1. Photo Mobile FT. Dear Handmade Life

    Check out our DIY collaboration with Nic Stevenson from Dear Handmade Life! Nic came up with a cool way to showcase photos of her and her husband in the beautiful photo mobile! You can get to know Nic and DHL next spring at Craftcation: Business & Makers Conference.

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  2. How-To: Gallery Wall Series: Using the Silhouette CAMEO Machine

    Reasons why we love the Silhouette Cameo:

    The Silhouette Cameo is a digital cutting tool. Think of it as a printer that uses a blade instead of ink. This crafting power tool opens up a world of artful opportunities!

    die cut silhouettes of a dog, an ampersand, and a woman

    • Use your favorite designs and fonts – You can cut any font on your computer or use your own personal artwork. Plus, you can also download pre-made designs from the Silhouette online store for around $0.99 each.
    • It works on a variety of materials including paper, vinyl and cloth.
    • There are endless crafts you can create: cards, invitations, dimensional paper projects, décor, boxes and more!

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  3. Quick-step guide: snaps, eyelets & brads

    decorative_brads

    A PS Fan fan recently wrote in about a 4″ x 6″ booklet idea she was working on and, like many of us, the final execution of her project was unanswered – How was she going to secure the pages of her booklet?

    Would it be snaps?

    Could it be eyelets?

    Or should it be brads?

    Decisions, decision, decisions…

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  4. Bellevue store discovers a new craft – needle felting!

    Needle felting is a fun crafting technique that gets a little less of the spotlight than others. But there are endless possibilities to what you can make, once you know the basics. I learned this new technique making a soft sculpture using the beginners needle felting kit (Flower Felting Pin Kit). Then I transferred the knowledge into making a small family of birds. (But you can take this idea and craft whatever creature you like.)

    Once I completed felting the birds, I found a piece of driftwood from the shoreline, and crafted a swing, simply by braiding pieces of string to each end. When the swing was assembled, the birds were then glued onto the piece of wood with PVA glue. And voila!…a cute family of birds who smell great!

    Needle felting

    Needle felting kit Read More

  5. NEW! Crafting Studio featuring Epic Letterpress Machine

    In grad school I fell in love with “George”! He was older – a bit outdated for his time; he weighed 1200 lbs and smelled of inks and solvent. None of that mattered – George and I had a love-hate relationship from the start. To everyone else he was known as the Vandercook Universal. My romance with George included tediously hand setting tiny 10pt. lead type, adding even smaller brass and copper spacers, along with leading lines for sentences and breaks, etc.; chases locked (often “pied” when dropped on accident – heavy sigh!) with wood furniture. We had many long nights together, til the wee hours of the morning, with loud music and the smell of damp paper in the air. Yes, with this level of commitment and attention to George, everything letterpress, from that point on, was a thing to behold!

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  6. Go ahead…color outside the lines!

    Part of the fun of being creative is having the opportunity to play with some old favorites, but in a new way. Faber-Castell Aquarelle Watercolor Pencils have long been a favorite of mine and I was thrilled when we picked up this set of 12 colors. Here’s an easy way to create fun stationery or note cards with just a rubber stamp, ink pad, Aqua Water Brush and these colored pencils. The five quick steps below will show you how to make any ordinary image a bit more like magic.

    1. Ink Your Stamp: Select a rubber stamp with some open space for fill in opportunities and room for things to flow outside the lines! This little Dandelion Rubber Stamp is one of my favorites. Ink up your stamp with Black Color Box Inkpad.

    Step 1_watercolor pencils Read More

  7. Learn card making tricks from the pros!

    Like you, we know how much fun it is making cards for those special occasions, where your own imagination is the secret ingredient! This Thursday’s Creative Card Making Collection Workshop offers the perfect opportunity to roll up your sleeves and learn plenty of easy tips and tricks for layering, embossing, and fill-in ideas that will last you a lifetime. We’ll have an assortment of rubber stamps, ink pads, cards and envelopes to get you started – you’ll leave with a stash of cards and the skills to create even more on your own!

    Here are a few card samples using some of our new bold colors along with card making techniques we’re sure you’ll love! Most of these designs sprang from the creative minds of our amazing sample making “dynamic duo,” Annie and Claudia, who never cease to wow me with their clean and playful style.

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  8. Our first guest blogger! Introducing Andrea Boudewijn…

    We reached out to you recently for guest blogger submissions and received many great stories about how you use your favorite crafting essentials. We’re thrilled to introduce our first guest blogger, Andrea Boudewijn, whose creative inspiration is simply delicious! Here’s her story:

    Hi PS Fans! My name is Andrea Boudewijn and I’m a baker of wedding cakes and confections who loves to shop at Paper Source in Pasadena and Beverly Hills. As a cake maker, I’ve often looked to Paper Source for tools I can use on my cakes. I know what you’re thinking: What could a paper store offer that could be used at a bakery? More than you can imagine. Everything in the shop is an opportunity to get a creative edge on my cakes, but today I want to talk about a tool I reach for and use every single day: The bone folder.

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  9. New Silhouette SD Digital Cutting Tool

    I love, love, love playing with new crafting tools and am so excited that we now carry one of my absolute favorites – the Silhouette SD Digital Cutting Tool. It’s similar to a printer in shape & size and connects to your computer, but instead of printing images, it uses a tiny blade to cut them out of your choice of media – paper, vellum, vinyl, oh-so-many options!

    Diecutting letters & shapes

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  10. How to make envelope liners

    For those of you who have tried it, you know, lining envelopes are oh, so satisfying! It’s an easy, instant upgrade to wedding invitations, stationery, and greeting cards, and even if you claim you’re not crafty, you will be able to do this. You can use almost any paper imaginable to make envelopes liners – solids, patterns, fine paper, newspaper, magazine pages, even photocopies of pictures.
    How to decorate envelopes Read More