Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Scrapbook Soup Online!

Scrapbook Soup began broadcasting online at scrapbooksouptv.com  effective April 6th.  A new show is aired each week starting a noon EST on Fridays.  The show is available until the following Friday.

Episode 107 is airing now.   Julianna Hudgins opens the show by showing us how to create a cut and embossed fall card featuring Spellbinders dies. Then Julie Fei Fan Balzer and I present a wooden Advent Calender on behalf of Kaisercraft.  I love this project, since it's all about découpaging scrapbook paper onto wood then adding embellishments you might normally use for paper crafting projects. I think it's fun to be able to use all that neat stuff on other things besides cards and scrapbook pages!  Jo Pearson from Michaels Arts & Crafts stores shows us how to make a canvas wall hanging and at the end of the show Julie FFB shares an idea for using glue resist to embellish paper and fabric projects.

Photos and instructions for all the projects are on our website.  Select projects to download as many pdfs as you like.  You may also find projects from past episodes of Scrapbook Memories.  Just select a show to see thumbnail photos of all the featured projects.  Enjoy!  Y'all come back now!

Yours truly,
Julie :)

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Designer Crafts Connection - First Monday

Our theme for this month is Quick'n EZ jewelry, or a variation thereof.  We allow a lot of leeway for personal creativity and truth be told, having a monthly theme is only to provide a little structure to our First Monday posts.  

I'm not known as a jewelry designer, but I enjoy making jewelry pieces.  It's nice to do something different every once in a while and recently I even had a piece published in Bead Design Studio magazine.  My sister, on the other hand makes beautiful sea glass jewelry.   These are some of her designs:





I love the way she also includes small pieces of decorative pottery. 

Here's the necklace that was in the magazine with matching earrings.




Believe it or not the earrings really were Quick'n EZ to make.  It was just a matter of threading beads onto a head pin, making a simple loop at the top then adding earring wires.  Here are some step by steps I created for a Bead Landing booklet a couple of years ago which show you how:

1.  Thread beads onto the head pin then bend the end at a right angle.

 

2.  Use round nose needle nose pliers to curl the end into a loop.
 

  

Let's not forget jewelry for the little girls in our lives.  My granddaughter has been an avid fan of Disney Princesses, Tinkerbell and now "Hello Kitty" is all the rage.   I received some "Hello Kitty" and hot pink Duck tape a few months ago and thought it would be fun to re-cycle a soda can into a set of special bracelets for her.


Believe me, it doesn't get any easier than this.  I used scissors to cut the soda can into rings then covered them with duck tape.  Make sure to cover all the edges since the aluminum can be pretty sharp.  I used Velcro® for the closures.  All little (and big) girls love bling, so I added strips of Bella Bling Black Border lines adhesive jewels from Ruby Rock-It.  You can also cut rings from plastic drink bottles for the bracelets; be sure to look for the ones that don't have ridges. 

For more jewelry ideas be sure to hop forward through the Designer Crafts Connection webring wherever you see this logo in the sidebar.

 

Members of this group are designers in the Arts & Crafts and Gift industries.  We're not necessarily professional bloggers, we're professional designers, but enjoy sharing projects and techniques to promote crafts through our blogs.  Many of us are designer members of the Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) which is a trade association and we work with manufacturers to develop products and design projects that we hope will inspire you to craft.  Each one of us has our own style of crafting and we work in many different mediums, so be sure to hop around to see a wide variety of ideas sure to amaze and inspire!

Check back with us on May 12th when we will be featuring projects designed with products from Impress Arts!  Enjoy!  Y'all come back now............

Yours truly,
Julie :) 


Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Projects Old & New

I've been on a self-imposed vacation.... :)   It's good to get away, but it's always nice to get back again.  I've been weeding flower beds and planting flowers.  I only hope the flowers grow as well as the weeds did.  I'll let ya know in a week or two....... 

As you know, we've just finished taping series 200 of Scrapbook Soup.  At the beginning of each show, Julie and I share projects, products or information based on a theme that the producer gives us.  Once the shows start to air, I'll share these with you, but while I was searching for appropriate "things", I re-discovered all kinds of projects.  Many of them were created quite some time ago, but, even though the colors, or papers I used may be a little dated, the ideas are still pretty good and may be worth re-cycling...    I also thought it might be fun to share projects I've created more recently that you won't see on Scrapbook Soup.  Instead of showcasing them here, I added a Pinterest board, entitled "My Projects - Old & New".  I've "pinned" a few already and will be adding more over the next few days, weeks and maybe months.  You can check out my board here, http://pinterest.com/juliemcguffee/.  Enjoy!

Yours truly,
Julie :)