Pom Pom Up-cycle – Trash to Treasure

10/03/201710/04/2017Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

It has been a while! I apologize for the disappearing act! Last year I went back to school and it overran my life! Due to some family emergencies, I have decided to take this semester off so I can help out as much as possible.

I also decided, it was time to stop neglecting my poor little blog and start adding tutorials again.

So without further ado… A Trash to Treasure Tutorial!

Have you ever looked at all those boxes and tins that come with products and think “I cant throw that in the trash!?” Well I do, in fact I have a huge collection and a mission to do something with them.

In this tutorial I used an old metal band aid box to make an adorable little pom pom box. You can do this with anything. In fact, I am making another one out of a Tin that Tea came in.

Remember when Band-Aid boxes were made of tin!?

I know all the collectors out there are shuddering right now, but I have more than one.

Keep adding…

Then ..

TA-DA!! A cute puffy little Pom Pom box.

A perfect bank, storage solution or gift box.

This is the Pom Pom pattern I used

What do you think!?

If you make one, I would LOVE to see it, feel free to post pics in comments!

From Idea to Product making art come to life

02/16/2016Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

I am so excited about this post. I love to draw, always have, probably always will. I have never formally taken a class or had any sort of training so I have always been shy with my art. Recently I have decided to just start drawing and putting it out into the world.

For Christmas my fantastic parents bought me a whole bunch of different types of Sharpies!!!! I love sharpies. They are fantastic to work with. If you missed my free Valentines Day Cards Downloadable post you can check it out here: https://goo.gl/hhBvOB

I used all sharpies to make the valentines day cards.

So I thought it would be a fun idea to make my mom and dad a thank you picture using all the cool markers they bought me for Christmas.

Here it is getting started:

Getting Colored in:

Almost Done:

Done:

I liked it! So I took a really high resolution photo of it, and had it made into real Thank You Cards!

Here is how they turned out!

I also decided that they would make awesome Thank You coupon cards for my etsy store.

I am super happy with them.

The Thank You Cards are available on my Sugar Beet Crafts Etsy Store Here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/268470697/set-of-3-thank-you-so-much-flower

If you love to doodle or draw or take pictures, don’t be afraid to take your art to the next level. It is really fun and easy to do.

Have you been inspired to draw lately? I would love to see it, feel free to post a link in comments.

Free Handmade Valentine’s Day Card Printable from Sugar Beet Crafts

02/08/201602/08/2016Leave a comment

Hi Everybody!!

I hope this post finds you having a wonderful February so far. Can you believe Valentine’s Day is just around the corner already!? This year is flyin’ by.

Have you ever wondered where the tradition of Valentine’s Day Cards came from? Well it has been rumored that the very first Valentine’s day card was sent by Saint Valentine himself. He sent it while he was imprisoned and waiting for execution by the Romans. It seems he was quite taken with a jailer’s daughter. And so just before his death he sent a letter and signed it Your Valentine.

The oldest known Valentine’s day card is kept at the British Library in London it is a poem written in French in the year 1415 by Charles Duke. He wrote it to his wife, while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. I would actually love to see it, is amazing it has lasted this long.

So to celebrate this wonderful day of Love and Friendship, I decided to make my own Valentine’s Day Cards just for you.

I created 8 free Valentines day cards. Each one hand drawn and colored. They are great to print out and pass out to friends, teachers and loved ones or you can print them out punch a tiny hole in the top string them up and make a cool banner out of them.

SugarBeetCrafts Valentines Day Cards _0001

Hand Drawn!

Shakespeare kitty approved!

1.) Be My Valentine Heart Balloon Card

2.) Psychedelic Hearts – Happy Valentines Day card

3.) Be Mine Valentine – Cloudy mini hearts Valentine’s Day Card

4.) Candy Hearts Valentine’s Day 2016 card

5.) You Make My Heart Shine Valentine’s Day card

6.) Will You Be Mine? Happy Valentine’s Day card

7.) You Are My Star Valentine. Valentine’s Day Card.

8.) Be Mine Valentine – Hearts and Flowers Valentine’s Day card

* All cards are included in one PDF download. All cards fit on one 8×11 piece of paper. They work best printed on card stock.

I hope you enjoy! I would love to know what you think!

Did you create your own valentines day cards? I would love to see!

Share your link in comments!

Quick & Easy Felt Valentine’s Day Pins

02/01/201601/31/2016Leave a comment

Hello Everyone!

Can you believe it is already February? This year is flying by! Last year I made these awesome little pins for my boyfriends band, a cute little freebie to give away to people that came to the valentine’s day show. They were such a hit I decided to share them with you.

They would be fun for a class project or a fun way to show your valentine’s day spirit at work.

The theme of last years show was “Wear your heart on your sleeve” so these little pins were fantastic.

You only need a few supplies:

Felt Hearts
A glue gun and glue sticks
Extra felt (can be the same or different than the hearts)
Small safety pins
Scissors

Felt Hearts by Creatology, bought at Michaels Crafts.

The felt hearts can also be made with plain felt, I just chose to use these pre-made hearts because they have writing on them like the little candies, and they were really inexpensive.

To make the pins:

Cut up the extra felt piece into small squares. You want to make the square smaller than the heart and small enough to fit inside the small safety pin.

Use the glue gun to make a small dot of glue, place an open safety pin down into the glue face up.

Add another dot of glue over the safety pin, add a small square and press lightly. The open part of the safety pin should be facing you. As seen below…

Let Dry…

Ta-Da! Cute lil’ valentine’s day pins!

Quick and easy!

These things are so easy to make! You should have no problem pumping out a bunch for a party favors or fun giveaways.

What are you doing for valentine’s day?!

Composition Notebook Cover Re-Do #2

07/08/201507/07/2015Leave a comment

Hi Everyone!

I hope your having a fantastic week so far!

So last week was the first of a series of posts on how to re-decorate your composition notebooks. The first Composition Notebook Re-do was done with Mod Podge and different kinds of paper, then stuck mixed media style to the front and back covers.

If you missed it, you can find it here: Composition Notebook Cover Re-Do #1 (Decoupaged Paper Mix Media Style) Composition Notebook Re-Do #1

This week’s re-do is all about doodles. I am going to show you how easy it can be to customize your composition book with your own artwork.

I love to doodle, I have notebooks full of random drawings, scribbles and doodles. So it was only a matter of time before they wound up on the front covers also!

So let’s get going 😀

Materials Needed:

Composition Notebook
Pencil
Eraser
Sharpies or any Permanent marker. I use Micron by Pigma its Archival ink, which means its permanent and it also dries really quickly. Quick drying is important because the last thing you want is a big marker smear, its fixable but frustrating. I also use sharpies they work well also. You also want to go with a finer tip, especially if your getting into detail. If not go with whatever you like. I try to keep a variety of sizes around.
Watercolors or Acrylic paint. (I used watercolor easy to work with, easy to fix mistakes, and dries fast)
cup of water for your watercolors
paint brushes
Sticklers Glitter glue
Acrylic Gesso
Clear Coat Spray Sealer

Steps:

Grab your Gesso and completely cover your front and back cover. You may need to do two coats. If you do make sure you let the gesso dry between coats.

Cover the entire front and back cover with Gesso and Let dry.

Once completely dry Grab your pencil and start doodling or drawing.

Draw anything you like

And doodle some more…

Here are some tools I used to do the back.

and some more doodling…

Outline everything in marker. Remember to use quick drying Archival ink or sharpies to avoid smearing.

Then go over everything with marker.

outlined in marker

Now it’s time to watercolor!

The gesso takes water color well .

so therapeutic

Once your done with the watercoloring, let dry completely.

Once dry, I used Sticklers Glitter glue to accent different places in the pictures to give it a little pop.

When your completely satisfied, spray your cover with Spray Sealer. This helps keep your cover from sticking to everything.

There you have it! A completely customized notebook! What do you think?

I would absolutely love to see how your projects come out.

Send me pics!

Come on back and check us out next week, when I do Composition Notebook Cover Re-do #3!

Have a wonderful week!

Past Peyote Stitch Projects

11/15/201411/15/20142 Comments

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it has been so long since my last post, I was job hunting and a bit distracted. Happily I was able to find a job! Unfortunately I have been too crazy to get to any projects. But I have been in a beading mood and working on getting some beads together for some projects.

I was going through some of my older pictures and came across some of my old bead projects and thought it would be fun to share.

I love beads!!!!

How are your holiday projects going?

Off to decorate for Christmas… have a great week!

Recycling! Re-Using Paperboard as Art Canvas

09/17/201409/17/20145 Comments

Hello Everybody!

It’s time to talk trash!

Did you know 40.4% of our garbage is paper. 40% is a whole lot… let’s talk about that in terms of pounds, well its is 71.6 million tons! And according to the EPA only about 40 million tons of paper and paperboard were are recovered for recycling.

We can all do our part

Some of the recovered paper is used to make things like paperboard. Paperboard is not quite cardboard but much stronger than paper. It is what everything is packaged in.

The EPA states that “Approximately 70 percent of paperboard is used to package food and other consumer goods.” Paperboard is everywhere and if you really think about it, it is mostly unnecessary. Cereal boxes yet the cereal is in a bag..inside the box? Individual sized everything? unnecessary! Too much over-packaging!

I personally, was very tired of adding to the garbage or even the recycling with all this paperboard, that in my crafting mind I could do something with.

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone, pardon the expression…I love and respect birds. 😀

I decided instead of throwing the cereal boxes and well most packaging into the recycle bin I was going to reuse it. I discovered they make wonderful art canvases, journal pages and bookmarks. Art supplies are expensive!! I do not necessarily need the super expensive nice canvases for my art. Part of what makes my art my art is recycling and reusing what’s around me in a different way.

Recycled Beauty Art Page on Cereal Box
by Brandie Bell

Once cut down, the possibilities are endless!

They are thick enough to make stencils & stencil masks, the ink sprays and acrylic paints I used did not seep through. Create your own works of art with decoupage, paint, fabric, embellishments, it is even strong enough for those steam punk projects. Cut out Tag shapes and make your own tags.

The skinny sides make great bookmarks!

Here is how to do it the way I do:

1. Cut down the boxes right away. Easier to store and easier to start projects if the cutting is already done.

Cut up the boxes. I cut off the tops and bottoms but keep every side.

I have a nifty storage box (box my cat door came in..I liked the way it opened. I keep them in. One day I will decorate it and use it as a cover for all my projects. You can make one with a cereal box just cut down the center.

2. It’s best to prep your box, art work just comes out better. But this step is really up to you. I cover the image side of the box with Gesso.

Once dry you are all set to craft away!

Recycled Beauty Art Page on Cereal Box
by Brandie Bell

I hope this post gets those creative juices flowing!

How do you use recycled products in your art? I would love to know and maybe even blog about you! 😀

Playing with Water Color

08/06/20147 Comments

Hi Everybody!

I have had a bug to watercolor lately. My mom bought me a cool pack at the dollar store. I loved the colors, they were florescent! Also, instead of having the typical shinny finish they were matte, which is really neat.

This was one of my first experiments

I drew the image first with pencil, then water color then outlined in black marker

Have a wonderful Day!!

Let’s Make Stickers!

05/19/201405/22/2014Leave a comment

Hi Everyone! I hope everyone is wonderful. I spent this weekend going through some of my office supplies, and I found a bunch of packs of labels. Then it happened…the idea!

I don’t know why it took me so long to do this. I love stickers.. I mean LOVE stickers. I have a wicked collection.

Lately, I have been sealing packages and letters with them but I wanted something more personalized without spending a bunch of money. Then lightning struck, I can make my own!!

So, if your like me your might have packages of labels around collecting dust. I always have leftovers from yard sales and organizational sprees, or if you burn your own CD’s, you might have those CD Label making programs,they usually leave you with left over sticker parts. I keep everything I might be able to use later on (no, I haven’t reached hoarder status…yet).

I kept the CD label thingy because I thought I could use the round part or the thin CD case labels.

So lets make some stickers…

You want to start with a background.

I used Dylusions Ink spray and sprayed the labels. You could totally use ink pads or markers. Once covered let them dry.

Next, Use a lighter color stamp pad to stamp a pattern onto the background. This part is fun, you can do a million different things.

Next, More stamping..Use letters, pictures, whatever your heart desires. I was making Thank You & Sugar Beet Crafts Stickers.

You can use a white or metallic pen to make some fun highlights…

Here are some more fun ideas…stamps and markers. The background was done by rubbing the labels with a stamp pad, stamping and filling in with markers.

Here is a fun way to use the thin strips of sticker for the side of the CD case…

Doodle across the lines…

Then remove for an awesome sticker!

Use it to decorate a card..

I am already totally addicted. It is a fun way to add some pizzazz to any project. It’s also super sweet to get a personalized handmade anything.

This would be so fun to do with kids, and you have no guilt because you get to use up some extra’s lying around. The environment gives you a big hug for that!

I hope this gets your imagination going!

What will you make?

I would love to see your stickers!