Before and After

My projects this week are have to do with upcycling things I find in thrift stores. I even made it a point to buy things NOT over a dollar!

You can find these boxes easily at your local swap meet store and simply follow these instructions to make them all beautiful vintage looking piece.

Step 1: Sandpaper your piece so that any wood sticking out or any funky edges smooth out.

Try peeling off any images on the box. Make sure since it's from a thrift store that you then clean up any germs or leftover sandpaper with an antibacterial wipe.

I found a great find at the thrift store too: Alice in Wonderland! You can pick up any classic novel at your thrift store to do this project, look for ones with illustrations still in them especially.

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Rip out the pages for a cool affect and use a brown stamp ink pad or Holtz's distress ink to age the edge of the ripped pages.

Color in the illustration if you would like with pencils.

Modge Podge the top of the jewelry box and start to put the papers on top smoothing the edges down for no wrinkles.

After a little drying add modge podge to the top of the of the jewelry box as well....we are decoupaging y'all!

For extra effects I stamped a bee on the bottom of the lid.

I puff painted around the edges of the box and die cut a fleur de lis for the bottom of the box. Make sure to decoupage the bottom and top of all your paper prodcuts to keep them in place and looking shiny and good.

I even added the authors name to the bottom right of the box.

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial. There are more to come of course. Keep your eye out for fun finds in the thrift stores that you can transform into little treasures!

Now I'm going to go watch millionare matchmaker! haha

My first link party!

I submitted my Paris glass pendant to over 200 thumbnails on that blog that people scroll through and can click to be taken to your blog. It's a party! I have found so many great blogs this way.


Here are some more things that I have been working on the last few days. I hope you like them. And remember I always use recycled thrift store items.

This is the top of a jewlery box that was AWFUL looking with 70s teddy bears on it. Now it is a chic French themed jewelry box. Repainted, coated, decoupaged and stamped.

Au revoir for now my lovely followers. Today I go teach two voice lessons....money to buy more craft supplies??

California Dreams

GOING TO SEE KATY PERRY JUNE 7th OFFICIALLY! 

In other news, I have dived into the world of diamond glaze....yes it's true. My mother's friend Cydney who is a crafter from Austin has apprenticed me for the weekend and I have learned loads.

We have been working with pendants on recycled materials using modge podge, scrabble pieces, dominos, glass pieces and sliced wine cork. I've also started using a dremel- some of the people in the Atlanta Young Crafters group would be so proud!

I've started discovering that a lot of the blogs that I am following except people to submit their work in case it is good enough for display on their blog! Huge bloggers with thousands of readers like:

http://indiecraftcorner.blogspot.com/
http://dollarstorecrafts.com/
http://www.modpodgerocksblog.com/

 So hopefully you'll be seeing me there soon!

Find my other handcrafted items at my shop as always-  http://www.etsy.com/shop/lexiconoflove

Ignite the light

Cause baby you're a firework!


Made my first etsy sale and am feeling on top of the world. My twitter page is slowly but surely going up in followers, people I don't even know personally! I also started up a flickr account.

Because of twitter I have been following some great crafters that I would love to spread the word about:
http://www.the-craftycafe.com/
http://downtimeupcycle.blogspot.com/
http://livinglifecrafty.blogspot.com/

Each of these crafters use upcycled materials like myself

This house I created this week uses a reproduction of a royal young boy with splattered paint, stamping, paint pens, puff paint and marker.

I call it home is where the heart is. I even put the little bushes on the front with golden sequins. The door is behing the boy with green sparkle pen.

The whole piece is on an upcycled wooden house ornament held up with a piece or rugged looking string.

It is currently up for sale on etsy: http://www.etsy.com/listing/65716044/collage-wooden-house-vintage-boy-mixed

This weekend my aunt Nina came into town who I lived with when I was younger. We have a great bond and her daughter, Lucia, is my closest cousin as we are about the same age too. Nina and I are both crafty, her a quilter, I a collager I guess you would say.

As we talked our creative minds churned and we came up with the idea that all of us in my generation are in a sort of transitional phase. We should all join together and put our talents in one pool to create a sort of hybrid art store, cafe, teaching center, upcycled retail store.

I think that that was an incredible idea....but how?How do people even start their own businesses?  What would I call it? Would my cousins and siblings be good business partners?

I think about little things in a store/cafe like that. Having designer clothes that we upcycle from thrift stores....picking out my favorite local art from people applying to display in my store....having opening galas....sales......making cappuccino....i could go on and on.

Maybe I need to find people with money for investing first. Yea.

Inspiration to a Creative Mind

This week I returned from Cancun, Mexico with my darling beau, Matt. We did a photoshoot on the beach and around the hotel and the pictures came out just stunning. We wish we had money to buy more of them but we are on that college budget type deal.

Now that I am back, however, I am having a most difficult time getting back into crafting.

I want to just lay on the beach on a hammock. How do regain my passion for art once again?

Taking a break was exactly what I needed but the craft table simply becomes more and more full of junk from the living room it's impossible to work at.

What tips would you suggest for finding that spark again?

This week I also, after reading many blogs about why I should, opened a twitter account.

It's not so bad!

http://www.twitter.com/elexabancroft

Of course, if you read my blog you are amazing and wonderful so here is a special treat for you!

30% off of my entire Etsy store until Valentine's day with coupon code:

AMORE

http://www.etsy.com/shop/lexiconoflove

My tip for the day: Remember that there will always be another vacation to look forward to and plan. It's not all over yet.

If it were all vacation all the time, it wouldn't be that special.

Right?

Elf

Oh Will Ferrel you always bring holiday cheer with your Chirstmas movie. Me and mom and my little sister are hanging out in our PJs laughing....and maybe some cookie baking?

Got two scrapbooks today and some books on altered art. I'm very excited to dive into them. But one thing that keeps going on in my mind is ORGANIZATION. My craft area is falling apart because it's the middle of the living room......what to do?

Well that's going to be my New Year's resolution I think? What is yours going to be this year?


I've been decopauging away- going on jewelry boxes, bird houses and cracker boxes galore. Have a fun recycled idea for me from your usual trash? Throw it my way and maybe I can use that for my next project.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Etsy

So I finally created an Etsy store! It's not really as easy as it seems. Each individual item I have created has to have a series of questions and summaries and pricing filled out about it. How do these people have stores with hundreds of items?!



How do I get people to buy is another huge question. There are hundreds of thousands of stores to compete with and I don't know the first thing about becoming more publicized. Have any opinions?

After the greeting cards took some slips against my partner during the winter selling season I have decided to charge into an individual and uniqe form of art that no one I know is pursuing: Altered mixed media art.





What is altered mixed media art you ask?



Taking things not normally used for art and repurposing them into something beautiful. Using all sorts of mixtures of art products for one single piece. Never having two of the same kind of pieces. Using vintage and old pieces and images for nostalgia and trend. Ready, ok!

I found a copy of Alice in Wonderland at a garage sale for super cheap and it was a JACKPOT! The images and illustrations inside are wild and people love that movie and story it is a hot book to have my hands on. I'm so excited. The jewelry box I created in the picture above was already favorited by a random customer on Etsy!

Wish me luck