Etsy Crafternoon Hosted by Bloguettes

Every year, people from around the world come together to attend locally organized Etsy Craft Parties to meet new members of their community, create art and inspire each other. So last Saturday I went to an Etsy’s Crafternoon hosted by Bloguettes at their studio in downtown Phoenix. The theme of this year’s Craft Party was Kaleidoscope: Paper Taking Shape.

What a great inspiring event that was! There was several Etsy sellers who were introducing some great projects. I made an origami crane, learned some techniques with paper stamping, made a drink stirrer and a cupcake topper using some printable images and learned how to distress wood with a chalk paint and wax. 

An absolutely great time!

There was also great music and food. We had some delicious snacks and cupcakes by Sprinkles Cupcakes  packed in cute individual cardboard boxes. A great way to present a cupcake!

It was a wonderful craft party and I am very grateful to the Bloquettes for organizing this.

The projects from ThePartyApple, Abubblylife and UrbanOasisDecor were just lovely and inspiring. 

 Absolutely great idea and a wonderful way to connect with our local community of makers!

DIY Halloween banner BOO

Halloween is near and I still did not put any decorations outside the house. I hide the box with Halloween stuff in the far corner of the top shelf in a garage and it is almost un-reachable. A tall ladder would help for sure but at least at this point I am just walking by.

That's why I am especially interested in some new quick DIY projects for Halloween.

I contacted Irina (Graphicland) wondering if she could help to make a simple graphics banner for me. She was excited and pretty soon the new banner was born. Irina was also kind enough to give me permission to share these graphics with my blog readers.

   So, here is the banner and it is really easy to make. 

 Just print the graphics and cut out the flag triangles. Glue them to the cardstock and put them under some heavy books to make sure they will stick and be flat. I would suggest using wax paper to put between the book and the cardstock to make sure that the cardstock will not be glued to the book. About 30 minutes to one hour should be enough.

Now, cut the flags out of the cardstock. You can cut it either really close to the paper edge or leave some space, it's up to you. Make two holes in both top corners of your flags with a paper punch. Thread the jute cord through the holes in the flags. Leave enough jute to reach the areas to tie it to.

It's ready! You can add some embellishments to make it more personal and it will become one of a kind.

You can download the graphics for this projects here (1, 2, 3) or visit Irina's blog for more great projects!

 Have fun with this projects!