Amazing Crafting Products Design Team!
Things have been a whirlwind lately! So many new things happening and so many changes! I was contacted by the talented Susan M. Brown, Design Team leader for Amazing Crafting Products to see if I was interested in joining their design team since in the past I had used their product and enjoyed working with it. Of course I said yes and I am now a proud part of the Amazing Crafting Products design team blog! The photo above is of my first design team shipment and it was so full of awesome goodies to try out.
Not only do I enjoy using their products as I have noted in past blog posts, I was introduced to resin as wearable art by my parents many years ago. Here is a photo of some of my mother’s work. All of the pieces in the above photo are over 35+ years old. Amazing Crafting Products even graciously allowed me to showcase her work and vintage molds in an Inspiration post. 
Entranced at an early age by the idea of encapsulating objects I was inspired to use one of my mother’s vintage polyurethane molds to make a retro trivet piece and tutorial!
Now I am on a roll and I just can’t help but want to test out how the products perform. I am starting to get back into my polymer clay work so I tried my hand at a faux coral necklace and tutorial. I used polymer clay pieces for the originals to make the resin coral pieces.
For years now I have been trying to mimic the perfect faux amber, I blame a certain dinosaur movie for me always wanting the perfect piece of amber with an insect inside. While I have gotten close in the past there was always an issue with durability and/or clarity. Well, after trying some test with Amazing Clear Cast I was finally able to get the look I have wanted. You can find my inspirations post here talking about these new pieces.
Though don’t just take my word for it, please go to the Amazing Crafting Products design team blog to see all of the talented artists on the team! From model car makers, food artists, mixed media artist, paper crafters and so much more you will not be at a loss for ideas and inspiration. 🙂
Until next time safe travels!
Craft & Hobby Association Create & Connect Conference and Trade Show
Another Craft and Hobby Association Summer show has come and gone! This year it was called the Create & Connect Conference and Trade Show and was held in Las Vegas. While this was by far a much smaller show than the Winter CHA yearly show, it was still a great show to attend. There were better opportunities to talk and network with vendors and designers. There was also plenty of new products and artwork to see! I got there a day late due to health concerns and forgot my camera so I had to take photos with my phone but here is a few of the booths that I just loved and have to share with you.
As per normal Die Cuts With a View (otherwise known as DCWV) had a stunning display of papers, bead, embellishments and artwork! These three lovely shadow boxes were attached to the outside of their booth showcasing some of their products and talented designers.
DCWV had both their Summer and Winter collections up and were doing wonderful make-n-take canvas and necklace art.
Those lucky enough to be there the last day of the trade show and the last few hours had the chance to buyDCWV papers and Blue Moon Beads. Here is some of the items I was able to purchase from them the last hour. 🙂
The talented Suzann Sladcik Wilson, book author and CEO of Beadphoria, Inc. was at the Buttons Galore and More booth doing demos on how to turn their whimsical line of buttons into wearable art!
Here is some of the Buttons Galore and More buttons turned into rings!They have so many designs and styles of buttons that could be used as embellishments in many art forms.
Next we have the awesome Violette Stickers, a small but growing sticker company with some of the most beautiful stickers. They were at the Winter CHA this year but I somehow didn’t see them. I am glad I got a chance to really look at their stickers this time! They have lovely reproduction Victorian art stickers and fun and funky modern art stickers.
Here is some of their sticker selection I bought. The photo does not do them justice. They have vivid colors, sharp detail and some of their lines of stickers have clear backing making them perfect for layering in resin!
I love to Create booth had a wonderful collection of Summer themed art using their line of products. The talented Kathy Cano-Murillo founder of CraftyChica.com was doing demos at their booth of all kinds of wearable art! The Tulip One-Step Spray Dye Kit they are now selling is a no fuss way of dying fabrics. I love the ease of use and vibrancy of the colors!
The ever popular Graphic 45 had a gorgeous booth full of Steampunk and vintage print papers and embellishments. The display of finished art using their products was just beautiful and I love that they are doing more home decor tutorials using their products!In the next few months I will be using all of the wonderful products I got at the show in new artwork. 🙂
Until next time safe travels!
DIY Butterflies on the green
I have a country garden on my property and I have fun growing all types of herbs, flowering plants and vegetables. Each year depending on the season I can see variety of wildlife coming into the garden to collect nectar, seeds and water. I make it a point to take as many breaks as possible to go work or watch the garden. Earlier this season I found a butterfly sitting on top of my flowering rosemary. I watched it fly about the garden for a bit, I then noticed a second one, then another and another! Soon the yard was full of butterflies! They look to be a butterfly known as the American Lady (Vanessa virginiensis), they have a rather “fuzzy” body and long antennae. I was able to take some photos of these lovely creatures with my camera. It got my mind whirling on how lovely these bright orange butterflies looked on the green plants, could I make something based off of this enchanting contrast?
The Globecraft & Piccolo Design team challenge this month is to create projects using their UV Resin and their bezels. I thought why not try to create the look of flying butterflies on a field of green. This time instead of doing my standard still photos I thought why not try out a video tutorial!
Hop on over to the Globecraft and Piccolo Blog for my UV Resin Butterfly Pendant video tutorial with Globecraft and Piccolo products!
Until next time, safe travels!
Starting a new Art Journal
Recently I was talking to one of my clients about what I call my ideas/inspiration note and sketch pads. He laughed and said I was art journaling and didn’t even know it. I thought I wasn’t since most of my pages seemed a mess and wasn’t what I would call pretty but I was reminded that is how all creative processes start! So while I still have my beat up notebooks and pads around here I started one a little more artistic in nature by re-purposing a old sketch pad of mine.I had to start with the front cover, adding a new layer of card stock and pulling out all of my paper crafting supplies! I started with stamps and kept going!
I stamped gears, a clock and words to remind me to take the time to create and let go. I used one of my favorite embossing powder recipes, added stickers, paper and doodled across the cover.
It is rather enjoyable to create a book for myself and not anyone else, a great way to relax and to highlight things I enjoy. After I worked on the front cover I wanted some of my art journal pages contain little snips of stories or themes that inspire me. Using one of my favorite quotes by Lewis Carroll from Alice in Wonderland I came up with the idea of doing a Cheshire cat page. I have always seen the cat as philosophical in nature, a reminder of how things are or could be.Hop on over to the Globecraft and Piccolo Blog for my Cheshire Cat journal page tutorial with Globecraft and Piccolo products!
If you would like to read Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has a free EBook of Alice in Wonderland.The Project Gutenberg website preserves literary and other intellectual works, and make copies of or products based on those works available free of charge or at the lowest possible cost to the people of the United States and the rest of the world. Many of the books are free because their copyright has expired.
Until next time, safe travels!
Antique treasures inspire new art
A few months back I found a box full of mementos of my grandmother’s on my father’s side of the family. It was full of vintage family photos, many I had never seen, of my grandparents, father and many other family members. Sadly since many of them are now passed these items are my window, not only into my family’s past but snippets of history. So many of the photos are in good condition and I went about scanning them in to be able to send to family members who might be able to help me finding out who is in the photos. Through this treasure trove of letters, photos and mementos I found out my grandmother Luella Ann was into fashion, jewelry and crafts. I even found a vintage rhinestone and pearl setter for fabric and jewelry of her’s!
So here comes the Globecraft and Piccolo Design Team June Challenge to create a a scrapbook layout using G&P products. This was a bit of a true challenge to me since I do a lot of papercrafts but rarely do scrapbook layouts. So this sent me scrambling to find something to inspire me. My little light bulb of inspiration lit up and I thought of all of the lovely old photos of my family!
I went searching through the photos trying to find the best. Some photos had names and dates on them and after a while I was able to find photos of my grandmother from when she was a child (born in 1905) all the way into the 1980s!
I picked some of my favorite photos of my grandmother Luella Ann and printed them out on photopaper (I didn’t want to use the originals in my art, they are too precious to alter). Then started to work up a layout showing her as a teenager, getting married and spending time with family as an adult. Keeping in mind her love for sunshine yellow, gold and rhinestones, I created a layout using Globecraft and Piccolo products.Hop on over to the Globecraft and Piccolo Blog for my scrapbook layout tutorial, honoring my grandmother using these vintage photos, with Globecraft and Piccolo products!
What type of inspiration might you find in old photos and memento boxes? 🙂
Until next time, safe travels!
Ancient and Contemporary Inspired Artistry