tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54300700330979333272024-09-21T07:33:01.561-05:00The home for all things creative.Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-83100836508745442352021-12-23T09:29:00.001-06:002021-12-23T09:29:47.260-06:00

The last two years have been nothing short of challenging, but many people have embraced the situation and found creative ways to occupy their time with crafting and gardening. Of course engaging in craft and gardening projects is also great therapy as well to help manage stress and stay healthy. New crafters and diehards alike are now interacting more than they likely would have in person prior

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-49588527057662517702017-09-01T05:30:00.000-05:002017-09-01T05:30:41.236-05:00

The great thing about knitting a scarf is that it can be done in just a short amount of time.  It is the ideal first project as you only need to cast on a dozen or so stitches (possibly less depending on needle size) and you can start actually making something immediately.  Best of all, because knitting a scarf does not require a pattern and gauge is not a factor, even a beginning

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-45823608033560803452017-09-01T05:25:00.001-05:002017-09-01T05:25:42.955-05:00

Purses are an essential part of every female's existence. From young girls to seasoned senior ladies, we have to have someplace to keep all our stuff. Once upon a time even men carried purses, though they weren't like the saddlebags women tote around today.  When you're headed out on the town and you don't need anything more than your phone, ID, and a card/some cash, a wristlet is the ideal

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-46359930858250241562017-09-01T05:12:00.000-05:002017-09-01T05:12:03.021-05:00

Spending my time pursuing some sort of creative endeavor is always my first choice. As a result I have often had a number of things on hand to choose from when it came to gift giving time. That is, when I hadn't specifically crafted something especially for a particular person. Once upon a time most people would have received a humble homemade item as a gift. Now there's twenty-four hour online

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-91011117302221895122016-05-03T09:04:00.000-05:002016-05-03T09:04:59.208-05:00

Just a recently there was an NPR broadcast on the president's daughter taking a "gap year" and the whole gap year program and how it got started. A mother stated that her kids were about to go off to college and she felt they were lacking in important life skills. Well, my thought was that teaching of life skills begins at home, but... Once upon a time life skills were a given. You did chores at

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-33066440402013063012015-11-26T05:57:00.000-06:002015-11-26T05:57:48.877-06:00

It's gift giving time again! When you've put a lot of time and effort into choosing just the right item, and it's time to truss it up and present it to the intended recipient, you don't want to just stick it in a generic gift bag or some ordinary box with a generic bow from a bag. However, there are those times when we just don't have the time to make up pretty packages, or worse, we get home and

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-2486807548762927352015-05-11T23:02:00.001-05:002015-05-11T23:02:41.787-05:00

Decorative ideas comes easily to some and are more than a bit elusive for others. Home decor articles were part and parcel during my Helium tenure, especially after I became a Channel Steward. The site is now barely a memory and I still have a number of articles originally published there waiting to find a new home. As usual, life got in the way before I could pull everything from the site, but

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-67167262058371954222014-12-01T17:29:00.000-06:002014-12-01T17:29:25.541-06:00

Yes, they are lovely to look at, but they are also costly (more and more so each year), and quite often they make a rather untidy mess on the floor. Unless you have kids at home and/or you find you just can't live without that fresh pine smell this time of the year, you may be wavering on whether or not to keep buying a Christmas tree year after year. Yes, there are living trees for

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-42480562778765342042014-11-23T17:49:00.001-06:002014-11-23T17:49:10.795-06:00

It's late November already and to say I am severely slacking in my progress of the great article migration is a gross understatement. Time is a precious commodity, and I just never seem to have enough of it. Add to that my recent computer problems and it will be a miracle if I manage to save my published articles on Helium from disappearing into oblivion. After spending what seemed like several

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-30597930583471447382014-10-19T19:05:00.000-05:002014-10-19T19:05:47.729-05:00

Today is paper craft day. No, I'm not making pretty things out of paper, I am diligently transferring previously published articles (sigh) from that soon to be defunct publishing web site, you know, the one that used to be a good source of passive income for free-lance writers? Alas, it was a good run while it lasted. I've been slacking off the past couple months, but a recent RT on Twitter

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-57242936771407674222014-10-19T17:52:00.000-05:002014-10-19T17:52:39.139-05:00

As mentioned here previously, I have a great love for paper. Playing with paper is one of my favorite pastimes -- Paper clothes, paper beads, paper greetings, paper figures (origami)... Few things are more satisfying than taking a simple, ordinary piece of paper and turning it into something completely new. In my previous post on Finding Scherenschnitte Patterns Online, I noted that shortly

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-34031624571834062882014-10-19T14:28:00.000-05:002014-10-19T14:29:25.461-05:00

Anyone who knows me, is aware that I have a thing for paper, and that I've got it bad. I'm a huge fan of origami, making paper beads is sort of an obsession, and a few years ago, I discovered Scherenschnitte, a traditional German paper cutting craft. I won't get into an explanation of the craft here, there are plenty of sources online for that, and you could easily spend an entire day trolling

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-78416776218369369042014-10-18T20:15:00.001-05:002014-10-18T20:15:29.504-05:00

It's the season for Costumes and although I'm a little late, I have a few articles in the can from my Helium days that now need a new home. If you still haven't settled on a costume, or if you've been too busy, you might find the following post useful, particularly if you've recently seen and been inspired by Mozart and the Whale, or if you just like fish. I've already migrated my article on

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-5812886548264533392014-10-18T19:03:00.000-05:002014-10-18T19:03:39.063-05:00

Once again I am sitting in front the computer trying to whittle away at the plethora of articles posted to Helium. A friend asked this past week if I'd written anything new. Ha! I've let this go for so long now that I'll be lucky to finish migrating everything without having to make a mad dash to download and save it all before turning into a pumpkin. Even though it's mid October and everyone is

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-38937552013579309602014-10-16T13:24:00.000-05:002014-10-16T13:24:09.330-05:00

Do you make your own jewelry? When I was a little girl I loved to put beads on the tips of feathers I found. My mother would then put ear wires on them to make earrings. I was way too young to wear them though, and heaven only knows what she did with them. I am not sure if I even had pierced ears at the time. Later, as an adolescent, I made a few things by stringing seed beads (I actually still

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-87751972304576945492014-10-16T12:13:00.000-05:002014-10-16T12:13:33.872-05:00

Three years ago I created an article for Helium on making soap at home from glycerin cubes that you melt and pour into a purchased mold. These simple soaps can customized by adding coloring and scents of your choice. One of the other ways to make melt and pour soaps is to create them in your own homemade molds. Interestingly enough, my article on homemade molds for soaps was published in May of

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-37175865786699893332014-10-16T11:55:00.002-05:002014-10-16T11:55:38.841-05:00

Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated at the idea of making my own soap. As I grew older, I forgot about that desire for a while, and then along came that magical entity we all know as the internet. It took a while for the net to become populated with enough links and resources for soapmaking, and there was also the issue of recipes that used lye. Eventually, with the rise in DIY and

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-82339979495581109082014-10-16T10:42:00.000-05:002014-10-16T10:47:06.733-05:00

Crafting for many is more than just a casual pastime. The ability to earn money from crafting can mean a dream come true that is a means to extra income or even the development of a full-time business. While there are a number of approaches to earning income from crafting, one of the simplest means of doing so is selling on consignment. The article below was originally published on Helium in

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-61077348890205526702014-10-16T10:21:00.003-05:002014-10-16T10:46:17.259-05:00

A recent notification about a Twitter update being retweeted reminded me that I have been seriously slacking in migrating my articles from the soon to be defunct Helium web site. The update in question was an article on how to build a puppet stage from cardboard that was retweeted by LSP @puppet_school, It's a small thing, but I'm grateful for it, since I published over 300 articles on

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-43852956958796661282014-10-16T10:03:00.000-05:002014-10-16T10:45:06.771-05:00

I've been lagging behind the past few months as I've been busy with Speed Dating event management, but now that the year is winding down and Helium is about to go away forever, a Twitter retweet notification from LSP @PuppetSchool this morning has reminded me it's time to resume migrating all my articles before they disappear! The original article, titled How to Make a Cardboard Puppet Stage,

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-90406040857363457062014-07-31T03:39:00.000-05:002014-07-31T03:39:10.949-05:00

Alas, Helium isn't the only content site to decide to shut down this year. Yahoo Voices (formerly Associated Content) announced recently that in a matter of weeks, it too would soon become a mere memory. This has left quite a lot of writers scrambling for something to do with previously published articles as well as the need for someplace new to publish to. Having recently whittled down my many

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-85514693234217174532014-05-17T16:17:00.000-05:002014-05-19T18:24:15.679-05:00

Yes, I know it's the middle of May, and yes I know that Easter Sunday was several weeks ago. So why am I posting about decorating Easter Eggs? Well, because I am still migrating that plethora of Helium articles and this is the next one to come up for re-posting. This is yet another one of those times where I wish I'd had the opportunity to post photos as well in order to illustrate the tasks

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-20137322169020254612014-05-17T16:02:00.002-05:002014-05-19T18:25:00.251-05:00

When I was nineteen years old, I moved to Los Angeles briefly. Another friend had coincidentally moved to Long Beach shortly before, and another to Venice right after. It helped to have people I knew nearby, and I ended up spending quite a lot of time in Long Beach in the nine months or so that I lived on the west coast. My friend in long beach introduced me to what at the time seemed like a

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-78048283716416220292014-05-16T13:14:00.000-05:002014-05-19T18:25:33.131-05:00

Continuing with the effort to migrate my multitude of Helium articles, here's one I forgot I ever wrote, and just in time too now that both prom and wedding season are in full force. My aunt used to make these regularly for and people for their weddings and sorority gatherings and so forth. How to make your own Corsage Making your own corsage is not only practical, it’s quick, easy and filled

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5430070033097933327.post-69763415196229490052014-05-15T22:56:00.000-05:002014-05-19T18:26:10.577-05:00

I love making paper beads. I love it so much I could stay up all night creating them. Whenever I teach jewelry making classes with children I almost always spend a couple days making rolled paper beads, and then of course, I become obsessed with making them myself. It's amazing to see what pretty things one can create from such a simple material. The craft itself is ancient and still practiced

Chanell D Gautreauxhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00847866717792316027noreply@blogger.com0