Archive for the ‘Eco-Easy’ Category

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Every Wednesday evening at 6 pacific 8 central 9 eastern Lisa Fulmer hosts a fun and educational craft show in the C&T Digital Lounge which I get to be a part of on Jan 19th! My challenge was to take the C&T Blank Board Petal Pots found here and put my signature Craft-Tastic touch on it. Ohh but what will I do? A vintage cork basket of course!

Even if you don’t collect corks this little basket can serve as a part of your home decor in many other ways. Flower pot, photo holder, gift basket, knick knack holder anyone? That’s what’s so great about the Blank Board Petal Pots. They are so versatile and very inexpensive! Don’t forget to join us in the C&T Digital Lounge tomorrow evening at 6 pacific 8 central 9 eastern for some crafting fun. Oh and Lisa always has amazing giveaways too!

Ohh soooo happy to be making my first crafting appearance of 2011 on the Creative EdVentures show “In the Zone” tomorrow evening @ 6 pacific 8 central 9 eastern! Come join us for a craft party full of demos, chat, fun, laughter, and show and tell time for you to share with us what you’ve been working on. I will be demoing this really fun, inexpensive and totally easy eco-chic frame!

If you want to follow along you won’t need to gather much. Here’s what I used:

1. Cereal box or other box laying around
2. Mod Podge
3. Decorative Paper (Die Cuts With A View)
4. Buttons, bobbles and brads
5. Lace or ribbon
6. Two straws
7. Hot glue gun or sturdy glue
8. Alcohol ink or paint
9. Photo or Artwork

*Updated video demo below!*

Need to spruce up your Xmas tree on the cheap? Check out this neat vintage up-cycled ornament craft that I demoed on Cool2Craft!

Materials
-Soda Can

-2 bottle caps -Glitter

-Alcohol ink or acrylic paint

-White glue -Hot glue/gun -Festive embellishments

-Scissors

-Ball point pen

-Pinhole punch or small nail/hammer

Directions
1. Flatten out soda can and cut two 3 inch circles from soda can.

2. Warm glue them together

3. With a ballpoint pen press design lines into your circles. Flip over and outline the top with design lines too.

4. Use alcohol ink or acrylic paint to decorate the circles.

5. Glitter the insides of the bottle caps by adding white glue and topping with glitter.

6. Add embellishments on top of dried glitter with warm glue.

7. Pin hole punch or nail a hole through soda can circles.

8. Sandwich the soda can circles in-between glittered bottle caps with warm glue.

9. Add chord or ornament hanger.

I must admit that may have a cork hoarding problem….. But it’s good to note that my large stash of corks doesn’t come from endless days and nights of drinking wine I actually acquire them from friends and local restaurants. Why? Because corks are a great addition to any crafters stash! That’s right ladies and gents they aren’t just good for sticking pins into anymore! Take my glittered cork tree ornaments for instance. They are equal parts warm/cozy and glam. That paired with the fact that they are easy and virtually free to create makes them a totally addicting project! Check out the cork tree demo LIVE tonight on the Cool2Craft PJ Party @ 6 pacific 8 central 9 eastern.

And here’s the written instructions.

Materials
-Corks (6 for a small ornament sized tree and 10 for a larger tree decoration)
-Screw cap (for larger tree)
-Small cork or half cork (for smaller tree)
-Hot glue gun and hot glue
-White glue (Aileen’s tacky glue)
-Fine glitter (3 colors for a festive look)
-Brads and/or other small festive embellishments (Making Memories Large Snowflake
Brads and Crystal Brads)
-Small eyelet screws
-Craft knife

Directions (Decoration)

1) If you have bottle caps fill them up with your decorative glitters (1 cap per color).
Reserve a cap for your white glue.
2) Decorate both ends of your corks by dipping them into a small amount of white
glue. Immediately dip the glued ends into the glitter making sure not to rub off the
glue or glitter.
3) Repeat this with all corks.
4) To insert brads into the corks use your craft knife to start a small hole and then
gently push your brads into the cork. This should be secure enough without any
glue. If it’s loose secure with a quick dry glue.
5) For other loose embellishments use a quick dry glue

Directions (Assembly)
1) To make your bottom row of corks start with a strip of hot glue on one side of
your first cork then press your second corks’ side to it. Continue making your
bottom row of corks this way. For Large tree your bottom row will be 4 corks. For
the small tree it will be 3 corks.
2) Your second row of corks will rest within the valleys that the first row created but
they valleys have small space in which you don’t want glue to show. To adhere
the corks into the valleys without showing hot glue in your final piece you will
need to place 2 strips of hot glue on either side of the valley and not directly into
the valley. Then quickly place your cork onto the hot glue before it dries.
3) Repeat step 2 but also add a small strip of hot glue to the cork you just placed so
that its’ new neighbor will stick to it and the next valley.
4) Repeat step 2 and 3 for subsequent rows
5) For the trunk you will either adhere a screw bottle cap (open side facing
down), small cork or half cork to the bottom layer of corks with a nickel
size amount of hot glue.
6) For the ornament hook create a hole by working craft knife into the top
cork. Screw in your eyelet screw.

Now decorate the house and have a great holiday! Don’t forget to visit the YouTube channel for more fun projects!

Don’t get me wrong I love love love to carve pumpkins. In fact it’s not really Halloween unless I’ve carved 3 or 4 ghoulish faces onto freshly farmed picked pumpkins. Nothing beats the smell of pumpkin innards and the glow of vibrant orange on Halloween but my pumpkin addiction goes far beyond what nature can provide which is why I made these easy to create paper pumpkins that can be used to decorate your home and table throughout the fall holidays.

The technique is very easy and can be modified to fit your style and decor. If you have kids this would also be a fun assisted craft project. Just watch the video for the basics and have a great time!

Materials

• 9 sheets of printer paper
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Pin hole punch OR regular hole punch
• Stamp’n Up scallop punch
• Spooky stamps
• Stamp pads (black, green and orange)
• Fishing wire or beading string

Fun Alternative Materials

• Markers
• Ribbon
• Foam sheets
• Cardboard
• Glitter
• Stickers
• Brads

Hope you have fun with this project and don’t forget that Craft-Tastic LIVE is every Tuesday night 7 pacific 9 central 10 eastern. Follow the Craft-Tastic schedule on Facebook here! and watch more fun demos on the Andrea Currie crafts Youtube channel here.

I just love playing with new products especially when my first go at it turns into a no fuss cute project! The cherry on top? The fact that I even managed to up-cycle which means it’s not only good for the earth but also great on my wallet! Craft-Tastic I say! Lucky for you that I hosted the Cool2Craft PJ party this Wednesday and recorded my Halloween Charm demo which should make this project even easier for you to create.

Here is what I used:

1)Electric drill

2) Vice (with foam or soft grip)

3) Cool2Cast

4) Eclips gum container (for the molds)

5) Sharipie markers

6) PLAID Dimensional Magic

Before I started decorating my Cool2Cast blanks I sketched out some Halloween characters to get a better idea of the various charms I could make. I think this really helps as a great jumping off point since your art space is quite limited with these little charms.

Watch this quick video to learn more about the project.

The only detail I didn’t cover is how I drilled the 1/16 hole. For that you will use your 1/16 drill bit in your electric drill and set the speed on high. Place the blank in a foam protected vice (to keep the piece from getting marred). Only drill straight in at a high speed BUT don’t forget to pull the bit out and then gently back in so that the casting doesn’t break. Pushing straight down without coming back up every once in a while will surely break the project.

Don’t forget to visit the Andrea Currie Crafts Facebook page for updates on upcoming Craft-Tastic LIVE themes and new fun projects!

This month we turned up the music and crafted our brains out. By “our” I’m speaking of my alter ego and I. This month she had a bit more Lady Gaga in her than I expected! Looking back at the last 30 days of crafts I can only think “Pure unadulterated insanity!” What was I thinking when I made a pom pom shag carpet? And that rockstar makeup/dance routine? Ohh yeah how about the 80′s button hippy? Clearly I’ve lost my mind especially when I refer to my alter ego as a legitimate person. What I’ve learned though is that letting go (of ones mind) can create pure bliss and really fun projects!

Speaking of fixes….. Watch out glitter you have been back burnered by my new obsession with buttons! Lucky me for having very giving  and crafty friends that love to share buttons. My newly formed button stash is pure heaven! The only question I now have is “why didn’t I start collecting these years ago?”

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Check out the last few Episodes of Craft-Tastic LIVE to see the craft insanity!

Musically rock’n episode

Button-Tastic Episode

Yes it has been 2 weeks since my last post but I’m still pretty proud that I actually have crafts to show off especially since I was on 5 planes and awake at ungodly hours. While on said planes I managed to steal some time to doodle with a Faber Castell water color pencil and mini canvas set which was a nice break from the exhausting Amazing Race style traveling I did. I would recommend this type of set for those traveling as it’s small and doesn’t have any materials that will get you strip searched going through security If you are into the strip search thing I recommend trying hot glue gun and a huge pair of scissors! heheehe.

Once back from my trip I somehow managed to summons enough energy to create a cute garden marker project from soda cans and bottle caps for the Garden inspired Craft-Tastic LIVE episode. Watch the full recorded episode here. Then the next night I was challenged to create a soda can pinwheel which I accomplished (kinda). It looks like a pinwheel but acts more like a stick! No movement at all.

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The lack of sleep and total exhaustion has come back to haunt me which is why I was deliriously making yarn pom poms last night….. Somehow I’m hoping something brilliant comes to me before I collapse in a pile of sparkles!

It’s impossible for me to have a good Easter unless I fill up a carton full of colorful eggs. The 2010 Eggs didn’t turn out so EGGstravagant but hey I lost my PAWs Kit and ended up using not so brilliant food coloring instead. Luckily dying eggs wasn’t my main creative endeavor this week because if they were it would have been a craft week FAIL. The Six Pack Birdhouse Organizers I created for Craft-Tastic LIVE redeemed my faith in my crafting week though! Who doesn’t love birdie things and upcycling ta-boot? You can watch the recorded Craft-Tastic LIVE episode on how I made these neato birdhouses here.

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