susandipity

Glass Fusing: Wall Vase

2012-04-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Have you tried glass fusing yet? It's so much fun and addicting. About a month ago, I took my friend, Barb, to the glass fusing studio for the first time - she's now hooked! It's a really fun, simple and therapeutic hobby. On my most recent trip, I made this wall vase. It consists of 2 rectangular pieces that's about 3x6. The back piece has mosaic pieces and the top has a purple flower with long petals. I tried to simulate a flower with a sky and grass background. To fuse it together and form the vase, the two pieces are simply placed on top of each other with a thick fiber piece in the middle to form the 'vase' part. As you can see my purple flower got distorted a bit, but that's OK - it gives it character =) If ever you wanna try this - let me know and let's go!

Soldering...A Special Buddy

2012-03-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, a good friend of mine lost her playful, crazy, loyal 4-legged companion, Scout. I called him Scouters, 'cause I could - and she let me get away with it =) It was a sudden loss, and I knew how much devastation it brought to her life. As a small token to show my sympathy, I made her this soldered ornament. It held two pictures of Scout, with glass beading to allow for hanging. It's a nice personal memento to make for any occasion.

If any of you have seen or met my Auggie-Dog, you'll notice a resemblence!

This was created with my soldering kit by Simply Swank. I have an extra unopened kit if anyone is interested in purchasing one and wanting to dabble in soldering. It retails for $55 - but I'll discount it for you.

Duck Tape!

2012-03-26T14:53:00.001-07:00

We all love our duck tape - especially with the new designs and colors. Have you seen their duck tape sheets? I love them! I've seen so many creative ways that duck tape has been used - even prom gowns with matching tuxedos - but now that 8.25 x 10 sheets are out, the creations are endless. I made this 'clutch' at CHA with their zebra print sheet. I didn't bother decorating it, cause I kind of like the plain look as it can disguise the insides and looks like just a piece of folded paper. It perfectly holds cash and no one would think it was in there! With the velcro closure, my money is safely hidden. Yay for duck tape!

Workshop: Little Yellow Bicycle Extravaganza

2012-03-25T22:41:00.002-07:00

I'm back! After missing for a few weeks, I finally decided to post that last workshop project from CHA-W 2012. This workshop kept us busy for every minute of it. It was sponsored by Little Yellow Bicycle, and just like their little yellow bike logo, their projects were just as cute. We created a scrapbook page and an album. Below is the album created with their "Saturdays" line. This collection comes with all sorts of embellishments, notions and stickers. You can view their different collections here.

Now, that I've finished posting all eleven workshop projects - what should I post now?! While I've been burying myself in my exploding craft room, I'll have to show off some creations I've made in the past. Maybe, force myself to make more stuff =)

Workshop: Metal Stamping w/Impress Art

2012-03-05T17:09:00.001-08:00

Metal stamps are my new thing ☺ It sort of reminds of the Flinstones holding the metal stamp in one hand and a hammer in the other. But let me tell you, metal stamps opens a whole new field of crafting for me! If it's not alive, I'm gonna try to metal stamp it =) This workshop was sponsored by Impress Arts. It was a great workshop that taught us the many ways you can use metal stamps.

Here is a layout we did - there are 4 metal stamped pieces: metal, matte board and wood. As we know designers always want the pages laid out with a picture. So I have no idea who this couple is, but it matches well!

This is a charm used with decorative metal stamps:

champagne glasses and swirls.

Stamping on matte board can create cool effects. We took ink and rubbed it over the impressed areas to make it pop more. I didn't do a very good job at it.

Another metal piece with "love" impressed on it.

And here are the tools we used! The first 2 stamps on the left are from the workshop. The rest of them were samples from their booth. And yes, we were given the hammers too! Can't imagine what TSA thought when they saw the hammers in my suitcase ☺

Workshop: French Inspired Crafting

2012-03-04T13:29:00.001-08:00

This is workshop #9 out of 11. It was sponsored by EK Success - and as you may know, EK Success has numerous brands under their umbrella - and they're all brands we love! Every CHA I take a class conducted by EK Success. They never fail with their generosity and great workshop experiences. This time around, we used their new French General line. This line was inspired by the Los Angeles store, French General. As you'll see in the pictures below, the patterns and designs are all very comforting, home-like and vintage. The paper has a finish like it's fabric, almost as if they just glued fabric onto the paper.

Here is a page layout we did. You can see all of the different types of embellishments that the French General line has. The notions/buttons are all removable, as you can see the red buttons in the upper left. They come from a pack, that you can see in the bottom left. It's just a matter of removing them from the flaps. The lady is holding a thimble charm that can be used elsewhere. She also has ribbon wrapped around her body - this is how the packaging comes. Cute huh?

This was made out of 3 envelopes. Turned out really cute.

Paper pad holder

I mentioned earlier how generous EK Success always is. Here's proof ☺

Workshop: Artful Card Kits, Copper Color Me & More

2012-02-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

A whole month after CHA and I'm still posting about it! haha!

This workshop was presented by Hot Off the Press, also known as the catalog Paper Wishes. It was a jam-packed workshop and we got to go home with lots of goodies. It's always interesting seeing us work on our projects in the tiny spaces we have with all the product we get to work with. HOTP gave us full packs of everything we were to use. Even if we only needed two pieces of paper in the pack, they generously gave us the entire pack - and this goes for other goodies we used.

This is a scrapbook page we worked on. Pictures are missing cause I didn't feel like using pictures of a fake family and calling them mine ☺ We used HOTP's Dazzles and Paper Toles.

Here is a one of their Dazzles packs. I love these stickers. The quality of these are so much better than competing products. We used these for the frames in the scrapbook page layout above.

HOTP makes numerous Paper Toles and they're really cool and intricate.

Here is a close-up of the paper tole used on the layout. We all love dimension in our projects.

This card was our second project. We used HOTP's new Color Me Copper and Paper Toles again.

Color Me Copper is a nifty product. The 12x12 paper is already embossed with copper designs. The negative portion of the designs can be inked on with any color and the excess can be wiped off. That was what we did with the card. We used brown ink on the Color Me Copper. Here is what a Color Me Copper pack looks like. They also have silver and gold.

Here is a closer look of the Paper Tole used in the card.

Newest Addiction

2012-02-24T02:41:00.000-08:00

OK. So as some of you know I gave up Facebook for Lent again this year. It's been a whole 2 days and I'm feeling extra bored. Having just taken my finals on Tuesday, and Lent starting on Wednesday and no job ... I've been glued to Pinterest! Well, tonight I just discovered the "Random Tutorial Generator." And well, 4 hours later, I'm still on it! I had to share my newest addiction with you, especially with all of you crafty-crafters and DIY people. This super fantastic little creation is a website and there's a nifty red button that says "GO." Once you hit "GO" it takes you to a random blog and some random tutorial - all crafty and DIY things. Once you're done reading it, you once again click on the nifty red button that now says "GO AGAIN" and you'll find yourself on another tutorial! It's frickin' awesome! You'll see things from making a breakfast nook, to making old jeans fit, to hair accessories to gettin' creative with old t-shirts. So I suggest you set aside an hour to begin with and just keep clicking! Random Tutorial Generator

Workshop: Kumihimo

2012-02-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

Kumi..what?! Koo-me-hee-mo! It is a Japanese form of braid making. It looks really complicated, but once you get the hang of it, it's a mindless process that goes really quick. This was an 8am class on the 3rd day. By this time, anything that early becomes difficult. I was glad that the mindless task of making a kumihimo necklace was first on the agenda. Once I learned the skill and got my groove on, I think I was half asleep while braiding. The class ended with three of my fingers glued together. Oopsie! That woke me up.

This is a picture of the class kit. Looks a bit foreign huh?

Using the white disc above, and this rattail fiber...

You get this! A kumihimo braided necklace!

Workshop: Sizzix Love is in the Air

2012-02-23T14:19:00.000-08:00

This was a fun workshop sponsored by Sizzix. We made two cute cards and two matboard apothecary jars. Everything was made from their dies and sizzlets. I love the cards since they're pop-ups. The beauty of the dies is that it scores and cuts all the folds for you =) No need to think about what goes where. The apothecary jars are great ideas for little favors or giveaways. We got lucky as we got to go home with three sets of sizzlets and a set of embossing folders. At the time of the class two of the sets weren't even released to the public yet.

Make-n-Takes

2012-02-21T21:28:00.000-08:00

At the Simplicity booth, we got to dive-in to three buckets and choose a headband and an accessory to attach to it. I admit i did over extended my welcome and made three different headbands and took a couple extra attachments. They're all so girly, I'm not even sure I'd wear them. But it was all too cute. In this pic you can also see a much better picture of the sun catcher I made @ Connie's Crystals.

Connie Crystals

2012-02-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

This lady is amazing! Connie has a passion for crystals and has made some really creative designs. Her booth sparkled so much, you couldn't help but stop by and check things out - and i'm not even a bling kind of person. She had make-n-takes every hour, on the hour with different things. They made lanyards, sun catchers, necklaces, bracelets, angels and more.

She made this gorgeous dress out of paper and crystals! She spent 6 months straight doing this. She's a very likeable, interesting and personable lady. There was no vision or idea of this dress in her head, she just went with her flow and ended up with this. She even made shoes to match. My picture doesn't do much justice for the beauty of it - if you go to her Facebook page you can see a much more clear picture of it: https://www.facebook.com/ConnieCrystal

Here is a picture zoomed in to some of the detail.

Too bad the picture isn't that clear.

Make-n-Take: I made this bracelet with memory wire.

Make-n-Take: I also made this sun catcher. My original version did not look like this. Connie saw it and made me take a bead out and add specific ones to it. Low and behold it looked way better than what created ☺

Crates of Goodies

2012-02-20T12:07:00.000-08:00

While roaming around the CHA floor, I was in the back section just looking around. I stumbled upon ginormous crates with "EK SUCCESS" printed on them. OMG! I wanted to take all of those crates home...even just one of them would make me happy - I could only imagine all of the goodies inside of them! With all of the products under EK Success brands, it would be like hitting a jackpot ☺ I'll take crate #9 please.

Workshop: Crafting Embellishments with Jewelry Resin and ETI

2012-02-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

If you haven't played with resin - you've gotta try it! I never knew how versatile the stuff could be. I've played with it a couple years ago, and made some pretty creative stuff - I never touched resin again until this recent CHA. In this workshop we made 8 different resin pendants/pieces. There's only 7 pictured because I gave the 8th one away. That one was created with fabric and tiny pellet glitter. I've had resin sitting in my craft room for awhile - I think it's time to get creative with it ☼ Special thanks to ETI - I walked into their booth and just asked if I could purchase some of their molds on display (i've been too cheap to buy any, but knew I really needed them). He was kind of enough to tell me to just take what I needed off the display. ☺

This pic of something that our instructor created. Pretty cool huh??

Workshop: Gratitude Journal with Jewels

2012-02-14T12:38:00.000-08:00

This workshop was awesome! Totally jam-packed and super fun! It was sponsored by Spellbinders (love them!) and Beadalon . My instructor, Julianna Hudgins, is well known in the crafting world as she has authored several crafting books, been on numerous crafting and jewelry shows, and now has her own line of Spellbinder dies.

We decorated this 8x10 journal book. It's covered with super soft and fuzzy zebra fabric. The angel was made with a new Spellbinder's die "Jewel Goddess." The die was created to represent and celebrate the curves and beauty of a woman. All sorts of tools and techniques went into the creation of this journal.


I took the 'mini' goddesses and made paper clips out of them.


The necklace was made out of Artistic Wire. We took 3 strands of wire, and with just one tool, we were able to twist the three colors into one. Then we took a "Thing-a-ma-Jig" (yes, that's really what it's called) and bent the twist to create that design.

Her scarf was made with wire mesh. I've never used wire mesh before and it's pretty cool. If you notice, her scarf has clear marbles in two of the sections. The mesh is strong enough to hold them in without any special glue or anything.

We were fortunate enough to go home with all of the tools and supplies we used, in addition to these Spellbinder dies. Whoo-hooo!

Workshop: Beautiful Blooms

2012-02-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

This workshop was hosted by the wonderful bling of Mark Richards. We made several projects including, a card, tag, hair clips, a favor box, a button cover and an album. As you can tell most of my projects aren't completed. I loved the ideas and bling - but I just couldn't do all that pink and red! I like pink. I like red...but all of that was just too much for me ☺ I'll definitely be using everything, once I add some other colors to it. The fleurettes are actually really cute. No matter how much they are mashed down - they always pop back into perfect, self adhesive, perky flowers.

Workshop: Tool School Fun

2012-02-10T16:42:00.000-08:00

This was a really fun class. It was mainly sponsored by We R Memory Keepers. We got to use all sort of their tools, new and old. Everything from their Sew Ribbon, Lucky 8 punches, Sew Easy, Doodle Stampers, Sweetheart Distresser and Inkers and the Crop-a-Dile III. So many fun tools to play with. The really cute paper line we used is their "good day sunshine" line. I need to add these tools to my craft room!

Page 3, 4 & 9: You can see use of the Sew Ribbon tool. It makes a really cute touch in a variety of styles.

Page 5,6,9 & 10: The doily paper is a result of the Lucky 8 punch - pretty nifty huh?!

Page 5 & 6: On the doily, I did a simple stitch with the use of the Sew Easy. It made things so much easier for me.

Tree of Life

2012-02-10T15:47:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the Tree of Life stamp given to me at the Animal Spirit workshop. I love this stamp, there's a true definition of life embedded in it.

Workshop: Animal Spirit Stamps

2012-02-09T09:55:00.000-08:00

Have you seen Animal Spirit Stamps? The amount of detail in these stamps are insane! There are numerous other images inside each animal. Amongst those, is a ladybug that makes its' little cameo appearance in every animal stamp. These stamps are very intimidating, cause at first glance, you'll think "I'm not coloring that in!" This workshop focused on teaching us various techniques to use the stamps without having to spend the time to sit there and color each detail. And with every workshop you walk away with a gift...I received the Tree of Life stamp - which is really cute. I don't have a picture of it right now, but I'll post it later.

Woolly Mammoth

Toucan, Crane, Woolly Mammoth and Stingray

Cricut??

2012-02-07T10:18:00.000-08:00

I'm not talking about the little noise makers you hear at night, more like the totally awesome, absolutely inventive cutting machine! I admit I resisted this machine for years because it intimidated me and I wasn't convinced of its' worthiness. All I can say now is - silly me! This machine has definitely served it's purpose and continues to do so. Cricut is not just the machine, he's also a cute Cricut! Laura and I spotted him at the show and had to get a pic with him. Wanna learn more about the Cricut? go to www.cricut.com

AND speaking of Cricut. A fabulous lady named Janet, also my friend, won an exclusive pink Cricut with 3 cartridges! Like every other crafter on the floor, I'm so jealous - but definitely happy for her! You can bet she baby'd that thing on he flight back home ☺ I knew I should've followed her around on the floor - she won not just this, but several other items from other booths! Below is a picture of she and I right after we snacked at the Party in the Park Celebration.

"Grow Your Creativity" - DCWV

2012-02-07T09:51:00.000-08:00

At CHA, vendors sometimes go all out to decorate their booths in ways that demonstrate the use of their products and to show eclectic and creative ways in doing so. My favorite booth was Die Cuts With a View (DCWV). And it was proven to be everyone else's favorite as they won CHA Winter's Exhibiting With Excellence Award. Their new theme, was "Grow Your Creativity," and their booth proved just that. Check out the pictures below. The pictures show no justice as to how beautiful and amazing these pieces of artwork were. I can only imagine how much time went into them. These are only a few of the items they created, check out additional pictures on their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/DCWV-Inc/125195275311).

These trees made me stop in my footsteps and just stare.

Aren't these just insanely creative?!

CHA 101

2012-02-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

Many have been asking what is CHA - It stands for Craft and Hobby Association. It is an organization that offers its' members resources and research data showing trends and tools in the crafting trades. Twice a year it offers a trade show to its' members where vendors, retailers, designers and professional crafters get together to shop, learn new ideas and try out new products before they hit the general public.

With that said, as an attendee, you get to spend 13 hours a day buried in creativity. Everything from jewelry to paper crafts to metal work to knitting. There are 100s of make-n-takes where you can sit at a vendor's booth and make a project with them - usually trying out new products/tools and seeing new design lines. There is no end to the type of products you make at make-n-takes. I've made pillows, cards, frames, paintings, necklaces, headbands, albums, even decorated cupcakes! The list goes on and on. There are also 100s of freebies! If any of you have seen the CHA suitcases at my place, you will know that there is no exaggeration to this. It's known to go to CHA with a suitcase in a suitcase - because you will go home with both of them filled to the max! By the end of the show, I walk home with new skills, new ideas, new friends and new passions.

Along with the show floor fun, there are also workshops. Below was my schedule of this most recent CHA. It's no wonder I was so exhausted! In the upcoming days I will post pictures of every project made in each workshop.

Saturday, January 28

8:00am – 10:00am W103 – Animal Spirit Stamps

10:00am – 12:00pm W201 – Tool School Fun

1:00pm – 3:00pm W401 – Beautiful Blooms

4:30pm – 6:30pm E502 – Exhibitor Welcome Reception

7:00pm – 9:00pm W601– Gratitude Journal with Jewels

Sunday, January 29, 2012

12:00pm – 2:00pm W704 – Crafting Embellishments with Jewelry Resin and ETI

6:30pm – 8:30pm W804 – Sizzix Love is in the Air

Monday, January 30, 2011

8:00am – 10:00am W905 – Kumihimo: Japanese Board Braiding

12:00pm – 2:00pm W1303 – Artful Card Kits, Copper Color Me & More

5:00pm – 6:00pm E505 – Party in the Park

6:30pm – 8:30pm W1005 – French Inspired Crating

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

8:00am – 10:00am W1109 – Metal Stamping w/Impress Art

12:00pm – 2:00pm W1203 – Little Yellow Bicycle Extravaganza

6:30pm – 10:00pm E509 – Craft Carnival: A Celebration for a Cause

Mod Podge L♥VE

2012-02-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

I was doing a Make-n-Take at the Plaid booth on Monday. I kept staring at the two hosts doing them 'cause they looked sooo familiar to me. Then I realized...they were the hosts of Creative Juice on the DIY Channel! I have this show on my permanent DVR record schedule. Everyone who crafted with them got a Mod Podge T-shirt and a cute Mod Podge bag with a huge sample of their new Mod Podge Sparkle. Who doesn't L♥VE Mod Podge?! ...and freebies ☺

Meet....Tori Spelling!

2012-01-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

Another full and busy day at CHA...and of course all of the craft goodies ☺ I did have the pleasure of meeting Tori Spelling! She was there to promote her jewelry line. I also got to meet her Gusband ☺

I still have plenty of pictures to post, but I'll save that for after the show.