Wordless Wednesday- San Carlos, Sonora, Mexico

Stay Tuned! Freebie Alert!

A Ring A Day #14

just for the record...I LOVE these rings! Surprisingly wearable and if you are a fidgeter (like me) sliding them back and forth is very tactile.

Stack of 3, I wanted to explore a non-round ring, with a beaded in between a square wire and a round. Comfy...coming soon to the shop. :-) These ones are shown fresh off the soldering pad (well, actually still ON the soldering pad) and not cleaned or polished...

Free Collage Images

I'm posting a few new FREE collage images in my Emporium today, so I'm going to archive the ones I already posted here in case you missed them!

If you use them in published artwork and credit either the blog or the Emporium, let me know...I got a little gift for you! :-)

~brenda

Button Flower Bouquet

 (a little tutorial)

I bought a bunch of salt shakers a couple weeks back at a flea market but didnt notice till I got them home and went to run them through the dishwasher that one of the shakers still had salt in it AND the lid was so corroded from the years of salt and moisture that it was damaged. I couldn't even remove it to use the bottle itself. Now a lesser person might consider this garbage fodder but as we know already, I never throw anything away... :-P

Off to my button stash, I am just OCD enough to separate out my mother of pearl or shell buttons from the rest of the buttons, they're just special you know? I gathered them up along with some fine copper wire and my trusty pliers and cutters...

I found the copper wire was just a little too new and shiny looking next to the creamy coloured shell buttons so I mixed up a small batch of Liver of Sulphur and blackened the wire...no LOS?

 If you boil an egg, crumble it up inside a plastic bag and lay your wire inside, you can get a similar effect, it just takes longer, sometimes a day or two.

I cut the wire roughly 2x how high I wanted the button 'flowers' to be, folded the wire gently in half,  slipped the wire through a large and smaller button holes (you need to use either the 2 hole buttons or the 4 hole and go on an angle) and gave it a good twist under the buttons...keep twisting right to the end and snip off the ends to make it nice and neat.

 Slip your flower stem into one of the holes of the salt shaker lid (I then eye-balled the length, I wanted a variety of heights to the 'flowers' so cut some wires shorter than the others etc)....fill in with more button flowers till you're happy with the arrangement!

I wasn't done yet ( of course I wasn't!)....to dress up the outside of the shaker, I cut a piece of vintage woven ribbon, used brown ink and letter stamps to spell out FLOWERS...I used a bit of doublestick tape to adhere it to the shaker, adding a couple vintage shell buttons as well.

in the end, I had a cute little item to sit on my shelf!

Are you needing shell buttons for your creations?

 Keep an eye on my Emporium, I will be adding tons of new goodies in the next few days including vintage shell buttons! sweeeeet!

~brenda

Treasure Box in Pink

A treasure box full of pink deliciousness for your crafting pleasure...

Check it out here!

everything but the kitchen sink! :-)

~brenda

ATC/ACEO Ledges Tutorial

I guess not really a tutorial but more like a Show & Tell...
I have a bunch of these ledges from collecting old scrabble games at flea markets and yardsales for the scrabble tiles...rather then tossing them out, I try to find some unique ways to re-use them. I've shown you a couple in the past.

I used them to hold scrabble tiles for little inspirational messages in our bedroom here.

and I used them here to hold an ACEO of Bentley the Beagle...

I'm still adding artwork to my office/shipping room and saw the potential in the ledges for holding lightweight art like ACEO's, 4x4's and tags...to find the perfect way to adhere them to the wall, I sought out the glue aisle in the local Home Hardware and found double stick tape that can hold up to 11lbs!

A few tabs on the back, a mini level and presto! 3 tiers of ledges on the wall, room for a a few ACEO's or other slim artwork. And a couple more ledges out of a bin...

I'd like to see how YOU use the scrabble ledges...

~brenda

Wordless Wednesday - ACEO by Christy DeKoning

commission your own here...