Sneaky Sunday

You Go Girl Canvas classMixed media art is a fresh new take on paper crafting that I'm sure you'll love! Learn how to incorporate paper products into a crafty canvas - I will show you how to paint, stamp, and play with different medias to make a beautiful piece of art. All of the supplies needed to complete this canvas are included in the cost of this class, but participants are welcome to bring additional embellishments. Cost is $20 and class will run about 1 1/2 hours. These make great gifts too...there will be other designs/colors/quotes available in class.

Adult Stickers

A fellow school mom posted this on Facebook one day and said she "needed" them but didn't know where to get them. I had some free time...hah who has free time?...and really wanted to give it a shot. 

A few minutes googling images, some quick photoshop work and I had them printed out. After that it was just a matter of punching me out with a circle punch and running it through my handy dandy sticker maker. She loved it and I was so psyched to have made someone's day or hour or whatever. 

Share A project or two

I've been playing with heat transfer vinyl (HTV) and made these two projects in the last few weeks. The blanket is for D's hockey team manager...the most awesome hockey mom and best team manager ever! I put together the design and ironed the HTV directly onto a sweatshirt material blanket. Going to have to make a few more for myself ;)

The other project was a sweater gift for a friend's birthday. I found the sweater at Kohl's and the saying on pinterest. I looked up a lotus flower clipart, designed it on the silhouette software and ironed it on. Quick and easy gift. Bonus...she loves it!!!

Experimenting with Gamsol

I have copic markers, zig markers and wink of stella markers but love to play with color pencils. I bought myself a kit and played with Gamsol while at a crop and on Tuesday while it rained cats and dogs. What is Gamsol?  Gamsol is the best blending medium for colored pencils and a perennial Inky favorite! Gamsol is a brand of artist-grade odorless mineral spirits, which we've packaged into a convenient, sponge-top dabber bottle. This "magical" liquid results in a pretty, almost watercolor-like look since it essentially melts the pencil lines and erases their grainy appearance (from Inky Antics website). It's a fun product to use and I love the look of it. I think I need more practice with it especially with how much color to add and working on the blending and shading. This photos in this tutorial is awesome...too bad I can't read it.

Want a kit for yourself to play with? I don't currently have them in stock but if you're interested, let me know and I'll get some in.

Getting crafty w air plants

Another project inspired by pinterest and etsy. Pins kept popping up on my feed of airplants hanging in shells, stuffed into shells, in bowls, jars etc.

Looks easy enough, right? I bought 5 air plants from TwistedAcres on Etsy and they came in a box on Monday. A nice selection and one that was perfect for a project I had in mind. I played around with them while it poured yesterday and baseball was cancelled.  Here are the results of my craft time...

I just plucked off some of the dried pieces on the ends and stuffed them into the shells we had laying around the house. The bigger shell took 2 plants. These are in the bathroom and won't need to be watered, the steam from our showers should take care of it.

This alien looking thing...this will live in Darin's room. He found the shell so it's his and if the plant is going to live in it, well he's got the perfect spot for it or so he claims. A little fishing line around the plant threaded through the natural holes in the urchin shell and we're good to go. Cool, eh?

Random Friday

Today is a special day so I'm here to wish you a HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!  
And a post is not a complete post without a pic, here's one of the gift we put together for my youngest's classmates. 
ps. Snow day on V-day so we might just have to dress this gift up a little bit more...I'm thinking names on the rulers and a little bit of Wink of Stella on those hearts!

Beyblade Birthday Party

As requested, here is the nitty gritty of my little guy's Beyblade Bash to celebrate his 9th birthday.  The details for the invite are HERE.  Armed with this handy dandy rule book and with the help of my boys we came up with the coolest party ever, if I do say so myself ;)

We set up our living room with the 3 battle arenas they had, and hung up streamers with Arena 1, 2 and 3 labels on them so the competitors would know where to go.  I stayed with the primary colors, red blue and yellow.

 The boy and I spent over an hour coming up with the battle schedule.  We had a regular season - everyone battled each other, followed by the playoffs and ending with a championship game.  The regular season was spread out over the 3 arenas.  Each contestant battled in an arena no more than 3 times.  Each battle also had a referee...contestants that didn't have a battle at the time and a Dad where needed.  Battles in the same slot started at the same time so those that finished early could watch the other battles.  AND each battle was best of 3 to make it more interesting.  Here is my master schedule with the referees handwritten in on the side.

To make it smoother and easier for the contestants, each one also received a laminated copy of their schedule.  Laminating was done using the Xyron 510 machine and its laminating cartridge.

Battle Schedule

Playoff brackets

The cake - the Bakugan colors were perfect so I had the bakery at Walmart make me a cake following the Bakugan theme without the toys and added my own.  I cut out the Beyblade logo from a Beyblade toy package and added a real Beyblade on the cake. 

 Last but not least, I bought a trophy from Target's dollar spot and decked it out with a Beyblade print.

For more on the party, go HERE.