special class offer & printer display box instructions

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!!!

Pumpkinfest

yippeee ... it's "Pumpkinfest" weekend and I'm so excited that my girls are still into fall fairs and family traditions. Pumpkinfest takes places in a small town near our cottage called Waterford. We have been going to this for over 10 years and we always attend on Saturday so that we can watch the parade. I found this amazing article today on taking Halloween photos, you can find it here, and it reminded me that I should get my camera batteries charged up today so that I'm ready tomorrow!

I was looking through last year's photos and I realized that I better look for Robyn's pumpkin hat ... not just because I know she will want to wear but if I don't find it today I will forget tomorrow and we'll have to buy a new one at the fair (if they still have them!).

Do you have any Halloween or fall traditions at your house? Let me know in the comments section ... I'd love to hear how other families spend their time together!

And for my studio friends ... this has been a busy "short" week for me because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Most of my time in my studio has been spent working on a website to promote my classes and workshops at Scrapbook Queens. The site went "live" yesterday although I'm still working on it and adding dates, etc. but at least it's a start! It's a free wix website (so easy to create if you are a beginner like me!) ... please check it out at www.wix.com/lorrieeveritt/studio and let me know what you think!

thankful

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada this weekend ... looking forward to getting away to the cottage and spending some time with my family. Lots planned but I'm hoping that we will have some down time so I've packed some of my jewellery supplies so that my daughters and I can make a couple of necklaces. I've been playing around making these glass tiles necklaces. I'm going to try to make some of them with scrabble tiles on the back too. They are really fun to make and I've just started to wear a couple of them to make sure that they don't fall apart with use (so far, so good!).

 I've used pictures of my family on a couple of them and now I'm experimenting with pictures of some of my artwork (Robyn likes the mixed media collage close up of her as an angel with a bird on her shoulder - I gave it to her for her birthday!) ...

... I'm also experimenting with some of my photos ... I really like this one that I took in Paris a few years ago. I think that I will give it to my friend Sue later today so that she can tell me how it wears too. 

After I have finished "wear testing" these necklaces, I think that I might make some of these to put in my esty shop ... they would make great teacher gifts for the holidays.

I hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!

 Before I go, I also wanted to share with you a picture of a beautiful necklace that was made for me a few months ago. My friend Karen wore a similar necklace when we went to New York in the spring. Karen's mother made it for her and when we got back from New York she created one for me too. I love it and it is very special to me ... especially right now ... Karen's mother, Gee, lost her battle with cancer earlier this week. She will be dearly missed.

fun and games

Hello there! Sorry I have not been posting as often as normal ... I've been "playing" for the past few weeks and I honestly have not had a lot of time to be on my computer ... but I'm back now and I thought that I'd share with you one of the projects that I created on the weekend. We are going to a Euchre/Halloween party at the end of the month and I've been wanting to make these cute little "what's trump" cubes for a while. I got the original idea from my friend Mary ... I'm not sure where she got the idea from but she had someone paint the cubes for her ... I'm reusing an old deck of cards that was missing some cards and sitting in my "junk" box.

So here's what you will need - playing cards (6 cards for each cube), wooden cube (I used 1 3/4" cubes but you can adjust the size as long as it isn't bigger than the cards), mod podge, a sponge brush, sandpaper or nail file, paper cutter or scissors, and a piece of acetate.



I started by selecting 4 cards from the deck - in this case, I choose the four Jacks. Then I cut the piece of acetate to the size of my wooden cube ... 1 3/4" by 1 3/4". I was then able to use the acetate over the cards to figure out how I wanted to cut out each card so that the suit was showing in an eye catching way. If you don't have a piece of acetate you could always cut a square out of the middle of a piece of paper and move

 the paper around to show where to crop the card. I cut each of the four Jacks out using my paper cutter. If you don't have a paper cutter you can trace around the acetate square like a template and cut the cards with scissors.

I liked the red and white design on this set of playing cards so I cut the last two cards for the sides of the cube out of cards that I didn't want to keep. If you are not crazy about the design on the back of your playing cards ... use some nice scrapbooking paper for a totally different look!

I glue two sides of the cubes at a time by applying the mod podge directly to the side of the wood block. After gluing the first card down, flip the cube over and paste the next card on the opposite side. I did both of the red suits first in this example.

You can set a couple of books on top of the cube to keep the top card flat while drying if you wish.

After about 10 minutes the glue should be dry. Using a fine nail file or sanding paper, sand all of the edges of cards that you have just glued down so that you trim the paper to exactly the size of the cube. You should have nice clean edges at this point. Continue to glue down the cards on the next two "opposite" sides ... I glued down the two black cards next.

After the glue has dried on the third and fouth cards, sand all of the edges. Now you are ready to

glue down the last two cards on the last two opposite sides ... repeat what we did before and finish by sanding all of the edges!

And now we are done! Wasn't that super easy ... once you've used up all of your face cards and aces you can experiment with the other cards in the deck ... if you didn't cut up too many of them to use on the sides. I think that these would make great gifts for anyone that you know who likes to play euchre!

I've got lots of other great things that I've been working on and will share with you shortly.

Oh and by the way, the reason why I've been busy is because I've making samples of some really cool projects to teach at Scrapbooking Queens in Mississauga ... you can check out my class dates here ... my first class is another game that I created for my daughter's 6th birthday (she will be 11 tomorrow!) ... here's a sneak peak of what I call my "friend"ship game ...