Altered Bottle Brush Tree

Feb 16, 2015

Altered Bottle Brush Tree

Bot­tle Brush Trees are fun to alter for any hol­i­day or to use year round as a home decor accent. You can attach these to wood­en spools, per­fume bot­tles, small glass jars, in shad­ow box­es, real­ly pret­ty much on any­thing. Also, if you want to col­or your trees it’s easy using any of the non-iri­des­cent Maya Mist col­ors. This altered bot­tle brush tree is so fast to cre­ate you can have it com­plet­ed in under 5 min. Sup­plies Need­ed: Bot­tle Brush Tree, Small Glass Bot­tle, Seed Beads, Small Flocked Flow­ers, Seam Bind­ing, Cro­chet Doily, White Maya Road Glit­ter Dust, Dina Wak­ley Gel Medi­um Tools: Scis­sors, Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks Instruc­tions: Place seed beads into small glass bot­tle. Cut stems on small flocked flow­ers to short­en slight­ly, place into bot­tle. Dou­ble knot a piece of seam...

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I Love You Frame

Feb 13, 2015

I Love You Frame

This spark­ly chip­board frame is going to be added to the front cov­er of a mini album. I plan to cov­er the album with vin­tage sheet music and ledger paper than add pho­tos of Ter­ri and Ans­ley. If you want to make this chip­board frame it’s super sim­ple and here’s the tuto­r­i­al. Sup­plies Need­ed: 2 Maya Road Chip­board Frames, Maya Road Glit­ter ~ Red & Sil­ver, Red & Sil­ver Acrylic Paint, Vin­tage Sheet Music, Martha Stew­art Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Vin­tage Glass Vial, Flocked Flow­ers, White Seam Bind­ing, Dia­mond Glaze, Glue Stick, Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue, Dina Wak­ley Gel Medi­um, Book Page Words “I LOVE YOU”, Adhe­sive Foam Squares Tools Used: Scis­sors, Paint­brush, Craft Knife, Craft Matt, Tweez­ers Instruc­tions: Using a glue stick type adhe­sive, cov­er the front of one chip­board frame with vin­tage sheet...

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So This Is Love ~ Tag

Feb 11, 2015

So This Is Love ~ Tag

The star of this tag is one of my new hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Dolls. I think she is the per­fect accent for this tag and I must admit she is one of my favorites. If you want to recre­ate a tag for your­self or a friend I put togeth­er a step by step tuto­r­i­al just for you. Sup­plies Need­ed: Mani­la Tag, Vin­tage Music Sheet, White Crepe Paper, Chip­board Heart, Dina Wak­ley Media Ruby Acrylic Paint, Maya Road Red Glit­ter, Plat­inum Stick­les, Dia­mond Stick­les, Small Red Flocked Flower, Brown & White Twine, 3 Cro­cheted Doilies, Doo­dle­Bug Rhine­stones, White Embroi­dery Floss, Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue, Fab­ric Tac Fab­ric Adhe­sive, Ranger Mul­ti Medi­um Mat­te, Martha Stew­art Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Doll, Small Alpha­bet Stamp Set, Jet Black Archival Ink Tools Need­ed: Scis­sors, Paper Trim­mer,...

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Valentine Home Decor Accent

Feb 9, 2015

Valentine Home Decor Accent

This valen­tine home decor piece show­cas­es one of the hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Dolls I now have in my etsy shop. I love these dolls from long ago and when pos­si­ble make molds of dolls I think you too would like to use in your craft­ing projects. This lit­tle cutie is hold­ing a book under­neath it’s arm. I put togeth­er a tuto­r­i­al so you too can recre­ate this home decor accent. I plan on dis­play­ing this year round in my stu­dio. Sup­plies Used: Large Wood­en Spool, Vin­tage Sheet Music, White Crepe Paper, 2 Chip­board Hearts, Dina Wak­ley Media Ruby Acrylic Paint, 16 Gauge Wire, Dia­mond Glaze, Maya Road Red Glit­ter, White Embroi­dery Floss, Red & White Bak­er’s Twine, Martha Stew­art Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Ranger Mul­ti Medi­um-Mat­te, Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue, Flocked Flower, Hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Doll with...

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Ranger Designer Challenge 2015

Jan 16, 2015

Ranger Designer Challenge 2015

It’s always so excit­ing to be invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the Ranger Design­er Chal­lenge. Basi­cal­ly how it works is Ranger picks a prod­uct line to fea­ture, sends the design­ers a box of the prod­ucts and you cre­ate a project using these prod­ucts. This year the chal­lenge was a can­vas using Dina Wak­ley’s Media paints, sten­cils and stamps. Talk about a fun chal­lenge. I also used some Tim Holtz Dis­tress Stick­les Dry Glit­ter Rocky Can­dy and of course Dia­mond Stick­les. I have fall­en in love with Dina’s Media paints. They come in a tube with a flip top and are heavy body acrylics that spread like but­ter! I already have her new col­ors Glitz, Ster­ling and Pen­ny on my list of “Must Have Now” as well as Dina’s super cool new Media Fine Tip Appli­ca­tor. These...

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Rocky Mountain Memories ~ Artist Flood Relief

Jun 20, 2014

Rocky Mountain Memories ~ Artist Flood Relief

Last Sep­tem­ber Col­orado was real­ly hit hard with unex­pect­ed flash floods.  Dams broke, roads were washed out, rivers took con­trol, and lives were lost.  It’s just so dev­as­tat­ing.  Com­plete towns were evac­u­at­ed, lives lost, peo­ple unac­count­ed for, homes & busi­ness­es demol­ished. Rocky Moun­tain Mem­o­ries is host­ing a silent auc­tion to help Cross­roads Min­istries. This non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion has pro­vid­ed a total of 725 flood relief assists but their funds are deplet­ing.  Any assis­tance would be appre­ci­at­ed. Up for auc­tion are many great pieces from var­i­ous artists. I’ve donat­ed auto­graphed copies of  all three of my books Delight In The Details, Delight In The Sea­sons and Delight In The Art of Col­lage, plus sev­er­al oth­er items.   This shab­by chic bird­house was shared on my blog in July of last year. If you want to read how I cre­at­ed it...

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Cupid’s Feathered Friend

Jan 21, 2014

Cupid’s Feathered Friend

Place a few drops of pink dye or Mist into a small cup of water, (the more dye the dark­er the col­or, less dye the lighter the col­or), mix togeth­er. Using a paint brush, apply dyed water onto white bird and let dry. You can speed up the dry­ing process using a hair dry­er set on the cool set­ting. Cov­er the body of the bird with a thin lay­er of instant decoupage, then apply Light Pink Glit­ter, tap off excess glit­ter and let dry. Cov­er the wings of the bird with instant decoupage and apply a thin lay­er of Iri­des­cent Glit­ter and let dry. Apply instant decoupage to the beak of the bird then apply Fine Sil­ver Glass Glit­ter, let dry. As you can see there is a lot of dry­ing time but it should not take long...

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Trash to Treasure Shrine Pendant

Jan 20, 2014

Trash to Treasure Shrine Pendant

I had a lit­tle mishap with a vin­tage salt shak­er and had to keep it because of the way the front sec­tion broke. I was think­ing it would cre­ate a super cute shad­ow box type project so I hung on to it. Well, the oth­er day as I was look­ing at it I thought it looked like a shrine. This is when I had a light bulb moment… cre­ate a big funky shrine pen­dant. The first thing I need­ed to do was smooth out the sharp edges. I applied sol­der­ing tape all along the bro­ken edges and start­ed sol­der­ing. Once I had the this as I liked I start­ed dig­ging in my vin­tage jew­el­ry pieces for per­fect rhine­stone accents. When at flea mar­kets, antique shops or thrift stores I love look­ing for bro­ken jew­el­ry...

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On My Table…

Jan 17, 2014

On My Table…

I’ve been play­ing around in my stu­dio, this week and have real­ly enjoyed work­ing on a few sol­der­ing projects. Sol­der­ing is some­thing I kin­da put on the back burn­er for a bit while cre­at­ing my last two books. I get so much sat­is­fac­tion from cre­at­ing items I have visu­al­ized in my head. I’m a true assem­blage girl at heart. The house above has an adorable vin­tage Valen­tine image inside and is cov­ered with a lay­er of resin. The vin­tage flocked flow­ers are a beau­ti­ful shade of pale pink and one is accent­ed with the words “Love is”. I added two small rhine­stones from a vin­tage neck­lace to the key. So I’m sure you fig­ured it out that the title of this pen­dant will be “Love is Key”. I’m going to drill a hole in...

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Faux Polaroid Ornaments

Dec 6, 2013

Faux Polaroid Ornaments

This orna­ment is going to do some seri­ous sparkling on the tree as I cov­ered each Maya Road Pho­to Frame Chip­board piece with iri­des­cent glit­ter. It shim­mers and sparkles beau­ti­ful­ly and will look gor­geous when the tree is lit at night. If you want to make an orna­ment like this one or sim­i­lar orna­ments below are the prod­ucts I used. Maya Road Pho­to Frames Chip­board, Maya Road Cloud White 1″ Ink Pad, Iri­des­cent Glit­ter, Dia­mond Glaze, Red & White Twine, Red Mini Ging­ham Trim,1  Hol­ly & Berry Pick, 1 Gold Jin­gle Bell, Black & White Pho­tos, Black Card­stock, Glue Stick, Strong Liq­uid Adhe­sive, Scis­sors, Sand­ing Block Step Out for Mak­ing This Orna­ment: Remove cen­ter square from pho­to frame and set aside. Apply white ink to the pho­to frame, place Dia­mond Glaze over the top...

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Merry and Bright

Nov 27, 2013

Merry and Bright

This shad­ow box is cre­at­ed from plas­ter then paint­ed and glazed with an antique wash to give it that per­fect aged look. It mea­sures approx­i­mate­ly 5.5″ W x 7″ H x 1″ D. The out­side edge of the shad­ow box is wrapped with vin­tage lace, red seam bind­ing and accent­ed with two vin­tage Christ­mas picks. The back­ground of the shad­ow box show­cas­es hand cut words “Mer­ry and Bright” from vin­tage sheet music from the ear­ly 1920’s and a glit­tery snowflake with an iri­des­cent rhine­stone cen­ter. I cre­at­ed the doll from plas­ter using a mold from a vin­tage doll in my col­lec­tion. She is hand paint­ed with acrylic paint and giv­en an antique wash. The dolls dress is cre­at­ed from antique doilies and she wears a crown made from a vin­tage book page sprin­kled with...

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Silent Night Ornament

Nov 19, 2013

Silent Night Ornament

I cre­at­ed this heart shaped shad­ow box from plas­ter sev­er­al months ago. I had an idea for it then changed my mind and well it’s been sit­ting on my work­table since. Well, over the week­end an idea came to me and I’m hap­py to say, it worked per­fect­ly. I love it when this hap­pens. I decid­ed to turn this lone­ly lit­tle plas­ter heart into a hol­i­day orna­ment. The sides of the heart are cov­ered in vin­tage sheet music from 1920 and the typed sen­ti­ment “Silent Night” is typed onto vin­tage note paper using my awe­some antique Under­wood type­writer. Then the entire pieces is cov­ered in glit­ter. There is some­thing so beau­ti­ful about the rough­ness of plas­ter being cov­ered in glit­ter, it’s mag­i­cal. When look­ing into this orna­ment I imag­ine a beau­ti­ful snowy win­ter night, where...

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My Life In A Dingy ~ Stephenie Hamen

Sep 26, 2013

My Life In A Dingy ~ Stephenie Hamen

“My Life In A Dinghy” fea­tured artist, Stephe­nie Hamen. Stephe­nie is a cre­ative type per­son that fell in love with art at an ear­ly age. She has nev­er met a set of crayons, a sheet of paper, or a bot­tle of glit­ter that she didn’t imme­di­ate­ly fall in love with. She real­ly got into craft­ing and cre­at­ing with scrap­book­ing, which lead to oth­er crafts and cre­ative endeav­ors. While she still scrap­books and dab­bles in oth­er var­i­ous art projects, her cur­rent love is mixed media can­vas art. Stephe­nie spends a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time in her craft room (aka the fur­nace room in her base­ment), cre­at­ing, play­ing, and mak­ing a mess. When she isn’t cov­ered in ink and paint, she is a wife and moth­er to two boys, as well as a full time employ­ee for...

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My Life In A Dinghy ~ Hels Sheridan

Sep 25, 2013

My Life In A Dinghy ~ Hels Sheridan

“My Life In A Dinghy” fea­tured artist, Hels Sheri­dan. Hels has been craft­ing since 2003, although she always did have a love of cov­er­ing every­thing in glit­ter and glue when she was a kid. Hels start­ed out mak­ing her own cards which then led to a brief stopover in scrap­book­ing and then she found her true crafty love, rub­ber stamp­ing. Hels has a bit of a thing for altered art and mixed media and is hap­pi­est when cov­ered in ink and paint. What start­ed out as a hob­by to release the stress­es of her career as a Train Dri­ver has become her job now after she had to leave dri­ving trains due to ill health. She is a full time craft tutor and demon­stra­tor and a Cer­ti­fied Ranger Edu­ca­tor. Hels is also on the design team...

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My Life In A Dinghy ~ Donna Salazar

Sep 24, 2013

My Life In A Dinghy ~ Donna Salazar

“My Life In A Dinghy” fea­tured artist, Don­na Salazar. Don­na is a wife, mom, grand­ma, artist, design­er, teacher and kid at heart. She loves Inky-Painty-Glitzy-Grungi­ness… what she calls her “Girlie Grunge” look. Her style is espe­cial­ly appeal­ing to mixed media artists; how­ev­er, her love of flow­ers and all things spark­ly seems to appeal to crafters of all types and styles. She cur­rent­ly has licensed prod­ucts with 5 com­pa­nies. Don­na’s, Life In A Dinghy Life in my mag­i­cal dinghy would be peace­ful and calm. The dai­ly dust­ing of Fairy­dust Glit­ter would give my dinghy the abil­i­ty to fly amongst the clouds. I would spend my days trav­el­ing through the fluffy white clouds gath­er­ing cloud flow­ers, just because I could. In the evening I would vis­it with the fairies in their cloud homes to get the next...

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Home for Christmas

Aug 14, 2013

Home for Christmas

This is the sec­ond of three class­es I will be teach­ing at Cre­ative Cards and Crafts in Vil­la Park, IL ~ Oct.18th & 19th. In this Home for Christ­mas class I will show you how to cre­ate three old fash­ioned Putz style hous­es using pat­terned papers from the new Graphic45 12 Days of Christ­mas line. Once all three hous­es are built and accent­ed with Stick­les and glit­ter you will group them on a dec­o­ra­tive acrylic plat­ter cov­ered with faux snow and sisal trees to com­plete a minia­ture win­ter themed neigh­bor­hood. As a bonus I will show you how easy it is to bleach sisal trees at home if you wish for yours to be off white in col­or. And a vin­tage Christ­mas project would not be com­plete with­out includ­ing a few vin­tage mer­cury glass...

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Kids Week Day 2

Jul 10, 2013

Kids Week Day 2

Today, Made­lyn decid­ed we should do her nails again this time using Martha Stew­art Vin­tage Leaf Glit­ter in Turquoise and Charoite. So we applied a clear top coat to her nails then alter­nat­ed the two Vin­tage Leaf Glit­ter col­ors onto her nails. Once each nail was cov­ered with glit­ter I applied a clear top coat to seal the glit­ter. After a fun few hours of bowl­ing with Ans­ley and Brit­tain we decid­ed for a quick after­noon snack Made­lyn should make “Flip Flop Cook­ies”. I found the idea on Pin­ter­est and have it post­ed in my “Things to Do with my Nieces” board. Dec­o­rat­ing each cook­ie is real­ly sim­ple. All you need is a pack­age of Nut­ter But­ter Cook­ies and two dif­fer­ent kinds of icing col­ors. When Made­lyn saw the Wilton Sparkling Gel which includ­ed...

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Kids Week Day 1

Jul 9, 2013

Kids Week Day 1

Day one has been a whirl­wind of fun. As soon as Made­lyn’s feet hit the floor she was ready to go. Thank­ful­ly, I planned ahead the night before and had chip­board pieces, Stick­les and Liq­uid Pearls for her to use while I was try­ing to get my first cup of cof­fee in me. This was a life­saver, she cre­at­ed and I woke up. Then she decid­ed she would like to make a video of how she alters her chip­board pieces using Stick­les and Liq­uid Pearls. I was real­ly impressed with how well she did since we did­n’t talk about what she would say or any­thing. I basi­cal­ly just got my cam­era and start­ed film­ing her very first unedit­ed on-the-fly 10 min. instruc­tion­al video. Not bad for a first time video. I love her. While...

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Altered Frozen Charlotte Dolls

Jun 6, 2013

Altered Frozen Charlotte Dolls

I have to show you how Julie Smith Camp­bell alters some of my Hand­made Frozen Char­lotte Dolls as I think you just might be inspired by her cre­ations. I know I cer­tain­ly am. I think this Spring piece is so love­ly and  unique. I love how she incor­po­rat­ed the bro­ken egg shell for the base of this piece. And look how Julie altered these spoons. How can you not love any­thing that includes vin­tage spoons, Frozen Char­lotte Heads, rhine­stone trim, pearls, sil­ver glass glit­ter and oth­er awe­some vin­tage items. And just look at this adorable altered project. These are not my Frozen Char­lotte Dolls but these cer­tain­ly do inspire me to cre­ate some tiny bal­leri­na’s with mine. So cute! I think Julie and I could do some seri­ous dam­age at a flea mar­ket togeth­er....

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Stickles

Jun 5, 2013

Stickles

Most of you should know by now that I have a seri­ous LOVE for Stick­les, espe­cial­ly Dia­mond and Plat­inum! When teach­ing these two are a giv­en for items need­ed in class. I use Stick­les on pret­ty much every­thing I cre­ate and I have a say­ing about them too, “Stick­les is to Crafters what Botox is to Plas­tic Sur­geons. You can always use a lit­tle some­where”. If you are a crafter that does not like loose glit­ter Stick­les is a prod­uct for you. It’s easy to use and there is zero mess. So today, I’m going to show you how I use a lit­tle or a lot on my projects. Dia­mond Stick­les is a great way to give a sim­ple flower a lit­tle pop. All you need to do is apply a small amount onto...

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Studio Observations

May 20, 2013

Studio Observations

Sev­er­al weeks ago while stay­ing at Ron­da’s and play­ing in her awe­some stu­dio, as I looked around I noticed lots of sim­i­lar­i­ties in the way we dec­o­rate and the prod­ucts we use to cre­ate. Even though our styles are quite dif­fer­ent we do have a love for sim­i­lar things. So while I was notic­ing all the sim­i­lar­i­ties I start­ed snap­ping pho­tos to show you how two total­ly dif­fer­ent artists (I’m a vin­tage neu­tral girl and she is a wild­ly col­or­ful sten­cil girl) can be such great friends. Ron­da uses col­ored but­tons in her art and has them sort­ed and lined up in rain­bow order neat­ly on a shelf were as I use most­ly clear or neu­tral col­ored but­tons and have jars placed here and there in my stu­dio. Ron­da has some of her favorite Trin­ket...

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