Customized Ice Cream Cartons

Today is an ice cream double whammy. First up you can pop over to Craft Magazine and read my post about how to make homemade pumpkin pie ice cream. My husband and I make this frozen treat every fall and it is always a big hit. So much of a hit we sometimes give it as a gift which brought about today's I Love to Create post. How do you customize and gift wrap ice cream? Well luckily it starts with eating ice cream.


SUPPLIES
Empty Ice Cream Carton
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Packs
Sponge Brush
Fabric Scraps
Ice Cream Cone Applique from Sew Darn Cute
Scissors
Collage Pauge
Rick Rack
Aleene's Tacky Glue


EAT ICE CREAM
If you are like me you always have a carton of ice cream in the freezer. When the carton is empty rinse it out, dry it off and set it aside for revamping.


PAINT
Using a Crafty Chica Paint and sponge brush paint your empty ice cream carton. This may take several coats. I went with a warm fall color palette since my carton was going to hold pumpkin pie ice cream. Allow to dry completely.


DECORATE
I used the applique pattern of an ice cream cone from Jenny Ryan's book Sew Darn Cute to adorn my carton, but feel free to create your own. I traced the image onto 3 different types of fabric in fall pumpkiny colors and cut out. Using Collage Pauge I adhered my ice cream cones to the carton

For extra spice using Aleene's Tacky Glue I also applied gold colored rick-rack to the rim of the carton lid.


VARIATION
I just so happened to have some vintage ice cream themed wrapping paper laying about that begged to be used. I cut the paper to the size I needed and using Collage Pauge Sparkle I applied it to another empty ice cream carton.

Now all that is left to do is make some homemade loquat or pumpkin pie ice cream to fill my cartons with!


Looking for more ice cream goodness? Check out a round up of my Top 10 Favorite Ice Cream Related Blog Posts!

25 Signs That You Love to Create: Holiday Edition!

25 Signs That You Love to Create for the Holidays

1. Red & Green, Blue & Silver or Turquoise & Hot Pink (if you're feeling retro), are suddenly your favorite colors.

2. You think "Black Friday" sales at the mall are for losers; you started shopping for gift-making supplies in July.

3. Your secret love of packaged jingle bells can now be unleashed without embarrassment.

4. You sacrifice your mani/pedi AND hair budgets to get a Yudu, so you can screen print catchy (yet ironic) holiday tees for all of your friends. Here are a couple of suggestions:"Yule be hearing from my people!" or "It 'tis what it 'tis".

5. You notice how the flat sides of a dreidel are the perfect canvas for some Glam-it-Up Crystals!

6. Anything in your house that can be folded, printed or painted on suddenly becomes wrapping paper.

7. You lay awake nights thinking about Christmas card themes and whether or not to actually make the individual cards yourself OR just stage a holiday photo for all of them, which would then include handmade costumes for all subjects involved. It's a really tough decision.

8. You buy knitting needles in sizes that you already own, because they're offered in candy cane colors. You feel that you neeeeeeed them, before you can cast-on for that Fair Isle stocking you want to knit. It just makes sense.

9. Although you're not normally a tea towel kinda gal, you must admit that they're pretty adorable with punch-embroidered holly on them. You then purchase a punch embroidery set and RSVP yes to all of the parties that will require host gifts. Your towels are going to be awesome.

10. You coordinate all of your holiday home decor around ornaments you've made, using Crafty Chica's Rockabilly Ruby glitter.

11. Your excited about the over abundance of advertisements in your mail this time of year, because it means more newspaper for you to turn into yarn to make Extra-Eco Frames for everyone on your gift list.

12. If you can Dremel a hole in it, no item is safe in your house from becoming a tree ornament.

13. You change the organization of your Tulip Fashion Paints so that the holiday colors are in front, thereby including your craft supplies in your decor aesthetic. Oh, you love them so!

14. Instead of reading 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" to your children, you gather them 'round to flip through the Holiday Issue of Martha Stewart Living Magazine.

15. It makes absolute sense to you that the aisles in Michaels stores are filled with wreaths, pine cones and flocking spray as of June 1st--as long as there's also a 50% off coupon to buy them with.

16. Instead of taking vacation days off to visit your out-of-town family for the holidays, you reserve them for December trips to the Bust Craftacular in New York, the Blue Genie Art Bazaar in Austin, and the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago.

17. Instead of tree decorating parties, you throw Make-Your-Own-Merriment soirées. People unwilling to use Fabric Markers or Collage Pauge, are not invited.

18. You feel that the best pairing with spiked, Spiced Cider is crochet.

19. This is your favorite television season, because there tends to be a lot of knitwear in winter episodes.

20. "The Festival of Lights" seems like an open invitation to incorporate LEDs into that cape pattern you saw on Burda Style. You're pretty sure there'll be instructions on how to do that over on the MAKE website.

21. You're campaigning to change the saying, "Give the gift of giving." to, "Make the gift of making." Wait, what?

22. Instead of trolling the pages of Amazon for ideas of gifts to buy, you spend hours looking on Etsy for ideas of gifts to make. You feel better knowing that if you run out of time, you can always purchase something from their that's been handmade by someone else.

23. It's sequin season, right?

24. Starting at around October, your kids' teachers start dropping color hints just in case you should decide to make them a scarf instead of getting them another Starbuck's gift card. They usually bat their eyelashes at the same time.

25. You have a bumper sticker on your car that says, "Honk for Handmade Holidays!" or "Deck the Halls with D.I.Y."

Craft.Rock.Love,

Vickie

iLovetoCreate Teen Crafty Rockstar Necklace

Teen Crafty Rockstar Necklace copyright Margot Potter for iLoveToCreate

iLoveToCreate Teen Crafty Rockstar Necklace
by Margot Potter
"Mom Crafted, Teen Approved."

Fall is upon us and winter isn’t far behind. I was thinking about fall friendly jewelry for teens and this idea popped into my head. I love the unexpected addition of soft blue with the traditional fall colors. You could easily make this same idea in other color palettes, but I really liked these earthy tones. My daughter Avalon thought this was super cool, and I trust her sense of teen style implicitly. And just for the record, I’d sport this myself in a hot second...in fact I may just sport it today!

Think about this for Christmas with holiday themed charms and papers...

...I’m just sayin’!

Materials
Traci Bautista’s Collage Pauge Glossy
Aleene’s Liquid Fusion Glue
Crafty Chica Little Paint Pack Paints Red and Yellow
3 Tim Holtz Acrylic Fragments charms
Die Cuts With a View The Rockstar Stack
8 frosted orange Lucite leaves (The Beadin' Path)
5 frosted green Lucite leaves (The Beadin' Path)
8 8mm olive green moonglow vintage Lucite rounds (The Beadin' Path)
2 frosted orange Lucite flowers (The Beadin' Path)
6 6mm cracked blue Czech glass rounds
Silver plated rolo chain
Silver plated swivel lobster
13 silver plated head pins
3 10mm silver plated jump rings
21 6mm silver plated jump rings
Flourish stamp

Tools
2 pairs chain nose pliers
Round nose pliers
Wire cutters
Foam brush
Paint brush
Pen or pencil for tracing shapes




Place pendent over segment of paper you desire and trace. Repeat for all three pendants.
Cut out papers. Spread a thin layer of Collage Pauge on pendants and adhere paper. Gently press on the back to remove any air bubbles. Paint collage pauge on back of tile. Allow this to dry for several hours.

Mix a small amount of red and a much larger amount of yellow Crafty Chica paints to create a warm pumpkin orange. Stamp into paint and stamp flourish on edges of your pendants. Allow to dry.


Attach an orange flower and a blue bead on to the top left corner of the largest pendant using Liquid Fusion. Allow to dry.

Create coil topped dangles for your blue and green round beads. Thread a blue bead, a flower and a green leaf on a head pin, then coil the back and bend it flush to the back of the leaf to create a small pendant for the back of your chain. (See this video for a quick and easy head pin coiling how to!)



Attach the largest pendant to the center of an 18” length of rolo chain using a 10mm jump ring. Move over 4 links and begin to attach elements on every other link using 6mm jump rings for beads and leaves and 10mm jump rings for the pendants, make sure they’re all falling to the bottom of your chain. The pattern on both sides is: orange leaf, green bead, green leaf with blue bead, green bead, orange leaf, pendant and the same pattern established in the first section of beads and leaves. (For a quick and easy tutorial on opening and closing jump rings see this video how to!)

Attach a lobster clasp to one end of your chain using a 6mm jump ring. Attach the flower pendant you created to the opposite end using a 6mm jump ring.

(Most of the products used in this design were donated for promotional purposes with the exception of the scrapbook paper and the rubber stamp.)

I Can't Believe It's Bread & Glue!

Aleene's Tacky Glue Dough -


Leaf Bowl & Wine Tags


I know, you're thinking I grabbed some polymer clay and made this darling little leaf bowl, but NO. It is just bread and glue! I had some left-over dough in the frig from a segment we did for the local news station, and you know crafters, we NEVER throw anything away. So, I decided to make a sweet little nut bowl with matchy-matchy wine glass tags for Thanksgiving.

I love how the leaves turned out for the wine glasses. They actually look like fine porcelain in real life. My pics are not the best, but I hope you can see how pretty they turned out.

The leaf bowl is perfect for filling with pistachios or other little snacks to go with the wine while the guests are waiting on that darn turkey to cook!

So, to make your own Tacky Glue Dough, all you need are 3 pieces of white bread with the crusts pulled off, and 3 big spoonfuls of Aleene's Tacky Glue. Pinch up the bread into a disposable cup and add your glue. Mix it with a plastic spoon until it starts to turn into a big lump, and then roll it in your hands until you have a nice ball of dough. Next, pat or roll it out to the size of a pancake.

For the complete steps for Tacky Glue Dough, go to the iLoveToCreate website for the pics and how-tos.

Then grab your scissors and cut a leaf shape about the size of your palm,

Use a spoon to help shape the leaf into a bowl and the press veins into it.

I pinched the edges and softened them with my fingers.

The little leaves are about an inch and a half wide, cut out with scissors, and then a straw was pushed through so I could hang them on the stem of the wine glasses.

To speed up the drying process, I set my toaster oven to 200 degrees, let it warm up and then turned it off. Then I placed the leaves in the oven for about 3 hours to cure. I noticed that the leaves were puffing up with air, so I pressed them with my fingers and placed them back in the oven until they were totally dry. If you can wait until the next day to paint them it will be great.

Autumn leaf colors were what I used to transform the leaves with color. I used paint from my stash. After they were completely dry, they were ready for Scott and I to toast to all of our many blessings.

Happy Thanksgiving!
& Blessings
to all of you
Tacky Crafters!
Pattiewack

Embroidery Hoop Bulletin Board

Can I just say I LOVE, love, love this idea?

This is a large embroidery hoop that is covered in fabric, but wait - there is more! It is actually a corkboard! Ditch your boring rectangle board and add an artsy touch to your office decor!

Supplies:

Large embroidery hoop
Corkboard to fit snug inside back (draw on paper to make a template and then cut cork board)
Fabric
Aleene's® Fabric Fusion™ Permanent Dry Cleanable Fabric Adhesive™
Aleene's® Tacky® Transparent Tape for Crafters™
Foam brush
Clips

Directions:

1. Open the hoop (paint it if desired).
2. Use a foam brush to apply Fabric Fusion inside both hoops.
3. Insert the fabric and replace back hoop. Pull until it is taut and apply clips all around, let sit for 30 minutes.
4. Remove clips and trim excess fabric.
5. Set the hoop right side down on table.
6. Apply Tacky Tape generously around inner areas of taut fabric inside the hoop.
7. Set the corkboard inside so it fits snug up against edge of hoop.
8. Press in place.

Tiger Art on the Walls & My Neck!

Lord knows I love a good theme. I'm one of those people that is likely to read Memoirs of a Geisha, while eating sushi and wear a kimono while doing it. Tonight my amazingly talented sister Hope Perkins (check out her I Love to Create interview about glitter) is having an art opening and you bet your bottom dollar I am working a theme with my outfit. You can look at the walls or my neck to see the art.


SUPPLIES
Cast resin cabochons of paintings
Wooden drops
Dremel
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Pack
Sponge Brush
Head Pins
Decorative Paper
Collage Pauge Instant Decoupage
Plastic Flower Petals
Jewelry Wire
Pliers
Beads
Crimp Beads
Liquid Fusion Glue


Casting Resin
I won't go into all the details of how to cast resin, you can get all the info in my book The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry and all the supplies from ETI. In a nut shell choose the pictures you want to use, print out on photo paper and cast images in resin using a plastic painters palette as your mold.


Paint
The raw wood aisle at the craft store is always one of my faves. I found these rain drop shaped wooden discs that work perfectly for necklaces. Mix Crafty Chica Paint to get desired shade and use a sponge brush to apply two coats. Allow to dry completely.


Collage
Once your paint has dried add decorative papers to the wood to add interest. I used Collage Pauge and zebra print Decopatch paper. Allow to dry.


Glue
Once my custom resin cabochons had set up and been sanded I used Liquid Fusion Glue to attach them to my wooden rain drops.


Drill
Using a Dremel I drilled holes at the tops of all my wooden drops. Next using an eye pin, plastic flower petals, small heart shaped lockets and beads I did some wire wrapping. The wrapping not only adorned my pendants with funky flowers it also gave them loops at the top for hanging.


String
Using jewelry wire and beads string your necklace into desired pattern. Finish the ends with crimp beads and clasp.

If you can't make it out to the Austin Art Garage tonight, never fear the art will be up all month long. If you don't live in Austin check out art by Hope Perkins and Cory Ryan online!

Stenciled Wall Art

I'm a big fan of Ed Roth--and not just because he's one of the featured designers whose story's included in my upcoming book, Craft Corps (which incidentally, is now available for pre-order in my shop). His stencils are modern, sleek and often, have a sense of humor about them. I like them so much, I used many from his first book (Stencil 101) to decorate bibs with at my baby shower !

Now Ed's got a new book/kit out, Stencil 101 Decor, that speaks not only to the stencil enthusiast but also to those of us with a penchant for decorating. With 10 plastic stencils and step-by-step instructions (on painting anything from a wall to a fridge) included, no surface in your house will be safe from Stencil 101's charms. Dip your toe into D.I.Y. decor first though, by dabbling in wall art that's perfect in a kids' room, teen's dorm or hipster's loft.

In our house, two very different little boys share one room. What to do to keep a little design synergy without squelching their individual interests? Easy. Start with a basic, coordinating geometric theme, then add a simple graphic symbol that expresses each kids' interest. Here's how I used Ed's stencils to do just that.

Game Boy Wall Art

Materials

Stencil 101 Decor Stencils

16"x20" Buckram or other Stiff Fabric

Tulip Slick Fabric Paints in Desired Background & Contrasting Colors

Tulip Fabric Markers

Sponge or Stencil Brushes

Foil or Bowl

Fabric Pencil & Eraser

Stencil Wall Art How-To

• Lay stencil down on fabric; mark registration points at the given triangles (this will ensure an even pattern repeat.)

• Squirt paint onto foil piece--I mixed two colors, black & white, to get the shade of grey I wanted.

• Lightly paint (either brushing or pouncing) over stencil. Too much paint on the brush will cause bleeding under the stencil. Ed's Tip: "Remember, stenciling is a "dry" brush technique."

• Move stencil to next blank area on fabric, using registration marks as a guide. Repeat last step as many times as necessary to cover fabric.

• Do an internet search for the type of image you want to place on top of the patterned background. In this case, I chose a mushroom from Super Mario Bros.

• Using the web image as a general guide, sketch onto fabric

• Using fabric markers, outline image. Fill in desired areas with fabric paint. The result: a perfect picture for my littler gamer!

Sporty Spice Wall Art

If free-handing an image isn't you gig, give utilizing the stenciled background a try! For the 2nd piece I made, I began with Ed's hexagon pattern in a lighter color then used a dinner plate to draw a ball shape on top of it and filled in selected pieces with dark, fabric paint. Voila, a soccer ball for my all-American boy!

Craft.Rock.Love,

Vickie