My One Hundred and Eleventyith Sale!

I've always wanted a reason to say "hundred and eleventyith." And now I have one! Today my etsy sales number reached 111.

In celebration, a prize must be awarded.

Up for grabs is one of the 4 hand cut owl collages seen below. Each is 8 inches x 10 inches with about 1/4" of dimensionality.





How to enter:

1) Choose your favorite of the 4 and comment on this post telling me which one is your favorite.
2) Share a link to a favorite crafty blog of yours and you will be entered to win your favorite owl!
3) If you get a friend to enter, your name will go into the "bag" for each friend you refer. Make sure your friend says that you sent them my way so's you can get credit for the referral.

4) HERE's THE HITCH/FINE PRINT/CATCH: In order for this contest to be "ON," there must be a minimum of 11 unique/different entries. In other words, a minimum of 11 different people need to enter the contest by the deadline in order for this contest to be ON. So get going, people!!

On January 1, 2010, I will select the winner. The winning entry will receive the owl collage she chose as her favorite. Yahoo!

Anything You Can Do...

...I can do...after watching you do it 80 hundred times, stopping and starting the youtube video every 1.2 seconds, and practicing it with 3 miles of yarn.

An excellent crochet flower tutorial from LittleBirdieSecrets can be found here. And yet, even with all of that help, I remain crochet-impaired. The proof is below...all 5 are from the same video with the same VERY simple baby steps. !!!

Vintage Game Pieces Charm Bracelet

This is a project I have been planning to try for a veeeery long time. Finally, a completed bracelet! I don't know a thing about jewelry making...what are the best jump rings? Do you solder stuff to make it more sturdy? Is it okay to use craft store findings? I DUNNO. But I think it's cute.

Also, please see my Etsy favorites on the right of your screen and consider buying one of those awesome flower scarves. Aren't they lovely? If I weren't worn down with mono, I would make a collage or try to get a treasury (don't know how to do that either!) or something.

xo melissa

A Fabulous Shop Update, If I May Say So!

Oh, there are goodies in the shop and a fresh new batch that I am super excited about!





-New Eye Candy Binder/Organizers in ROCKIN Sassafras Lass papers
-Mail-a-Books in crazy beautiful Que Sera Sera patterned papers
-A new item I have introduced called "Pound O Paper"

In the next shop update, there will be awesome new laminated luggage tags from our favorite papers, awesome 3d bird stickers, glittered Christmas cards, and butterfly collages. WHOA.

Plus, a new set of freakin' awesome vintage game board journals. So STAY TUNED!!!

Mail-a-Book

These little journals fit right into a standard sized envelope. Suspecting that extra postage will be needed if you plan to mail them.

It's Mail-A-Book! The whole set of about 12 of them is made from the K&Co Que Sera Sera paper collection. Love that line.

They will be in the next shop update, tomorrow afternoon!


These Paperchase image mirrors and new owl postcards were in today's update:

Bird Collage Stickers

Here are some of my new *leg-less* bird collage stickers.

If you come to my "At Home Craft Night" on November 22, we will learn how to make these and use them on cards.

Check in the shop for these soon! With legs!!

Christmas Owls for Postcards

Hello friends and owl-lovers,
This year, I plan to make Christmas cards using 4 owl collage images. My plan is to make postcards and sell them in packages of 4 or more. Postcards in bulk are relatively inexpensive, and therefore I can pass the savings on to you! If interest is high, I will consider doing 6 images rather than 4.

Below is image number one. My plan is to do 2 with red and green as the predominant colors, one with blue and white with some green, and one multicolor (that is the one below).

If you think you might be interested in purchasing sets of these postcards as your holiday/new year's cards, leave me a comment with the number of cards you would consider purchasing. This will give me an idea of how many to have printed. The more cards that are printed, the cheaper they are! And the better bargain YOU will get, so if you like these images, tell your friends!

More owl collage images for you...

Peppermint Candy Patterned Paper

I'm not too happy with this year's commercially produced holiday patterned paper...too vintagey, too dark. Too much RED. Plus, I need smaller repeating pattens for collage work and I'm seeing too many large patterns or "scenes."

So, I'm making my own!! Have fun!

This time, for real, I am actually going to GOCCO!

It's time to face my fear of Gocco. Here is the image. SHIVERS!!!

Today's Freebie: Rainbow Polka Dotted Polka Dots

Yay for using patterns in Inkscape!

Freebie Stickers

I am still in the digital phase of designing my own patterned paper. Once I move on to more of a collage look, I will share resources like I promised in an earlier post.

For digital drawings, I use Inkscape. It's free and works on both Windows and PC. Once you complete a drawing, you choose "export bitmap" which saves the document as a .png file. Then you can open it up in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements (like I have) and fiddle with it a bit. The result is something like this - today's freebie:


When making patterns from objects, I find it easier to think in terms of a "sticker sheet" type format, then expand it into a repeating pattern. There are some good Inkscape tutorials out there. For now, I'll just say that you should "group" your images and drag one of the corners to make them smaller. When they are tiny enough to please you, use the "tiled clone" feature to create a repeating pattern.

Here is a smaller repeating pattern:

And here is an even smaller repeating pattern:

Another variation: stripes!

October Open House Party: Dia De Los Muertos & Halloween on Oct. 25

More details on my Facebook Fan Page!

Eye Candy Organizers

Since the age of 9, I believed that a laminating machine was an essential household appliance. Now that I finally have one, I intend to laminate everything without legs.

My brand new product is now HERE! "Eye Candy Organizers" - laminated covers and tabs with all kinds of custom options. I've started with my favorite double sided papers and thanks to the beauty of lamination, both sides are enjoyed! Hooray! This first batch contains papers by Sassafrass Lass, Martha Stewart, and K and Company. Their brilliant designers are what put the candy in these babies.


These are "half sheet" sized ( 9 inches by 6 inches) with papers cut to a smaller size by about a quarter of an inch all around. Laminated pouches that are 10 mil thick (super rigid) are used for the front, back, and for any divider pages. This is an excellent weight for plastic covers in my opinion. I really love the glossy effect created by the plastic coating. Corners are rounded and binder rings are in coordinating colors.





The beauty is that you can reuse these lovely organizers once the pages are full. All you need is a standard 2 hole punch and you can have all of these in one:
-calendar
-pockets for coupons, receipts
-sketchbook
-lined or grid paper
-patterned paper
-scrapbook
-art journal
-class notes
-address book
-message pad
-to do list
-!!!??? something pretty to look at!

These organizers will be listed in the store this week. Each one is fully customizable; you may order it full of paper with a larger or small binder ring OR describe your dream organizer and I will build it for you.


You can add your own bits and papers by acquiring a standard 2 hole punch which is available at any office supply store for a few dollars.

Lots more photos are on my flickr site under the "Eye Candy Organizer" set. Hooray!

Spinners

Over the weekend, I played around with some digital drawings with the idea of creating a set of thematic images to use for card making, journaling, scrapbooking, etc. Right now, I have "games" on my mind. I just won a lot of 125 vintage board games on ebay and I'm still pinching myself about it. In particular, I love those old spinners!

So here are a couple of spinners for you to play with:

Making my Own Patterned Paper

It is TIME for me to learn how to design my own patterned paper. It's either that or bankruptcy via Archivers and Two Peas in a Pod. *SIGH* DAMN YOU SASSAFRASS! Just kidding, Sassafrass Lass papers inspire me daily...but I want to learn how to do it, too.

So I'm experimenting with some patterns with layering of images...dare I call it digital collage? That doesn't sound as fun somehow.

Anyway, here is my first attempt.

In my next post, I'll share some resources I found for tutorials on how to create your own patterned paper as well as some good spots for finding royalty-free images.

Homemade Rocket Pop Crayons

I've been wanting to try this for so, so long. And here are the results of attempt number 1.

I melted crayon bits in the microwave for this project, then poured. The splashing is an annoyance because I wanted clean lines. I intended to make "rainbow pops" but poured too much in the beginning because I couldn't see what I was doing.


So they are kinda funky.

But they color GREAT! I'm gonna try again as soon as I feel like peeling wrappers off of 100 crayons.

Vintage Pattern Restoration

I have a box of fun but really battered old patterns. It would be fun to do something crafty with them, so I decided to take a stab at digital "restoration." Here are the results:

This was the in-between version, where I removed what I felt was unsightly wear, but kept the authenticity.

Does anyone have an opinion on which is better? I am thinking about making a few journals and cards out of these...

FREEBIES! Old US Air Mail Postage Stamps

These are so cool! I found them in a huge stamp collection I won on ebay. They were the only US air mail stamps in among hundreds. I just had to scan them to have them for keeps. Then I thought, HEY! Everyone who loves stamps should be able to play with these, too.

Enjoy!