Cartwheels In My Mind

Button Frame.

A couple of weeks ago I rearranged my little studio.  My sewing machine had been sitting on a bank of drawers, which did the job, but it made it very awkward to use.  So, up came a little table from the basement and in came a new little "sewing station".

I'm not done decorating my little corner, but I wanted to share a quick little framed piece I made to spruce up my space.

And it's no secret i love the white on white.

To make this little piece of art I took a handful of my favorite white buttons and measured a 4x6 grid on a piece of cardstock. Where the lines intersect is where you'll put your buttons.

Now... you can either sew your buttons on or just adhere them.  It's up to you.

One thing to note, though, is that the frame I used actually had a plastic front... rather than glass.  This allowed me to close it tightly and it just bent slightly to accommodate the thickness of my buttons.  If you find that you can't close your frame enough, then maybe you want to consider leaving out the glass all together.

Now hang it up and enjoy.

 

I further personalized my space with a jar of my favorite buttons, a vintage ruler and a gorgeous print from Andrea Jenkins (hulagirl).

Artists Studio: Kim Moreno.

I've known and worked with Kim Moreno off and on over the years during her successful career in the scrapbook industry. I have come to love not only her personality & friendship, but also her creative style and "keeping it real" attitude. Her timeless master pieces convey her children's everyday life that is very colorful and fun, and she has a stupendous work ethic that I just love!! The details in her designs are amazing and keeps you coming back for more. You can find Kim's work in countless scrapbook magazines such as Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Trends and more. Not only has she been published on numerous occasions, she designs for an array of scrapbook manufacturers and challenge blogs. Kim has also honored to be a 2008 Memory Makers Master Runner Up.

Today, Kim was so eager to share her space and what her favorite tools and products are. So, sit back and get inspired in keeping your studio creatively organized.

1. What is your scrapbook style?
I think I would say it's a "clean collage". I line clean lines but tend to junk up those clean lines a bit as well!

2. How do you find inspiration?
My inspiration generally comes from the photos or products themselves. It usually depends on what I need to work on. If I am doing design team work I will start with the product and think about how I would like to highlight it and find the pictures to go with it. If I am scrapping for myself I let the photos lead me with the feeling I want for my page.

3. Favorite product?
Hands down it's my border punches, I think I have a serious problem and can't seem to put together a project without them.

4. Favorite storage solution?
It would be my Expedit shelf I got from Ikea. I love the deep shelves and finding baskets to go in them to hide all kinds of unorganized stuff! ;)

 

5. Favorite tool(s)?
Can I say punches again? Aside from punches I don't think I could live without my paper piercer. I use if for so much more than just making holes. I use it to lift things to hold tiny jewels to place them on my page, and to slip adhesive tabs under things I think need a bit more stick.

6. Are you a daytime or nighttime scrapper?
I am an anytime my kids will let me get some scraptime scrapper! I do tend to get more done in the night hours when they are all down though. It kills me that inspiration usually hits me around 11pm when I should really be in bed!

7. Who do you design for?
Core'dinations cardstock www.coredinations.com
Zva Creative www.zvacreative.com
Jillibean Soup www.jillibean-soup.com
Creative Charms www.creativecharms.com
Card Positioning Systems (card sketch blog) www.cardpositioningsystems.com
Color Combos Galore (challenge blog)  http://colorcombosgalore.ning.com/

Kim has shared with us her piece of heaven, filled with all kinds of scrappy supplies, cool storage solutions and functional. I especially love her baskets, her magazine style 12x12 holders in "red" all in a row looking pretty and of course, the very large worktable.

1. The 7-drawer containers on the left hold my embellishments by color. Each drawer has a color inside. The top ones hold my ink pads.

On top of them are baskets that hold more ink pads and newer embellishments that I haven't put in drawers. I also have a container up there with rub-ons and stickers that are great to use for cards. Then next to them is a basket filled with Zva Creative goodies. On the white shelves above that I have baskets filled with string, bling, and American Crafts thickers. The table in the center is is where I stand and work. I have all my use "every time tools" there (trimmer, adhesive, pens, scissors etc... In baskets there on the table). In the Expedit shelves, I have baskets filled with items to alter, chipboard, cards etc. I also keep my ribbon in large jars separated by color families (green/blue, orange/red/yellow, black/white/silver, brown/cream, pink/purple).

 

2. Here is a close up of a few of my color drawers. I find it easy to have them separated this way because when I am working on a project and I need a certain color embellishment I can just go to a drawer. It also helps to mix the old and new in the drawer so that I can pull from everything in there instead of just the newest stuff I have.

 

3. Close up of my button jars, again separated by color families.

 

4. Close up of the baskets that hold the newer embellishments and the rub-ons I like to use on cards and such.

 

5. Aaaaaah....the punches...love my punches! (me too Kim)

 

6. I have all my patterned paper separated by manufacturer in these Karen Foster 12" containers (love them!!)

 

7. I also keep all my Core'dinations cardstock in these Karen Foster containers...drool!

 

8. I picked up an old ribbon holder from and old local scrap store and I keep my larger spooled ribbon here.

I really enjoyed the tour in Kim's art studio, which has me thinking of different ways of storing my own supplies. Thanks Kim, for the inspiration and sharing with us your creative haven!

To read more about Kim and her daily happenings, check out her blog and her resume at www.livingthecircuslife.blogspot.com

Cheers

Jumpstart On A Tuesday.

Happy Tuesday everyone! Hopefully by now you have noticed the little Twitter graphic along the top of the blog and have joined in on the fun by following us so we can let you know what's going on over here on a daily basis. The fabulous Christy Berkhouse is the new Cartwheels Communications Girl here and she'll be keeping you informed of everything that is going on on the site and will also be doing some fun giveaways from over there in the following weeks so make sure you check it out!

Anyways, on to the art! :) This little owl art piece is the epitome of a jumpstart project...I literally grabbed a bunch of felt and fabric and just started cutting freehand in the shape of how an owl looks in my mind...and then i stuffed some cotton balls inside the 2 body pieces (which i cut together so they would be exactly the same size) before sewing the edges and adding embellishments in place of the body parts with fabric glue. Then I printed the "i love art" onto a piece of printer paper and cut it into the shape of a word bubble, glued everything down on a yellow wood block that I got at a thrift for $.25, and it was finished in less than an hour and a half. It was super fun, super easy and totally got me in the mood to create more art...which is the entire point of my jumpstart projects!

What do you create when you are trying to get those creative juices flowing? I'd love to hear what inspires you!

xoxo, Cheryl

p.s. Don't forget about joining in on Twitter!:)

Photo Share Of The Day...June 9, 2010.

Brought to you by Jennifer Johner:

One thing I have discovered over the years is.. it is impossible to keep everything our children make. As heart wrenching as that can be! Especially heart wrenching, when your munchkin spends so much time making play doh figures.. then asks to keep them, meanwhile.. you know that there is no way they will last once dried out. So.. I grabbed the camera and took a picture of her proud smile while holding her art.. and her smile is the best part! Not something I would have got to hold on to, had we just put her figurines in a keepsake box (which we still did try to do, but like we suspected.. they didn't survive storage very long).

To play up the fun of the photo, I used the Eye Candy overlays (generous Cartwheels In My Mind sponsor!).. and using my pen tablet, hand wrote the date in Photoshop. I thought this might be a fun photo to share, since school is nearing an end for the year.. and that means backpacks full of art work!!

Rings From A Reader.

I was so excited late late last night when during the course of my art session I noticed that I had received an e-mail from an old friend. And I was even more excited when I opened it up and saw these words: I spent some time on your new site and then left immediately to Michaels where I bought up supplies and ended up making 15 new funky rings!!!!  I LOVE them and I LOVE your website and I LOVE that I finally did something crafty - it's been WAY too long.

And this photo:

 

Love LOVE her take on the project...I'm especially drawn to the right hand row. It's so fun to see how other people interpret art and make them their own. Thanks Maryann, you totally made my day!

Speaking of readers sharing art, I also wanted to share this fabulous layout by Tricia Wilson that was posted in our reader flickr gallery. It kind of inspires me to both want to start a garden and to use leaves on a layout, although knowing myself, I'd have to say that the latter is much more likely.

And one more share from the gallery: this FABULOUS pinwheel headband by Jan Tatomir. I have been wanting to alter some headbands for awhile, and this completely pushed me over the edge from wanting to NEEDING so I think this weekend there will be some hair embellishment art being created! :)

Thanks so much for the inspiration, ladies! We will be sharing reader submissions on a regular basis and starting next week there is going to be some amazing give-aways for gallery submitters. I can't wait to share them with you...good good stuff! :)

Which reminds me...we'll be back later to announce the winner of the Jenni Bowlin give-away (so hurry and post, we are going to make the cut-off time 7:30 p.m. this evening), share a cool font that Maria*Grace found for you, and share projects and an interview from another team member.

Happy Friday everyone!

Peace and Inspiration,

Cheryl

P.S. Starting next friday we will be having weekly challenges hosted by Maria*Grace, and the next week will be the start of new articles by our design team updated everyday. So excited to share it all with you!

Vintage Button Rings.

TITLE: If You Like It Then You Shoulda Made A Ring Out Of It.

As both an artist and a fan of all things vintage and colorful, I have tons of vintage buttons around my house that I've picked up at all different places...from garage sales to my grandma's house to antique shops. And my favorite thing about getting a new jar of vintage buttons is that they are so much more unique and blingy than my own button collection from my clothes, not to mention you are pretty much assured that anything you make using them is going to be a one-of-a-kind design. And who doesn't love limited edition products?

So recently I've been into mixing my vintage buttons together to make colorful jewelry. I'm a huge fan of funky jewelry but I'm on a not so huge budget, which doesn't always work out since the kind of jewelry I'm usually drawn to is fairly pricey. So I like to see what I can make with my own stash, and today I decided to make some rings.

To create them, I simply used: basic ring forms (I bought them at Michael's for $1.99 but you can find them at most arts and crafts stores), vintage buttons, vintage looking buttons by Jenni Bowlin, some random bling from my stash (shown are pink pearl from prima, pearl flowers from Jenni Bowlin, and gems from Me and MY Big Ideas) and permanent ultra strength glue dots.

I just want to mention that when I first started making little rings out of my button stash, I tried everything from metal glue to fabric glue to super glue...but in the end, it was the glue dots that hold the best...which makes this project even easier because there is no waiting time while you are holding the button on the ring till the glue dries!

So to create them I just put the glue dot on the buttons I wanted to make the ring out of, attached it to the ring, added extra bling when I felt like it needed something extra and voila! I had 9 new rings in a matter of just an hour. Such a simple, cool project to do...and the best part is that whenever I wear handmade rings, I always get tons more compliments on them than when I wear store bought jewelry.

Yet another reason to love handmade!

Peace and Inspiration,

Cheryl