Beth Quinn Designs

Beth Quinn Designs  has the loveliest sentimental charm necklaces.  She also sells children's jewelry.

There is also a special with Social Goodies.  $4 from your purchase will go to the charity of your choice.  A little something for everyone. Love the glitter!

Teaching Spring Classes in Monrovia

Springtime Classes begin in March!  I'll be teaching Rubberstamping/Art Classes on Monday evenings from 7-8pm for 8 weeks starting March 26 and Beginning Jewelry Classes on Thursday evenings from 7-8pm starting March 29 for 8 weeks.  Here's a link to the current brochure Monrovia Community Classes which should also be the same link when the Spring Brochure is posted.  Here is a sample of one of the cards I'll be teaching.  So pretty!

Watercolored Rose and Shimmery Paper

Gift Card Boxes

I really enjoyed making these boxes to hold gift cards.  Mini little presents which won't get lost or misplaced.  The nice thing about them is they can be reused year after year.  It took a little time to figure out the dimensions I needed but I now have a template.  The most time consuming task for me of course is deciding how to decorate each box.  I like to make everything color coordinate with the papers I've chosen and add a little embellishment to carry out the theme of the paper.  The one nice thing about these gift boxes is that they gently slide open and there is no "ripping the gift wrap to get to the gift" so all my hard work doesn't go up in a poof of paper.  I prefer the little floral rosettes to the accordion rosettes.

The floral rosettes are circles cut into spirals and then wrapped tightly and glued.  The accordion rosettes are strips of paper scored, joined and glued into a circle and then pressed flat.  In order to get them to stay put you need to punch a one inch circle and hot glue them down so they are secure.  Too much mess an frustration for me so until I figure out a simple solution (as others have) I will keep making the floral rosettes.

Here are a few of the boxes.  I started a few more but couldn't find "just the right paper" to coordinate.

Snowman Soup

                             

Every Christmas I make biscotti and package them in different ways for my co-workers.  When I first started doing this, I would paint small clay pots and decorate them.  I think the first year was white pots with gold star bursts and gold rim, another year it was navy pots with snowmen on them.  Whenever I handed them out, I always got rave reviews and told "you should sell these".  My response was always that they were a labor of love and people would never pay what they were really worth in the time spent to gather or bake the items and pull them altogether into a gift.  Fast forward ten years later.

Today I'm putting together some cute cups with the ingredients for snowman soup.  I thought they would be quick and simple because I wasn't painting the containers.  I'm trying to finish what I start these days so I  took babysteps and at long last they are ready.  I'll be selling them at the Sonheim Lutheran Home Boutique on Saturday, December 3rd, and donating a portion of the sales.  Wish us all luck the boutique is a success.

I typed up the recipe for snowman soup which you can find on the internet.  I used SU!'s narrow 1x8 cellophane bags (#124134) for the mini marshmallows and 30" of SU! baker's twine in cherry cobbler (#123125) which I doubled-over and tied a round the bag.  I snipped off the extra and used it to attach the tag which I stamped & embossed in silver on front, and hand stamped TO and FROM on the back.

Suzi Blu Canvas - Student's work

One of the reasons I love rubber stamping is that I can only draw stick figures!  I wish I could draw but until that happens I will use rubber stamp images to be creative.  Suzi Blu has some really cute girly stamps which are rather large to be used on the everyday greeting card BUT they are the perfect size to create artful canvas paintings.


In my "Artful Creations by You!" class at Monrovia Community Center,  I taught a couple of ways they can be used.  The picture above shows the almost final results of two of my students.  For this canvas, this is what we did:


1) Stamp on tissue paper using StazOn Ink. (Don't forget to put a sheet of paper under it before stamping to absorb the excess ink.)  Let it thoroughly dry a few minute or so.

2) Make sure to use gesso or gel matte medium to seal your canvas because it is absorbent.  

3) Once it's dry, add another coat of gesso or GMM then place your stamped tissue paper on the canvas, use your brush to press the tissue paper to the canvas working from the center to the outside.  Don't worry if it leaves a crease or two, it only adds to the texture of the canvas. 

4) After it dries, paint using watercolor crayons, acrylics, chalk, or any combination.  Add words either with tissue paper or stamping words on paper and cutting them out. 


There are many ways to display this work of art: pop it in a frame, display it on an easel, punch holes (use a heavy duty punch) at the top two corners and use ribbon to hang.


Yes! I will be teaching this class in the Winter, Check out Monrovia's Community Brochure for all the details. Monrovia Community Classes pages 8-9 are my classes!!!

Giving a Speech

Attention Getter:
Relevancy:
Preview:
Transition:
1st main Point:
Transition:
2nd Main Point:
Transition:
3rd Main Point
Conclusion:

For those of you who know me, I would rather do anything but give a speech.  So I finally took a class at PCC and learned.  I thought I should post it on my blog so that I could ALWAYS find it because someday I will have to give another one and I want to remember the important points.   However, the most important thing I learned was to start with the 3 main points

A Busy October

I spent most of my summer preparing to teach classes at the Monrovia Community Center -  classes just finished Wednesday, October 12.  I really had a lot of fun sharing all things artsy and met some very nice ladies in my community.  I also remembered to bring my camera and most importantly... to use it! Classes start again January 14, 2011.  I will post a link next month.  What also has made this month busy is I'm preparing to once again "sell my wares" at the Shakespeare League Fall Boutique October 19th.

I'm finally remembering to take photos of the items I make and will eventually post them.  I also realized that I can post to my blog and add photos later.  Hopefully, I will be more consistent in my blog postings of what I'm doing and then add the pictures as an update.  This weekend I made Halloween cards, and other cards in general.  I also made quite a few goody bags, what I like to call "little somethings".  I made themed toppers for candy filled cello bags.  Witchy, Cowboy Christmas, Simple Thanksgiving, and Wintery toppers.  Of course I made a few mistakes along the way which made me realize I should post as I create so I won't make the same mistakes.  All turned out well, just a little extra crafting time which could have been used on housekeeping!!1

I also just finished making "Snowman Kisses" giftees using Tic Tacs.  Turned out cute!  Oops! better go take a picture before I put them away.   One of the class projects we did was coaster tiles.  Before I put my supplies away from that class, I stamped up a few.   Just need to package them and remember to take them with me!