Balzer Designs

Stamped Christmas Cards

This has not been a crafty holiday season for me. However, I did manage to put together two very last minute Christmas cards. It was a Christmas Eve miracle! I followed an easy 1-2-3 card-making formula that you can use for any occasion: Background Paper Sentiment Detailed Embellishment For my cards: The background paper was stamped using a hand carved stamp and a custom ink pad, but you could grab a sheet of pretty scrapbook paper to make the process quicker. For my sentiment, I used my ScanNCut to create exactly what I wanted. However, you could just as easily... Read more →

One Little Word Necklace

One of the New Years traditions that I've adopted is Ali Edwards' "One Little Word" challenge. The idea is that instead of a list of New Years Resolutions, you choose one little word to represent your goal(s) for the new year. This year I have chosen the word: "enjoy." With a new baby in the house, I want to focus on enjoying my life rather than pushing and hustling and trying to get stuff done. As a simple reminder of my resolution, I decided to make a necklace featuring the word, "enjoy." In this video tutorial, I show you how... Read more →

Dimensional Paper Snowflakes

I found a super cute and easy tutorial that I just *have* to share! It's from a blog called, "The Other Side of Neutral" and it's a step-by-step photo tutorial on how to make these really cute dimensional snowflakes: Here's the link to the tutorial. The blog writer made hers with book pages, but I can imagine they would be super cool made from hand painted papers too! Every year I decorate our Christmas tree with handmade ornaments, like these: That said, we couldn't get our act together this year to decorate the tree. (The fact that we managed to... Read more →

Guest Post: Warm Winter Wishes

Today's guest post is from Gwen Lafleur. I first met Gwen many years ago when she was a student in a class I taught in Connecticut. I was blown away by her talent and I have followed her on social media since then. I think you'll love her tutorial! Hi all, this is Gwen Lafleur and today I’m sharing a fun seasonal project and tutorial that I put together along with Eileen Hull and Emerald Creek. The theme for my project was "Warm Winter Wishes" – I thought this was a great way to start getting in the mood for... Read more →

Guest Post: No-Sew Craft Plastic Pen/Pencil Case

Today's guest post is from the super talented Cat Kerr. Cat is a frequent guest on Make It Artsy and always shares super fun projects with lots of layers! Are you always losing your favorite pens, pencils and markers? If you're anything like me you want to pull your hair out every time you go reach for your favorite writing tool and guess what...it's not where it's supposed to be! So I decided I wanted to make my own case and I would attach to directly to my journal so I could never lose my favorite writing tools again. Now... Read more →

ScanNCut: Last Minute Christmas Stocking

Looking for a last minute holiday gift? Christmas stockings are quick and easy to make and completely gender neutral. You can customize it to the recipient simply by the fabric you choose! You can even put a bottle of wine inside your custom stocking to create the perfect holiday hostess gift! Watch the video for the full how-to: I also think you could make super cute mini stockings with people's names on them to use a place cards for a holiday table! How cute would that be?! Hmmmm...time to get crafting! I hope you'll give this project a try. Thanks... Read more →

Guest Post: Stamped Reusable Shopping Bags

Today's guest post is by my sweet friend, Nathalie Kalbach. You may know Nathalie as the host of Creative JumpStart -- the annual January art lesson extravaganza! You can still sign up for the discounted price of $50 until December 31, 2019. Don't miss out! After getting into making patterns with my rubber stamp sets, I knew I wanted to take that idea and use it on a couple fabric projects. My friend Kim and I got together to put some of those lovely patterns to use on reusable shopping bags. Our neighborhood banned single use plastic bags this year... Read more →

I Want to Try This: Mat Board Collograph

I was poking around the internet looking for information on creating fine art collograph prints without a press. During that research, I stumbled across a video that has me **obsessed** and looking around my studio for stray pieces of mat board. Watch the video and see if you're not keen to give this technique a try: Isn't that so cool?! It combines so many things I like: monoprinting, carving/hand cutting, and drawing. Definitely on my to do list! Thanks for stopping by! Read more →

Art Journal Every Day: Sunflowers in my Junque Journal

If you're new to Art Journal Every Day, there is a short introduction here. All of the previous posts can be found archived here. Remember, it's just ten minutes of nourishing your creative self every day! No need to finish anything or even like it. If you've done some art journaling this week, use the hashtag #artjournaleveryday so that we can all take a peek. Even if you're not on social media, you can see everything (from twitter, pinterest, instagram, and facebook) that uses that hashtag here. I decided to put together a video of an art journal/junque journal page... Read more →

Foiled Place Cards for Thanksgiving

Knowing that we were moving into a new house this year, Steve and I originally invited lots of friends and family to come to our house for the holiday. However, with baby boy due right around Thanksgiving, our plans have changed and we are going to my Mom's house for a small family Thanksgiving. But, I still wanted to contribute something to the festivities. Place cards are a fun and easy way to add something special to the table, and so that's what I'm bringing with me! These place cards are particularly fun because they're shiny! Two layers of foiling... Read more →