Art studio on the cheap.....vol.1

one my my many glass palettes.


Well, now we should all be in the swing of 2011 and I am at it as well, cleaning and reorganizing the studio and office (and the house!). After several long car rides and an impromptu trip to the ER (herrroooo kidney stone, where did you come from???) I am in full swing and ready to meet 2011 head on.

I have a love/hate relationship with the craft store. While there are sooooo many awesome things to behold, I get aggravated by the ploys to cash in on an ordinary thing.

So, I'm going to try and post some cool projects along the way to help you get some useful tools in your studio on the cheap.

Project #1: the studio palette

Mission: This palette is a great tool for the crafty maven to have around the studio. If you're an all around crafty person, you will find multiple ways to use this. Painting, polymer clay, etc. Customize the size for your own purposes or make several for different uses.

Supplies:
glass, cut to the size you want (I use old glass from picture frames scavenged from dollar stores, garage sales, and curb side)

foam board (I get nice sheets at the dollar store!)

wide tape (duct, masking, artist, even packing tape will work in a pinch)

paint scraper & razor blades (usually available in the same pkg. at the hardware store for $1/$2


Instructions:

1) measure your glass.

2) cut your foam board approx 3/8" larger on the length and width than the size of your glass. i.e. if your glass is 9" x 12" cut your foam board 9 3/8" x 12 3/8". This will give your glass a slight cushion to prevent it from cracking if dropped or bumped.

3) Center your glass on top of the foam board and use wide tape to wrap the edges.

4) Voila! A reusable palette. Squirt paint on it and go to town! Use your paint scraper to clean the palette when it gets dirty!

Works great with glue, hot glue, paint, or as a surface/palette for polymer clay as well!

Earring Card Tutorial

Hi Friends!

I'm bringing you a fun tutorial! Be nice to me because I haven't done too many and my workspace doesn't have the best lighting for pretty, pretty pictures, although it IS functional.

Making earring cards doesn't have to mean being a professional graphic designer or having them professionally printed, although that would happen in a perfect world with limitless resources. Sometimes, you need something on the fly and this is a good quick fix. I think they have a nice presence, don't scream ugly, and reflect the quality of handmade work.

One of my pet peeves, having a background in graphic design (archaic as it is) is seeing pretty handmade goods on crap-tastic Avery perforated business cards with badly done graphics that are all pixelated. Yuck....

And, in saying that, I bring you this tutorial from a place of love.

Before we begin, let's talk about some basics of package design:

1) KEEP IT SIMPLE. If you don't have the knowledge or resources to have something professionally printed, don't try to make your packaging look like you do.

2) Stick to one or two colors and one or two fonts. More is not always better.

3) Keep it clean. Don't clutter up your packaging with too much information.

Let's get started:
(Remember you can click on the photos to see them better.)


Make sure to use a nice heavy cardstock, not plain from the office store. Make sure it is at least 90#. Scrapbook cardstock is a good fit or if you plan on making a lot, you can order a ream of heavy cardstock from a professional printer


I chose grey for the background and black for my letters, sticking to my KISS rule.







Hope you enjoyed my tutorial! I would love your thoughts! (ummm, good and bad, :)

Are you SMART....

Oooooh, I had a massive lightbulb moment today. And maybe I'm not too smart, but I thought it was a pretty groovy idea.

I'm preparing for the upcoming Indie Craft Parade and I was thinking about payment methods. I do not do enough craft fairs yet to warrant the expense of a credit card machine and many small fairs and outdoor events don't have power available to plug them in...even if you have the mobile capacity to run them. So...the question remains about having some pricier items to sell and customers having enough cash on hand to pay you right then and there.

Customers might love a piece but may not want to part with all of their craft fair cash right then and there...They might want to spread the love around to other vendors, right? I know I do. So that got me thinking about....



Smartphones.

...you know droid, iphone, etc. A LOT more people have these devices now! And, if they have a paypal account and have that app downloaded on their phone, they can send you money right then and there! If you both have smartphones and the paypal app, you can "bump" money right there at the show! WOW! Potential for more sales.



Just a thought...a lot of the buyers at shows are other buyers, who most definitely have paypal & might have a smart phone if they do the majority of their business online....like i do.

Yeah, there's a lot of variables here, I realize that. However, I'm thinking it's a completely viable option...since our society is increasingly mobile and such...

Hmmmmm.

learn more about the paypal app here to see if it seems right for you. I have it and like it immensely but this is a suggestion from me and not an endorsement for paypal.

{photos above from Flickr, click on the photo to take you to the source.}

Handmade Holiday Vol. 1

Handmade Holiday will be a bi-weekly feature through the Holidays giving you some fun easy thrifty ways to enjoy your holiday, the handmade way! Handmade Holiday will focus on packaging and simple gifting to make your holidays more meaningful, less stressful, and better for Mother Earth.

Simple tips to remember throughout the Handmade Holiday:

1} Use what you have. Don't have pretty baker's string? Use butcher's twine. No butcher's twine? Use yarn or embroidery floss. No, embroidery floss? What about dental floss? In college bookmaking we often used dental floss as a substitute for the waxed linen thread used in bookbinding. And if you want to get really creative, the scented kind already sort of smells like the holidays...

2} When giftwrapping, go on a hunt for all things of a similar color scheme. No red and green? All colors can become festive if you go with a single color scheme. Use that long forgotten orange stamp pad, that ugly orange ribbon you bought for some unbeknownst reason and a simple holiday stamp.

3} Just about anything can become wrapping paper. Newspaper, old grocery bags (paper & plastic), old fabric, leftover ugly wrapping paper turned inside out to show the white side.

Here's a simple pennant wrap idea I made using recycled kraft paper, a homemade rubber stamp, and some baker's string:

1} Cut a simple triangle shape out of an eraser. If you don't have an eraser, you could also use a wine cork, piece of foam, or makeup sponge.

2} Gather your stamp pads. I experimented using both several shades of green as well as just red and green. Yes, I've got that many stamp pads.....

3} Find your paper for your wrap and cut it to approximately the size needed to wrap your gift. Here, since my box was already nicely finished, I decided just to make a sleeve to wrap around it.

4} Stamp your triangle in a straight-ish line. Changing the angle around slightly will give it a presence that it's floating in air like a real pennant.

5} wrap your gift and tie with a thin string just above row of stamped pennants. You could also draw a petite line with a black pen for a cute look as well!

Tune in on Wednesday for some more fun ideas using die cut shapes!