Miss Art’s Announcement!

I am pleased to be announcing today that I will be teaching a video class on getting the most from kits  at Miss Art’s Papercrafting School  in October!

What is Miss Art’s Papercrafting School, you ask?  Where HAVE you been!?  Miss Art’s is the latest and best place to go for papercrafting and scrapbooking classes.  They are taught by video by some amazing instructors and cover all kinds of topics like misting, journaling, mini albums, layering and much, much more.  There are multiple subscription levels and the quality of these classes (we’re talking multiple videos per class here!) is outstanding.

Want to know more?? Check this out:

The kids are heading back to school and you should to0!

The headmistress at Miss Art's knows that new backpacks, school supplies and first day apparel can reduce a crafters budget to milk money, so for this weekend only she is offering you a tuition free class. Beginning on Friday, August 26th, you will have 3 days to check out one of our most popular classes for free, no subscription needed. In "The Secret Garden," the talented Stacy Cohen teaches you how to create a shadowbox effect on your layouts by adding dimension through layering and creating beautiful floral clusters. Stacey even earns a little Extra Credit by providing you a step-by-step demonstration on how she creates her trademark crocheted page accents. We hope to see you in the class room and if you enjoy our class that you'll be kind enough to leave an apple or a comment for the teacher.

Wow!  This is a great chance to check out Miss Art’s! The Headmistress will post the free class at 10 pm EST on Thursday, August 26th, so that it is available on Friday morning for our International guests.

And don’t forget to check back here for more updates about my upcoming class in October!

Vintage Wreath Tutorial at May Arts

Hi everyone!  Today I am showing off my vintage wreath made from some beautiful trims by May Arts. 

You can check out the full tutorial and supply list over on the May Arts blog.  Thanks for visiting!

Going Under the Sea

This month at ACOT I had some fun with the Under the Sea line from 3 Bugs in a Rug.  I had the pleasure of chatting to the 3 Bugs owners at the CHA show and they were real sweethearts so I was happy to show off a little of this new collection.

Bath Gnome

Happy Birthday Card

Check out these and other projects over at A Cherry On Top!

DIY Cabochon Winner

Thanks for all the great comments on my flowers! I truly wish I could send some to ALL of you. Alas, I can only choose one of you… or Random.org can, anyway.

So that means our winner is:

Faye Marie said...

This is awesome. I can't wait to try this!!!!! I love the yellow, teal, and dark teal!!!!!!!!

Ok, yellow and the two teals it is, Faye Marie! Just send me an email (to the right in the sidebar) and I will send these out to you! Congrats!

DIY Cabochon Flowers Tutorial

Resin and clay sculpted cabochon flowers are *everywhere* right now. I personally think they are spontaneously reproducing with a goal of taking over the entire interwebs. I’ve seen them on earrings, necklaces, home décor projects, bobby pins, cards, and scrapbook pages, of course.

But they tend to be expensive… at least if you’re buying from a papercrafting manufacturer. So, what do I say to myself? I say: “Self, let’s see if we can make our own flowers for way cheaper!” and then I say: “AND we’ll (that’s the “royal we”) give some away on the blog… ‘cause that’s just how we roll".”

I bought these here awesome rubber molds from Mold Muse on Etsy. She has tons of inexpensive molds that will take poured resin or clay. They withstand a boatload of heat so you can bake the molds right in your oven without worrying about melting. Awesome.

I decided I didn’t really want to mess around with resin goop and went the clay route instead. I used generic Sculpey and Fimo.

- warm a small bit of clay in your hands till it is soft and pliable
- firmly and tightly pack the mold impressions with clay
- swipe your finger across the tops of the indents to remove any excess clay… you want the bottoms of your flowers to be flush with the edge of the mold

At this point you may either:

- bake the clay IN the molds for 15 minutes in a 275 degree oven (I use my toaster oven)
- OR veryyyyy carefully press the molds so the clay flowers pop out onto a foil lined baking sheet and then bake them as above.

The advantage of popping them out first is that you can bake many at the same time, however, I will warn you it is tough to get a crisp impression if you do it this way. I tried but got too frustrated by squishing my flowers and ended up deciding to bake them in the molds instead. I clearly just need to buy more molds!

When they are done in the oven you will want to take them out and let them cool for a bit before trying to pop the flowers out. Ouch!

And here is what you’ll have:

We’re having a pretty gray day here at the moment so the colors are a bit off but you get the idea. I think these would look pretty sweet with a layer of Diamond Glaze or Glossy Accents on them to shine them up a bit, too.

So what do you think? Not bad for a fraction of the cost of the manufactured ones!

Want some?? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think and what three colors you would like if you win and one random winner from the continental US will be chosen this weekend.

(color choices are: gray, flat white, light pearl gray, orange, yellow, light teal, dark teal, and that dark one at the back of the photos is actually a purple/burgundy)

A Different Kind of Card to Share

Today I am showing you the super simple business cards I whipped up to take with me to the CHA show. You know, for networkin’ and stuff.

I totally stole borrowed the idea from Pinterest (please, you know you do it too!) because I didn’t feel like paying or waiting for fancy shmancy printed cards. These kraft cards were fast, cheap, and literally stand out a little because of the twine tied around them.

Naturally I had to make a holder to carry them in too. I don’t really need much of an excuse to bust open the sewing machine, do I?

The card holder was made with help from a tutorial over at The Crafty Cupboard. Cute, cute!

Who said business cards have to be boring?? And now I have zero excuse for not having my cards on me when I am asked!

August 4 x 4!

Welcome to another edition of the 4 x 4 challenge!

“The Rules”:
- We must use the same four products: two papers and two embellishments.
- We can only use one of each sheet of paper.
- We can use unlimited basics (card stock, ribbon, alphas, mists, etc.) as long as the four main products are the focus.- We cannot share our finished pages with each other until we are all done so that we do not influence each others’ design choices.

This month we are working with October Afternoon’s Rocket Age, Echo Park’s Dots and Stripes, and some Jenni Bowlin chipboard stars:

   

This was a challenge for me seeing as I had already worked quite a bit with both Rocket Age and Dots and Stripes.  But I managed to squeeze this bad boy out:

I tried to add a lot of interest to the minimal amount of paper that I used. Foam tape, baker’s twine, border punches, and paint were my friends this round!

You’ll definitely want to check out with this month’s other players did with these products.  See Carrie’s and Meg’s takes on their blogs and of course you’ll want to visit Chrissy who is hosting this month’s contest and prize!

Thanks for playing along!