Aussie Classes

We are so excited, soon we will be on our way to Sydney Australia.  We can hardly wait to see our old friends there!  

We will be teaching at:

SIA 2010 - May 4th & 5th - A retailer event

Sydney Olympic Park Sports Centre

Homebush NSW

Scraploot - May 8th

Prospect NSW

Phone:  02 96883319

info@scraploot.com.au

Memories That Last - May 8th

Shop 1, Maryvale Ave.

Liverpool, NSW  2170

phone:  02 9821 3622

shop@memoriesthatlast.com.au

Some of you have asked to see the classes we will be teaching.  Here are a few photos and details on each:

Wonderful Life

This class uses the 7gypsies ATC printers tray to make a unique wall hanging.   

"Close to My Heart" - Journal

Love this little journal...we get to use the binderie punch in this class which is always fun!  Inside the journal has 10 pages with fold outs, pockets and inserts.  We use gold and silver foil in a fun and clever technique....and the book is held closed by the cutest book bra!

"Our House" book

We build a little house from basic book board!  A small book can be found inside the house by lifting the roof.  We use lots of vintage here from old books and music to 7gypsies ephemera packs. 

"Molto Bello" A Layered Book board wall hanging.

We love the doors and hidden places in this project.  There is a mini book under the "love" parenthesis book board hanging from the top of the board.  The picture is mounted on book board and hinged to reveal a secret envelope to hold a special memento or note. 

If you live in or near Sydney come and join the fun!

Paula's House

When I go to visit Paula, I love seeing what new things she has done to her house.  She has mentioned recently about what she is doing in her studio and the cute pin board she made from an old frame.  I thought you might like to see some of the other parts of her house.  Paula has such a good eye for color and design, always an inspiration and something new up her sleeve.  Anyway, here are a few snippets....enjoy!

This is what you see when you walk in the front door.  This cabinet changes regularly with the season or to accommodate a latest junking find.

Paula's cute thermos collection.

Right inside the front door...The chest was a project she did for the 7gypsies booth.

Fireplace mantel in the living room.  This changes frequently....

...in fact, here is the 4th of July version that I took on a previous visit...

Notice another collection....sand from beaches they have gotten while on vacation.

This is just  small section of a cute cabinet that she lined with old music paper.

Love this little table....the suitcase is full of past projects done for 7gypsies.

Bits of the family room entertainment center (another photo of the entertainment center is in a previous blog post on collections that shows her globe collection)...

more...

Love this shelf and the lighting....also in the family room.

My favorite...the kitchen

One of her canvases....gorgeous!

Love this cute little arbor gate going into the backyard.

...and love these roses.....they don't grow like this in Arizona!

We've been busy!!

I just got back from a trip to Paula's house.  In preparation for our upcoming trip to Australia, we spent  the last 9 days making LOTS of class kits.  See this table, it was set up in the middle of Paula's living room.  We went around this table so many times I'm sure we made some new traffic patterns in her carpet.  We got to where we could make a kit in about 2 minutes, but that was only after all the paper, bookboard, ribbon, etc, etc was cut to size and ready to go.

Many items had to be taken out of packaging.  That was a big job in and of itself.  Paula's husband Jay, told us that we were not allowed to create anymore garbage or recycle since all receptacles were over flowing.  

Can you guess what this it?.....It's a cute little window that we use in one of the classes.  Paula painted 250 of them!!

Paper tape cut to size.....

Our friend Becca came up with a new use for paper tape....

We will be teaching at the SIA event in Australia May 4th and 5th.  It is an event comparable to CHA in the US.  We will also be teaching at the HobbySew event in Sydney May 7th and 8th.  We are so excited to have the opportunity to go.  We will get to see some of our old friends that we made when we were there a couple of years ago.....we can hardly wait!

Paula and her ceiling tile again...

On Saturday I went to a local tag sale and found this big frame for $20.  Gold and a bit junky, but solid wood... just what I was looking for.

 I took it home, scrubbed it up (okay, I really just sanded it a bit) and painted it one of the colors from the swatches I showed you recently...Avocado Green.  The man at Home Depot asked my husband, "what are you painting this color?" with a very puzzled sympathetic look on his face.

Once the green paint was dry, I sanded the edges to bring back the gold, then gave it the once over with some Burnt Umber glaze I had leftover from some other project.  I wiped off the glaze with a damp rag before it dried to give it an aged appearance.

Here comes the ceiling tile again...cut to fit the frame opening.

 

Add a layer of batting.  You could use Warm and Natural bating for a thinner layer but this is what I had on hand.  I did not wrap the batting around the ceiling tile because mine fit just right in the frame but you could if you like.

 

Cut a fabric piece 3" larger (on all sides) than your ceiling tile.  So if my ceiling tile is 20 x 30" I would need a fabric piece that is cut 26 x 36". Add fabric to the top...remember to iron fabric before you add it to your layer sandwich.

Flip the entire board over. 

Staple the corners with a staple gun.  I took this picture when I was testing the fit in the frame.  I did the actual stapling when the tile was still on the table.  Staple top, then bottom, then one side and then the other so the fabric stays centered, not pulling too much in one direction.

Now how to keep the ceiling tile from falling out of the frame?  Well, you know me, I not going to go to the store for something.  I figured cardboard would work as good as anything else so I got a box from the garage and cut it into 4 wide strips with my roller cutter.  Then I stapled the cardboard directly to the wood over each corner of the frame.  Don't try and staple the cardboard to the ceiling tile or the pressure will push the tile right back out of the frame and could possibly break it (can you tell I tried that?).  I also found that if I bent the cardboard right where I wanted to staple, it was easier to get the pressure I needed to make the staple stay in the wood.

Here's the result...a nice big pin board for my work space.  The picture shows it leaning but I will have my husband put 2 heavy picture hangers on each of the tops corners to hang it on the wall.  

I also could have ran ribbon in a criss-cross pattern over the whole fabric portion but I have found that the ribbon is never in the right place to tuck something under it.  So I decided that this time...no ribbon.  

I will pin things freely wherever I please.

Home again

It was a long weekend but worth every minute.
We all kept thinking that our hands may never come clean!  Good thing they had pumice stones in the bathroom so we could try to scrub off the ink 2 or 3 times a day.

 Who knew there were so many colors?

Neither of us had ever used Ranger Color Wash.  We were a little apprehensive when they said, "be careful because if you get the wash on your skin it will stain".  I think we all pictured ourselves going through airport security with blue splatter all over our faces.
We ended up learning some cool techniques and can't wait till I can get my hands on more.

One of my favorite pieces we made... Metal from 10 Seconds Studios with Alcohol Ink...super easy and fun to do. The depth of color in the Alcohol inks is phenomenal...wish you could see it in person.  The metal was run through a machine like a Sizzix Big Shot using Tim Holtz new embossing folders.

Grunge board gears painted and distressed with Metallic paint and Distress ink.

These are all the tags we made with Tim.  Each tag represents a technique (even more tags were made with Caludine Helmuth) we learned this weekend. 
What a great library of ideas. 
I admit not all my techniques tags are great, far from it.  But there are some I loved so much I wanted to keep trying the technique over and over, like Alcohol Ink on glass.

Of course, the real challenge is translating technique to project.

RANGER

It's been a busy two day's here at Ranger...well, maybe I should have said, CRAZY busy here in class.  Things move VERY fast so you have to be on your toes at all times, listening, absorbing, and then doing.  Our fingers are so stained with the different inks that it is almost comical.
We feel we have lucked out by having some great ladies at our table...Sue sits in front of me and Megan Darrow from 10 Seconds Studio is on my right...Deb on my left.  Then there's Margie down the table with Carolyn Peeler and many others.  We have laughed a lot which makes every situation better.
Don't have much time tonight (since it's spring forward) but thought I would share some photos of our adventures in paint, UTEE, and distress ink.  Tomorrow is Alcohol Ink and it's supposed to be the most intense day of the 3 days.  Were just hoping to make it to the end :)

Tim Holtz

 Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel

 Debbie using a craft iron to finish a distress ink wrinkle tag.  These were some of the most fun to make.  Simple, easy and fabulous color.  The best part was that everyone's tags looked different...nothing cookie cutter here.

this one was done with a mask and Distress Ink

Megan's tags

Megan showing off her work  

One of my favorite tags of the day

The weather has been horrible here as you may have heard on the news.  Margie's umbrella was not faring well between the wind and heavy rain. 

 

Bye for now...keep your fingers crossed for us tomorrow!