Happy Valentine's Day!

T'is a day of tortured, unrequited love or the day you man up and confess it.  Let me help you with these wonderful do-it-yourself Valentines!

Free for you, just need to print out!

I Got A Part in BMT's 'Guys & Dolls'!

Oh, I've been away for a little while, I'm terribly sorry.  I've been updating my performance art blog, The Pursuit, with a whole bunch of nutty rehearsal debauchery.  I'm happy to say that I'm carrying a 'family tradition' of sorts and got a part in the ensemble cast of Brampton Music Theatre's Guys & Dolls, and have been recording rehearsals for posterity and memory's sake.

I also thought I'd have a little fun and make some 'fan art'.  Whaddaya think?

Print design is like a grown-up colouring book for me.  I slaved over this thing in ridiculous detail; the specific angle of the fedora, making sure the yellow wasn't too bright, and I went through a billion fonts (sorry, over exaggerating) for Lady Luck's signoff.  I love it.  I may print a few of these off on nice paper, laminate them and give them out as bookmarks to castmates as souveniers.

Well, I guess the work paid off!  I had been asked by the producer during our last rehearsal if I could design the program for the show.  I am incredibly excited.  This will be loads of fun.  I'll be posting a few sneak peeks here of some stuff I come up with for your perusal!

In the meantime, feel free to check out The Pursuit and follow the blog to keep updated with the G&D rehearsal process and where to get tickets!

How to make mini pom-poms!

I came across something on Facebook from Vogue Knitting that I've got to try.  It looks pretty simple, too!

Now I've got to find something to cover in pom-poms ... I'll be back ...

Catchup from the Holidays ...

Hi everybody!  It's been a while ...

Since the new job, I hadn't been making too much jewelry as of late, which has really been taking its toll on me recently.  It's all been a focus of clearing out stuff I'm not using, being more organized with my supplies and setting up a workspace that can be packed away a little more easily.  I have lofty ideas, but they're attainable.  I have come a little ways since my last purge; sometimes it takes more than one!

My flakiness might also be an affect of the closing of my Etsy shop.  I will say that I've learned quite a bit from my Etsy experience that I can take to further pursuits.  I may open up shop again!  All in due time ...

My recent posts may have given you a bit of a toothache; my modest kitchen turned into a badass cookie machine over the holidays, as I had opted to bake some delicious treats for family and friends.  As much as I didn't want to see another cookie between Christmas and New Years, I've got loads of ideas for Valentines Day ... as well as branching out on some other nifty baking ventures.

And with all that cookie karma that I gave out, Nick and I got something really nifty this year.  My Dad and stepmum had made us a set of stackable wood 'book cubes' made from knotty pine.  We've got a rather large book collection, and it was nice to see it from stacks on the floor to a unique bookcase that is easily moveable if we move or decide to change things around.  We made even add to it with our own cubes, if we're feeling ambitious!  Thank you, thank you, Dad and M - they're beautiful!

Merry Christmas!

May your days be merry and bright!

Cheating the Recipe ... and Winning!

I'm very lucky that I've 'bastardized' these recipes and had some reasonable success.  It's all about trial and error sometimes.  It's more fun that way.  Come check out the latest concoctions!

I had originally found this recipe on the back of the of a bulk box of Sour Patch Zombies when I bought them for Halloween.  The recipe is incredibly simple, but patience is needed when you're moulding your little dumplings ... or whatever you'd like to do.  I've scanned the clipping for the original recipe, called 'Monster Toes'.

Late Night Shortbread

So, I couldn't sleep last night with all the excitement and nerves of my BMT Youth Troupe classes performing after ten weeks.  The Theatre Tech class is having a bake sale to support the upcoming youth troupe production of Disney's Camp Rock: The Musical, and just so happens my work friend LA had let me borrow all sorts of fun baking stuff - including a guitar-shaped cookie cutter.

So, what's a girl to do when she can't sleep?  Fish out the secret family shortbread recipe and try it out for the first time.  I'd like to tell everyone at this point it was about three in the morning when I decided this.

Again, forgive the picture, it's from my iTouch.

No, I'm not giving you the recipe.  It's a family secret.  What you do see sprinkled on top are crushed rainbow candy canes, because who doesn't like candy with their shortbread?

The performances went very well, and the cookies sold out rather quickly.  Not bad for the first batch ever.  In life.  Mum, aren't you proud of me?

I'm going to bed now.

The Quickest Way To Santa's Heart - Christmas Baking!

I loved giving and receiving baked goods for the holidays.  Knowing the person took time to make it with love, and you're anything like me, you want to get every detail right in presentation.  Experimentation is always fun, too, adding different ingredients and having a little fun with different recipes.

I've been posting photos on Facebook of the stuff right out of the oven with my iTouch, with some fantastic feedback and demands for recipes.  So, I relent.  Here they are - and the best part is that you can probably mess with 'em a little yourself!

:: Banana Apple Cinnamon Tannenbaum Cakes ::

A good idea for those extra beads ...

After a while of actually having this up on my wall, it had suddenly hit me that I haven't shared this beautiful piece of art all of you.

My craftie-bestie Karen - responsible for a certain green dress - took a dive into my destash bead collection with a very ingenious idea.  The result was this beautiful surprise she made for me.

Karen had mounted this beautiful spring day bead picture on layers of recycled cardboard.  She used a paint with a really nice lacquer finish that complements the sheen of the beads oh-so-beautifully.  I think this whole project started off when she saw a collection of acrylic rose beads in the destash pile, she had asked at the time if I was doing anything with them.

I'm currently cleaning up the workspace/dining room right now to make my supplies less conspicuous, so it's in a safe place with no risk of damage.  I'll be finding a new place to hang it with love.  :)

Crystal Lori Boyd: (Paint) Splatter Analyst

I've got a good friend I want you to meet.  She does wonders with the unexpected.

Please meet my friend Crystal Lori Boyd, an artist here in Brampton, Ontario.  I'd like to call her an 'extreme fingerpainter', but I'm worried it doesn't speak of the maturity in her art.  Crystal is what we'd like to call 'green-conscious', using recycled and reused materials in her art.  Most of her canvases consist of cabinet doors, countertops, wood planks, tiles and probably lots more I can't think of but she's used.  She also likes to 'texturize' her paintings by including crumpled materials drenched in paint and moulded much like the splatters on the canvas - her favourite lately being party streamers.  It makes for an incredible effect that adds wondrous depth and dimension.

She confesses that she doesn't use paintbrushes very often, but does most of her creations in paint with her hands.  Crystal had done an interactive art show for Synergy's Grand Opening at the end of the summer, and I'm a fool for not getting any pictures - I had sworn there were some!  Covered in paint up to her forearms and all over her legs, she had produced some beautiful paint in front of a wonderstruck audience.  Here are pictures of some of the finished pieces she had brought with her and completed at the event.

Happy Halloween, Indy Fans!

(EGADS!  This didn't publish!  Damned this Auto-Publish option ...)

It's a great time of year when it comes to being anything you want for one day a year.  This year, I was a zombie at Toronto's Zombie Walk, with a few souveniers to remember the day.   The work-safe costume was the ever-popular Indiana Jones, this time with my official Indiana Jones plush whip that plays the theme song from a button on the handle.

Yup, I'm a geek.  More appropriately, fangirl.  Lemme show you my bunch of official Indiana Jones merchandise gifted and collected over the years.

:: Indiana Jones plush whip - press the button on the handle to play whip cracking sounds and Indy theme :: "Idaho Spuds" Mr. Potato Head, complete with golden idol, bullwhip and theme-playing fedora :: Remote control Giant Ant with Crystal Skull controls, from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ::

FanBoy, FanGirl ... FanDog?

If you've been strolling Facebook lately, you may have seen this photo.  Fanboys and girls with pets, beware!

The ATAT Puppy.  Oh yeah.

I gotta admit that the 'fangirl' side goes a little crazy over stuff like this.  I was raised on Star Wars and wanted to be Indiana Jones when I grew up.   My boyfriend and I have action figures and comic books galore between the two of us, and we keep collection on occasion when a really awesome find comes our way.

This one is pretty awesome, but I'm not too sure it'll go over well with our toy-breed chihuahua, Shiva.  Besides, I'm not entirely sure we can get something that small.  And Shiva's a "chewer".

How 'bout your pets?  Do they have costumes planned, or are they just gonna chew it up on you? 

New/Old Jewelry Ideas With Paper!

Well, they're new because it's the first time I'm talking about 'em.  They're old because I made them a little while ago!

I apologize for the absence!  Shout! The Mod Musical is in full swing for opening night on Friday, May 6th, and I've been up to my eyeballs in dance steps and Dusty Springfield to put on a fabulous show.  In the meantime, I've been meaning to show you some excellent experiments turned awesome in paper bead making!

I found a tattered vintage copy of Rudyard Kipling's short stories, pages hanging on by a whisper of the thread binding.  I ripped a few out from strategic places and made the book itself a 'book safe', whilst the pages rescued were made into paper beads.  I had also made coloured paper beads with traditional origami paper made from recycled materials - you can see chunks of fibres and print newspaper in the sheets!  The paper itself is delicate enough for fine rolls and manipulations, and is strong enough to take some abuse during the process.  I'll be posting my very first 'How-To' for my very simple - and potentially messy - paper-bead making process with some everyday household items hopefully very soon.  It's a fantastic personal touch to any design!

Making a Homemade 'White Box' for Product Photography

I've come a long way, baby.

That's how it happens with photography.  I've had a lot of practice with lots of sub-level cameras, where my good shots were out of luck.   My parents had given me a Canon PowerShot IS 2000 a few years ago for my birthday - it's incredible.  (All the shots on this blog thus far have been captured by this camera!)  Now that I finally have a camera that is meant to take high-quality pictures for the detail I want, I've taken full advantage of its features.  The only issue - creating an ambience for the product itself, with both lighting and setting.

These elements are more crucial - and a lot more difficult - to put together than expected.  When I first opened shop on Etsy, my jewelry was photographed against fabrics of my collection of pashmina scarves and patterned clothes.  I love those scarves, and I've got great clothes, and I turned on all the lights in the room.  I thought it was enough, really.  Some of the shots turned out to have a great atmosphere to them, but I would credit that more to luck.  Some of them, I found, got lost in the background of the crazy pattern, or the colours didn't come through right.  I didn't get it myself - with my own eye, it looked great.  Why didn't it come out the way I saw it in the camera's lens?  A good example of those shots will be from my first Artbeads.com Design Project with Swarovski materials.  Nice idea, poor execution.  Really, I just didn't know where I was really going, or what I was really doing.

Strolling around Etsy and a few forums, it seems that the common opinion is that when all else fails, the 'white box' is the best.  It brings a true representation to the colours and it's easier to balance out tricky elements like shadow, brightness, sharpness and exposure.  It also helps if you have a really good camera, like my PowerShot.  Ten mexapixels!  It's amazing in macro!

Lemme show you my very simple setup.

The cardboard box was something that had fit an electric vegetable steamer.  The cardstock is opaque and stiff, as supposed to regular paper that may not give a true white background and flop over.  The carstock piece on the bottom isn't fixed in, and is occasionally replaced with another colour background.  (You can see examples of that in the Artbeads.com Pantone Fall 2010 Project, where I had used a page from a French wine calendar, or the Artbeads.com Winter Enchantment Project, using a friend's artwork to complement the presentation.)

The Dress Form Search Continues!

Thanks to the friends and family who have helped me on my search for a dress form/mannequin for jewelry display and product photography.  I've seen photographs of many beautiful jewelry displays, draped over vintage forms, providing an illusion without a live model how the piece will sit on the body's natural curves.  I'm very excited to get my hands on one and try some photography experiments!  Check out these inspirational photos of dress forms being used as jewelry displays.

The ideal dress form for me!

And, of course, all of this got me distracted into making another Etsy Treasury!  Enjoy!

Because Naked Tin Cans Are Just Indecent ...

A wonderful thing about being a repurposing DIYer is the handy stuff around the home that can be transformed into some pretty cool stuff.  All you need is imagination!  Of course, the flipside of that problem is the potential hording it can cause.  Yikes.  Well, I've been hanging onto these empty soup cans for a little while, I think it's about time I start this project I've had in mind - decoupage soup tins!

These handy - and uniquely decorated - items can serve many purposes on their own.  I keep various containers of miscellaneous items that are too random to be sorted with regular bead supplies and whatnot, as well as holders for paintbrushes, rulers, pens, pencils, Sharpies, pliers and other tools I need within an arms reach.  Another idea I've had would be candle holders - drilling holes in patterns with either a small votive or a tea light inside.  I'd like to make them for our balcony when the renovations are finished for our apartment building.  Armed with lots of paper ephemera, and with the help of my friendly neighbour, Dejah, we've done some pretty awesome work!

I had made a 'book safe' from a hardcover vintage textbook about the history of Nevada for Nick, and used the cutout pages to decoupage these two cans.  One features text with a 1864 map of the State of Nevada, the other features various images from the history of this great state.  I've started to brush a gloss over the cans, but I think it'll need another coat.

Cardboard Ninja!

There are a couple of kids on our apartment floor that like to act out role playing games: mobsters, soldiers, cowboys and aliens, cops and robbers, all that kind of kid nonsense.  I've had a few cellophane rolls lying around ready to be thrown out, but had decided on something else - ninja swords!

Simple enough to make: I had a sheet of stiff cardboard I had cut two circles, cut an X in the middle and pushed the cardboard tube through.  With the triangles from the X cuts flapped downward, I taped the pieces securely with coloured electrical tape - blue and black - and added a couple of toy ninjas to the handles for an awesome addition.

Of course, I couldn't hand these over to the kids without testing them out myself.

Well, they had passed my test!  Let's see what the kids think.

Seems they like 'em!  

My father has been complaining to me that kids nowadays have no imagination.  I beg to differ every Sunday afternoon when I hear these kids playing in the hallways.  I'm sure they're looking forward to warmer weather just as much as I am!

"Hey, Do You Have Any More Of Those Reindeer Antlers?": A Handmade Christmas, 2009

The benefit of a handmade Christmas is the money you save; that's the first thought that may come to your mind.  I'll be honest, that's the first thought that came to mine.  Since Nick and I moved out on our own, we knew we were working on a far stricter budget than we anticipated.  Fresh-baked cookies in a dollar-store Christmas tin may be cost-thrifty, but don't doubt that you'll be the hit of every Christmas party and family gathering - we certainly were!  Nick and I spent some quality time together in the kitchen making some Christmas treats, starting a tradition I hope we can keep up for next Christmas!

These cookies were a mainstay around the apartment during Christmas.  There was always a fresh batch made every few days, either baking for friends or family.  To be honest, probably half of each batch made ended up in our tummies.  This is your standard choco-chip cookie recipe, replacing chocolate chips with red and green M&M's and adding a quarter-cup of cocoa powder for extra chocolateyness.  (It's a word now!)

 

 

Handmade Christmas Cards

Yes, yes, yes!  More holiday cheer!

I've always loved receiving handmade greeting cards.  The sentimentality of receiving a gift that someone has put lots of tender loving care into its creation says a lot more than a store-bought gift.  For someone on a holiday budget, it's the perfect option to give a token of love!

I thought I'd take a try on some handmade Christmas cards, since I love the art of 'cut n' paste' since I was a kid.  My talent has become quite refined since childhood, and I'm rather happy with the result!  Let me take you on a walk through what I had been doing over the past few days ...

Shooting Star card in red/yellow

 

 

MORE Handmade Christmas Ornaments!

The holiday season is upon us!  Well, it's a month and a bit away, and the perfect time to start preparing was a month ago for artisans like myself!  I've been working like wildfire making a whole slew of Christmas goodies, kicking it off with my first custom order of the season.  I snagged these felt cutouts from my local dollar store when my imagination went wild with the ideas these little wonders gave me!  (I've already used them as part of my Christmas gift wrap!)  These ones can be hung from doorknobs, tree boughs, rear view mirrors, or anywhere else you'd like to enjoy these lovely holiday fineries.  I even had time to list them in my Etsy shop, with more fun holiday stuff to come!  You'll find it all in the d b c H O L I D A Y section in the shop.

Star of Light ornament