Balzer Designs

Portrait Bug Week: Day Two

Happy Tuesday!

Today's project is a layout that I love.

Supplies: Cardstock (Canson); Pens (Zig and Uniball Signo); Patterned Paper (Basic Grey)

Click on the play button below to learn a method for creating your own handwritten titles!

Finally, check out this article if you get a chance.  It's all about how to be able to keep having fresh ideas for your crafty endeavors.  Here's a quote from the last paragraph:

"Knowing the basics allows you to apply them. Reading up allows you to see how other people find solutions to problems. Experimenting allows you to find solutions to your own problems (and create happy accidents). The three together keep you constantly creating--and what's better than that!"

Thanks for stopping by!

Portrait Bug Week: Day One

Yay!  It's Portrait Bug Week!  What is Portrait Bug week you ask?  Well, every day from today through Sunday, I will be posting a project I made for Portrait Bug along with a tutorial on how to create some part of the page.

First up, a fairly simple page.  I'm going to show you how to create the rolled ribbon beads I used to create the photo frame.

Supplies: Cardstock (Bazill); Paint (Winsor&Newton); Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels); Chipboard (American Crafts);  Pens (Zig, Uniball Signo); Ink (Ranger Distress Ink); Miscellaneous: paper, fiber, and ribbon scraps

Click the play button to watch the video.

As a side note, I had a *great* time at the Manhattan Scrapbooker's Scrap Pink crop on Saturday.  I was there from about 11:30am-5am.  Portrait Bug set up a nice little store, which was crazy and fun and surprising and I can't believe I didn't take any photos!  The good news is that I won the big raffle prize: a brand new Cricut!  I donated it back to the group though.  I figured it was better for everyone to be able to use it at the crops than for it to sit in my apartment, you know?

Scrappy Happy

I stole this image from the Label Tulip site.

That's me, third from the right, making an absolutely ridiculous face!  When I found out that my lovely home for the past year (My Kits & Pieces) was closing its doors, I was devastated.  I've been on several design teams, but this was the first board that really felt like home.  So, I started looking around for a new place to hang my hat.  I'm a daily visitor to SIS and 2Peas, but they're both so big.  So, I started cruising around to see what I could find.  At the same time, I found out that Label Tulip was having a design team call.  It's an awesome, awesome kit club and the message board is small and friendly and just what I was looking for.  So, I applied for the team.  When I got the e-mail extending the offer to become a Tulip Girl, I just about flipped out.  Yay!  I'm so over the moon!  The rest of the team is crazy talented and I can't wait to be inspired by them.  I hope you'll join me in the Label Tulip forums.  Come and hang out for a while!  And definitely check out the awesome kits!

In the meantime, I'm off to a Scrap Pink crop with the Manhattan Meetup group.  The crop is 11am until 2am and I need to pack up!  I'm working on my last (*insert tear rolling down cheek*) K&P kit, some class samples for Portrait Bug, and a few other miscellaneous projects.

Speaking of Portrait Bug, please tune in this coming week.  Starting Monday, I'm going to be showing off some projects I made for the store and each project will have a technique tutorial with it!  Yay!  Love techniques!

Have a great weekend!

Homemade Gallery Wall

A picture frame in my living room broke today.  I have long wanted to have a space to hang a few recent layouts and this seemed like the perfect opportunity not to fix the frame and to fill it with my own art instead!  So, I made this quick and easy little "gallery wall."

I just used what I had on hand and it took not time at all! (Although when I was hammering, a big stack of books from the shelf above did come crashing down onto my head.  Ouch!)

I used armature wire to create a long rod with a loop on each end and in the middle.  Armature wire is aluminum wire that doll makers use to create a skeleton.  It's easy to bend, light weight, and inexpensive.  I use it for making jewelry displays, like the stand these earrings are on:

After I created my rod (and by the way, you can cut armature wire very easily with wire snips or my favorite tool: Joyce Chen scissors), I made pencil marks on the wall where the three loops were.  Then I hammered finishing nails into the wall.  I then placed my rod onto the nails.  To hang my layouts, I used extra clips from my Clip It Up!

It was so easy and now I can have a revolving gallery of my work!  Yay!  I think I can also hang some smaller, light weight art quilts in the mix.  This is the kind of thing that makes me inappropriately happy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Three for Monday

Mmmmm...Fall is here in NYC and that makes me super happy!  Perhaps it's from years of school, but Fall always feels the beginning of a new year.  I love that!  Of course, I'm buried under a pile of work right now, but I'm feeling ambitious.  So, it's all alright.  Sharing three things today...

1. Class starts today! My seven day design boot-camp, "The 7 Elements of Design," starts today.  To read more, or join in, just click here.

2. I'm channeling Ali Edwards.  I can find no other way to explain this page.  I love it, but it's definitely a step away from my usual style.

I used this fabulous little kit from Miss Crow's Magickal Emporium.  It's great for hybrid scrappers too because you can print out all of those awesome labels.  I love that they're transparent too, because you put them over the photos, as I've done in the layout above.

I just got a glimpse of Miss Crow's upcoming October kits and they're fabulous.  She is really such an amazing designer!  You can grab an awesome glitter alphabet freebie from her, right here.

3. The Mixed Media Play Date class was fun!  On Friday, I spent two hours at The City Quilter playing with Lutrador, Jacquard Fabric Paint, Tyvek, Adirondack Color Washes, Golden Fluid Acrylics, and a heat gun.  I really enjoyed working with the fluid acrylics.  I painted this gorgeous little piece of fabric with them. 

Of course, it can't go in the washing machine, but it's likely destined for an art quilt anyway. The fluid acrylics went on beautifully with a sponge brush and the feel of the fabric is surprisingly un-stiff.  I may have to buy a whole bunch of fluid acrylics!

I also had some fun melting Lutrador.  It's something that I had wanted to try, but was always afraid of the fumes.  Well, we just jumped right in! We painted Lutrador with Jacquard Fabric Paints (they hold up to the heat of the melting), sewed it to a cotton backing, and then used a heat gun to melt the Lutrador.

It's a very cool surface design technique.  I look forward to doing a lot more melting (with a wide open window, of course)!

Thanks for stopping by!