December Newsletter!

Wow, you can just about hear those reindeer prancing already, and we have so much to share with you this month! Just a quick reminder: We are a location to enter the Chamber $100 drawing this weekend and we are also a location to vote for the best Christmas window display.

HOLIDAY HOURS: Open Sundays 1-5pm, Open December 17^th-22^nd from 9am-8pm! (besides our regular 9-6 Mon-Sat hours)

December 18^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Tuesday of every month except on holidays)

December 20^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Thursday of every month except on holidays)

 January 10^th: Accordion Mini Album Class! $15.00 All materials provided (bone folder, glue, papers and embellishments included) 7:00-9:00pm

February 2^nd: Paper Flowers and Paper Rose Wreath Class! Mid-Plains Community College Class, 9am-12pm. $30

 February 21^st: Mixed Media Collage Class!  (Acrylic paint and paper on canvas) Mid-Plains Community College Class, 6-9pm. $45

For our DIY this month we have a video tutorial of the ruffled paper trees that we have for sale in the shop. J

We wish you the merriest of holidays! Merry Christmas!

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Sneak Peek Wedding Flowers

Here is a sneak peek of some flowers I'm working on for a winter wonderland themed wedding. Who knew paper flowers could look so glam? :)

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November Newsletter!

November is here and we are so thankful! Thankful for such awesome customers, thankful for a wonderful community, and thankful for a place to be creative. Thank you so much for inspiring and encouraging us! Are you starting to gear up for the holidays? We are!

November 10^th: Tag Party! Come make unique and beautiful tags for gifts, scrapbooking and cardmaking, just for decoration, or even mini treat bags out of tags! Maybe to add a personal touch to your Christmas gifts this year J. Starts at 2:00pm, come use our supplies and materials and make as many as you want. $8.50. Limited space available, please email us or sign up in the shop. (Still have 2 spots openJ)

November 18^th: Holiday Preview! Come to our holiday open house from 1-5 on Saturday, November 18^th!

November 27^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Tuesday of every month except on holidays)

November 29^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Thursday of every month except on holidays)

Our DIY this month is a leaf garland, perfect for a Thanksgiving decoration. We’ve had a few people ask about how to make the leaf garland we had in the store last year, so I thought I’d share where we got the idea. Last year we did it out of paper, this year burlap, but what gave us the idea is this felt one from the “A Beautiful Mess” blog. Basically we just cut leaf shapes out by hand from paper in fall colors (and burlap this year), got a big needle to thread the yarn through and used multicolored rainbow yarn to stitch through each leaf by hand. We had about three stitches in each leaf. Our leaves were a little “fatter” than the ones on the blog and our garland was longer. I think we used two Basic Grey papers and two FancyPantsDesigns papers that we still carry in the shop.

We hope you have a very blessed Thanksgiving!

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Tags!

We are getting excited about the Tag Party on November 10th! So many possibilities! Here are a few:

Tag Mini Treat Bags

Steampunk Tags

Burlap and Glitter Gift Tags

Burlap Naturey Tags

Crafty Christmas Tags

Modern & Bright Christmas Tags

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October Newsletter!

Happy October! We hope you are having a great month so far! We are excited to share our news with you. Local artists and crafters have been bringing in LOTS of new handmade items this month, we love getting so many unique things in! So if you haven’t had a chance, stop in and check it out, and thanks so much to the artists!

October 25^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Thursday of every month except on holidays)

October 30^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Tuesday of every month except on holidays)

November 10^th: Tag Party! Come make unique and beautiful tags for gifts, scrapbooking and cardmaking, or just for decoration. Maybe to add a personal touch to your Christmas gifts this year J. Starts at 2:00pm, come use our supplies and materials and make as many as you want. $8.50. Limited space available, please email us or sign up in the shop.

I love all of the painted pumpkins I been seeing this year, pinned a few on my pumpkin board on Pinterest, and decided to make a few of my own.

So simple and you can do so many things. I decided to go with bright and funky. I just used acrylic paint and a brush. I taped off the chevron lines on the larger pumpkin. Then I sprayed them all with Polyurethane when I was finished so that the paint wouldn’t scratch off easily and to help the pumpkins last longer. Simple, fun, and a lot less messy than carvingJ.

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Lazy Susan

Thought I'd share with you a project that I've been working on for quite a while that I just finished. The wood lazy susan was handmade by my brother for me to woodburn and paint. I love starting with a blank slate of wood that I can put whatever I want onto! I learned how to woodburn about ten years ago, and it definitely took a while to get the hang of. You would think that it would be similar to holding a pencil or brush, but you actually have to move your hand quite differently and it takes a while to learn how to get smooth lines, especially the ones that are curvy. For this lazy susan, I decided to draw flowers in the center that I remember seeing in my mother's garden. 

In this photo you can (barely) see the pencil lines of my drawing and I have a little of the woodburning done.

A little more woodburning done :)

All of the woodburning done.
Next I stained it with water-based oak and walnut stain, mixing a metallic gold glaze in with the oak. I wish I had took a picture of it like that because I considered leaving it that way. It really shows the detail of the woodburning more than when its painted. I'm kind of thinking that if I do another one this detailed I will just stain it and leave it. Anyway, I decided to paint this one because I kept envisioning all of mom's pretty flowers in color. Here is another photo of the finished product.

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September Newsletter

I have three words for you: Hot. Apple. Cider. I can’t wait to make some! Aren’t you excited for all of the wonderful things fall brings? We are! Lots of new fall and Halloween craft supplies in; crocheted scarves, winter headbands, and fingerless gloves in with more on the way; and Halloween tutus! So excited for fall and all of our upcoming classes too!

September 15^th: Make Your Own Stamp Class! 2:00-4:00pm.

September 25^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Tuesday of every month except on holidays)

September 27^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Thursday of every month except on holidays)

October 11^th: Milk Resist Class! Learn techniques for using milk resist and spray inks to create beautiful images that can be used for artwork, cards, gift bags, tags, backgrounds for scrapbook pages, etc. Class includes a wood mounted stamp, 2 bottles of spray ink, and various papers and materials for creating different projects. $30.00. 7:00-9:00pm

October 20^th: Art Board and Frame Class! Create one of a kind custom frames for special photos and/or unique pieces of artwork for your home. You may bring your own photos to use, otherwise all materials provided (wood, glass, nails, picture hangers, paint, paper, glue, and embellishments), $26.00. 2:00-4:00pm

Our DIY this month are the cute treat bags we have had for sale in the shop in the past. Great for a small gift to cheer up someone’s day! First step: Pick out cute paper for your bag (the inside will show, so it’s nice to use double-sided cardstock). Step 2: Lay down the paper with the back side up, a piece of carbon tracing paper next, and finally the pattern on top. Step 3: Trace around the lines on the pattern (you can tell we’ve used this pattern a lot J). Step 4: Cut the outside edges out and the inside of the handle. Step 5: The other lines are your fold lines. Fold in along those lines. Step 6: Glue the side together and the flaps on the bottom. Step 7: Fill with delicious chocolates!

P.S. We also custom make these for party events, Valentine’s Day, etc. Filled with Ghirardelli chocolates, they are $6.00 each.

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Custom Fall Wedding Order

So, a large part of our extra time this summer was spent on a custom order. We put a lot of hard work into this and are very happy with the results. It involved a door installation, 8 cake table centerpieces, a paper flower bouquet, and of course tissue poms. The door installation consisted of half tissue poms and different sizes of fan-fold medallions with vintage button centers.

The cakes were covered with old book pages, embellished with vintage ribbon and fan-fold medallions, and topped with a half tissue pom. 

The flower bouquet was made up of paper roses, origami flowers, and fan-fold medallions with a light/natural colored burlap wrapped around it.

We loved the fiery fall colors our clients chose and were so happy to be able to do this for them. Thanks so much, Peg, for believing in us and giving us so much freedom in our design decisions. You're awesome!

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Board Image Transfer

Just finished a big custom order that I've been working on for months, yay! (will post photos later)  So I rewarded myself today by making something just for fun. I decided to do an image transfer of my fall Smith Falls photo onto an 8x10 board that we had left over from the class last night. Instead of using matte medium, I used iron on Transfer Artist Paper(TAP). Definitely a different process and I had to experiment with it. This is the one I liked the best :) I like the look of the natural pine wood of the board with this photo. Just wish the aged crackly effect would have been more around the edges of the photo instead of in the center :-). Still pretty happy with it though.

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August Newsletter!

Wow, summer just flew by. I can’t believe it’s already time for school to start! We have an awesome Back to School Sale going on right now in the shop: 30% off of all papercrafting and office supplies! Paper, punches, embellishments, ribbon, scrapbooks, stamps, tools, the list goes on and on. We also have 30% off Papaya and Iota bags. It’s a great time to pick up any craft supplies that you’ve been needing or that the kids might need for school. We also have some exciting things planned for August and September:

August 23rd: Art Board and Frame Class! Create one of a kind custom frames for special photos and/or unique pieces of artwork for your home. You may bring your own photos to use, otherwise all materials provided (wood, glass, nails, picture hangers, paint, paper, glue, and embellishments), $26.00. 7:00-9:00pm

August 28^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Tuesday of every month during the school year, except on holidays)

August 30^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm (last Thursday of every month except on holidays)

September 15^th: Make Your Own Stamp Class! Learn how to carve your own rubber stamp, the possibilities are endless! Can be used to make personalized cards and stationery, embellish scrapbook pages, in artwork, or on anything you can think of :-). Depending on the type of ink/paint you use, stamps can be used on paper, fabric, wood, and even sheetrock. 2:00-4:00pm. $35.00, includes carving tool, tracing paper, rubber blocks, ink, wood, and corks. Because we have to order in so many supplies for this class, we are asking that you sign up and prepay by Sept. 5^th.

Our DIY this month is a sweet jar garland we have for sale in the shop. There are soooo many things you can do with Mason jars, and about as many things you can do with paper ones! We cut out jars from “Twinkling Lights” Dear Lizzy paper, punched holes in the lids, and strung yarn through them. Next we had fun embellishing them with buttons, rickrack, baker’s twine, and fabric flowers. Finally we cut strips of material and tied them in between the jars. Makes a simple, but sweet garland for the end of summer:-).

PS For those of you that do not live in the area, we are adding more and more things to our Etsy shop, and will be updating our website soon with more information about custom orders.

Thanks!

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Hammerpress

Absolutely loved visiting Hammerpress in Kansas City! It's so awesome to get to see where you order product from. And although they didn't have the presses going, they have big open windows from the retail area looking in to the presses. So awesome! I love the handcrafted quality of letterpress printing. So much I wanted to buy, but I narrowed it down to a few essential purchases :-)

Can't wait to order from them again!Tweet

Best Mom in the World

So I have the best mom in the world. You may disagree, but I'm pretty convinced. Not only has she done more for me than seems possible, she is also crazy creative. She looked at the flywheel on the bottom of this lamp and dreamed up the lamp to go with it. Then, with a little help from my uncle, she brought it into existence. When she saw this table with car axles at an auction, she knew she needed it to go with her industrial lamp. After a lot of work cleaning, sanding, staining, and polyurethaning, it was ready to find its place next to the lamp. I'm pretty excited to have some cool industrial pieces in the shop, and it just gives me one more reason to think that I have the best mom ever :).Tweet

July Newsletter!

Sure is hot outside and we have some hot new projects for you this month! Super excited about our upcoming classes and events.

July 19, 24: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Classes once a week for the month of July! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

August 9th: Art Board and Frame Class! Create one of a kind custom frames for special photos and/or unique pieces of artwork for your home. You may bring your own photos to use, otherwise all materials provided, $26.00. 7:00-9:00pm

August 28^th: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

August 30^th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

 Our DIY this month is super simple and fun. It’s a great way to repurpose any large old frames you might have lying around. I wish I had a photo of one of the first frames we did like this because it was more ornate, and the more ornate the better for this project. First, you take an old frame and sand it a little. Then paint it with good quality paint in a fun color (I used paint that is premixed with primer already in it). This worked great for the ornate frame because there were places where the plaster was falling off, but once painted you could hardly tell. Next, choose a color coordinating ribbon and tie it across the frame in double-knotted bows. If there isn’t a hanger on the back of your frame, just get a D-ring, hanging wire, or sawtooth hanger from your local hardware store, drill holes and screw them on. Finally, clip cards or photos with tiny clothespins across the ribbon. And you’re done! With a super cute display to show for it.:-) 

We’ve been getting a lot of custom orders in lately for party banners, centerpieces, wedding decorations, and wedding hairpieces, so if you are thinking about getting some cute and affordable custom-made decorations, get your orders in soon!

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Treasuries: Etsy Love

So every now and then I reward myself with wasting a ton of time creating Etsy treasuries. Anyone else do this? Its kind of like being able to curate your own themed museum/art show of handmade and vintage items. A lot like Pinterest, but maybe a little less utilitarian. Anyway, I just created a new red, white, and blue treasury for the 4th that I thought I'd share: just click here. And if anyone is interested in looking at my other treasuries, you can click here.

Would love to look at your treasuries too, so if you have created some please comment and link to them!

One more confession, I keep taking the Etsy taste test over and over again just for fun...Tweet

Collage Fun

Excited to be working on some collages today. And happy that I finally get to use some of the Crate Paper we ordered in about a month ago. I hope it sells well because I'm in love with this company and would love to keep ordering from them! I'm all about vintage and vintage-inspired modern and as far as I can tell so are they. And, their papers work great with old book pages, one of my favorite materials to use. Ok, now back to some collage fun...Tweet

June Newsletter!

June is just flying by, maybe because we are having so much fun! We’ve had so much fun with all the classes this month. It never ceases to amaze me how creative people are, especially kids! Here is the schedule for our next classes:

June 21, 28: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Classes once a week for the month of June! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

July 5, 12, 19, 26: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Classes once a week for the month of July! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm   

Saturday, July 14^th: Book Cover Notebook Class! Make your own notebook or journal using old book covers and graph paper, white cardstock, lined paper, etc.-the possibilities are endless! These can be so versatile with so many different options for putting them together and using your own style to decorate them. $15.00. 2:00-4:00pm

This month we have a guest feature from Kat Alder, maker of the repurposed/redesigned vintage jewelry that we carry. Just got some awesome new rings in from her too!

“I created Katz's Designs as my way of feeding my interest in vintage jewelry. This has been an interest of mine since I was a young girl. I remember receiving a mother of pearl necklace when I was 10 years old, and can still recall just gazing at the necklace, marveling at its design. From there, I started working with vintage earrings and broaches. I enjoy taking something old and making it new again. Vintage items carry such a history with them, it's exciting to think about where the jewelry has been as I work with it. It feels like I am taking history and making it new again. I hope you enjoy wearing my designs as much as I enjoy creating them!”

We’ve been using fanfold paper medallions a lot lately, they can be used in so many ways and are so simple to make! So we thought we would share a quick video tutorial with you on a simple way to make them: http://lemmertorium.blogspot.com/2012/06/paper-medallions.html

As ever, thank you so much for being the wonderful, encouraging, and creative people that you all are. We are so inspired!

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Paper Medallions

We've been using fanfold paper medallions a lot lately for so many different things, so we thought we would post a quick and simple tutorial on how to make them:

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I'm excited about some of our new furniture pieces! I was in a French mood when I woodburned and painted this one :-) I was happy to find some toile fabric for the seat of the chair to go with it. The chair was originally a sewing chair, so the seat lifts up for more storage! The desk is pretty awesome because the top lifts up and a shelf pulls out. It was originally for typewriters and still has the vintage sticker on it explaining this. But its perfect to set a laptop or desktop and keyboard on, or to just use as a pull out work station for extra room. The rest of our new furniture pieces can be seen on pinterest or in our shop. Mom is currently working on re-upholstering a really nice captain's chair and my next project will be a dresser. Excited for the possibilities!Tweet

Etsy

Just FYI, we are slowly (yes, very slowly) getting our Etsy shop built up. We welcome custom orders too. So if you see something you like, but need it to be a little different, just ask and we will see what we can do. We specialize in papercrafting, and fabric flowers with a vintage flair. This is a photo of one of our recent listings :)

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Cherry Blossom Paperie May Newsletter!

Wow, Mother’s Day, Graduation, Weddings…May is such a busy, but fun month! We are so excited to share our news with you and are looking forward to our summer activities!

May 24th: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

May 25th: 6-8 year old Children’s Art Class! $7.50, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

June 7, 14, 21, 28: 4-5 year old Children’s Art Classes once a week for the month of June! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

July 5, 12, 19, 26: 6-10 year old Children’s Art Classes once a week for the month of July! $7.50 per class per child, $6.00 per child if you have more than one child in your family taking classes, all materials provided. 4:30-5:30pm

Saturday, June 16^th: Altered Book Class! Mediums and materials provided, but feel free to bring any photos, quotes, or embellishments you want to use. An altered book is an existing book that is glued, painted, collaged, stamped, cut and/or torn.  It is “relaxed” art.  You don’t need to be an expert to create pages that you’ll love. One more chance for those of you that weren’t able to come before, and a time for those who have come before (and aren’t finished) to work on their books and get more ideas! $20.00. No class charge for those that have already taken the class. 2:00-4:00pm

It’s been a while since we’ve had a guest artist/crafter featured in our newsletter, so I’m excited to have this to share with you from Jessica Wyckoff! Jessica makes the tutus and tutu bags we sell in the shop and many of the hair bows, flowers, headbands, flip flops, hats, and necklaces. Here is her storyJ:

“I started making hair bows after trying to find reasonably priced, yet cute hair accessories for my daughter. I took the leap and ordered some ribbon and finally got started on making my own. After about a month I got the hang of it and have enjoyed it since. I love working with different styles of ribbon, and fabric and tulle! It's been a little over a year since I have started and I still am learning new techniques and styles and am always looking forward to my next project! My daughter is clearly my inspiration and participates in picking out what she likes and how she wants to put her bows together. I would definitely say that this so far has been a very positive and fun experience for me!”

Excited for summer parties and celebrations? We are! We have a video DIY tutorial for you this month on making tissue poms to decorate for almost any occasion. We sell various colors of tissue paper in the shop and can order in almost any color. If you don’t want to make them yourself, we will custom make them for you, but please get your order in in plenty of time as we currently have 80 to make! Prices vary based on size and type of tissue paper, but our extra large tissue poms are usually around $2.75. Here is the link to the video we made on how to make them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvaKIOoGRKM&feature=g-upl

We wish a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers, we wish a blessed future to all graduates, and a special thanks to everyone for being such awesome customers! We are so blessed and encouraged by you and your creativity!

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Mother's Day Gift Guide

Here are a few of our picks from the shop for Mother's Day gifts, some for all price ranges. 

Handmade chipboard sign with a great quote for moms! Wooster and Prince list pad, emery boards, and pocket mirror. Papaya journal.

Pretty Peter Pauper Press pen. Vintage Laundry sign/ironing board, perfect place to hang a collection of vintage aprons! Vintage pearl necklace with fabric flower.

Springy Iota tote. Black Hills Gold rose ring, currently 25% off! Cricut machine, currently 50% off!
Hope you enjoyed our picks and we hope that you have a wonderful Mother's Day...mom's are the best!

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Window Display

Here are a few snapshots of our windows. And yes, the glare is terrible so it's hard to see what is going on. Sorry about that!

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Vintage Wallpaper

I'm in love with this vintage wallpaper.

It's so perfectly me. The light teal/minty color with bronze accents, the retro design with a little Asian influence. Yep, even has cherry blossoms on it. Mom found it at an auction, one of her best finds ever (in my opinion:)). I can't wait to make stuff with it. But it's going to be one of those things that I have to force myself to use and not hoard. It's going to be one of those things that I want to wait until I find the perfect project for it, but consider it as an option for almost every project until I do. I even briefly considered wallpapering a wall in my house with it just so I could stare at it every day. But I don't want to risk getting sick of it. So it will live in our supplies at the shop until it can be used for that perfect thing.

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