I just drove home from my son’s boy scout meeting in a snowstorm…well, not a real storm but it was snowing enough to get the sand trucks out. I am so ready for spring, how about you? Today I am going to share a glittery project with a flower (take that snow!) and it is really easy to make. You can customize it to make a pin or a hair clip depending on your preference and it is affordable using supplies from Papermart! Why not whip up a bunch of these for Easter gifts or to sell at a spring fair (I’m totally OK with you selling the crafts you make with my tutorials!)
Here is where you can find the supplies I used:
Barrettes (you get a bag of 100 of the 3″ size I used for $8.80-smaller sizes are even less!)
Hello friend! I spent the day reorganizing and decluttering my studio. About halfway into it I thought “What have I done!?!” (you can see the scary in-progress picture on my the Facebook page) but I am liking the way it is coming together now. If I feel ambitious I’ll work on it some more tonight…something tells me that the couch and TV will have a stronger pull though! 😀 I had a request to paint a bleeding heart flower and a few people wanted more watercolor pencil tutorials so here is what I came up with:
It is pretty simple to do, I daresay if you own watercolor pencils you can follow along with me with no trouble. Remember you can always pause the video if you need to.
I was caught by surprise a bit at the end of the video, to finish the painting I simply flicked some of the pink, green, blue and brown on the wet painting to add interest.This is easy, a great project to start with and we only used 5 pencils. I did use some of my watercolor paint at the end for the background but you can lift color off the pencil or not put in a background, it is totally up to you! Thanks for painting with me today and til next time happy crafting!
Happy Saturday friends! I took my girls to a roller skating birthday party today and I decided to skate too! What a fun time, it makes you feel like a kid again (however after the roller-limbo game I was back to feeling like a middle-aged broad ha ha!) Creating also makes me feel like a kid again, especially in the no fear, playful arena of an art journal:
In today’s video I will offer some tips and ideas for hand lettering on you pages even if you don’t love your penmanship.
I love this quote because it reminds us that we are wrong sometimes. We might think that we can’t paint, draw, cook or garden. Maybe we can but have not taken the time to learn. We think things that are untrue all the time, but then you gain experience and learn more. That is life and life is like art. The next time you think you can’t do something try it anyway! I want to thank Oriental Trading Company for supplying the Canson XL Mixed Media Journal and Micron Pens I used in today’s tutorial. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Howdy friends! I spent the day scrapbooking. The. Whole. Day. Today was the monthly crop in town and I was excited to go. I decided a couple of months ago to store my unscrapped photos IN my current scrapbook so I could see and enjoy them before I scrapped them and if I did not get every photo scrapped it was OK because the pictures were printed and in there. I tend to use photo collage software to print my pictures in a pleasing arrangement on 8.5″x11″ paper so I can slip that in a letter size page protector and put it in my 12″x12″ D-ring binder with my other layouts. It works great and look fine even if I never trim out the collage and scrapbook it but it is easy when I scrap it because I am dealing with one collage rather than the 5-12 photos I like to put on a page. I also had the brilliant idea to limit myself to creating with the contents of my crafty junk drawer, you know, the bin where you stash the unused die cuts, stamped images, and other experiments that have gone unused or defy categorization to be stored elsewhere. I grabbed a pad of scrapbook paper and I was off to the races…or the crop as the case may be. About a half hour before I was set to leave the organizer of the crop called, she had a sick kid so she offered to unlock the space for me and I could welcome anyone else who came, she was expecting a few more people. I had planned to crop from 9-6 no matter what so I did not mind, hey, I got to create in an area that was not 52 degrees! Well, nobody came to crop. 😦 Lorraine popped in just back from Florida to say “hello” and I saw another friend who was opening a preschool in another part of the building but no other croppers. This gets me to thinking…are crops a thing of the past? We have no local scrapbook stores and the big box stores do not have crops. I am the youngest scrapbooker who attends our local crops and I am no spring chicken! And to make matters worse many people are not even printing photos anymore. It kinda makes me sad. I have been feeling the same way about stamp shows too, the attendance gets lower each year with fewer vendors and the show-goers are getting older. How long will it last?
Well, that was just depressing, what I meant to blog about tonight was customizing clear buttons! I brought some with me today with the dream of every scrapbook layout I made having a cute custom button it but as luck would have it I forgot my wet glue and there was no one to borrow some from. Best laid plans…
But now! Oh, the buttons I shall make! I hope you enjoyed the video and my tale of woe. It’s just a reminder to go to a crop if you know of one because if you don’t there might not be any in the future. If you have a hobby you enjoy help the local craft community thrive! Maybe I’ll see you at a crop or stamp convention soon! 😉 Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Howdy friends! After Kathy and I filmed Ask a Crafter Tuesday night we decided to hang out and craft for a bit. I have a hard time concentrating when chit-chatting so I grabbed my art journal and started doodling while we gabbed. I sketched a flower and then checked my Pintrest quote board for a fitting sentiment. I liked it so much that I thought it would be a nice card design:
Don’t be afraid to try art journaling. I used to think that I did not have time for it. It seemed time consuming and then what would I do with all of the pages? What I have found is that an art journal is like a creative playground where you can make art without worry. It is like high quality scratch paper that ends up looking really wonderful but if not you gesso it and try again (not that it has happened to me…ahem, er that Bombay white India ink is really something though, it will cover a lot, ha ha!) My journal is the Canson XL Mixed Media pad 9″x12″ size and I am using Coloursoft Pencils by Derwent, these were provided by Oriental Trading Company where if you find a product they sell cheaper somewhere else they will beat the price by 10%, now that’s frugal! I also used letter stamps and inkpads from my stash. The large shrubbery stamp if from Lost Coast Designs. Watch the video to see how I made the card using the exact same techniques that I used on the journal page.
What do you think? Can an art journal be used as a testing ground for cards? How about paintings or scrapbook pages. I think it can! Here are close up shots of the card and page:
In the video you might have noticed that I stuck the panel on the card backwards, luckily I was able to pull it off and flip it around before the adhesive set. Nice save huh? 😀
As for the quote, it really speaks to me. We spend so much of our time fretting and worrying about what we cannot change. It is so much better to focus on the good stuff. I think we attract what we put out, if we emit positive vibes and a good attitude it is returned to us. Just think about it, if you are in the grocery store and someone smiles at you for no reason you smile back, you reap what you sow. You might not be able to change a situation but you can change the way to look at it. Wow, that was deep…and all I wanted to show you today was how to make a card. Have a wonderful night, look for the joy, and til next time happy crafting!
Hello friends! I rushing to post this video because it is so windy here I am afraid that we might lose power for the evening. The school sent the kids home early in anticipation of the storm, we are only supposed to get 2-4″ of snow but the wind is awful! So without further ado here is week 30 of Ask a Crafter:
It was nice to have Kathy back this week for the show. I am so ready for Spring, I sure hope the ice melts soon so we can get some walking in, the weather has to warm up sometime right?…right? That all for me today, if you have any questions for next weeks show you can leave them in the comments! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Howdy folks! I am feeling pretty darn happy tonight! That storm that might dump 10-15″ of snow on us seems to have shifted a bit so snowfall total tomorrow is now forecasted at 3″-5″, I am relieved because we still have so much snow yet to melt here and I think the kids are out of snow days. Of course I only checked one weather site because I liked that forecast LOL! I’m an optimist I guess! I was playing with some new colored pencils and stamps from About Art Accents yesterday and using the inspiration at Oriental Stamp Art I made this card:
The challenge at Oriental Stamp Art was to use the folded circles on a card. I also had some stamps from About Art Accents to give away, the winner will receive the 3 dragonfly stamps I used (new ones though LOL!) and a $10 gift certificate (Thanks About Art Accents!) I’m going to show you how I made this card. I used a brand-new supply, Metallic watercolor pencils by Derwent, I’m not sure what I think of them, I’ll let you be the judge:
I think if I look at these pencils not as metallic colored pencils but as opaque colored pencils or faux bleach look colored pencils I will like them more. It’s all about how you look at things sometimes! I wanted to show you the full stamp set the dragonfly stamps came from, it is normally $20 but it is on sale now for $10! And if you have any non-sale rubber in your order at About Art Accents you can use the coupon code Lindsay10% to save 10% on the regular priced stuff.
I can’t wait to use the snail next, they are so cute and what a bargain, I would not wait if you like them because I have no idea how long the sale will last. So, do you want to win? Well then, just leave a comment and I will pick a winner at random next Tuesday. Yep, that’s it, nifty huh? Thanks to About Art Accents for providing me with stamps to give away and thanks to you for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Happy Monday folks! I an thrilled to announce that Lost Coast Designs and Stencil Girl have teamed up for a blog hop today and you get a chance to win some new stamps and stencils! Oh Yeah! I’ll share the details in a bit but first here is a card I made with feather stencils from Stencil Girl and crow stamps from Lost Coast Designs:
I used a lot of fun and frugal techniques in this card, I’ll even show you how to use your stencils in your die-cut machine to emboss the feathers…be warned my technique is not for the faint of heart:
I hope I have inspired you to use your stencils and stamps in new ways! So, do you want to win some of these goodies? We have a $25 gift certificate from Lost Coast Designs and two 9″x 12″ stencils from Stencil Girl up for grabs. A winner will be chosen at random from the comments let on the blog hop. If you want a chance to win leave a comment by next Sunday the 30th! If you want more chances to win leave a comment on everyone’s blog, here is a list incase you started here. 😀
Good luck everyone and I hope you enjoy the inspiring projects created by the other designers. Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!
Hi folks! Just popping in quick to share a quick and easy technique using supplies you probably have in your stash and if not I’ll tell you how to substitute!
Thanks for watching! Have a great Sunday and til next time happy crafting!
The Frugal Crafter Blog 