A Creative Christmas

Well this has been a very busy season for me. Getting a new job, trying to plan moving to a new home and keeping up with all my new wonderful customers on my Etsy store. I'm so grateful for the passion of art and creativity. At times like this when life brings so much stress and worries, I am blessed that I can look over at my craft table and no that I can release some of that negative energy into my inks, paints and glue. Thank you Jesus for the love for creativity... thank you for the inspiration for creativity that is ALL around me... thank you for the finances to buy that little bottle of glitter... thank you for leading new customers to my studio store.  

To all my followers, friends, family and customers I wish you a Beautiful Christmas & a Wonderfully Happy New Year xoxo Toni

Secret Santa

Christmas greetings and today's project from Saturday in the Studio is a gift bag and tag for my Secret Santa gift at work. 

Today I am working with two products that can be purchased in my Etsy shop, the Manila Tag measures 6.25" x 3.25" and gives you plenty of creative room to use for decorating a collage, mini art, tag for gifting and so much more. You can stamp, ink, alter, paint, distress, embellish and the surface accepts wet and dry techniques. Also, I'm featuring 2011 Christmas Seasonal Series Distressed Inks, all available in my Etsy store and they come in 3 festive colors: Evergreen Bough, Festive Berries, & Iced Spruce.

 I used all three of my Distressed Inks to color up my snowflake stamp and stamped my bag as well as my Kraft color tissue paper. I then embossed some more snowflakes in black.(I wanted to keep it a bit masculine as it was for a male employee that works with me) 

I then decided to run my Distressed Ink over my craft sheet and spray water to create droplets and then ran my manila tag over the colors and heat set. Applied a Martha Stewart Snowflake punch to the tag for interest. Distressed the edges with Iced Spruce. Added the words "Christmas Greetings" from my Ideaology Seasonal ChitChat Stickers. Them I embossed David's name and some snowflakes randomly in black on the tag. Tied natural & black jute cord to the tag and bag. 

Stop by my store for many other products for your crafting needs. You can also purchase Etsy gift cards for that crafting friend so they can go shopping after Christmas. Enjoy putting your own personal touch to your packages this holiday season. xoxo Toni

Saturday In The Studio

Due to all the holiday busyness, I am a couple days late on posting "Saturday in the Studio". This weeks feature product is Maya Road Vintage Wood Spools. These are so cute and come 6 in a package. I decided to create a Christmas tree ornament with mine. Here are the quick and easy steps to making this ornament. You can purchase them here at my Etsy Shop

The following supplies were used: Maya Road Vintage Wooden Spools, sheet music paper, black jute, ribbon of your choice, gold & silver tinsel glitter, black & gold confetti tulle, gold ornaments for embellishment

I first used Vintage Photo Distressed Ink and stained the edges of the spools, then cut strips of the music paper and glued it around each spool. Next I glittered all around the edges of the spools with my tinsel glitter... (this year I think this is my most favorite glitter... so vintage looking) . 

Using the black jute I ran it up the holes of the bottom two outside spools, then ran it up the 2nd row of spools and then finished by running both ends of the jute through the top spool. Leave about 2 inches and tie a knot. 

 Then using my glue gun I glued 3 spools together for the foundation, then two for the next row and 1 for the top row.  To finish off I added some pretty gold and black confetti tulle that you can also get in my Etsy shop and adhered some mini Christmas bulbs. And there you have it another quick and easy ornament for your tree. Hope you enjoyed ... Merry Christmas

Christmas Burrrr lap Bags

 It's "Saturday In The Studio" and this week I'm featuring my burrrr lap bags. There are so many uses for these bags. They can be used for every holiday imaginable. I chose to make some gift bags for some co-workers and here is a tutorial to show you the process. The first thing I did was stamped my words using white gesso onto the bags. Acrylic paint works just as well and would probably clean up easier on your stamps than gesso, I just like the way gesso is so thick.

Then I attached the cinnamon sticks to the jute using the following steps. 

Lastly I stapled the jute and my choice of ribbon to the back of the bag just to hold it in place. Wrap the jute first in a regular bow, and then wrap your ribbon around and tie a nice big bow. You don't, of course need to use cinnamon if you choose not to. Some other choices would be, ornaments, bells, candy canes, etc. These bags are really inexpensive and can be customized so easily. They can be purchased here in my Etsy shop for $2.25 and they measure 10" x 10" Use them to fill stocking stuffers, homemade baked goods place a poinsettia plant or mini Christmas tree inside and tie with a festive bow. Hope you were inspired to be creative. xoxo Toni