Balzer Designs

Make Ugly Collage Paper

I feel like I see a lot of people making truly gorgeous collage fodder. It's just so lovely to look at. Not me. I make ugly fugly collage paper. Why? There are a lot of reasons to make ugly collage paper: ONE: It lowers the stakes around cutting into your collage fodder. Here is a piece of copy paper that I had no problem cutting up. You can see that the ugly piece of paper makes for beautiful little bits. I used two of them on this mixed media collage: TWO: You need contrast to make your work sing. If... Read more →

Art Parts Explained

"Art Parts" are the mise en place of art making. Having a stash of art parts makes the act of making finished art quick and easy. But art parts aren't simply painted pieces of paper. They're immediately usable "parts" that can be adhered in place. Watch the video for more: If you're interested in my Art Parts class this weekend, you can read all about it and sign up HERE. There are 3 spots left in class. Regardless of whether or not you sign up for class, I hope you'll consider building up your Art Parts stash. Piles of pretty... Read more →

Paper Birds Now Available For You To Make!

If you'd like to make these super cute paper birds, you can visit my online shop to grab BOTH the SVG cutting file AND a printable PDF to cut by hand. Here's a video on how to put them together: I love how quick and easy these birds are to make! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

A Formula for Making Art Quickly

If you want to make art quickly, you need to have all the supplies on hand. I'm not talking about paint and brushes...although those are useful to have. I'm talking about pre-made "art parts." What are "art parts?" Well, it's a term I made up. But in essentials, it's substrates and bits and pieces that are ready to go into your art without any work. It's the kind of stuff you make when you have a bit of free time, without any end result in mind. If you've bought a scrap pack from me, you know what I'm talking about.... Read more →

Currently Prototyping Paper Birds

I spent a big chunk of yesterday prototyping some three-dimensional paper birds. I am planning to cut some out of white paper and experiment with different surface design techniques on them. Then once I have a menagerie of lovely birds, I'm going to climb a ladder and hang them from my ceiling! I really enjoy this kind of contemplative making. Experimenting. Trying new things. Learning what works and what doesn't. Problem solving is my happy place. And that's a lucky thing since most art making is just solving problem after problem! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

Mixed Media Page Marker/Bookmark

I stumbled across these fabric bookmarks that looked cool and super simple to make: source But I didn't feel like dragging out my sewing machine and ironing board. So, I made one out of paper! I cut a 3"x3" square and then cut another 3"x3" square into a little bit more than half. Because I'm using adhesive and not stitching it, I knew that I would need a bigger corner area, which you can see on the piece on the right side. And then I decorated the papers and simply glued them together on the top and left side. This... Read more →

Valentine's Day Ideas From The Archives

I wanted to share a round-up of just a few of the fun Valentine's Day DIY projects I've shared over the years. You can find the links to all the project tutorials below: Stamped & Masked Valentine's Day Cards Pop-Up Valentine's Day Card Valentine's Day Flipping Photo Cubes Gelli Masked Heart Prints Valentine's Day Explosion Card Heart Boxes And finally, a post from the archive and a challenge to you! In putting together this post, I came across a post from 2014, which I had totally forgotten about: In the original post, I set out a challenge for myself: Using... Read more →

Have You Heard of Februllage?

I accidentally stumbled across an online challenge called "Februllage." The Scandinavian Collage Museum and Edinburgh Collage Collective are the hosts of Februllage -- a combination of the words "February" and "collage." The challenge is to make a collage a day throughout the month of February, using the prompts from the Februllage Official Word Prompt Calendar: The challenge is hosted on instagram. Even if you don't wish to participate, I think the work that people are doing is super inspiring. So I thought you might like to see a few of the entries from the first two days (these images are... Read more →

Valentine's Day: Photo Puzzle Card

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and so here's a cute idea for a sweet gift to give a loved one: a small puzzle that he or she can put together that features their loved ones or a hidden message! You can find a step-by-step guide to creating your own custom puzzle by hand cutting HERE or by using an existing puzzle HERE. I made mine using my ScanNCut. It's something I figured out how to do because of a question in January's Member Livestream. It's a simple process: Use a wet adhesive to glue the photo to a piece of... Read more →

A Busy Weekend of Teaching

I had a very busy weekend packed with people, which is certainly an amazing thing to be able to say in these days of quarantine. But, don't worry, it was all from the comfort of my own home. On Friday I taught my live online class "Friday Night Art Journaling: Let's Make Faces." Here are some of the demo faces I created as part of that class: My next Friday Night Art Journaling class is on March 5. It's all about hand cutting lace pages in your art journal, like this one: On Saturday I taught my "ScanNCut DX: Super... Read more →