I have had some time to get crafty! Look what I’ve been making!
a belated birthday and mothers day prezzie for my mom
my dad emailed me this pic of his belated birthday panel prezzie displayed on his cubicle wall
awful iPhone shot (there must have been schmutz on the lens) but you get the idea
These pieces are acrylic paint and spray paint on 5″ x 4″ canvas panels. First I painted each panel with a couple of coats of Liquitex acrylic paint, and then I used the Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter to cut out some stencils from freezer paper.
I ironed the freezer paper cutouts to the canvas panels, plastic side down. Freezer paper works like a dream with stencils because you can seal the edges to prevent leakage simply by ironing the stencil down. When you are ready to remove the stencil, it comes right off. The only difficulty I had was I had to keep ironing the freezer paper down in between coats of white spray paint. But I blame the $1.50 spray paint I was using that I got from Walmart. It was seriously lacking pigment. When I moved
Continue reading Stenciled Canvas Panels
I have never deliberately taken photos of the plants in my garden before. Which is kind of strange considering I have had so many different gardens in the past 5 or so years. And that I spend all summer alternating between engaging in war with crab grass (which is my nemesis) and standing around smiling proudly at my planties and flowies. So here is my first deliberately documented garden.
I love bougainvillea so was really happy to find a bush of it growing in the garden of our new place in Oakland. I quickly noticed that many other people in the neighborhood had bougainvillea growing in their gardens, but their’s were bursting with blooms while ours had just a few flowers and seemed mostly made of sticks.
All it took was a sprinkle of fertilizer to make the blooms burst out of our bougainvillea. Now it is happy-looking and there are so many flowers, I often cut pieces off to bring indoors.
I LOVE fuschia – it really brings back memories of the garden I grew up in. It was the only decent plant I could find at the Home Depot by my house a month or so ago, and as
Continue reading my Oakland garden
I have so much to SAY!! And it’s crazy that the only reason I get to say anything is because Bama dog has a hurt foot and isn’t getting a walk tonight as a result. Two huge work projects of mine have been completed and I couldn’t be happier about my experience at the Spring Quilt Market trade show in Minneapolis or with C&T Publishing’s Fall 2010 catalog. I’m going to talk about the catalog in this post and maybe get to Spring Quilt Market later on…doubtful though.
First, you can download the catalog and the other Fall 2010 seasonal print collateral pieces I’ve been working on from this page. All the images in this post can be clicked to enlarge.
I know print collateral is so ten years ago, but you have to understand my industry. Loyal, longtime customers of ours and even some of our authors, exist without the internet, and many many more of them still prefer print over digital. Our catalog is our lifeline to entire communities, like the Amish for example, and we won’t ever deny access (or marketing) to such contributors to the craft. After all, a google search for
Continue reading C&T Publishing Fall 2010 catalog
I’ve noticed something that goes on a lot between friends in my social circle. It goes kind of like this:
Friend #1 is bitching about some problem they have, for example, not-having a job and having a hard time getting their resume into top form
Friend #2 says they understand exactly what friend #1 is looking for in the job marketplace, and that they happen to be good at resumes and would be happy to help.
Friend #1 says something like Oh no – I couldn’t ask you to help me with the awful job of making my resume kick-ass
Friend #2 (who does want to help but has a busy schedule) says Well, we could do a trade?
Friend #1 says YES! I know you like arts and crafts and I just got this really cool digital craft cutter. You can come over and get crafty with me and we’ll make stencils and you can use whatever supplies of mine you want to make something cool.
Friend #2 says Word! Sounds like a plan! Let’s do it this Thursday.
Friend #1 says Awesome! Looking forward to it.
And on Thursday evening Friend #1 and Friend #2 get together. Friend #1 gets help with their resume and actually
Continue reading bARTer network idea
