is another one of my beginner mixed media collage classes and there are two class dates available - March 31st and April 12th. I have limited the class size to six so it should be fun for everyone. I think that this project would make a nice Mother's day gift!

I've also just added another "introduction to mixed media II" workshop ... it will take place on Friday March 4th. You can find more information about it on my class website and on the Scrapbook Queens website.

This class sold out quickly the first time that I offered it ... here's Milena, Barbara and Debbie with their finished projects!

Have a LOVE-ly day everyone!

mixed media sculpture

2011-02-13T09:20:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to make a mixed media sculpture for a while and I finally completed my first one. I'm really happy with the way that it turned out ... so many of "my favourite things" all combined into one little 3-D piece of art! The sparrow on top looks like the bird in my logo and was my inspiration for this piece.

Most of it just came together over the past 3 weeks as I cleaned up my supplies and sorting through my boxes of scraps and antique findings. The tin container at the bottom is an antique film container that I've had for about 15 years -I have one more of them and will use it when I create another one of these for Robyn ... she has already requested one of these with lots of pink for her bedroom at the cottage.

Here's a couple of views of the different sides ... there is lots of layering and every element has a special meaning to me. Again, antique pieces that I've collected and have been sitting in boxes .... hidden away for no one to see ... are now out and on view. I guess that I was just waiting for a project special enough to use them in! I'm sure that you have scrapbooking supplies or vintage pieces of jewellery that are that are doing the same thing in your home!!

I also broke open the seal of my German Silver Emporium Pure Glass Glitter that I purchased in New York last year at Tinsel Town Trading Company ... you can read more about my New York inspirations here . This glitter was a little more expensive than other glitters that I have purchased so it has been collecting dust in my studio just waiting to be used. It is sooo beautiful and sparkles like little diamonds! You can find this glitter online at tinseltrading.com.

The tin container created a secret hiding space in this piece ... which makes it a functional piece of art too ...

so I worked it into a little area of my kitchen ... it looks like just another piece of art!

I think that after I make Robyn's little sculpture I may work on another version of these mixed media sculptures to teach a class. I've got so many different ideas in my head - and they are so much fun to design! I'll keep you posted!

{birthday} bunting tutorial

2011-02-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

It's been another busy week for me ... more birthday celebrations, teaching a mixed media canvas class and test printing wedding invitations ... I'm looking forward to just hanging out with friends tonight!

I thought that I'd share with you a fun little project my daughter and her friend, Alexis made with me recently. This is a fabric bunting that can be used as a decoration for birthday parties, showers or any holiday celebration ... like maybe Valentine's day! This is a great "beginner" sewing project so you may want to try it with older kids as I did. My daughter Robyn made hers so that we could hang it up for her sister's 17th birthday this week ... Alexis made hers to use at her 13th birthday party last weekend.

Here's what you will need: assorted fabrics, wide ribbon, scissors (regular and pinking), a fast fade fabric marker, cardboard (to make a pattern), ruler, straight pins, thread and sewing machine.

I bought 5 different Amy Butler fabrics for our bunting ... I love Amy's colours and prints! You don't need a lot of fabric for this project so I bought "fat quarters" of each print from a quilting store ... a fat quarter is one yard cut into 4 large squares - you could also just purchase 1/4 of a yard of each fabric. The Amy Butler fabrics are a little expensive (about $18 yard) so to keep costs down I used an expensive solid fabric (about $6 yard) for the back of each triangle since our bunting would be hung so that the backs are not really visible. I was able to make 2 six foot long buntings and I still have fabric left over for other projects.

I wanted all of the triangles to be the same size so I made a template out of cardboard. Here's how I made my triangle template: (a) Draw a line 7" across ... this will be the top of the triangle. (b) On that 7" line find your half way mark (3 1/2"). (c) From your centre point, draw another line that is 11" long ... you now have a "T". (d) Now draw your triangle and cut it out.

I traced around our template directly onto the fabric using a quick fading fabric marker - the ink disappears in about 24 hours ... it's like magic! None of our prints had a pattern that was one direction so I was able to flip the triangle template so we had almost no fabric waste as you can see in my photo!

We wanted 10 triangles in our buntings - two of each of the five different Amy Butler fabrics. We also had to cut 10 solid backings so we had to cut out 20 triangles in total.

This photo shows the next three steps ...

1. We pinned the wrong sides (one patterned front, one solid back) together for all 10 of our triangles.

2. Next we used our sewing machine to straight stitch the two longest sides of each triangle ... we could have sewn the top too but it wasn't necessary so we didn't bother.

3. After all of the triangles were sewn together, we used the pinking scissors to trim the edges of the two longest sides to give a decorative "zig-zag" edge (if you don't have fabric pinking scissors or prefer a straight edge, just trim with regular scissors!)

Next we need to sew our triangles onto a long, wide piece of ribbon - our ribbon was 6' long. I found a ribbon in the colour that we liked but it was a little thin and somewhat see through so I sewed a piece of lace onto the ribbon along one edge as you can see in the photo.

The next step is to pin the triangles to the back of the ribbon. The triangles were placed so that they were touching each other and lined up about 1/2 way along the ribbon. I started to pin the triangles working from the middle of the ribbon and working out to the end of the ribbon so that I had some extra ribbon at each end for hanging.

The next step is to sew all of the triangles onto the ribbon ... we did two lines of straight stitching ... one at the top of the triangles (about 1/2 way through the ribbon) and again at the bottom edge of the ribbon so that the triangles would lay flat when hanging.

To finish the ends of the ribbon, simply turn the ends over to form a loop to hang and sew the ends in place using your sewing machine and you are done.

The girls added large buttons at each end of their bunting to hide the stitching from their loops ... a nice decorative touch with the lace. We hung Robyn's bunting on our fireplace mantle so I used some twine on the loops and hung the bunting from heavy candle sticks. I think that we are going to hang this in Robyn's bedroom over her bed later on ... she did a great job and just loves it.

Robyn made Haley a pillow from some of the fabric scraps ... we used the cuttlebug to cut flowers and I created the "love like crazy" graphics as an iron on. The back of the pillow is one of our favourite Amy Butler fabrics. It was Robyn's first pillow and she is dying to make another one for herself .... maybe this weekend!

And I made Haley this little mixed media canvas piece after teaching my class on Tuesday ... the denim pocket was from one of her baby outfits ... Haley knew it as soon as she opened her present. The words on the side of the photo say "always believe in fairytales".

I hope that you try to make one of these ... maybe add words to spell out something or keep it simple like I did and reuse it after your celebration for an everyday decoration!

I'll be linking up at in-the-studio-sneak-peek-friday today!

and at whipperberry's friday flair linky party !

{birthday} celebrations

2011-02-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

We have so many family and friends that are celebrating birthdays at this time of year ... I can hardly keep up with all of the dates. That's why I'm currently designing a birthday calendar that I can bind with my cinch to help me keep track of all of the birthdays, anniversaries and special dates that we celebrate. I'll share more about that once it is done!

Today my "great" nephew, Ethan, is celebrating his very first birthday. {Happy birthday little man!} I can still remember when his Mommy, my beautiful niece, Anmarey, was born (omg - 28 years ago). It feels strange that we are already celebrating birthdays for the next generation ... I really don't remember getting this old.

I designed and made Ethan's birth announcements and thank you cards as a shower gift for Anmarey and Peter ... isn't Ethan just the cutest little guy! The first graphics in this post with Ethan's birth details was another gift I designed to celebrate his birth ... I had it printed as a 12x12 picture and framed in a simple square frame from Ikea for his room.

Now I'm off to make my shopping list for tomorrow ... cake mix and candles are at the top of the list because my oldest daughter will be 17 on Wednesday!

My day at the CGTA gift show with artist Robin Davis

2011-02-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

I attended the Toronto CGTA show with my creative friend, Robin Davis on Sunday. I've known Robin for about 19 years and she is currently living her dream ... she is an artist and is licencing her art to a number of different companies in Canada and the USA. Robin has sooo many wonderful collections that she has been working on ... I don't know how she comes up with so many ideas.

These are a few pictures of Robin in front of her new Children's line are at CCR Gifts ... an amazing Canadian wholesale company that makes a lot of their product right here in Canada! Love that!

Robin was at the Atlanta Gift Show a few weeks earlier and you can see more pictures of Robin's product lines from Atlanta on her blog here.

The CGTA is a trade only show for Canadian retailers and I have not been to it for a number of years. It was so inspiring and my head is spinning with lot of ideas for projects and decorating. I saw so many great trends ... coloured burlap, antique keys, words (vintage handwritting and "subway" type), lots of birds (yeah!), vintage (everything) and it seem that our love affair with all things Parisan is still strong. It was also interesting to see how much "handmade" and "papercrafting" have influenced the styles of much of the product that was being shown. It was also wonderful to see how manufacturers are now promoting up and coming artists from around the world and making their mass produced products "look" more hand crafted. I feel like we are back in the 1920's when the Arts and Crafts movement was happening, a time when people appreciated the work of the local craftsmen and did not want things that were "mass produced" by machines.

I'm off to finish a mixed media collage for one of my classes and to ice a cake for my wonderful hubby who turned 50 today!

Let's get organized {part 3} - scraps of paper

2011-01-28T11:35:00.000-08:00

I'm still organizing and cleaning ... with a little crafting tossed in to make it fun! Here's a couple of other projects that I came up with for my studio to organize all of the scraps of paper with notes and information that I have in my desk drawers and around my office.

I have been collecting American Art Pottery over the years and found that I had a couple of plain ones in a cupboard that were not very expensive and a good size to use on my desk. I turned the one pictured above into a piece of art that would function as a place to store computer and reference information.

I used vintage pottery that was not really valuable and plain ... you can find these at antique shops and shows and sometimes if you are lucky, at a second hand store (for a fraction of the price).

This project was a great way for me to get some vintage pieces that I love out of boxes so that I can see and enjoy them. I used a number of vintage elements: a photo, stamps from a postcard from Paris, pieces of rhinestone jewellery, a metal light reflector and words from an old book. I also used some newer materials from my paper crafting supplies: paper flowers, fabric measuring tape and metal embellishments.

I used gel mediums (regular and heavy) to attach everything. I started with the fabric measuring tape and metal light reflector. I save my wooden stir sticks from Starbucks for projects like this ... it is so much easier to apply the gel medium ...

I removed the stamps from the back of the vintage postcard using steam from my kettle ... work slowly and carefully so that you don't burn yourself. I scanned both sides of the postcard to use digitally later on. I adhered the stamps to the pottery with soft gel medium and added a coat of gel to the front. The vintage photograph was purchased years ago at an antique show ... I'm always attracted to these for some reason ... and love the way that they are mounted on beautifully embossed cards. I don't know who this woman is but I'm calling her "Aunt Amy" after one of my favourite Great Aunts that I remember from my childhood.

Next I layered a few paper flowers for colour ...

... added a piece of text out of a book ... this one came from the Cat In the Hat book. It felt right on this piece as I'm trying to be a little more "fearless" this year!

And then my favourite part - the bling! I removed the pin back from the rhinestone brooch before I adhered it with heavy gel medium. The size and shape were perfect for this piece. Small rhinestones with added to the flower centres. I added a Tim Holtz metal crown to the photo to make "Aunt Amy" look like a princess.

Another bling element was added to the space betwen the stamps and the fabric ... some distressing ink to age and then I set it aside to dry for a few hours.

When it was dry and I sat it up I realized that the back with just the ribbon and the original paper pottery label looked a little plain so I decided to add three vintage buttons.

The pottery fits library cards and blank index cards (sideways). I made a couple of space dividers with mailing labels decorated with vintage buttons, bits of lace and trim and of course, a bit more text from The Cat in the Hat.

I used another pottery piece to hold more index cards ... these cards have many of my website addresses, user id's and passwords - stuff that isn't "confidential" (like banking and credit cards). I didn't decorate this pottery because I knew that the two items would be together on my desk ... think simple black dress and killer shoes and jewellery.

I dressed up the index card dividers with distressing inks, alpha stickers and glaze drops. If you don't have glaze drops you can used Inkssentials Glossy Accents to get a similar effect on the letters. The index cards were about 1/8th of an inch too big so I cut them all with my paper cutter to fit the pottery ... so if you try to make one of these for yourself don't get too hung up trying to find a container that works.

And now my computer desk in my studio has a new look. My desk drawers are neat and I have all of my reference information at my finger tips!

I hope that this inspires you to get organized and be creative doing so! Have a great weekend!

I'm linked here today!

let's get organized {part 2}

2011-01-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

I'm still in my purge and organize mood and here's another project that I have been working on in my home studio. This photo is what one corner of my office looks like this morning after a few hours of organizing on the weekend.

I have soooo many scrapbooking supplies in my office and in the basement (where most of my supplies are kept) ... and although I like to think that I know where everything is ... I really don't. I spend way too much time looking through storage boxes that I have so neatly arranged on ikea shelving units in the basement. I'll be honest, I do label the boxes and everything appears to be really neat and orderly ... but I still seem to spend hours looking for "something" just right.

I've seen lots of ideas for organizing supplies in magazines and on the internet but I wanted to use some things I already had on hand and didn't have to go out and invest more money ...especially after I started working out the math on how much I've spent on scrapbooking materials!

So I converted a metal jewellery stand that I purchased at Pier One Imports a few years ago into fixture to hold some of my scrapbooking elements in my studio.

... here's a close up of the jewellery stand ...

... I used three different sizes of clear zip lock bags to do this ... you can buy these at lots of places ... I got many of mine at the dollar store. Some of my bags had a hole at the top but if they didn't I simply added a hole with my crop-i-dile (but a regular hole punch will work too).

... then I used small binder rings to put the bags into small groups of similar things or items that went together. After that it was easy to organize and hang the bags on the jewellery stand. Now I do have to confess that I did have to go out and purchase additional binder rings ... I had a couple of dozen of them to start but I had way too many supplies to organize!

Here's how my new fixture looks in my studio office. I set it on top of a table that my Dad made for me years ago. Now I do have to admit that this is not all of my scrapbooking materials on this one little fixture ... I have a couple (couple ... who am I kidding, a bunch) of boxes of more ziplock bags on binder rings waiting for a "home". I think that I am going to work on converting one of my ikea shelves so that it will hold more of my supplies this way ... but that will be another project to work on!

I also reorganized the wire tiered basket in my studio ... it sits beside my new fixture and was looking a little messy. It still holds some of my completed mini albums in the top but the bottom is now full of blank albums and a couple of antique glass jars filled with additional supplies.

I have to remember to keep my eyes out for more of these metal jewellery stands and wire tiered baskets .... this is a great time of year to find things like this on sale.

One more thing that I did in my studio office is to use my antique suitcases to better organize my "basic tools". I now keep my most used tools and supplies in the small and large suitcase. The large suitcase is perfect for storing my paper cutter, glass and self healing mats and other cutting tools. The smaller suitcase is great for gel mediums, adhesives, pens, brushes, distress inks, etc. Now when I go to Scrapbook Queens to work on a project or teach a class I don't have to take much time getting ready, I just have to grab these two suitcases. I use the medium size suitcase when I am packing for a class to organize my class "kits" and any additional tools or materials that I will need for that specific class.

Next project to tackle ... my computer fonts and contact information!

let's get organized!

2011-01-21T06:31:00.000-08:00

It's January and I've been in a "got to get organized" mood lately. Next to filling bags with outgrown clothing and toys that the kids have "out grown" to donate to the second hand stores ... I've been trying to re-organize the house so that everything has a place again.

One of the things I did yesterday was go through all of the winter hats, mittens and scarves and get rid of the items that we don't wear anymore. I separated everyone's things into baskets that would be kept in either the front hall closet or the laundry/mud room. I love baskets - the ultimate organizing tool that can also be used as part of your decor. I used simple black chalkboard tags to label each of the baskets.

Here's a picture of the cabinets I designed for our laundry/mudroom last year. The cabinets were made by one of our friends, Chris, who owns the area California Closets. I designed the cabinets so that they would fit the baskets I already owned ... it's so much easier to design the cabinets around the baskets than to try to find baskets to fit shelving! The larger baskets hold footwear and smaller baskets hold accessories.

I bought my black chalkboard tags at Michaels about a year ago - they were in a clearance bin and really inexpensive. They are made of wood and have a chalkboard finish to them. I could have used chalk to write on the labels but I didn't because these baskets are used often and being the perfectionist that I am I knew that I would not be happy if the words were getting rubbed off all of the time ... so I used a white sharpie peel-off china marker (pencil) to write on the tags and get the same look as the chalk. I can easy repaint the tags with black chalkboard paint if I ever want to change a name.

After I bought these tags I realized how easy they would be to make them from wood or chipboard shapes! You can buy thin premade wood shapes at most craft stores and just paint them with black chalkboard paint ... if they don't have holes to tie them onto the baskets with ribbon, you can easily make holes with a crop-a-dile or a drill. Or if you have a cuttlebug (or similar diecutting tool) you can make tags from black chipboard ... again add holes with your crop-a-dile, add a ribbon and you are ready to start labelling those baskets!

I'm going to try to share some more of my organizing projects over the next week ... so if you are in the organizing mood too check back for more ideas. If you have been posting some crafty organization ideas on your blog lately and have some ideas to share please let me know!

I'm at The Answer is Chocolate's Open House!

Valentine gift container inspiration

2011-01-15T11:39:00.000-08:00

Here's a little inspiration for Valentine gift giving using the little mini chocolate bar wrappers that I talked about in my previous post!

I recycled a little jar and used it to hold about 15 mini chocolate bars with my Valentine wrappers.

I saved one of my chocolate bar wrappers (you can download the art here) and attached it with two sided tape to a small shipping tag. I trimmed the wrapper down to size to cover about 3/4s of the tag. I then used Ranger distress ink on the edges of the tag and sewed a small scrap of lace near the top for an instant gift tag that matches the chocolates ... how's that for "branding"!

I then tied the tag onto the jar. My jar had a metal piece that keeps the lid attached to the jar so it was easy attach the tag. I then tied additional pieces of different coloured ribbons and lace to the metal piece above the gift tag.

This would be cute to give as a gift to someone. I can see this project being used as a Valentine decorating item .... maybe sitting on the kitchen counter or front hall table at home ... or how about at work on a desk!

I'm linked to the "all thingz related" party!

and the to the Friday flair link party at Whipperberry!

feel the (chocolate) love with a free download for Valentine's day

2011-01-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

All we need is LOVE is all we need ... well and maybe a little chocolate!

Valentine's day is a month away and I thought that I'd share with you a little project that I designed for my youngest daughter as a valentine handout a couple of years ago. These mini chocolate wrappers are so easy to make and the kids can make them with you.

You can download the art for this project here. Please note that this download is for Personal Use ONLY - no commercial use in any way. If you'd like to share this information with your friends please send them here to my blog so that they can download the file themselves ... thanks again for your support!

So let's get started making these mini chocolate bar wrappers ...

First you will need to print my pdf file that you have downloaded. Print it in colour on regular weight white paper. You will need a paper cutter (or scissors), two sided tape, a pen or marker to add a name on the wrapper and some mini chocolate bars! I am using the new Hersey's miniatures chocolate bars that have blue, pink and green wrappers (for Valentine's day and Easter?) ... the colours are perfect with my graphics on the wrappers.

Cut out the wrappers using a paper cutter ... if you are into paper crafts or scrapbooking I'm sure that you have one ... if not, use your scissors and try to cut the wrappers as straight as possible. You can have your child write their name on the dotted line at this point ... it's much easier than trying to write on the label once it is attached to the candy bar.

The next step is to add two small pieces of two sided tape to the back of the wrapper as shown. Position the wrapper so that the label is centred at the front of the candy bar and attach one of the pieces of tape to the candy bar. The fold the wrapper completely around the candy bar and using the second piece of tape secure the wrapper in place.

And you are done ... pretty easy!

Just keep in mind that the chocolate bars that I've shown are not peanut free ... so make adjustments in your candy bar selection if you have any children with nut allergies. And if you want to be able to "address" these you can easily do so by adding small blank labels to the back of the wrapper ... I've done this before with little heart shaped labels.

I hope that you are feeling the love ... just try not to eat too many of these mini chocolates while you are making these!

I've linked this post to 100 Ideas Under $100 at Beyond the Picket Fence!

and to the Handmade Valentine Party at French Cupboard!

new mixed media collage classes

2011-01-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

I just finished another mixed media collage to use as a sample for my mixed media classes and workshops at Scrapbook Queens. This one is for my intermediate mixed media workshop and I've used a grid pattern to build the collage. This collage uses up some of my favourite paper scraps from the My Minds Eye's Lost and Found collection. I can't wait to teach this class because I had a wonderful time creating this piece ...

so many of the found elements on it have been sitting in my studio for a while waiting to be added to a special collage ... like the words "You're so lucky," said the rabbit ... I can't remember what children's book I cut that out of but it has been in my studio for over a year. Beeswax is the secret ingredient for the finished look of this piece and I know that we are going to have a blast experimenting with this medium in my workshops. I guess I'll have to update the pictures on my class website and display this collage at Scrapbook Queens later today.

If you are interested in taking any of my mixed media workshops here are some of my class dates: Friday February 4th, 2011 - introduction to mixed media collage 2 (close up picture above) and Sunday March 6th, 2011 - intermediate mixed media collage.

happily ever after

2011-01-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

Okay ... so I'm a little late but my Christmas holidays seemed never ending and it's taken me a while to get back into my routine! I hope that you had a wonderful holiday whether you were taking part in family traditions or making some new ones!

We took our daughters to Disney World for Christmas. We have never been away from home on Christmas day but our girls are older now and we've been promising to take them to Disney again for a while. Our family had a great time and I think that this is a Christmas that they will remember fondly forever.

We posed for pictures with lots of characters ... something that my husband was sure that the girls would not be into at their age and we would not have to "deal with on this trip" ... but they did ... we have pictures of every princess and character that we saw ...

... even my husband got into the characters after a while as you can see in this shot with Buzz Lightyear!

Disney was so inspiring ... the details on everything ... it was so over whelming and my head was going a mile a minute at times. I took almost 2,000 photos in 7 days so I know that they will be keeping me busy for a while as I work on memory books for the girls. I also purchased a Make Your Own Vinylmation collectible figure and I'm eager to "decorate" it soon ... I'll share more about it in another post!

I've got a lot of projects planned for my classes this winter ... I have updated my class website and you can also see them on the Scrapbook Queens website .

I have lots on the go with a wedding stationery project that is almost ready to print and a paper crafting show I'm going to be attending in April. I'm going to be at the Scrapbook Queens' booth at Scrapfest in Kitchener . We are just working on the booth location and design ... and I'll share more once all of the details have been confirmed. I'm so looking forward to a busy and healthy 2011!

... and they all lived happily ever after ...

Add a little "bling" to your holiday decorating with some vintage and upcycled materials

2010-12-13T15:13:00.000-08:00

I just love to add a little bling and glitter to my holiday decorating and here's a few projects that I created to decorate my home for Christmas. I have a collection of old rhinestone brooches and earrings that I rarely get a chance to wear and just hate to keep packed up in a box ... so I quite often "add" them to my home decorating projects ... such as this candle that sits on a vintage plate in the kitchen. I added two velvet ribbons to the candle by using short straight pins to hold the ribbons in place at the back. Then I attached the brooch by sticking the brooch pin directly into the candle ... I added another long straight pin to balance the brooch and keep it in place. It's so simple yet elegant!

This next project is a vintage crystal Christmas ornament that I have been making for a couple of years. It was featured in Somerset Studio's GreenCraft magazine (Autumn 2010). I use vintage crystals, ribbons and lace, vintage buttons and rhinestone earrings to create these ... and because most of my supplies are often one-of-a-kind, I rarely make two of these ornaments the same ... so they are kinda of like bling snowflakes!

Here's how to make these ...

I start with two vintage crystals ... one large tear drop and one smaller ... you will need to remove all of the antique metal pieces if there are any. Then add long head pins as shown above. I add one head pin to the top of the smaller crystal for hanging then I make and attach a jump ring to the bottom so I can link it to the tear drop crystal. The wire on the tear drop crystal is left long and I use my pliers to twist the end of the pin into a circle so I can attach the jump ring at the top.

You can see how the crystals have been joined in the photo above ... now it it time to pick out other elements to attach to the ornament and as well as ribbon and lace. I am using one of my vintage rhinestone clipback earrings on this ornament ...

First I tie some ribbons and lace that I selected to go with the rhinestone earring onto the long head pin ...

... and then I add the clip back earring to the lace. That's it ... again, another simple but pretty way to add a little bling to your holiday decorating!

One last project to add a little bling to your holiday decorating ...

This is a great project to use up some of those old frames that are the wrong colour or just don't match your decor anymore. I painted mine all the same warm white and took out the glass. Then I used scrapbook papers with glitter, chipboard letters and a couple of wooden letters that I had lying around to make this for our fireplace mantle. I always seem to be picking up letters that are in our names so when I found the "e" and the "r" in my box of supplies, I decided to spell out "be merry" but you could say whatever you want. If you have larger frames you may want to add more letters to a frame ... my frames were all on the small side.

You can paint the letters or do what I did and decorated them with different scrapbook papers. I used modge podge to attach the papers to the letters and then used distressing inks to edge all of the letters. After that each letter was treated differently ... I added glitter to a few, silver beads to one and Inkssentials glossy accents to a couple of others. You can add as much glitter and bling as you want to this project ... make it as simple or detailed as you wish!

I hope that I have you thinking about how you can add a little bling and a little sparkle to your holiday decorating! Have a great week!

holiday cards and a free download

2010-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

My Christmas cards have all been made, addressed and are on their way to our family and friends as we speak. The material costs to hand make cards are a little high when you start to add everything up and it takes a long time to make the cards .... I know that I could buy a couple of boxes of cards for less ... but I won't ... this is one of my favourite Christmas traditions that I look forward to doing every year.

For this year's card I used old file folders as the base of the card ... I loved the natural and organic feeling of the kraft stock. I combined a number of different Basic Grey holiday papers in this year's design and created the photo element with a black and white photo overlay that I created. Black photo corners, a piece of lace machine stitched to the card and a vintage button lovingly handstitched in the middle of a paper flower are the final touches. I used a vintage date stamp to the back to add the year and my name.

Just in case any of you have not made your Christmas cards yet or would like something to file for next year ... I've created a PNG file for you to download ... it's for a 4x6 card that you use in Photoshop to create your own little card or photo insert. The picture above shows a sample of how it will look ... the photo is an engagement picture of our friend's daughter and I simply added the words that I wanted in the red space.
Please note that the download is free but it is for your personal use only - you can not use it for commercial use of any kind and I ask you to please not modify the art and call it your own (that's just bad karma!). If you would like to share the art with your friends that is okay if you tell them to download it directly from me! You can download the art here. Hybrid scrappers will most likely want to add some elements to this piece ... I can easily see some glitter and bling added to this ... maybe even a piece of lace or ribbon ... you decide!

Here's a quick "how to" tutorial for using the holiday card art ... I use Photoshop CS2 on a PC so you may have to modify some of the commands based on your software ...
1. Open a new file - 6"wide and 4"high, 300 dpi , RGB mode
2. File/Place/ and open my png file (let's call this layer "card design")
3. Then add another layer go to File/Place/ and open your photo ... you will want to move this new layer below the layer called "card design" before you go on.
4. Working on the layer with your photo, you will need to resize your photo and position it so that you are happy with the layout.
5. To add words to your card you will need to add another layer on top of the two we already have ... do this by adding a type layer and add your text in the red box area.
6. To save your art for printing wherever you do your photo printing ... save your Photoshop file as a JPEG copy and you are ready to print!

Now speaking of printing ... I have to share with you a cute little print project that just arrived in the mail yesterday. I created these buck and doe tickets for Breann and Kyle (featured in the holiday card) and had them printed at moo.com . This is the first time that I've used MOO myself ... it was really quite easy to upload the files online and they have excellent directions and templates if you want to create your own art. I screamed with delight when I opened the package. These cards turned out so nice ... beautiful colours ... nice thick stock and the finish is amazing. The best thing is that I could have uploaded 100 different images for one side of the cards for the same price! Breann and Kyle selected 4 engagement photos that they liked and I created the card backs as a ticket ... now all we just have to number the 400 cards and they will be ready to sell!

Aren't these just too cute! Oh and before I forget ... we need to give credit to the talented photographers who took Breann and Kyle's engagement photos ... Cindy and Kal at Silver Parrot Studio ! I can't wait to see the wedding photos next summer!

holiday ornament and a free download

2010-12-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

I took part in a Christmas Ornament Exchange with a number of artists that I met on line this year from Kelly Rae Roberts ecourse and I wanted to share with you how to make the ornament that I created.

The ornament is a basically a domino that I altered with a piece of my art and some vintage crystals and beads. You'll also need diamond glaze, a couple of bails, a strong glue to attach the bails to the domino, a few jump rings and a piece of ribbon to hang.

You can download the my art for the bird design here .... please note that this download is for PERSONAL USE ONLY. You cannot use it in any commerical way, alter or sell it as your own. Please do not share this download with anyone ... you may refer friends to my blog for them to download themselves.

The first thing you need to do is to print my art. It was created as a 4x6 jpeg so you can print it at Costco or where you do your photo printing. I don't recommend printing these on an ink jet printer ... we are going to add diamond glaze to the image and it may bleed. One 4x6 print contains enough art to make 6 ornaments. You will need to cut out each piece to fit the domino ... there is a bleed so you will trim smaller than what you see on the printout.

Next you will want to adhere the art to the back of the domino ... I used glossy accents but modge podge or any type of glue will work. Once it is dry trim off or sand the edges of the paper to make sure that the edges are clean and straight.

The next step is to give the ornament a glossy coat ... I did that by adding glossy accents to the photo being careful not to add too much that it spills over the edges of the domino. Let it dry for a few hours depending on how much diamond glaze you used. It is really important that the glaze is completely dry before going onto the next step because we are going to turn the domino over and work on the back ... if in doubt ... wait!!!

Using a strong glue you need to attach bails as shown to the domino. If you don't want to add the crystal and bead to the bottom of the domino just add one bail to the top for hanging.

After the glue has dried and the bails are secure it's time to add some bling. Use whatever you have on hand or can find at your favourite craft/scrapbooking store. I used a vintage crystal and a crystal bead on mine ... I simply attached them with jump rings (I added a wire to the bead for hanging first).

Then you just need to add a ribbon to the top and hang it on the tree!

Here's a picture of the ornaments that I've received so far from my "Flying Friends" ... Suzanna Leigh, Rebecca Everett, Kathrin Rasser, Kris Johnson and Dayle Achatz Micoff.

holiday gift giving

2010-11-29T19:14:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe that it is almost December ... what happened to November?

I've been so busy with so many different projects ... I really need to find some time to take pictures and start sharing. I have a bunch of freebies to add so keep posted for those soon. Speaking of pictures ... I just bought a new camera and I seem to be going through a bit of a "learning curve" so I may not show a lot of photos to illustrate my how to's for a while. Hopefully a few good pictures will be enough.

I just finished making my Christmas cards (70 of them) and I'm hoping to started writing inside and addressing them all by this weekend. I also designed the holiday cards for my husband's work and they are on the printing press as we speak ... can't wait to see the finished product!

I also decided to offer two more workshops in December ... I didn't think that I was going to have time but I've had a number of people ask me about projects for gift giving. So I've just added the details to my class website . The classes are at Scrapbooking Queens and there is one this coming Sunday afternoon and another in a couple of weeks during the day while the kids are at school. We are going to make two of my charms, similar to the ones I sell on etsy and two gift containers, one is a small metal pail with a lid and the other is a metal gift card holder. Here's another picture of the projects ...

My hubby has done most of our Christmas shopping for us this year ... what a sweetie. There are a lot of gift cards so I'm going to be making a bunch of these gift containers to give as gifts myself this year.

I'll offer more classes in the new year but I haven't had time to work out all of the details yet. I really want to offer a couple of introductory and intermediate mixed media collage workshops and I've got a great idea for a banner that I'm really excited about too. I recently designed the gift cards for Scrapbook Queens - they should be arriving in the store this week. The gift cards can be used for product in the store, crops and classes ... so they are great to ask for if you are interested in taking class and they are great to give if you want a friend or family member to take a class with you. Here's a sneak peak of my design ....

... this is the marketing piece that I made for the store to display. I can't take credit for the elements in the design ... I purchased a commercial licence for a digital kit to save time ... but the design is mine and I think that they are something that I'd like to see in my wallet!

Well that's all for now ... I'll post again this week with a holiday project that you can add to your tree.

BTW ... it's my baby brothers' (48th) birthday today ... I hope you had a great day Ted!!!

Michaels Holiday Contest

2010-11-19T16:42:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited ... it's back again this year ... Michaels Holiday Crafting Contest! And I just entered the wall hanging (picture above) that I made as a gift for my daughter Robyn. I created a similar mixed media collage on a wooden canvas last weekend ... and it was my inspiration for making this piece. You see, as soon as I was finished making my original collage, my daughter Robyn told me that she loved it and wanted it for her room at the cottage. Making another one for the contest was easy and I now have another gift to check off my list!

In case you didn't know about the Michaels contest - this is the second week of the contest - I think that it runs for 7 weeks. Every Monday there will be a new "challenge" and a chance to enter the contest. Michaels posts on facebook what three basic items have to be used in your project and you have until Sunday to create and upload your entry onto their facebook page.

They ask you to list your materials and how you made your project ... and I thought that I'd share with you here how I made my entry ... so here you go:

I started by glueing old book pages to the charger. Once it was dry ...

then I used acrylic paints and distressing inks to add some colour and antique the edges.

Then I used my scrapbook papers to create a design for the centre of the charger. I printed the words on my inkjet printer and left a space for the word "butterflies". The scrapbook papers were glued to the charger. I used an assortment of metal and sticker letters to spell out butterflies ...

... I added a paper measuring tape, some lace and some Martha Stewart glitter to the inside rim of the charger. Next I used my brand new, handy dandy Martha Stewart butterfly paper punch to cut butterfly shapes from two-sided scrapbook papers ...

... I love this paper punch because you can use it anywhere on a piece of paper (not just the edges!). I scored each of the butterflies to make them a little more 3-D. Some butterflies got glitter and a few others got rhinestone bling ... little girls gotta have bling, right?!! I glued the butterflies on the charger ...

... as you can see this charger is not going to be used during Christmas dinner ... so I punched two holes at the top of the charger and added a velvet ribbon to hang.

If you click here it will take you to the Michaels facebook contest ... please click "like" if you want to vote for my project for this week's (November 15-21) challenge under the "winners and gallery" tab. There are weekly prizes for a $100 Michaels gift card (every week!) and a grand prize at the end for a crafting cruise with Jo Pearson! ... wouldn't that be cool to win?

Jo Pearson has a really cool video on how to decorate chargers that you can actually use on your table and you can see it right here!

Good luck everyone and let's get creative!

Locks of Love donation ... Luke and Kathy

2010-11-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Here's a little story that I wanted to share about a beautiful friend, Kathy, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and her very caring and loving godson, Luke who decided to cut his hair to raise money for cancer research and donate his hair to the Locks of Love.

Luke plays left wing with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Today I went to the university with Kathy and Luke's mom and sister to take pictures and cheer Luke on as he cut off his long blonde locks!

... this is Luke before the cut ...

... Kathy and Luke's Mom getting Luke's hair ready so it could be sent off to Locks of Love afterwards ...

... Kathy made the first cut ... followed by Luke's Mom, Breann (Luke's sister) and Marlin Muylaert (Luke's head coach) ...

... and here's the "after" picture!

Luke's hair was just about 12" when it was cut ... more than long enough to donate for a wig. Luke has been taking pledges for Cancer here and I believe that he has reached his goal of $3,000. Congrats Luke and Kathy!

Luke's hair cutting ceremony is on youtube ... you can see it here.

For anyone in the area that is interested, the Super Boobie Fairy's are hosting their 5th annual Crop for a Cure at Scrapbooking Queens this Friday. The 24 hour crop event is to support Breast Cancer research at Princess Margaret Hospital.

special class offer & printer display box instructions

2010-10-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hello there and let me start off by saying thank you to everyone who stopped by for the grand opening of Scrapbook Queens on the weekend! I meet so many new people and was happy to see some familiar faces too! The store was busy all day. I received lots of feedback on my classes and future project ideas. I know that there will be a few mixed media workshops coming up after Christmas.

I had a lot of requests for my "charms" class at night so I've just added a class THIS FRIDAY NIGHT for anyone in the area that is interested in attending. There is a Friday night crop at the store from 6pm to midnight. I'm really excited because if you take my class you will be able to join the crop for no extra charge! The class will start at 6 and go for about 45 minutes. Our pieces will have to dry for almost 2 hours so you can work on your own projects at the crop. We'll get back together around 8ish and spend another hour completing our charms. These charms make cute teacher gifts and I'll have extra supplies on hand if you want to buy them from me to make additional charms in the class.

I also wanted to share with you my new jewellery holder ... I made it out of a old printer box. I originally designed it to store/display my earrings in my closet but I ended up using it to display my charms for the open house last week. Here's how I made it ...

I selected a couple of sheets of scrapbook paper .... I choose a black and white damask pattern. I carefully cut the paper to fit every opening in the printer's box. I measured every opening before cutting because I wanted the paper pattern to be repeated in the box and not every opening was the exact same size. If you use a solid paper you don't have to worry as much about reproducing the pattern but you will still have to measure the openings. Once I had all of the papers cut I used mod podge to glue the papers to the wood.

My next step was to add tiny screw eyes to each of the openings. I measured each opening and marked where I wanted the screweye to be placed ... then I used a drill to make a small hole so that the screweye would go in easily. When you add the screweyes make sure that you don't go through the back of the wood or you will mark the wall when you hang it up. You will also want to make sure that the screweyes are all set the same way.

I added small antique looking safety pins on each of the charms so I could hang them from the screweyes. If you use this to hang earrings that don't have post backs - they would just dangle from the screweyes!

Here's a couple of pictures from the opening at Scrapbook Queens last week ... you can see my printer box display on the table ...

here's some of the croppers and another instructor, Karan talks about her classes ...

lots more cropping going on and Irena and Joe are busy behind the cash desk!

So many talented people in one space ... inspiring and fun!!!