Month: September 2020

fall garland.

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I made a Fall garland! I might be biased but I am obsessed with it! A combo of mushrooms, gourds, leaves, tiny flowers and hearts, and felt pom poms. Meep, so cute! And I’m going to share how you can make one, too! For this project I used wool-blend felt and felt pom poms from Benzie Design, acrylic felt from Michaels (the green one), nylon jewelry cord from Blue Door Beads, a sewing needle, scissors, and hot glue. Pick your favorite fall color combos for your project! How to: Mushrooms! Create mushrooms by cutting out mushroom tops in assorted mushroom shapes, mushroom stalks, and tiny circles. I like when the mushrooms look a little stubby so I lean towards shorter stalks. Glue the circles to the front of your mushroom tops, and stalks to the back. How to: Gourds! Gourds come in all the shapes so you can cut any shape for your garland. Cut out curved gourd tips and a small leaf for each gourd. Glue on the tips and leaves with just a …

brick stitch.

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I’ve been wanting to take brick stitch with Michelle Feileacan of the Sugar Pond for a while now. She was scheduled to teach at Craftcation 2020 and I actually got into one of her classes, but alas, with the cancellation of the event, so came the cancellation of my craft dreams. (Lol, dramatic.) She recently taught with Craft + Work so I was excited to be able to support a fellow maker and one of my fave craft studios! Michelle sent us a trio of bead colors, needles, wax, thread, earring hooks, and a foam sheet, plus a pattern. These beads are tiny, but apparently people like to use even tinier beads for brick stitch. Michelle taught us a couple of techniques for starting and stopping our pieces, and guided us through her pattern. I asked lots of questions and learned so much! Essentially, you sew through each bead in a way that allows them to rest next to another bead. I messed up the pattern on my first earring, but it was too much …

crafty ladies reunite.

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My meet ups with my crafty lady crew have been on hiatus since Galentine’s Day, but we recently reunited on the interwebs. One of us got a laser cutter so she created and shipped wood initial painting kits to all the crafty ladies. Yes, she even picked paint palettes and filled tiny paint pots for us, and made instructions! (We fancy.) I looked forward to the meet up all week and was excited to spend some creative time together with my friends, but then I was extra surprised and excited to find that our crafty ladies reunion turned into a surprise crafty bebe shower for me! So sweet! They even got Hubby in on it and he sneakily picked up snacks and presents that my friends prepared for the night in. We played games (guess the baby and a very creative scavenger hunt – we had to find some handmade items and the oldest thing in our fridge), chatted, snacked, and I loved seeing everyone’s decorated space. I spy some Feed the Fish co goodies! …

macaron night.

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Macarons by Natalie and Yelp East Bay hosted a macaron decorating night. OMG so fun! Natalie created macaron kits for Yelp Elites and we spent the evening together apart decorating our macarons to look like dumplings and boba. Our kits came with everything we needed to fill and decorate a dozen macarons. Plus, a bonus Yelp macaron that you could have eaten right away if you just couldn’t wait! But in true Yelp Elite form, I resisted so it could be part of the photoshoot. 🙂 Before we got started, Natalie shared her dessert biz story and goals for the future. She’s already a published cookbook author, and has dreams to open her own dessert shop! Then, Natalie demoed how to fill macarons and decorate them in the cutest ways. She provided us with buttercream fillings in Cookies n Cream and Fruity Pebbles flavors, a trio of icing colors, and a food coloring pen, and encouraged us to get creative with our designs. My favorite techniques were the kawaii eyes (with the ‘sparkles’) and creating …

art deco.

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I recently discovered that Michaels hosts free online craft workshops and demos. I signed up for a few jewelry classes that caught my eye. The first was this art deco necklace taught by Danielle Wickes of John Bead. The workshops come with handouts and access to the recording afterwards; you just need to to supply your own materials. In each jewelry class, the instructor features a product that Michaels carries, so their suggested materials list has all the items that you can buy at Michaels (but you can purchase from other places, too, of course). This class featured John Bead Superduo Two-Hole Czech Glass Beads. I’ve always been curious about “weaving” with beads and working with beads with two holes. This project involved both. Danielle went thru the steps pretty quickly for this project. It’s definitely worth it to watch the demo first and then attempt the project later with the recording. I tried to keep up as much as I could and then finished the rest after the class. Not only did I learn …

fall pop-up.

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I teamed up with Craft + Work to put on a virtual fall pop-up! We showcased 28 makers (including myself), and all weekend we hosted 22 creative demos, workshops, and meet the maker sessions, plus we had a huge giveaway. Check out this line up! And peep our giveaway prize packs! Two lucky fans were chosen to win. These prize packs were mega – worth over $250 each – thanks to our generous makers! I was mainly focused on helping produce the show, but I managed to also release a few fall and Halloween goodies including Hey Boo pennants and candy corn clips, plus a felt flower garland in my current favorite color palette, and these tiny Feed the Fish co pins! I also hosted a live pennant demo where I created custom pennants on the spot. I took suggestions from the audience and cut them live. Plus I answered all the felt and cutting questions. My cohost Roberta of Craft + Work and RENNIEGoods taught a leather tassel workshop. I got to join! I’ve …

home.

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Do you ever have those projects that you tuck away and then put off finishing for…forever? My seashell project was one of those projects. I started in 2014 and finally finished over the long weekend. So excited to share! During my last trip to the Philippines in 2009, I collected seashells on all the beaches with my Mom. I had no intention of using them to create an art piece; I just wanted to collect them because pretty. Then in 2014 I ended up designing a project for Darby Smart, which at the time was craft supply company and DIY resource page. My project was a wooden letter covered in seashells and pearl beads. I found the letters at Michaels, and used hot glue to attach the shells and beads. I wanted to spell the word “HOME” but I didn’t have enough seashells. So the tutorial was just an H, and my project was stored away until the next time I could collect more seashells. I haven’t been back to the Philippines since 2009 but …

paint markers.

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I attended the Jenny Lemons virtual craft night on Friday with Dan Garzi, SF artist and designer. Such a fun activity to kick off the weekend! Jenny Lemons sent participants supplies (if you needed them). The craft night supplies included watercolor cards, envelopes, and a set of four paint markers. I had never worked with paint markers before so I was excited to learn. First, we sketched out smaller versions of the evening’s designs: a cactus, a parrot, and a family of pineapple cactus creatures. Dan shared tips on how to achieve proportions and dimension. Here are my sketches: Then, we transferred our designs to the watercolor paper cards. Time to color! Dan shared tips for layering and blending colors with paint markers. I love how the colors are so bold, and you can hide the marker streaks with additional layers. This color combo is so fun, and the black outline is so good. Yay us! Progress so far during class. Spot me! After class I continued on. Here are my final pieces! Thank you …