DIY Decoupage Pot

I am over at the iLoveToCreate blog today with this DIY decoupaged terra cotta pot.  In person, it actually looks like it's been painted.  I'm pleased as punch with how this one turned out!  This could not be easier to make, it is literally four steps!  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. I have a second one in the works and then they'll go out on our screened in porch for the spring and summer.

Upcycled Can DIY and Free Vintage Graphic

Miss Avalon has a super cute upcycled can DIY for iLoveToCreate today.  Turn your old tin cans into pretty can-tainers in just a few quick steps!  You can get the full tutorial with pictures on the iLTC blog!

So sorry for being MIA this week.  Mr. Potter is overseas traveling for business and I fell down the stairs during a power outage and managed to sprain my ankle and possibly fracture my fifth metatarsal bone. You know, for fun.  Squee.  Getting up and down the stairs is proving challenging, so my DIY output has been diminished considerably.  I did get this project shot yesterday and posted today.  While I was down in the craft dungeon studio, I scanned and cleaned up this final free Miss Madge's Share the Love Initiative free vintage graphic for your elephantine entertainment and edification. 

DIY Cupcake Wrapper Flower Valentine's Wreath

What's this?  A lovely DIY Valentine's Wreath for iLovetoCreate?  Why yes, it is!  Isn't it romantic?
Monday was Operation Take Down Christmas at Casa de Potter.  Le sigh. Worst day of the year, if you ask me.  Which you didn't, but that never stopped me from sharing my opinion.   I was feeling the winter blahs and then I stumbled on a Styrofoam wreath in my crafty coffers and I simply had to make a Valentine's wreath.  The making of this wreath was epic, in a Dino DeLaurentis or Ziegfield Follies fashion.  I wanted romance, I wanted pretty, I wanted it all without the slightest whiff of ticky tacky.

DIY Teen Craft Project Link from Avalon from her Couch Bound Mom

Cheap and Easy (Crafts): DIY Embellished Holiday Letters for iLoveToCreate and Book Trailer!

Yup, it's time for another Cheap and Easy (craft)!  I'm guest posting over at iLoveToCreate today and if you follow the link you can get the 411 on how I turned these FOOT TALL paper mache letters into sparkling holiday accents in a flash!  You may recognize these from our Consumer Crafts Haul Video.  Hooray!  Speaking of videos, my talented and endlessly patient hubby Drew just finished editing a fabulous trailer for the new book!  Check it out, it's only a little over one minute long and the intro he made is ADORABLE!

Do you have your copy of The Fine Art of Shameless Self Promotion yet?  You're gonna like it, I just know you will!  It's the perfect way to kick start your new year!

xoxo
Madge

Sailing, Sailing Decoupage Canvas

Sailing, Sailing Op Art Decoupage Canvas
Avalon Potter for iLoveToCreate Teen Crafts

Avalon made this simply chic op art style canvas using old book pages and cardstock on an inexpensive craft store canvas.  This is so easy to make and the variations on this theme are infinite.  Fiskars has some great shape cutters that make quick work of cutting squares that are easily halved into triangles.  Piece them together and adhere to your canvas with Aleene's decoupage medium in matte finish and you have a fabulous one of a kind work of art.  Best of all, you're the artist!

"Giving Thanks" Thanksgiving Table Decor DIYs

iLoveToCreate
Giving Thanks Thanksgiving Table Decor DIY
Margot Potter

My new crafty gal pal Cheryl Burchett and I are co-hosting DIY segments for Gannett News here in Knoxville on WBIR Channel 10. We just filmed some fun Thanksgiving themed segments and the first one aired this week. I've embedded the video below AND here are the step by step instructions for some inexpensive and simple projects you can make to take your holiday table from drab to fab in seconds flat! You can make these projects as complex or as simple as you like, but whatever you do, Aleene's Tacky Glue dry adhesives make putting it all together a breeze!  

iLoveToCreate: Ribbon Wrapped Nevermore Halloween Pumpkin

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door."

The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe

DIY Halloween for Scrapbooking Attitude and Dollar Store Crafts!!

(Margot Potter for Dollar Store Crafts)

How-To Make Savvy Studio Storage Mason Jars

Mixed Media Canvases for Faber Castell and BuzzFeed Mason Jar Challenge

Yesterday I was feeling a little, well, defeated.  I have had a few big 'no's over the past few weeks.  We're working hard every day here to make ends meet and build new boats to set sail into new seas, but sometimes it just starts to all feel completely overwhelming.

Recently I received a package of the most delicious art supplies from the lovely team at Faber-Castell.  I have had five blank canvases sitting in the studio waiting for inspirado to hit for months.  It's been years since I painted anything, I'm always so busy making projects for my clients I don't have much time to just make art for fun.  I needed a break, so I unplugged, grabbed my Faber Castell goodies and two canvases, some brushes, old French magazine pages and some decoupage medium and played.

It was really hard to get out of my head and allow the art to unfold.  There are A LOT of layers here and at one point, I had pretty much given up on both canvases. 

While I was playing, two big opportunities were unfolding!  Yes, step away from the computer and suddenly it all shifts.  Sometimes you just have to shift your perspective a little!

I went back to the canvases with fresh eyes and started over.  I call this process intuitive design, it's the way I work with wire as well.  No rules, no preconceptions, no big plan.  I started with my Fiskars circle templates and a pencil.  The gelato medium is so color saturated, you just keep sweeping it across the canvas and hitting it with a wet brush to get a dense pigment rich watercolor effect.  They look like little chapsticks, love that they're so wide and easy to work into the canvas!  I used several different black markers including the Faber-Castell PITT artist pen big brush pen to frame the circle areas, again working totally intuitively.  There was one spot that really wasn't working, so I began layering paper and it all came together!  I am pleased as punch with these! They're not perfect, but let's face facts, neither am I.

I was invited by the lovely Pippa at BuzzFeed to participate in a Mason Jar Design Challenge!  You can get the 411, the tutorial and vote for my design (only if you really like it) on their blog.  Here is a link!

Love
Madge

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous Glitterville Inspired Chick or Tweet Display

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous Crafts
Glitterville's Handmade Halloween Inspired Chick or Tweet Display 
Margot Potter
"These are your grandmother's crafts, ya gotta problem with that?!"

Er mah gerd, this project was EPIC!  Yes, I started yesterday and did not finish until this afternoon!  I did sleep, eat and drive my daughter to school, which was an expletive filled epic adventure this morning.  Forgotten school event pass, back up mountain, slowest old person EVER in front of us on the way back down the mountain, miss turn, u-turn, drive-up ATM closed, out of gas...what?!  Ergh.  Tiny baby spiders covering gas pump, leap back into car and go to next pump, walk of shame into gas station cafe in dog hair covered pajamas to second ATM, miss bus, dog leaps in lap while driving, extract dog from lap, drive daughter to school with teen age boy riding our rear and stuck directly behind slow moving school bus the entire ride...HEY KIDS!  YUP!  WE MISSED IT!

Return home to one minor craftastrophe after another...have I mentioned I'm impatient?!

MANY hours later...SUCCESS!

This lovely Hallowe'en project is inspired by the RETROFABULOUS new book by Craft Wars' judge and Glitterville mastermind Stephen Brown Glitterville's Handmade Halloween.  This is the most luscious, scrumptious, stunning visual feast of a craft book created, photographed, designed and edited entirely by Stephen and his Head Studio Elf Chico.  Stephen shares his secrets for making 20 exquisite projects inspired by his wildly successful Glitterville line.

So Madge, being the brave and crafty fool that she is, decided to make her own project inspired by the book, rather than, say, making one actually in the book.  I suggest, you follow Stephen's exacting directions and not veer off the garden path into chicken town.  But hey, Stephen has a pet chicken named Dolly Poulet, Tori has a pet chicken named Coco and Madge used to have 30 pet chickens...so what could be more apropos than a Hallowe'en Chicken?  Meet Hen-rietta Henpeckt and her pecky chicks!  This project is made of inexpensive materials easily found at your local craft store and Aleene's Tacky Glue brings it all together perfectly.  So here's how to make one!

Materials

2 Styrofoam Balls (1/5", 2")

Paperclay

3 Standard Wooden Toothpicks

2 5" Wooden Toothpicks 

2 12" Long Wooden Skewers (cut to 8")

4" Square Cardboard Box

20 Gauge Silver Plated Craft Wire

3mm Jet, Black Diamond SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS rounds

4mm Hyacinth SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS bicones

5 Small Chenille Baby Chicks

1" Wide Felt Flower Trim cut to 4" (or other 1" wide trim thick enough to showcase letters)

4.25" Segment Krienik Orange Metallic Thread

Orange and Pink Cardstock
Creative Paperclay

Printed Letters in Century Font 36pt. c h i c k or tweet!

Orange Krinkle Shredded Paper (I cut my on using a paper trimmer and orange tissue paper)

Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue
Tulip Beads in a Bottle Pink Glitter

Tulip Black Fashion Glitter

Crafty Chica Little Paints (I mixed pink, orange and used yellow and black)

Micron or Other Fine Tip Pen

Tools

Round nose pliers

Chain nose pliers

Flush cutters
Fiskars Shape Templates Frames
Fiskars Shape Template Cutter

Scissors

Paintbrushes

Foam brush

Bowl for glitter

Spoon for glitter

Cover Styrofoam balls with clay. Keep clay sealed and use small amounts at a time, use fingers to smooth, keep water nearby to help with this process. 

Use a toothpick to connect two balls, add clay around neck and smooth, use small cut toothpick segments as armitures, add clay to form beads. Use the end of a marker to create eyes. Create wings and attach to sides by wetting and smoothing clay. Repeat for comb, waddle and tail. Go back over bird with wet fingers until smoothed. Insert a dowel into bird and allow to dry overnight.

Sand bird to smooth using a fine grit sandpaper. Mix paints and use small brushes to paint bird. Start by making bird all one color, pink. Allow this to dry, then add orange on the comb and waddle, yellow on the beak, pink inside of the beak, white black and white for eyes and allow these to dry.  (Use Micron to add small details to bird's eyes and mouth.)

Use Tulip Beads in a Bottle in pink to add dots. Let dots dry for ten minutes. Use a flat wide brush to flatten dots and spread extra medium across bird. This adds a little sparkle and keeps bird from looking too bumpy!

Cut a piece of floral foam to fit a 4x4" cardboard box, I used a saw to cut a little off of the top of my foam block. Leave some space for bedding and bird.

Make a necklace using 20 gauge wire and 3-4mm crystals in black, orange and grey.  Loop one end, bend the opposite end at a 90 degree angle, slide on bird, thread bent wire into loop, use round nose pliers to loop bent wire and secure closed.

Make a tiara using 20 gauge wire. Thread 9 crystals on center of a 4" segment of wire, grasp and twist forming loop, add 11 4mm crystals to each end, loop on end, bend the other leaving a 1/4" tail. Add glue to tail, use chain nose pliers to insert tail into top of chicken's head behind comb. Adjust.

Paint box black and allow to dry. Paint inside and outside! Use a flat wide brush to paint a layer of Tacky Glue on all exterior sides of back. Pour glitter into bowl, use spoon to add to box edges, gently spread with fingertips and tap off excess glitter.

Paint your dowels black, allow to dry. Insert into foam at front left and right side of box. Place bedding into box, cut off any stragglers. Insert a longer toothpick into bottom of bird, insert into foam using chain nose pliers. Attach felt trim to front tops of dowels using Tacky Glue.

Cut all words and letters out. C h i c k is cut into separate letters, or is cut into a small flag and tweet! is cut into a rectangle. Tie metallic thread to dowels, leaving room for your flag. Attach flag with Tacky Glue to thread.  Cut card stock frame (I used my Fiskars Shape Templates and Cutter), adhere to front of box, add pink card stock behind the word 'tweet!' and the letters to center of flowers on felt trim using Tacky Glue.

Try your best not to make a mess this epic in the process. This is what happens when you take the side road to Chicken Town...HELP!

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous Craft Wars Inspired Twister Lampshade

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous: Craft Wars Inspired "Twister" Lampshade
Margot Potter
"These are your grandmother's crafts, ya gotta problem with that?"

Last week on Craft Wars the contestants had to DIY a lamp from an array of sun and safety glasses and craft closet schtuff for the Pop Craft challenge. I am on a mission these days to use up the vast and ridiculous amount of craft supplies that I already own. I could not justify buying new glasses and taking them apart to make a lamp. I also wasn't so excited about building a lamp. I'm impatient, have I mentioned that?

I put on the old thinking cap and began pondering lamps, iLoveToCreate adhesives and glasses...which morphed into a bag of glass pebbles, cardstock and a super cheap lamp from Target. I'm fond of repetition in design and I have a proclivity for circular shapes. I selected some colors from my pile of paper, punched out small circles and started mapping out a design. Mr. Potter joined the fun and we came up with this shade.
I couldn't figure out what was so familiar about these circles in these particular colors and then...it hit me! TWISTER! YAY!

And that's...how my mind works.  Scary, isn't it?!

(GLUE NOTES:  To attach the circles, we punched out Aleene's Fabric Fusion sheets, but it does make the punch sticky, so alternately you can try using *Aleene's Fabric Fusion tape cut with non-stick scissors in strips across back of circles.)

Follow the links at the bottom of this post to see what the other Craft Wars Vets made this week!

Materials
Small table top lamp with white shade
Cardstock in orange, blue, light yellow, dark yellow, green
Small clear glass flat back pebbles
Aleene's Fabric Fusion Sheets or *Tape
Aleene's Super Thick Tacky Glue

Tools
Fiskars 1" round circle punch
*Scissors

Cheryl whipped up a fabulous Day Bed Cover!
Andrea turned some zippers into a Perky Pillow!
Pattye shares lots of lovely DIY lamps!
Angela turns a skirt into an adorable upcycled lampshade!

Craft Wars Inspired Junque Drawer Birdhouse!

Last week on TLC's new crafting competition show Craft Wars, contestants were asked to create a birdhouse that was functional and attractive using items from the Michael's craft closet and things one might find in a junk drawer. They only had one hour to get the job done, which is cra-zee.  I, on the other hand, have the luxury of time and being a Monday morning quarterback, along with my other Craft Wars Vets. (Soon I too shall be risking craft fail on national TV and everyone else can second guess what they'd do if they were me!) I tried to stick with the theme, practical junk drawer birdhouse, using stuff you would find in my junk drawers, like bottle caps, dominoes and buttons combined with items you could easily find at a craft or hardware store.  I had a blast turning a drabby ancient birdhouse into a fabby new home any Smoky Mountain bird might enjoy inhabiting. 

If it were crafty...and slightly eccentric...that is.

I didn't put a bird on it, but I hope to put a bird in it!

Wah, wah.

So here's how I made my house and come back Wednesday to see the AWESOME house my daughter made for iLoveToCreate. Is this a craft fail or a crafty delight? Well, my fine friend, that's totally your call. Visit the links from some of the other Craft Wars Vets below! 

Ingredients
One crappy old wood birdhouse
Dominoes
7-Up Bottle Caps (edges hammered flat with a rubber mallet)
Metal house numbers (I used Tim Holtz idealogy numerals)
Copper chain (cut three lengths to fit sides of house and edge of roof)
Old buttons
20 Gauge copper Artistic wire
Letter beads (to spell "put a bird in it")
Acrylic paints (bright green, teal blue, sage green, metallic copper-I used Ranger and Liquitex)
Alcohol inks and metallic mixative (lettuce, bottle, stream and pesto and copper mixative)
Large detailed stencil
Sealant (do not use spray sealer on alcohol inks...or you shall be sad...instead use a brush on sealant to protect from the elements)
Glue sticks

Utensils
Palette knife or butter knife
Stencil brush
Flush cutters
Round nose pliers
Chasing hammer
Bench block
Bench block pad
Hot glue gun
Ink applicator and felt pads

These old birdhouses required some brushing down to remove dirt and debris, now they're ready for a new lease on life! NOTE: No birds were relocated for the making of this project.

I used a butter knife like an artist's palette knife to scrape on chunky layers of paint.  Starting with the darkest paint and moving to the lightest.  Using the knife prevented them from mixing together like they would with a brush. I am now madly in love with this technique and looking for other things in our house to attack disfigure improve.

I used Ranger alcohol inks dabbed in the corners of a felt pad on their applicator to put layers of color on the front and sides of enough dominoes to cover the roof of my house. 

I repeated the ink and paint process with some bottle caps, adding texture using blue metallic paint. I liked how that looked, so I added that to the drying dominoes.

Use a large detailed stencil, stencil brush and copper paint to add another layer to the house. Don't worry about being perfect, this is meant to be really organic and shabby in appeal.  Or if being perfect is your thing, rock on with your bad self!

 

Use hot glue to attach the dominoes across roof of house. Try not to burn the crap out of  your fingers whilst doing this...as I did. Because I always do. Yay, hot glue! Oh and remember the judges on Craft Wars HATE glue strings. I, however, overlook them because life is too short to worry about a few glue strings.

Use ink to add some color the the house numbers like you did with the dominoes and bottle caps, then attach them along with the chains and buttons to the front of the house.

Thread the words on the wire, bending to separate each word, use chasing hammer and bench block to

texture and work harden the wire.

.

Hot glue wired words to top of house. 

VISIT THE OTHER CRAFT WARS VETS TO SEE THEIR FABULOUS PROJECTS!
Lisa Fulmer
Andrea Currie
Angela Daniels
Nikki Benevento McGonigal
Mandi Rowland Gubler

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous Crafts: Cheers Cocktail Coasters

iLoveToCreate Retrofabulous Crafts: Cheers! Cork Coasters

Margot Potter

“These are your grandmother’s crafts.  Ya gotta problem with that?”

Nothing says retro like cocktail parties, a delightful custom that is rapidly disappearing.  What could be more festive than a few friends, some fondue, hors d’oevres and a litany of libations?  What indeed.  Whatever your poison, be it leaded or ‘un’, these perky little coasters will turn any occasion from drab to fab in seconds flat!  Cheers!

Materials

Aleene’s Spray Acrylic Sealer-matte

Scribbles brush-on fabric paints black and white

Conversation bubble stencil (I used a Shape Template from Fiskars)

Fine tipped black marker
Tulip sponge pouncer

Small flat paintbrush

Small tipped paintbrush

Trace conversation bubble on front of coasters using a fine tipped black marker.

Carefully paint black edges around bubble.  A flat brush is the best choice for this task.'
 

Paint the inside of the bubble white, use flat brush for larger sections and small brush to get into smaller spots.  Allow paint to dry.

Use a foam pouncer to apply a small amount of paint to letter stamp, be careful not to get paint on stamp edge.  Stamp words on each coaster, these can be a little wonky as this is a cocktail accessory!  After drying, spray with two coats of sealer.

Cheers, clink, sip and savor...the four components of a successful toast!