Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Mar 17, 2015

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Noth­ing like a french bread clover cov­ered in cin­na­mon sug­ar to start your St. Patrick­’s Day morn­ing. This is real­ly easy to make and pret­ty darn yum­my too. All you need to make french bread clovers is a tube of Pills­bury Crusty French Loaf, melt­ed but­ter, ground cin­na­mon and sug­ar. Instead of greas­ing my cook­ie sheet I placed mine on a cook­ie sheet cov­ered with parch­ment paper. Pre­heat the oven per instruc­tions on the tube. Cut 5 long strips of the Pills­bury Crusty French Loaf. Leave about 2 inch­es at one end for the clover stem, then loop the strip as shown in the upper left pho­to. Cre­ate the sec­ond loop as shown in the upper right pho­to. Cre­ate the third loop as shown in the low­er left pho­to, tuck the end of the strip...

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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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A Joyful Snowman

Dec 3, 2014

A Joyful Snowman

This is one of my very favorite orna­ments I’ve ever cre­at­ed. It was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on Decem­ber 4, 2009 but I love it so much that I thought I would repost the tuto­r­i­al again today. All the dif­fer­ent tex­tures and the col­or scheme make me super hap­py. Sup­plies Used: Paper Mache Rec­tan­gu­lar Orna­ment (Hob­by Lob­by), Cream Felt, Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Vin­tage Sheet Music, 2.5″ Sisal Brush Tree (Christ­mas Sec­tion of most large Craft Stores), Maya Road Mini Snowflakes, Maya Road Mini Noah Chip­board Let­ters, Fab­ric Rem­nant, Red, Cream and Black Embroi­dery Floss, Rhine­stone, Gold Self Adhe­sive Gems, Gold Ger­man Glass Glit­ter, White Seam Bind­ing, Gold Jin­gle Bell, 3 — Vin­tage But­tons, 24 Guage Wire, Fab­ri-Tac, Col­lage Pauge Instant Decoupage — Glossy, Sizzix Snow­man Die, Adiron­dack Metallics Acrylic Paint Dab­ber — Gold, Mak­ing Mem­o­ries Acrylic Paint...

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Altered Art Journal ATC 1

Aug 25, 2014

Altered Art Journal ATC 1

I was so super hap­py when I dis­cov­ered (which is what hap­pens when you clean areas of your stu­dio, you dis­cov­er things) I had a set of 6″ x 8″ pock­et pages that fit inside my art jour­nal. Since these pock­et pages are a vari­ety pack I have sev­er­al dif­fer­ent sized pock­ets that are per­fect to add dif­fer­ent sized art pieces into my jour­nal. Yes, I’m hap­py. So once I dis­cov­ered I had more options for my art jour­nal I decid­ed to cre­ate a small ATC type piece to put into one of the pock­et pages. This card mea­sures 2.75″ x 4″ so it is a bit off in mea­sure­ments for a tra­di­tion­al ATC which is 2.5″ x 3.5″.  The base of the card is from a por­tion of the left over post­card I had from my first...

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Bellie’s Here For A Visit

Jul 30, 2014

Bellie’s Here For A Visit

This past Sat­ur­day, Isabel­la (a.k.a. Bel­lie) my 7 year old niece came for her week of every­day fun. We have had a blast doing one paint project after the next. This girl LOVES to PAINT! She wants to paint over going to see a movie, get­ting a makeover at Sweet & Sassy, eat­ing break­fast at IHOP etc. I sug­gest some­thing fun to do for the day and all she says is can I just paint. So paint is what we have done all week. I asked her Sun­day what she want­ed to paint and she said a horse. At first I pan­icked because this aun­tie does not draw espe­cial­ly hors­es. So I found some col­or­ing pages of My Lit­tle Pony online, print­ed some out, let her pick which one she want­ed to paint then...

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Paper Clay Beads

Jun 10, 2014

Paper Clay Beads

These paper clay bird beads are a fun and unique way to cre­ate your own hand­made sum­mer neck­lace, bracelet or ear­rings. All you need to have on hand is Paper Clay, Acrylic Paint, Paint Brush­es (Medi­um & Fine Tips), Mul­ti Medi­um,  20 Gauge Wire, Jew­el­ry Tools and a Sty­lus. Mold the paper clay into the size bird you need for your project. Mine range in sizes from 1″ to 1.75″. The­ses mea­sure­ments are from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail. The width mea­sures .5″ and a bit small­er. This mea­sure­ment is from the top mid­dle of the back to the bot­tom mid­dle of the bel­ly. Using a Sty­lus poke a ver­ti­cal hole all the way through the bird from the bel­ly to the top mid­dle of it’s back. You...

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Sing Your Own Song

Jun 3, 2014

Sing Your Own Song

I was­n’t kid­ding when I said I LOVED Dina Wak­ley’s Scrib­bly Birds stamp set. Here is anoth­er piece I made over the week­end. Using Jet Black Archival Ink I stamped the bird image onto a 6″ piece of water­col­or paper, then filled it in with acrylic paints. I paint­ed the entire back­ground with teal acrylic paint. I used the Kalei­do­scope sten­cil by Ron­da Palaz­zari and some of Wendy Vec­chi’s Crack­le Tex­ture Paste to add tex­ture to the piece. Once the paste was dry and did it’s mag­ic I inked it with Archival Inks and Vin­tage Pho­to Dis­tress Ink. Using Mul­ti Medi­um I attached some vin­tage sheet music and an image from a book. Next I cov­ered the sten­ciled areas and the branch image with bits and pieces of a dress pat­tern. Once the mul­ti  medi­um dried I...

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Altering Melt Art Embellishments

May 30, 2014

Altering Melt Art Embellishments

I fell in love with this cameo in the cen­ter of a vin­tage tin I found, last week. As soon as I got home I made a mold so I could pour some UTEE into it. I did a ran­dom pour, just the cameo and then a lit­tle bit around it, wher­ev­er the UTEE land­ed is where I kept it. I want­ed the embell­ish­ment to look like an old dec­o­ra­tive piece that came off a wall tak­ing some of the wall along with it… I hope this makes sense. I also have a vin­tage pho­to album with the most amaz­ing embossed image on the front and decid­ed to cre­ate a mold of this as well. As you can see, I use sev­er­al dif­fer­ent mold prod­ucts and with all of them the results are won­der­ful. I get a beau­ti­ful­ly...

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Embedded Objects in Beeswax

Feb 6, 2014

Embedded Objects in Beeswax

Embed­ding mis­cel­la­neous objects into beeswax is a tech­nique that allows for some pret­ty amaz­ing results with your mixed media projects. Some of my favorite items to embed are scanned copies of old pho­tos, vin­tage ephemera, but­tons, feath­ers and dried flow­ers. The look these items give to your projects are fab­u­lous and as you can see, I embed­ded all my favorites into this Putz style house. The pho­to embed­ded on the front of the house is of my great grand­moth­er on her wed­ding day and is one of my favorites I have of her. I pre­fer using nat­ur­al beeswax pel­lets over white beeswax pel­lets and is only because of it’s off white col­or. The col­or­ing of the nat­ur­al beeswax goes per­fect­ly with my vin­tage style. I also don’t have or use any high end encaus­tic...

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Jewelry Clay & Mini Glittered Hearts

Jan 24, 2014

Jewelry Clay & Mini Glittered Hearts

To cre­ate this valen­tine pen­dant you will need Envi­ro­Tex Jew­el­ry Clay, Dress It Up Valen­tine Col­lec­tion Love To Flirt, My Jew­el­ry Shoppe  Heart Shaped Bezel (21.5mm x 32.5mm), Metal­lic Pink Seed Beads & Bub­ble Gum Per­fect Pearls. All but the metal­lic pink seed beads were pur­chased at Hob­by Lob­by. I had the seed beads in my stash already but I’m sure you can find some at Hob­by Lob­by if you need some. You can also use micro beads instead of seed beads. Mix the Jew­el­ry Clay as instruct­ed by the man­u­fac­tur­er. Once the clay is mixed well place it into the heart shaped pen­dant mak­ing sure to push the clay to the edges of the pen­dant. Note: I com­plete­ly filled the pen­dant with jew­el­ry clay. This way, once I start­ed push­ing the hearts into...

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Mini Snow Globe Charm

Dec 19, 2013

Mini Snow Globe Charm

As soon as I saw the adorable snow globe charm cre­at­ed by Mar­got Pot­ter I knew I had to make one of these lit­tle cuties. Although, I cre­at­ed some­what of a Texas sized ver­sion. I love wear­ing big chunky charms and thought this would make for an adorable hol­i­day piece to wear on a sim­ple sil­ver or ball chain style neck­lace. I pret­ty much cre­at­ed my charm exact­ly as Mar­got,  although I did­n’t have to trim off the top of a bot­tle brush tree as I had one that was super small and fit inside my bot­tle per­fect­ly. All I need­ed to do was snip off the wood­en base of the tree using wire cut­ters. Sup­plies Used: 2″ Glass Bot­tle with Cork (Tim Holtz), .75″ Mini Glass Bot­tle with Cork (Maya Road), Tin­sel Trim,...

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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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Happy Holidays Photo Ornament Kit

Oct 31, 2013

Happy Holidays Photo Ornament Kit

  I’m still going through my stash and putting togeth­er mini orna­ment kits for the hol­i­days and last night, I was able to put togeth­er this cute pho­to orna­ment kit. FYI, I have a very lim­it­ed amount of kits. The kit con­tents are list­ed below and as always come with step by step instruc­tions and a col­or pho­to. Please note, Fes­tive Berries Dis­tress Ink used to col­or the chip­board frame and Plat­inum Stick­les used to out­line the chip­board base and frame are NOT includ­ed. Kit Con­tents: 1 — 4″ x 6″ daisy­d’s Snow­man Pat­terned Paper 1 — 4″ x 6″ daisy­d’s Pol­ka Dot Pat­terned Paper 1 — Chip­board Page 1 — Chip­board Frame (Frame will vary see pho­to for vari­a­tions) 1 — Small Bot­tle Brush Tree 2 — Hol­ly Leaves 1 — But­ton 2...

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Delight In The Seasons ~ Autumn & Winter

Oct 25, 2013

Delight In The Seasons ~ Autumn & Winter

These are just a sam­pling of the projects you will find inside “Delight In The Sea­sons” Autumn and Win­ter chap­ters. In these chap­ters you will learn fun tech­niques to cre­ate 3‑D Embell­ish­ments, Tis­sue Paper Trims, Inter­ac­tive Lay­ers, a Paint & Ink Pati­na, Altered Bot­tle Brush Trees, Cre­at­ing Pearles­cent Water­col­ors, Paper and Felt Bows, Fab­ric Cuffs and more. This book is filled with loads of inspi­ra­tion and right now when you order an auto­graphed copy the ship­ping is FREE! This is an awe­some deal. So if you are look­ing for a beau­ti­ful idea book that is not only pret­ty to look at but also filled with easy to fol­low step by step tech­niques for you or your craft­ing friends, I hope you con­sid­er pur­chas­ing this...

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Bees Wax Tools & Tips

Jun 21, 2013

Bees Wax Tools & Tips

Bees Wax is a medi­um I real­ly enjoy cre­at­ing with and if you are think­ing about giv­ing it a try I thought I would share some tips. First, if you are new to this medi­um there real­ly is no need to go out and pur­chase expen­sive encaus­tic sup­plies right off, if you find out you love work­ing with wax then you can begin adding high end encaus­tic wax and tools. But for what I do the tools I’m going to tell you about work per­fect­ly. Insert here… hus­band clap­ping hands and doing a lit­tle hap­py dance. The heat tools I use are a Non-Stick Craft Sheet (always work on a Non-Stick Craft Sheet), Heat It Craft Tool, Melt­ing Pot, Clover Quilt­ing Iron and a Wal­nut Hal­low Wood Burn­ing Set. As far as wax, I...

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Petaloo Color Me Crazy & Ranger Ink Week

May 14, 2013

Petaloo Color Me Crazy & Ranger Ink Week

All this week on the Petaloo Blog, Petaloo is show­cas­ing guest design­ers using their Col­or Me Crazy Line that have been altered with Ranger Ink prod­ucts. My guest design­er post isn’t until Fri­day so I thought I would show you a few of the oth­er projects I cre­at­ed just to peek your inter­est until then. You can see a gor­geous card Tam­my Tut­terow cre­at­ed and has post­ed on their blog now. This mini can­vas was a snap to cre­ate and alter­ing the Petaloo Col­or Me Crazy Petites, But­ter­flies, Fan­cy Frames and Keys are easy breezy lemon squeezy when using any of the prod­ucts Ranger Ink has to offer. To cre­ate this mini can­vas I first cov­ered the mini can­vas using a Paris themed nap­kin. If you have nev­er used design­er nap­kins as a base for a...

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Altering Paper Mache Eggs

Mar 11, 2013

Altering Paper Mache Eggs

I altered these paper mache eggs from start to fin­ish in less than an hour. These paper mache eggs mea­sure approx­i­mate­ly 1.5″ in length so they are rather small and per­fect to clus­ter togeth­er to accent lit­tle areas around your home. I start­ed alter­ing these eggs by first paint­ing each one with Clau­dine Hell­muth Stu­dio Blank Can­vas acrylic paint. When the eggs are paint­ed it makes the paper tape more vibrant. You don’t have to use paper tape either, you can use Washi Tape, Maya Road Fab­ric Tape, Tim Holtz Tis­sue Tape, basi­cal­ly any­thing you wish. Even mask­ing tape with stamped images using an archival ink would look nice. Now, that I’ve shared a few tips here are the sup­plies I used to alter my paper mache eggs. Paper Mache Eggs, Martha Stew­art Paper...

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Book of The Week

Jan 23, 2013

Book of The Week

So hap­py to share that my book “Delight In The Sea­sons” is the “Book of the Week” over at Cut Out + Keep. If you’re not famil­iar with this site you real­ly need to check it out. It’s FILLED with all kinds of awe­some craft­ing tuto­ri­als. Cat is even giv­ing away a signed copy of “Delight In The Sea­sons” so don’t miss out, you can enter HERE. She also has four sam­ple project/techniques from “Delight In The Sea­sons” for you to cre­ate. The Altered Bot­tle Brush Tree, a Felt Mes­sage Ban­ner, Embell­ished Clear But­tons and the Chip­board Cameo. As you scroll fur­ther down the page you will find a “Meet the Author” sec­tion that tells a lit­tle bit about me, my book, where I find my inspi­ra­tion, etc. So go check it out. Cut Out +...

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Sweet Little Girls Embellishment Tutorial

Jan 22, 2013

Sweet Little Girls Embellishment Tutorial

Using the prod­ucts list­ed below is a real­ly quick way to cre­ate cute embell­ish­ments and accents for any project. Plus when stor­ing your Adiron­dack Alco­hol Inks in a palette as I have shown above makes alco­hol inks super portable for crops and week­end retreats. To cre­ate your portable palette of alco­hol inks sim­ply apply enough drops of each alco­hol ink col­or to cov­er each of the inside cir­cles in the palette as shown above, let the alco­hol inks dry and you are ready to go. You fill the Adiron­dack Alco­hol Ink Fil­l­able Pen just as the instruc­tions on the back of the pack­ag­ing instruct only you use Adiron­dack Alco­hol Blend­ing Solu­tion instead of Alco­hol Inks. Anti­quat­ed Col­lec­tion by Lisa M. Pace ~ Pink Per­sim­mon Sweet Lit­tle Girls Stamp Set Ranger Prod­ucts  Tim Holtz Ink Palette, Tm...

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EnviroTex Memento Key Chain

Jan 4, 2013

EnviroTex Memento Key Chain

Here is anoth­er key­chain I cre­at­ed as a gift for Christ­mas. This one was for my mom. I start­ed by cut­ting a piece of wall­pa­per from the old home­stead that mom and I peeled off the wall one sum­mer. I then placed the wall­pa­per piece inside the heart bezel. Using a paint­brush I cov­ered the wall­pa­per with three coats of Nunn Designs Glue allow­ing the glue to dry thor­ough­ly between coats. I then mixed a small batch of Envi­ro­Tex Resin and filled the bezel halfway. I set this aside and let it cure for 12 hours. Remem­ber there is no need to waste any of your resin. If you don’t have anoth­er charm you want to cre­ate, cre­ate resin paper by plac­ing the paper onto wax paper or foil and brush the left­over resin onto the papers...

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EnviroTex Resin Key Chain

Jan 2, 2013

EnviroTex Resin Key Chain

I cre­at­ed this key chain for my sis­ter, Belin­da. It was cre­at­ed in mem­o­ry of my broth­er, Richard who passed away from alco­holism, March 28, 2004. He loved the water and worked on a boat off the Gulf of Mex­i­co. I found this image of the anchor by doing a google search and the quote from Quote Gar­den. I had Alan resize the image for me to fit inside the bezel then print­ed it out on my laser print­er. Next, I applied Nunn Design Glue on the bezel and placed the image on top, press­ing the bub­bles out from under­neath the image as best I could using my fin­ger and paint brush for the cor­ners. Once I felt I got all the bub­bles out, using a paint brush I applied a lay­er of Nunn...

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