Balzer Designs

Tips for Making Cleaning up Your Creative Space Quick & Easy

I recently posted a simple question on instagram and facebook: Starting the week with a (relatively) clean desk. 💪 I have been trying to clean up after myself more frequently, so that it's a smaller task. But it's not my favorite thing to do and so I tend to drag my feet or avoid it. So help me out. What do you do to make cleaning up your creative space quick and easy? 🤷 The responses I got back were great! They ranged from commiseration to super useful tips. Today I thought I would share some of the tips I... Read more →

Design Boot Camp - Evening Section Added!

Design Boot Camp -- my 5-week live online class -- sold out last week. But I'm delighted to share that due to popular demand, I am opening an evening section of the class. You can read all about the class and sign up HERE. You can also watch the half-hour webinar I did about whether or not the class is a good fit for you: Design Boot Camp Informational Webinar from Julie Balzer on Vimeo. Here's a peek at a few of the pieces I did several years ago, when I was putting myself through the design boot camp process.... Read more →

New Live Online Classes Listed

Hello! I listed some new live online classes, as described below. If you're wondering what a live online class with me is like, here is a nice e-mail I got recently: The Zoom format truly is as close to a live in-person class as you can get without being in person. I suspect that even post-pandemic, I will continue to teach this way. It allows me to stay home with my family and it allows people from all over the globe to take live classes from the comfort of their home (with all of their supplies right at hand). Here... Read more →

USPS Collaborative Art Project - part 2

So you may recall that I posted about the USPS Collaborative Art Project last month. Well, I wanted to share what I sent out and what I got in the mail. It's a really interesting thing to send someone else a piece of art to finish. Everything I sent I felt was half-finished and left room for someone else to come in and make it their own. That said, I was surprised by how close to finished some of the pieces felt. It wasn't my intention, but it made me think about maybe trying some restraint in the future. Check... Read more →

Pom Poms Please

Over the weekend I had a ball (pun intended) making yarn pom poms! (And I looked up the spelling -- one word or two -- for this blog post and let me tell you, there are a lot of strong opinions, but no clear winner.) Quite a while ago, I bought some pom pom maker tools with big plans to make a bazillion pom poms for a Christmas garland. However, I never even took the pom pom makers out of the packaging. Fast forward to last week. I decided that it would be super fun to make pom pom earrings!... Read more →

USPS Collaborative Art Project

You guys, I found a really interesting art project online that also helps to support the US Postal Service (USPS). Read all about why we need the USPS. The project is called "USPS Art Project" and in essentials you create a collaborative artwork with someone. You create an unfinished piece of art and mail it to them. They finish it and post the finished work online. It seemed like total serendipity to find out about this project after wondering (in Friday's post) if I could swap an entire sketchbook with someone. A single piece of half-finished art seems like much... Read more →

Let's Talk about Organizing Art Supplies

Last weekend I asked my instagram friends to share tips or questions about art supply organization. There was so much good stuff in that conversation that I wanted to share it here on my blog too! Also: I did a week-long series on art supply organization years ago. You can find it HERE. What are your best tips for keeping everything organized? I'd love to know! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

Art Carts

I have four art carts in my studio. Cart #1 is for sewing items. I use it to hold my fabric scraps and sewing notions. Cart #2 is for art journaling. I use it to hold my favorite pens, markers, stamps, deli paper, and collage fodder. Cart #3 is for memory keeping and ScanNCut. I use it to hold my most used Project Life supplies and some ScanNCut accessories. Cart #4 is for painting. I use it to hold my most used mediums, brushes, tools, and favorite paints. This system works for me because my studio is a big open... Read more →

News & Notes

I hope you are all home and healthy at the moment. Some quick updates from me: ONE: The monthly newsletter went out on Friday. If you didn't receive it (a) check your SPAM folder, or (b) sign up for the monthly mailing list HERE. (It is a different list from subscribing to this blog.) TWO: The Balzer Designs member livestream is tonight (Monday) at 7pm EST. Here is a photo of my worktable after the last livestream: The link to watch live is in the forum section of the online classroom. If you miss the live version, you can watch... Read more →

20 Art-Related Things to Do While You're Stuck at Home

Chances are pretty good that you're stuck at home right now. No worries. There are plenty of art-related things that you can do! Make art. Stupid and obvious, but it can be hard to get going. Go do it! Check out YouTube tutorials. Watch them. Binge them. And do it guilt free. The Frugal Crafter has hundreds of crafty videos to watch on her channel! Take out that new tool, new paint, new thing you got and never used. Use it. I am guilty of this. I suspect we all are. Read an art book. It could be a biography... Read more →