Balzer Designs

A Birthday Card with a Pocket

This year for my Mom's birthday, Steve managed to get tickets to see Hamilton: The Musical.  He asked me to make a card that he could slip the tickets into.  And so, I did.  (In the photos I used photo booth strips instead of the tickets.) 

I love how it turned out!  I think how you give the gift can matter as much as the gift itself.

I designed the card in Adobe Illustrator and then I used my ScanNCut to cut it out.  But, you certainly could cut it by hand.  Or alternately, you don't need the lacy bits. You could use a pretty piece of patterned paper and create a very similar card!  Here is a link to a very simple tutorial for making a card with a pocket.

Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Cards 2018

Here are the holiday cards I gave to my friends and family this year (I had to wait until after they had gotten them in order to share them with you):

The front of the card features two doves raised up on foam adhesive and my handwriting cut from paper.

The inside of the card features a "pop up" Christmas ornament.

And I always stamp the back of my cards to ensure the recipients know that they're hand made!

Those are stamps I carved ages ago and they have been very useful to me.

I also gave a few 100% unique cards:

The branches on this card are shrink plastic! Isn't that fun?

Thanks for stopping by!

Best of 2018: Painting, Food, and More

For the next few days I'm going to be sharing a series of "best of 2018" posts:

• Best of 2018: Painting, Food, and More
• Best of 2018: Art Journal Pages
• Best of 2018: ScanNCut and Stamping
• Best of 2018: Blog Posts

To compile these posts, I've read back through an entire year's worth of blog posts and picked my personal favorites to highlight.  Enjoy!

Painting -- I really did a pathetic amount of painting this year.  I hadn't realized how few pieces I completed until I starter looking through the year's archives.  Hopefully there will more painting in 2019.  But in the meantime, enjoy these ones:

Giant Tar Paper Face

I Still Believe in America

A Landscape Painting

On the other hand, this was a banner year for decorative baking.  In the food category:

Halloween Sugar Cookies

Cupcakes for Halloween

Mini Gingerbread Houses

Screenprinted Cookies

And in the miscellaneous category:

My Modern Quilt

My Traveler's Notebook

Painted Dresser

Thanks for stopping by!  More to come!

Creative JumpStart (CJS) is Back!

I'm happy to share that I'll be teaching for Creative JumpStart (CJS) 2019 for the 8^th year in a row!  It's hosted by my friend, Nathalie Kalbach. If you're not familiar with CJS, it's an online event to kick your creativity into high gear throughout the month of January. 

Throughout January participants get access to 31 downloadable videos from 31 featured artists. Learn techniques, discover new materials, and connect with other artists and crafters.  And my favorite part is that the videos are all about 10 minutes long -- so very manageable.

You get 31 videos - over 5 hours worth of video content -  for just $40 (USD) if you sign up by November 26 2018 11:59 pm EST. 

The price keeps going up: After November 26, it will be $45USD until November 30th 2018, and $50USD until December 31st 2018, before it goes to its normal price of $60USD on January 1st 2019. 

You can visit Nat's site to sign up and/or for more details.  This link is an affiliate link and I will receive a small portion of your payment if you purchase the class through this link.  Your support is always appreciated.

The theme this year is all about home and this is the project I'm teaching you how to create:

Hope to see you in class!  Thanks for stopping by!

Whimsical Collage in the UK: Part Two

Here are the photos from day three of the three-day "Mixed Media Circus: Whimsical Collage" class that I taught with my dear friend, Nat Kalbach.  On day three we took everything we learned on days one and two and started to work in a series of six collages.  Working in a series is a great way to (1) loosen up, (2) develop your artistic voice, (3) use your time wisely, (4) speed up the learning process, and so much more!  Take a peek (4th photo down is my demo collages in progress):

The growth from the collages created on day two was just astounding!  Everyone did such a fantastic job pushing themselves out of comfortability.


Several students mentioned that they chose to work in an uncomfortable color scheme or chose to try motifs that scared them.  The room was charged with energy and excitement as students' personal styles started to emerge!


When we laid them all out to see, it was just amazing.  Such an impressive collection of work.

Here are the six mixed media collages I completed on day three of class.  I was delighted when one of the students bought all six as a set.  I imagine them happily adorning a wall somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean!


I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but I kind of love the collage in the center of the first row.  It speaks to me.

If you're interested, I have three existing online classes that cover some of the things from class:

• Getting Started with Color Mixing
• Getting Started with the Design Principles
• Getting Started with Collage

In addition, two of my new online classes (starting Dec 1) cover some of the skills from class:

• Notan or Expanded Square -- focus on design and composition
• Book of Color -- exploring monochromacity

Thanks for stopping by!