Another Mini'd Rendering of Full Size BYOB Piece

I had my first ever craft booth this past Saturday, and I want to update you all but it will definitely take time to do even close to the amount of information I learned and want to update on here, so keep an eye out this week for that post (or maybe those 2/3 posts? We'll see how much I end up writing up!) 

In the meantime, I wanted to do a quick post to show one of the last mini art pieces I painted to put in my stock for the craft show!

Remember when I painted these pieces with my bff Airon at the BYOB painting sessions?

This post here

This post here

The third one we did, I only just realized I never blogged about to show you! But here's the piece we did:

As you can see in the first picture and below, I created miniature pieces of all 3 to mimic what we did in those sessions. This last one I only just made Thursday night however:

I'm really really glad I made this one though, and I think especially for doing it in a 4"x4" size, bc there was a woman that saw it and FLIPPED!! She just *had* to have it, along with these other pieces:

 

I'm thinking I might just have to paint some more pieces in the 4"x4" size....

Craft ya laters!

Embroidery Hoop Art - French Knots - Fire

A few months ago, I got interested in trying out some embroidery hoop art, and in particular, I wanted to work on some french knots. In the same vein as miniatures like the miniature art canvases, I bought a bunch of 3" and 4" hoops. I started working on one of the 4" hoops and wanted to do a design similar to this:

Only, I didn't want to worry about beads this time, I figure I'll just practice the french knots. So I got some brown cotton and some batting, put them in a hoop, and get started! I got some shades of red, orange and yellow going..(please excuse poor photo quality on these, I wasn't even sure how it would look out so photos weren't a top priority for me along the way....):

Ok, not too bad... messed up a couple of the yellow ones (far left and about an inch to the right of that one...) but off to a good start, I think.

Now to fill in the red some... 

Nearly all of the red is filled in and working on the orange and a little on the yellow now...

And done! I decided (much through feedback from friends mind you) that it'd be better to not fill in the entire area of the piece, and to just sort of phase out towards the top left corner. Also, I was about done with this thing as it took me around an estimated 22 hours!!!!

I think it's safe to say that I'm about 95% efficient at doing french knots now lol!!  I don't ever want to do a french knot again, but at the same time, I kind of can't wait to try some again! Maybe even in a smaller hoop and/or bigger knots all around, and even maybe try to add some beads for shine and spacers.

Craft ya laters!

Perler Bead Tic-Tac-Toe Sets

I almost completely forgot to show you guys some of the perler bead sets I made a few months ago and just never got a chance to blog about!!

The idea of perler games came to mind, and when I saw this one online, I just couldn't resist making one myself!!

Mario mushroom tic-tac-toe set made from perler beads.

Then the idea came up so I went online to get ideas of what looked best for small versions of Mr and Mrs Pac-Man along with the ghosts and this is what came next:

Mr and Mrs Pac-Man tic-tac-toe set made from perler beads.

The bff, Airon, is really enjoying crossfit and has found it as a passion and so when we were talking about the previous sets, of course it was logical that we'd come up with something like this!

Crossfit tic-tac-toe set made from perler beads with kettle bells as pieces and barbells as the grid.

What do you guys think?! I'm thinking maybe putting magnets on the backs of the boards and then the pieces so they could be put up on a wall, or for anyone that has a travel tin, the pieces could be kept in there and then the metal of the tin used as the magnet backing for car travel games and such!

Craft ya laters!!

Craft Show Prep - Miniature Galaxy Art, Daisies, Starry Nights and Display Ideas

I hung out with a friend of mine this last Saturday and we ended up getting some crafting done! I believe I was actually the most product craft-wise in that 4 hours than I have been lately....I really need to work on that one...

Anywho! She's been getting pretty into papercrafting and gave me this piece she'd done before:

And she got this one done while I was there:

I can't wait to see what else she comes up with!

So, what did *I* get done in the 4 hours we were hanging out? Well, I think I mentioned to you guys before about using some mini canvases to re-create a couple of larger art pieces I did at Easely Amused here, but not that I'd been on a huge miniature art kick earlier this year that was the reason behind even having those miniature canvases! 

Those little art canvases are so awesome! You can get in sizes like 2"x2", 2"x3", 3"x3", 2"x4", etc... I'd gone to a local art store and gotten a ton of them because I was seeing online lots of cute things you can do with them! They sold them in packs of 6 and were about $5-$7 a pack. These little things are perfect for use as doll house art pieces, putting on a little trinket shelf, or for me, the appeal is putting on my wall at work since I have a desk job and only so much space to display art and things. 

I also love the miniature canvases because I don't have to be a great artist to get a small piece of art that actually looks pretty awesome! The Starry Night especially is one of those cases where if I tried doing the detail of the tree tops on a bigger canvas, say, 2'x3' or something I would have taken FOREVER and still not felt like I got it just right.

Now, I haven't sprayed these guys in an acrylic gloss sealant but I wanted to show you what I got done. I will show you guys what they look like after I spray them though as they should pop just a tad bit more on the colors, similar to what resin does on the clay pieces I've done.

The whole set.

Galaxies - Top left is 2"x3" and then 2"x2" canvases, bottom row are all 3"x3" pieces.

Daisies - This piece is 2"x4".

Starry Night - This little guy is only a 2"x2"!!

There were a couple of these that I painted what I thought would look good and then completely painted over and started again, but hey, I'm pretty happy with the results! Now I just need to do more!

I was also given an AWEsome suggestion by my bff, Airon, about what other pieces I could do. She suggested I do some sets as Xmas ornaments by doing some wintery/Xmasy themes and putting ribbon on the back to hang them by, and sell them for something like "Any 3 for $12". What do you guys think?

Also, I've been thinking about how to display them and have seen this idea which I think is cute:

Seen here from Two Hand Design blog.

Or maybe something like this:

Seen on Jamie's Home Blog here.

I want to mix the two ideas above and make something that's maybe about 1' wide by 2' high, with a hinge, so really there would be 2 pieces that are each 1'x2' and instead of using 1/2" quarter round for the shelves, I'd use 1/2"x1" quarter round so there's enough space for the canvases to be leaned back.

For the Christmas themed pieces, ornaments and such, I have bought a 2' tall (tabletop type) green fake Christmas tree so I can display the ornaments on that. I'd be able to use a clip and put a yellow paper star on the top, and that could be my price sign!

Craft ya laters!!

Prepping For My First Craft Show Booth Has Begun!!!

Hey guys!

I know it's been a loooooooooong time since I've posted on here, but I've been focusing a LOT of my energy on my day job. I am working with the Director of Business Process Improvement to build training documentation for my company as we haven't had a trainer or training team in quite awhile. My ultimate goal is to become said Trainer and be in charge of the training and documentation for the company, but it's taking a lot out of my mental time to be able to handle the tasks as a pilot training team lead in addition to doing my actual title the rest of the day. 

On top of that however, I have gotten a 2nd job at the place we (nearly) all know and love here in the states, Joann Fabric and Crafts, for many reasons:

• Employee discount (duh!)
• Happy stress compared to some of the bad stress at my desk job
• People interaction I don't get sitting at a desk, sometimes talking to people on the phone and my co-workers
• The moving around instead of just going home and sitting on my butt like normal
• Learn new things all the time about crafts and supplies
• Get paid to talk about something I LOVE doing already anyways!
• Opportunity to attend classes and learn even more
• First dibs on occasion on some of the AWEsome fabrics we get in

Anywho, I've only been doing that a month now, but have already have it benefit me in my little wanna-be craft business! You see, I could never really figure out where all the small craft shows and fairs were happening, how to get in touch with the coordinator to get a booth and especially didn't know anyone else that was going to these things!

A couple weeks ago however, I was cutting a bunch of fleece for a woman and she was chit chatting to her friend about spending her "craft show funds" on this fabric. So, I did what any intelligent person would: I asked her, "Um, soooo what craft shows would you happen to be talking about?"

She and I had a little conversation about it being a craft show a few months ago but also about a show coming up on 11/1/14 in my city and when I told her, "See, I can just NEVER find out about the ones that DON'T cost me $200+ for a booth!! How do you find out?!" she simply replied, "Oh, you have to start going to the shows to find out about more......(cue my face freezing in shock!)....I can email you the flyer if you'd like..?" I had to refrain from jumping up and down as I excitedly said, "Yes! That would be fantastic!! Thank you!!"

And there you have it folks! I have the information, have talked to the coordinator, gotten the vendor application form just about filled out and now all I have to do is send it in with the measly $50 it'll cost me for a full booth of 100 sq ft and TA-DAAA!!! I'll be attending my first craft show as a vendor EVAR!! 

Only problem is now... making sure I plan out whatever displays I want to use, I've talked with a friend about sitting at the booth with me......... UH OH!! I don't actually have that much stock to put out!!

I guess that just means I will be taking every opportunity (except for this past Sunday as it was my first weekend day off in a MONTH so you bet your patootie I sat there watching tv and napping all day!!) to make what all I can!!

On the roster/application I've got:

• Jewelry
• Clutches
• Purses/bags
• Scarves
• Perler sprites
• Miniature canvas art
• Embroidery hoop art - 3" - 4"

I already have all the jewelry I've made through the years without selling, and I have the clutches that didn't sell when I had that consignment before, plus the displays I'd made for both.... Now I just have to make some of the other items I listed up there and figure out displays, enough to fill what I can of a 100 square feet space!

This should be....easy?.........oh goodness.....

First Time Wood-Burning, Otherwise Known as Pyrography

From Wikipedia: Pyrography or pyrogravure is the art of decorating wood or other materials with burn marks resulting from the controlled application of a heated object such as a poker. It is also known as pokerwork or wood burning.

The term means "writing with fire", from the Greek pur (fire) and graphos (writing).^[1] It can be practiced using specialized modern pyrography tools, or using a metal implement heated in a fire, or even sunlight concentrated with a magnifying lens.

My friend Michelle recently received a wood burning kit as a present. We weren't able to see her for February Craft Day (will post later), but I was able to hang out with her last weekend. After catching up, and showing her the quilling stuff I'd been working on and the books and awesomeness that is quilling, she showed me what she's done with her wood burning kit!

Then she handed me the tool, the extra tips that came with it, and a couple pieces of wood:

The one on the right she free-handedly drew for me and I traced, then added just a little extra (the dots and the thinner line around the inner level of petals) and the one on the left is one I free-handed myself, without drawing first, following a picture of a mendhi design I found online.

I was having a little difficulty on the flower but I think what I realized was that I was trying to really burn divots/lines into the wood, when really, you're just burning the surface, making shades of color based on how long the hot tip is on the wood, but just scarring the surface. I got a little better at not trying to get into the wood on the butterfly, but had already sorta taught myself the habit first. Oh well, after I get my own kit and a book or two, I'll practice a little and see what else I can come up with.

One thing Michelle and I talked about was designs that we couldn't free-hand ourselves. I mean, how DO you get the image on the wood to draw/trace!? I looked it up with my handy, dandy, Google skills and found this nifty tutorial:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Pyrography-or-How-to-Wood-Burn-Art/

He shows you how to use graphite paper to trace the image from a printout to the wood, and then how to fix if you get marks on the wood you don't want to be there!! 

I've also created a Pinterest board here if anyone's interested in seeing some of the ideas I've found.

I also want to maybe try to paint the butterfly and lotus piece, see what happens if I use watercolors. I've seen where people have used felt tip markers, acrylics, things like that... but not sure if I've seen anyone using watercolors. If I decide to do it and not just leave it as-is, I'll make sure to show you guys!!

So yeah... I'm hooked! lol I've already told boyfriend I want a kit and sent him links to a well-rated starter book, a kit and extra tips that include some stamp-like bits!!

Don't those look fun!?

Anywho, maybe for my birthday he'll get me the kit... if I don't get it for myself first from being too anxious to get to playing!! ;)

Craft ya laters!!

Making a TON of Origami Flowers

I'm not sure what happened to me in February, but I do know where I was in March!! I was making 7 DOZEN origami flowers for my boss who was decorating a friend's baby shower. The type of origami flower I was making was called a Kusudama Flower, instructions can be found here.

I had the whole month of March to make them, but I only really got into gear the last week and a half of the month, like a good craft procrastinator...lol But hey, in my defense, 84 flowers, each with 6 petals to add up to 504 petals total?! That's a LOT of work!!

I helped myself a little though and bought a fantastic cutter that fits a 12" sheet of paper and it made the paper cutting part especially easy!!

Since I had so many petals to fold, I just tossed them in a box as I finished folding them....

Once I was done folding them all, the box was FULL!! 

Then came the task of matching up all the petals...

This was also about the point that boyfriend had told me he didn't think I had enough petals. I looked at him and even though I assured him, "Are you kidding?! I counted like, 3 times!!!" He was saying this because he helped me glue the petals since I had class that night (which was an AWESOME help since we were on the last week deadline!!) but when he glued the individual petals closed, he used paper clips and said the count had to be off based on how many paper clips he used and how many the box said there were in the case....

Laying them out in the above way however assured me (and my sanity) that I had in fact made enough petals!! YAY!!

Next came the dowel rods I was going to be gluing the petals to. He also helped me paint these, what a trooper!! :D

Once I had all the petals grouped together, it was time to pair them up...

All the petals paired up!!

The flowers in action at the baby shower:

The soon-to-be mother was happy and the party went off fantastically, or so I hear. I was also told that there was a clamor to claim flowers by just about everyone at the party!! Talk about a job well done!!

It doesn't end there, either! I had 6 dowel rods left over and my boss told me the leftover paper was mine!! ALL MINE!!! WHEEEE!!!!! So what's a girl to do with this knowledge and these supplies???

Why, make MORE FLOWERS! Duh! Only, I made them smaller; 3" square petals to the original 4" square size.

That's it for this post, I hope you guys enjoyed!!

Craft ya laters!!

New Fabric for January!

I went shopping the other night for new fabric, not like I need more mind you, but I wanted more! I figured with Spring coming up though, I wanted some bright, colorful prints. It seems however that my BFF Airon and I had turquoise and coral on the mind...

See?! With the one exception of course of this last pairing, the others are pretty much turquoise and coral. This was not planned, but hey, it will be interesting to see how they all mix with each other on whatever designs I use them for, right??

I can't wait to get working on these, and some of the older fabric, and show you guys what I come up with!! I have already found new patterns and ideas to try and am excited to see them and even learn a few new techniques in sewing along the way! :D

Craft ya laters!!

My first quilling pieces!!

I have been craft-lusting (crusting? no, that doesn't sound right....) after the idea of learning paper quilling for MONTHS! I follow another blogger who posted a while ago about a contest where you create a Pinterest board for a new craft or hobby you haven't tried yet, put supplies in there, and then enter the contest by commenting on her blog/Facebook pages to win $100 worth of supplies to try this new hobby. Thus, my Quilling board was created on Pinterest here.

I didn't win, so my board and interest took a back-burner until I could afford the supplies and time for this new hobby. With Christmas having just happened, I was (awesomely) given some money as gifts and so, was able to buy some supplies to get started!!

I bought this kit from Hobby Lobby:

Hobby Lobby - Basic Quilling Kit

It provided me with all the basic tools I needed to start; glue, circle sizing ruler, needle tool, slotted tool, tweezers, instruction booklet and a pack of paper strips. The container is one of those that has a lid on top and bottom so you have 2 sections to keep your supplies. After I decided I wanted more paper however, and realizing not much else would fit in the paper side but the 1 pack they gave me, I decided to buy this along with 4 more paper packs and a little box of pins with big heads so they're easier to work with than my sewing pins:

I already had a piece of foam-core from other projects so I was able to use that as a work surface, but I may actually get a couple pieces of cork board (those little 6" squares or something) to use so they're easier to take with me than an awkward piece of the foamcore, plus I can only put so many holes in the foamcore before it starts getting a little hard I would think to find spots without holes to use. 

I was able to get started once I finished my loom knitted baby blanket project (going to try getting better at finishing a project before starting a new one...) plus the fact that after working on the blanket off and on for a few weeks, I was anxious to get it finished for the sake of it!! :)

I sat down on Thursday night last week and made 3 pieces:

 

How can you tell someone Reddit's too much? I made sure to make a banana, "for scale"!!

I then took my kit box to work the next day as it's been slow at the office all week (holidays are usually pretty quiet at a desk job) and during my break time, I made:

Now after doing a few, and especially this last one having too much paper in the coiled areas, I realized I needed another trip to Hobby Lobby for more paper, a bigger case and varnish. I found a bottle for about $10.33 in the paint aisle, then grabbed a little empty 2oz paint bottle in the artist section to put some varnish in (the $10.33 bottle was 8oz and that was a little big to haul around with me on a regular basis). Varnish definitely does help strengthen the pieces, but I realized it's a little hard to paint it on pieces with big gaps, like the banana.

After getting more paper, I then made the following pieces Friday night even though we had friends over. I basically half-commandeered the kitchen table and was making pieces while a few friends sat around chit chatting and the rest were in the kitchen or living room.

Family portrait!!

The ducks themselves were fun to make, but the waves not so much. I was trying to use the same piece of paper to do all 3, but it just wasn't working out so I made 2, cut the paper, then glued the 3rd spiral on after getting it as good as I could.

Regarding varnishing difficult pieces, I realized that painting the tail feathers on the bird may not have been the best idea.... They look fine and even up above, but after painting the varnish on and how wet the pieces of paper got, it got a little wonky just because the pieces that are right next to each other stuck all the way and I could only straighten them out so much while they were wet. I think I might try to use a spray next time and see if I can find one that works well enough.

There is also a small matter of I didn't realize the tail feathers were sticking out past the lid of the box I have when I closed it the other night and so this happened:

I guess I'll be re-making the tail feathers after all!!

It's ok though, it's just a learning experience, right? Right! I'm not sure what I want to work on next, but I am thinking that printing out some templates would be a good idea.

I will try to make some time this week/weekend to make some more things and will definitely show you guys what I come up with!!

Craft ya laters!!