Think Crafts Blog - Craft Ideas and Projects - CreateForLess

Twitter has become a place where artists and crafters are promoting their wares. Twitter.com is a social media-networking site where you post messages in 140 characters/spaces or less. You sign up like most websites creating a screen name. For example on Twitter I’m MariaNerius and you’ll find other creative screen names like GardensAndCrafts (tips on gardening and using your garden elements to craft), BookGal (help with Twitter and books), and JavaCupCake (she sells her crafts on Esty.com)

I enjoy spending a few minutes each day reading the updates from those I follow (you find people to follow through the Tweeter search engine or other search directories like Twellow.com) And I post an update (usually sharing a great find on CreateForLess.com or to let others know I’ve posted something new on my blog) to those that follow me.

It’s a cheap tool to promote yourself, your crafts, your business, your blog, or anything else that meets your fancy. You’ll build a following over time and you’ll have a way to send a message out to potential customers. Come on and join the fun! Give me a tweet today!

I made this card to celebrate tweeting!

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I started rubberstamping over 20 years ago as a way to stamp out my frustrations as a not so talented artist. My husband can draw, but I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler. I admire those who have put in the time to learn and practice the art of drawing, yet for me it is easier to become an artist by inking a rubberstamp and pressing that image onto a surface. Stamps and all that is stamping have come a long way since my primitive beginnings.

I gave up rubberstamping a few years ago. I gave away most of my stamp collection and all the accessories that go with stamping like inks, embossing powders, markers, watercolor pencils, and heat guns. I saved my favorite stamps; mainly sea life and florals. I stored them all away safe from the heat and light. It was a tough decision. But I wanted to concentrate on other crafts.

I stamped onto acetate to create this card.

Recently, I’m feeling that old stamping itch again. I’ve moved my stamps to an area closer to my workstation here in the studio. I’ve been looking at all the new inks and embossing powders. I ordered some watercolor pencils and a set of cool markers. I got out a box of my favorite projects reviewing how delightful rubberstamping can be. I love the techniques of coloring stamped images and using those images to create a card or altered book.

They say everything old is new again. I’m re-discovering my joy of rubberstamping and it is exciting. Is there a craft you put aside? Do you ever feel the pull and want to give it another try? I’ll let you know what I find in my new stamping adventures!

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Guest Blogger, Gillian, from the Blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

Ahhh, Plastic. Where would our children’s art projects be without it? Remember that commercial from a few years ago, Plastic makes it Possible? Well, plastic does indeed make it possible. It doesn’t matter how many hand made, toxin free, eco friendly wooden toys I buy my kids; they like plastic. They like shrinky dinks (which I admit are totally fun but also a little scary) they like foam stickers, they like the cheap plastic balls at the toy store, we’re even reading a book in which one of the characters is named Plastic, and they love it.

And to be honest, so do I. My son has spent at least two hours a day for the past week obsessivly making various things out of Perler Beads. Remember those? I think they’ve been around since the times of the Dinosaurs. I certainly remember spending hours of my childhood carefully designing cats and dogs and soccer balls out of them for my mother to iron together. And now I may have to buy stock in them. If they can keep him this busy all summer, they are worth their weight in gold, which admittedly, wouldn’t be that much since they are about as light as a bag of feathers, but you get my point.

So far Briton has created balls and stars and a dinosaur or three, several suns and some kind of psychedelic shapes that have no name. All of his teachers got something the last day of school. The neighbor girl now has her very own Perler Briton. My husband has at least four on his desk at work and I have a kaleidoscope of plastic thingys artfully arranged on my dresser between my Tiffany pearls and my Grandmothers jewelry box. All hail king plastic.

Does your child love plastic they way mine does? What kinds of cool thing have they made from Perler beads? And do you secretly love to watch them melt together the way I do? Come on…spill!

Click here, to read more of Gillian’s blog posts.

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Returning Guest Blogger, Diane Gilleland, from the Blog and Podcast “CraftyPod“.

I used to Drink out of my Bracelet.

Tiffany Threadgould wrote the greatest article for CRAFT 03 about turning plastic soda bottles into all kinds of useful things. I especially loved her Photo Cuff bracelets.

Ever since that article, I’ve been eyeing the plastic bottles in my recycle bin, and last night, lightning struck. Here’s my bottle-bracelet variation, using felt!

A 16-oz (500 ml) water bottle makes a particularly good bracelet, fitting my wrist comfortably with a little room to spare. Besides, many water bottles have nifty horizontal ridges around their middles, which make for perfect cutting guidelines.

You can use a utility knife or even a sharp kitchen knife to poke through the side of your bottle. (Be very careful with this! Make sure the bottle is on a stable surface, and anchor it so it want roll or jump.)

Using the slit you’ve just made as your starting point, cut all the way around the bottle, using one of those ridges as your guide. Scissors will work fine for this - use the big, tough ones you keep around for the heftier cutting jobs.

Now, make a perpendicular cut (see the blue arrow above). Then choose another ridge to cut along - based on how wide you want your finished cuff to be. Cut around the bottle again.

Great! You now have a rough bracelet. You’ll want to trim about 1/4″ to 1/2″ off of each end, so there’s a little gap in the middle. You’ll also want to round off the ends. I used a circle template and traced it with a Sharpie, but you can also trim the ends free-hand.

Now, cut two strips of felt. They should be a little longer than your plastic form, and about 1/4″ wider. Decide at this point how you want to decorate your bracelet. There are lots of possibilities here - you can do felt applique, or bead embroidery, or regular embroidery, or silkscreen, or stencils . . . .

Do all your embellishment on one of the felt pieces. I recommend keeping about 1/2″ of felt at each end of this strip unadorned, because you may want to trim it off later. (I didn’t do that here, and it came back to bite me . . . .)

Now, put your two pieces of felt together, right sides out. Begin joining them with a whipstitch along one of the long edges. Stop stitching when you reach the rounded end. (By the way, futuregirl has the best tutorial ever on how to stitch felt.)

Insert your plastic form into the felt, and adjust the felt as necessary so it lies smoothly against the plastic. Wiggle the plastic form a bit so that you have a roughly equal amount of felt at each of the rounded ends of the bracelet. Now, you might need to trim a little felt away from the ends, so that you have about 1/8″ sticking out beyond the plastic form.

After that, continue your whip-stitching until you’ve stitched the felt together completely.

And that’s it! These bracelets are lightweight and comfortable to wear, and hold their shape beautifully.

Be sure to check out Tiffany’s website for lots more great reclaimed-material projects, including a soda bottle candy dish.

To read more of CraftyPod, Visit her website.

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 After reconnecting with many of my designer friends at a recent trade show I discovered many have wonderful and inspiring blogs!

Meet Gail Friend. I love reading her blog especially Pink Fridays! There is a wonderful musical track while you read… very relaxing.  I also enjoyed her Show and Tell posts. Do you remember Show and Tell at school?

Meet Sheryl Westleigh. Her blog is full of sculture and delightful jewelry designs.  It’s pure pleasure to browse through the posts.  The images are crisp and clean.

Meet Madeline Faiella. Madeline enjoys many creative techniques and includes links to some fabulous creative sites.  She’s a fire cracker and her blog has energy!

Meet Phyllis Dobbs. If you enjoy and love quilting then you must visit with Phyllis! I learned so much from her various show reviews. 

Do you have any blogs you can’t live without?  Let me know so I can check them out too!

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