Color Wheel Frame

I use my color wheel almost every single day at my job as a designer. And when I was creating a project for Hancock's project sheets recently, I was so excited to make this super simple but relevant frame for a mirror. I admit that the thread was a bit pricey, what with them being over a buck apiece, but it was worth it. I took my color wheel to the local Hancock's store and laid the spools of thread around it to color match. Fun! Then I ran over to Target to pick up a round mirror. Of course the perfect glue to use is the Aleene’s® Fast Grab™ Tacky Glue because it's kinda like hot glue in a bottle. Sets up really fast and holds just about anything to anything. I am hoping to steal it out of the photography studio and make it mine. You know, you could totally use spools out of your thread stash to make this.

Party Bubblewands

When I think of summer parties, I love to think that we are sitting around the pool and sipping sweet drinks and giggling. And to make the giggles, you need bubbles! I mean, really. What could be more fun than blowing bubbles with these cute little dainty bubblewands?

I took my Pattiewack Shrink Plastic and first covered the sheets with polka dots and swirls with silver and gold paint pens. You have to let the paint dry before you go to the next step. Then I just sketched a fast pattern for these darling wands. I laid my painted shrink plastic over the patterns and traced right onto the shrink plastic with a black Sharpie and cut them out. I also decided that they needed a cute little bow on the ends, so I punched a hole at the end of the wand with a hole punch.

Now, if you make these, be sure that you set your printer to make them as large as you can on a 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper, because they are going to shrink!!

I set my oven for 250 degrees and laid the cut-out wands on a brown paper sack on a cookie sheet. To be sure, this is an adult project cuz we don't want the kiddos messin' with the oven. Watch the shrink plastic curl up and then lay flat... it's magic! Everyone loves to watch.

Last of all I tied little bitty ribbon into bows on each of the cute Pattiewack Party Wands. To make a party statement, I poured my bubbles into crystal goblets and let the guests dunk their wands and let the bubbles begin!

Happy summer, everyone!

CHA Summer Sneak Peek

I've been working along with the iLoveToCreate designers, on the booth for the CHA Summer Trade Show. I just couldn't help myself when I took a few sneaky-peeky photos of some of the wild and wacky and fabulous projects that show how to use the Aleene's glues. As you know, I'm a glue fiend, and I did an extreme sculpture with an old mannequin, fabric, a table, a recycled veggie steamer, and more things than you'd care to read here in a list. One of our freelance designers made this cool piece of jewelry with the brown bag technique, that I glued to my sculpture as an earring. Of course, there's some outrageous amount of glitter, and my signature zippers. After the show, I'll be able to post the full photo of my creation.

My fellow designer Allee, and I did this statement necklace for our showstopping mannequin. She designed these beautiful robin's blue eggs with of all things, cornstarch and glue and 3-D fashion paint. I love it! We were inspired by the Miley Cyrus video where she can't be tamed. Woot woot! Or should I say, tweet tweet!

Steampunk Jewelry Caddy

I was in the grocery store yesterday, picking up the latest Crafts N'Things magazines, when I thumbed through and saw the latest iLoveToCreate ad campaign for Aleene's adhesives, and low and behold there I was!


I had totally forgotten about the project that I made and the photo shoot, as we do them about 6 months out.

When I found out that I was doing the ad, I was totally excited because the product was Liquid Fusion, and I knew I could really do an industrial-strength-mondo project, since the glue is hard core.

I'd been dying to use this paper mache dress form and I had the idea to turn it into a jewelry caddy. So I went to the hardware store to find things to pimp it out. I found this aluminum vent cover for the base and while I was there, I picked up a roll of the thinnest aluminum flashing. I don't know what normal people use it for, but the minute I saw it, I knew it was going to be perfect to cut into a flirty metal skirt. I also grabbed 2 metal drapery tie-backs and a wooden finial. I didn't have a clear image in my mind, but I just knew I liked them.

Since I'm crazy about the steampunk trend, I decided to use old watches, metals, leather, and hardware to glue to the dress form. The drapery tie-backs made great arms for hanging jewelry, and the finial was perfect to mount at the top for holding bangle bracelets. I glued cup hooks around the waist to hold my rings.

To soften the whole look of the jewelry caddy, I cut strips of fabric and starched them heavily with spray starch, and glued the fabric loops underneath the metal skirt. I love how it turned out, and hope you like it too.

For the instructions to make your own version of my jewelry caddy, go to the iLoveToCreate website for all the details.