Ribbon Craft Fun & More

This weekend we celebrated my sister Frances's birthday. Frances has a large stash of wire ribbon that she wanted to use up, so we created tags and cards using wire ribbon and mostly Catherine Moore, Character Construction stamps.

Below is a picture of what our supply table looked like.

And pictures of us playing...

And some close up shots of our finished products...

I love all of our tags! Admittedly, not everything used wired ribbon, but nonetheless, we all had a great time creating together. Happy Birthday Fran!

I've also been having fun decorating my calendar pages. Here's some of my pages and the stamps I've been using.

I cut out one of my Paige dolls and glued it to the page below.

And on a last note, I'm so excited for this upcoming weekend! My daughter Rachel will be giving a baking demonstration and on a YouTube panel at LA Cookie Con.

We're very thankful for King Arthur flour sponsoring our trip! If you're in the LA area, stop by - there will be lots of free samples and a few TV food celebrities will be there. I'm looking forward to a short little getaway this weekend!

Have a great week!

New Paige Dolls, Gold Frozen Charlottes & More...

I know what you're saying, "more Paige dolls" - sorry if you're tired of seeing them, but I've been on a roll with them and they're so much fun to make! I keep trying new variations.
I made the following drawings on top of vintage text pages. The dolls on the top row are my originals and then I scanned and reduced them into 3 3/4" x 5 1/2" cards. I'm happy to sell the set of four cards (with envelopes) for $8 + shipping.

Below are some new kraft tags I made. The size is larger than the previous set I sold - these measure 3 1/4" x 6 1/4". I will sell the .jpg image for $3 and physical tags for $4 + shipping.

Email me at artfulplay@gmail.com if you're interested in purchasing any of the cards, tags, or tag image file.
In other news, today I was at Michael's and came across Mod Podge Melts. I've never seen them before, but what drew me to them was that they came in GOLD! I've been buying anything in gold lately :-)

You can use a regular high temp glue gun and create castings with your molds. As you can see, I've made quite a few of my own silicone molds and couldn't wait to try it out.

 My favorite molds are the frozen Charlottes.

The Mod Podge melts work just like glue sticks, but colored. I filled up my molds with the Mod Podge melts and let it sit for about 5 min - they came out so easily!

Hmm, now what to create with my gold frozen Charlotte's? I'll be sure to post what I make. 

Then, one last project to share. Have you seen collage work with different shades of vintage text? I've always wanted to make something similar, so I recently tried my hand at making a daisy vintage text collage.
First, start off my making a sketch of your image onto some card stock. I choose a simple daisy pattern.

Next, cut up a variety of vintage text pages into 1/4" strips. Turn your image side over and glue on the vintage text strips, covering the entire page.

Then flip it back over and cut out your images and glue onto another piece of paper, I choose to glue it onto some kraft color paper. Finally, I outlined each petal with a black sewing machine stitch.

I scanned my final piece and reduced them into small cards. Something different to do with your vintage books you're collecting.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

New 2015 Planners & Paige Doll Tags

I love planners, and they have so many cute designs out right now that I couldn't buy just one - so I bought four (one for work, one for home, one for my daughter and one just because it was just too cute to pass up)!

The black and white and gold ones are from Heidi Swapp and the polka dots ones are from Target. They have so many cute planner accessories that make it so much fun to decorate too. This is what some of the inside pages look like already.

I'm using accessories from Teresa Collin's new Gold Studio line, Heidi Swapp's Project Life cards, and Target dollar bin tags.

I also made a few small Paige doll tags. I like this small size (2.25" x 4.75"), and I changed up the hair style slightly to try something new.
I scanned the tags and will sell the image file (jpg) of the four tags for $3 each (personal use only). You can print them out on card stock on your own computer and have as many tags as you like. I'll email you the image file.
If you rather have me send you a set of four physical tags, I can mail them to you for $4 + shipping.
Send me an email (artfulplay@gmail.com) if you're interested, payment through PayPal is best!

And lastly, my Christmas gift to myself this year was a set of PanPastels. I love having all the colors - they're so beautiful just to look at. I tried them out making the following journal pages...

I can't wait to experiment even more with the PanPastels.

Happy New Years! 

Holiday Ornaments

Recently, Pam Garrison posted on her blog some handmade ornaments made from a cardboard box - they were amazing! The idea stuck in the back of my mind, so when my daughter got a box in the mail printed with holiday graphics, I knew I had to try and make those ornaments. Pictured below is what I made!

Here's how it started. My daughter ordered some adorable dresses from modcloth.com. This is the box it came in...

I cut up the box into smaller pieces...

Then I cut the cardboard into ornament shapes...

Afterwards. I painted gesso onto the parts that were going to be colored...

Then using acrylic paint and a white pen, I decorated the ornaments!

Heads-up to my family - I might be bringing this to our Christmas celebration for us all to create some card board ornaments!

Speaking of holiday ornaments, I just thought I'd share some ornaments I made from RedLead's holiday products...

And then I made this fun necklace of brush bottle trees.

And on an exciting last note, I'm so proud of my daughter, Rachel and her YouTube success! She's a Junior in High School and recently got a deal with both DreamWorks and AwesomenessTV. Check out her recent YouTube videos...
DreamWorks: How to Make Jewel Box Cookies

DreamWorks: How to Make A Gingerbread House

AwesomenessTV: How To Make Android Cake Pops

Rachel will be having more YouTube videos to come on their channels too - we're so proud of her!

Happy Holidays!

Sale - Paige Dolls & Cards 50% off

HI all! I'm currently selling my remaining Paige stuffed dolls and cards at 50% off. Some of these items have slight imperfections from my printer, some more noticeable than others.

Below are my stuffed dolls for sale, $5 each + shipping. Each doll is approximately 6" tall and 4" wide.

Here are my printed greeting cards, also from my original drawings,$1.50 each. The cards are 4"x6" - envelope included. 

 

If you're interested in purchasing any of these dolls or greeting cards posted above, just email me at artfulplay@gmail.com (sorry, I just corrected my email address, was posted wrong before) with which one(s) you want, along with your address so I can calculate the shipping costs. I'll send you back the total and will accept Paypal payments. 

Once I have your payment, I'll send out your order and update my blog (periodically) and mark which items are sold. Sorry, this is so low-tech for now! Once I make a new set of dolls and cards I'll try to have them available on Etsy.

If you would like to place a special order doll or card (which I can do with my new and improved printing), I will accept orders, but I'll be selling the dolls for $10 each and cards for $3 each + shipping in the future. Any of the doll images can be made into a stuffed doll, just request the number doll you like. Embellishments added to each stuff doll will vary.

And on a last note, I'm excited to be published in the January/February 2015 issue of Somerset Studio.

They published my sticker art method.

This is where you take an existing art journal page and photocopy it onto some white stickers in your ink jet printer. You can then take the stickers and use them on various projects.

As an added bonus in the same magazine, I was thrilled when I also saw one of my my art journal pages available in the section, "Free Artists' Paper & Clip Art. It's printed on perforated heavy card stock, so that it can be easily torn out and used.

How cool is that? I personally always cut those pages out and save them.

One of my paper dolls also made the Somerset Gallery ad...

I hope you're having a great weekend. I'm working on some cardboard ornaments that I saw on Pam Garrison's blog - can't wait to show them to you this week!

My New Holiday Paige Dolls

First off, I'd like to thank Beth and Laura for recommending the name "Paige" for my line of dolls. I love that name and it fits the look...thank you! And with all the holiday spirit and decorations around, I was inspired to make holiday dolls. Here's what I came up with. 

I call them my Snow Queen, Snow Man, Angel and Santa. From my drawings, I then made these stuffed dolls...

Here's the stuffed dolls used as ornaments on a mini tree.

And then I also decided to make mini tags, from the images, that I can use on Christmas presents. These cards measure just 3" tall and 2" wide...so cute.

I love how I can re-purpose my drawings into other projects.

If you're interested in buying a set of the mini gift tags, let me know. I'll sell a set of four cards for $3. plus shipping. I would also like to sell the stuff dolls, but I'm not stocked up on the materials, so I can only make a limited number at this time. 

I actually sold at a craft show at my office for the first time this past week. Below is a picture of my display of dolls.

I do have some dolls and cards left over. I'll post them next week for sale.

I hope you're having a wonderful Holiday Season!