Completely Pointless Saturday Album

I’m really excited to teach this class at Paper Niche in a little over 2 weeks.  It’s based on –of all things- envelopes!  Super simple to put together and looks great.  I chose Little Yellow Bicycle’s Saturday line for the paper and went with plain brown envelopes to compliment the color scheme.  Since dollies are the rage, I went with it and chose Tim Holtz’ Distressed Doily edge die, but really, it looks great with any edge!

See that pocket?  Looks pretty good, huh.  I’ll teach you how to create it in the class too.  You’ll come away with mastery in a great binding system and tag construction techniques that you can reproduce with lots of variations. 

Class hasn’t been posted on Paper Niche’s blog yet but the class is scheduled for Saturday, June 16 from 11-3 pm.  The project is also on display in the store if you want to see if first-hand.  I’ll let you know when the link is up to purchase the class.

Happy Tuesday,  now go create!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Started off the weekend with a Friday Crop at Paper Niche.  Nice to be able to create with a group of like minded people who offer support and inspiration.  On Saturday we braved Ft. Lauderdale Beach for a family picnic and to celebrate a birthday.  Great weather and we got to watch part of the Beach Volleyball  tournament that was happening on the beach.  

Traffic in the morning wasn't bad, we got there early.  But trying to get out at 4:00 pm reminded me why we don't go to the beach on weekends.  Between the bridge going up on 17th street and trying to navigate all the traffic from multiple event on the beach for Memorial Day Weekend, it took us about an hour to get home.

Checked my email this morning and was delighted to discover that I'd been included in another Treasury on ETSY, this one themed for Memorial Day Weekend.  This is the Photo Album that was included in the treasury. 

You can see the entire treasury here:

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.  I'm going to pay a visit to my dad and thank him again for serving in WWII. After all, it's why we celebrate this weekend.

I'm Honored!

If you look to the right of this post, you'll see that I have an ETSY Shop.  For those of you unfamiliar, its a place where I (and many, many more crafty individuals) sell what we make.  I'm honored this month in an interview on the TEAM FEST Page about my craft space.  Here's the disclaimer.  It required photos to accompany the article.  It took me 2 weeks of cleaning to get it to a photo-presentable state. Not 2 weeks straight. I'd clean some, then create some. It got messy again and I started all over.  You get the picture. 

TEAM FEST is a group of Florida Artists who have come together in support and promotion of our work. FEST stands for Florida Etsy Street Team. ETSY launched in June 2005 and has become the eBay of handmade goods. Here's a link to the article:

http://etsyfest.blogspot.com/

Take a look at the article and then go explore the ETSY site.  But I warn you, it's kind of like Pinterest, time just flies by. . . . . . . .

You Should Have Been There!

Yesterday at Paper Niche I taught three very talented women how to construct and embellish a bookcase and books from the Kaisercraft Beyond The Page Collection.  We had a ball!

 I try to teach with dual goals:

• Learn something new – a technique, a medium, a skill

• Stretch you boundaries – this is YOUR book, bookcase, album, home decore piece so make it YOUR OWN!

The ladies in this class took that to heart and delivered in a big way. Each individualized their project to make it their own which I love.  I always encourage students to break out of their comfort zone and not copy my example detail for detail.  Dorothy really took that to heart.  Look at what she created!

Amanda, Dorothy & Nicole 

 So thank you Dorothy, Amanda and Nicole for making my Saturday fun and fabulous.

Look for June’s class soon on the Paper Niche site.  I’ll post a link as soon as the class is up on their site.  You’re not going to want to miss this one, it’s an album based on plain old envelopes!

May Class Schedule At Paper Niche

My Olde Curiosity Shoppe Class is up at Paper Niche.  Join me on Saturday, May 12 for some Graphic 45 Goodness.  Here’s the description of the class and there’s a link below that will take you directly to the Paper Niche site so you can save your seat!

Join Barbara in creating this adorable bookcase stacked with Graphic 45 inspired books.  We’ll sand, paint, wallpaper and put together a Kaisercraft Bookcase and then turn our attention on the three books! We’ll use a Graphic 45 eight-inch paper pad to choose papers and stickers for the books. Along the way we’ll create embellishments, stamp, ink and emboss pages. Add your favorite wallet sized pictures and make them your own!

Please bring; craft knife, self-healing mat, 2 foam brushes, scissors, paper cutter, pencil, embossing tool, sanding block or file, score tape or red line tape, wet adhesive (Modge Podge or Scotch), blending tool, Distress Ink in your favorite shade of brown.

Also helpful but available at the shop to share: Xyron Create-A-Sticker, your favorite stamps if you want to further personalize your pages.