Scenes from Day 2 at the iLoveToCreate booth at the 2012 Craft and Hobby Tradeshow

Our Creativity mannequin proudly displaying her red balloon!

Another fun and busy day on the tradeshow floor at the Craft and Hobby Assocation Winter Show for 2012. Here's some of the fun photo action in our All you Need is... booth!


Pattiewack and her designer friend show off a quilt square using our new Scribbles Fabric Stamps! We are putting together quilts to be auctioned off for various Boys and Girls Club nationwide!


Tiffany Windsor and Heidi Borchers created these amazing mosaic shoes using Aleene's adhesives!


Savannah Starr shows off her cool Tulip Body Art painted look at the end of Day 2. Look at those awesome shoes and necklace painted by Hope Perkins. LOVE!


Blogger Ashley Hackshaw of Lil Blue Boo was in the house and meeting with friends and fans in the Bloggers' Lounge!

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Craft on!

Mural Making with the Perkins Sisters

I just spent the last 3 days doing the best job ever! I got to hang out with my sister, I got to stay in a fancy hotel and I got to color in the lines of a giant fantabulous coloring book! My sister Hope and I were lucky enough to fly to Dallas and hang out with the rad folks of I Love to Create at the Michaels 2010 Leadership Conference & Holiday Showcase. Store managers from Michaels stores across the land gathered in Dallas to learn hands on about all the fun craft products in their stores. Hope and I were in charge of painting a huge mural on the back wall of the booth. When we arrived on Monday the wall was a huge piece of blank white canvas & an arsenal of I Love to Create goodies to play with - AKA pure crafty heaven.





Hope was the mastermind behind our mural doing all of the drawing. My job was to go around and color in her gorgeous illustrations.



We used everything from the I Love to Create line we could get our hot little hands on. We used Phat Markers, Tulip Fabric Paints, Aleene's Tacky Glue, Tulip Fabric Sprays, Scribbles Paints and more.




We embellished our portrait with paper flowers using Aleene's Acid Free Tacky Glue, stencils from the new graffiti line, Tulip Fashion Glitter and Tulip Glam It Up Crystals.


All our crafty work paid off as I Love to Create was given the award of most creative booth! Good choice Michaels if I do say so myself. Wanna see more pictures of our mural painting adventures and the rest of the I Love to Create booth? Check out my pictures on Flickr.

Tiger Art on the Walls & My Neck!

Lord knows I love a good theme. I'm one of those people that is likely to read Memoirs of a Geisha, while eating sushi and wear a kimono while doing it. Tonight my amazingly talented sister Hope Perkins (check out her I Love to Create interview about glitter) is having an art opening and you bet your bottom dollar I am working a theme with my outfit. You can look at the walls or my neck to see the art.


SUPPLIES
Cast resin cabochons of paintings
Wooden drops
Dremel
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Pack
Sponge Brush
Head Pins
Decorative Paper
Collage Pauge Instant Decoupage
Plastic Flower Petals
Jewelry Wire
Pliers
Beads
Crimp Beads
Liquid Fusion Glue


Casting Resin
I won't go into all the details of how to cast resin, you can get all the info in my book The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry and all the supplies from ETI. In a nut shell choose the pictures you want to use, print out on photo paper and cast images in resin using a plastic painters palette as your mold.


Paint
The raw wood aisle at the craft store is always one of my faves. I found these rain drop shaped wooden discs that work perfectly for necklaces. Mix Crafty Chica Paint to get desired shade and use a sponge brush to apply two coats. Allow to dry completely.


Collage
Once your paint has dried add decorative papers to the wood to add interest. I used Collage Pauge and zebra print Decopatch paper. Allow to dry.


Glue
Once my custom resin cabochons had set up and been sanded I used Liquid Fusion Glue to attach them to my wooden rain drops.


Drill
Using a Dremel I drilled holes at the tops of all my wooden drops. Next using an eye pin, plastic flower petals, small heart shaped lockets and beads I did some wire wrapping. The wrapping not only adorned my pendants with funky flowers it also gave them loops at the top for hanging.


String
Using jewelry wire and beads string your necklace into desired pattern. Finish the ends with crimp beads and clasp.

If you can't make it out to the Austin Art Garage tonight, never fear the art will be up all month long. If you don't live in Austin check out art by Hope Perkins and Cory Ryan online!