Friday, September 23, 2011

45 AWESOME FREE BAG MAKING TUTORIALS!!!! AND MUCH MORE...

Check out this cool site:  Frugal and Thriving!

First off there are 45 AWESOME FREE BAG MAKING TUTORIALS!!!  The tutorials come from other sites...so you can go on a little adventure and find new fun blogs to love!!!
This first link below is where all the tutorials can be found.  The other links below the photos give credit to the sites from which the photos first came.
http://frugalandthriving.com.au/2009/45-awesome-free-bag-making-tutorials/

I'm in love with this one!!!




Second, there are 39 FREE APRON TUTORIALS!!!

Cute stuff!!!



And finally, 48 Plus FREE SKIRT TUTORIALS!!!


I guess this one appeals to the Bohemian in me!!!

There's a lot of cool stuff to check out there and get yourself some groovy free tutorials....gotta love that free stuff!!!!

Take care!  And if you like what u see here, invite some friends over! 

Thanks, Cynthia

FUN DAY FRIDAY...YARN & LACE APPLIQUES!!!

Hi there everyone!  Hope today finds you doing well!  Thought I would share some fun little inspirational goodies I just got in the mail.  They are for certain projects I'm working on that must be finished next Thursday for a show I have on Friday.  In fact, it's the Neptune Festival here in Virginia Beach, and if you are local, I hope you will come out next weekend and see me AT 22ND ST., ON THE BOARDWALK.  The show lasts for 3 days, Friday - 12 noon to 7pm, Sat. - 10am to 7pm, Sun. - 10am to 6pm.  

 

This gorgeous yarn is from:



Fun lace appliques from:


Ok all you sweet people...have a great day, and a wonderful weekend!!!

Cynthia




Wednesday, September 21, 2011

GiveAway Reminder!!!! Original Artwork Giveaway!!!



This little lady was patterend after those in Kelly Rae Robert's book, "Taking Flight."  She is 11" X 14" on stretched canvas.


TO ENTER TO WIN:

1.)  Post this link on your facebook page/ in the feed
2.)  Tweet this link
3.)  Follow this blog
5.)  Visit my ETSY shop and leave a comment (here) about what item u liked best and why
For EACH of these 5 things above that you do, you will recieve one entry...so you can get up to 5 entries to win!!!  Simply post the url where you linked this blog in the comment section of this post so I can view it (or just tell me what u did).  THE CONTEST LASTS FOR TWO WEEKS, STARTING TODAY AT NOON, ENDING THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, AT NOON.  TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, AND SOMEONE IS SURE TO WIN!!!

Questions?  mail me at;  originalcyn01@aol.com

Happy linking all!!!

Cynthia

Thursday, September 15, 2011

"Your Stuff is Too Expensive!!!"


Ok people!  Here it is:  an A #1 terrific article about how much work artists and crafters really put into their work, and how that work is often de-valued by the public.  Here's an excerpt, check out the whole thing at the link below!!!


“$70 for a t-shirt?!”

“I love your website, but everything on it is overpriced!”

“Your stuff is too expensive.”

“Are you rich or something?”

“I could make that for $5.”

"I’ve heard it all. At first it hurt my feelings and made me worry that my prices were too high. Now it only baffles me that someone would say something so rude. This is my job. It may not be like your job. I don’t have a boss or regular hours, and I don’t have to drive to work or even get dressed for it (heh), but this is how I pay the bills.

I’m always tempted to asked these people, “How about I come down to where you work and tell your boss you’re overpaid?” Because that’s essentially what they’re saying."

If any of this sounds familiar you might really enjoy the article....I did:)  Oh, and the point is: 
 Charge what you want for your work, and don't listen to the naysayers!!!

http://whatthecraft.com/overpriced-cant-afford-handmade-pricing/comment-page-4/#comment-256040

Have a great day!

Cynthia

New Original Artwork Giveaway!!!!!

Hello dear hearts.  So glad to see you stopping by today, and hope all is well in your world!  Doing some social media marketing this morning and decided it was high time to have another giveaway!!! So here it is...the lovely "flower girl." 


This little lady was patterend after those in Kelly Rae Robert's book, "Taking Flight." 


TO ENTER TO WIN:

1.)  Post this link on your facebook page/ in the feed
2.)  Tweet this link
3.)  Follow this blog
5.)  Visit my ETSY shop and leave a comment (here) about what item u liked best and why
For EACH of these 5 things above that you do, you will recieve one entry...so you can get up to 5 entries to win!!!  Simply post the url where you linked this blog in the comment section of this post so I can view it (or just tell me what u did).  THE CONTEST LASTS FOR TWO WEEKS, STARTING TODAY AT NOON, ENDING THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH, AT NOON.  TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS, AND SOMEONE IS SURE TO WIN!!!

Questions?  mail me at;  originalcyn01@aol.com

Happy linking all!!!

Cynthia

Cool and Easy Ruffled Scarf Tutorial!!!


Love this!!!!  So pretty and soooo easy to make.  Just pick a fun fabric and get started.  Click on the link below and---Enjoy!!!




http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-summer-scarf.html

Have fun with it!  I plan to make some of these!!!

Cynthia

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

"Peel"---Artist Paints Tangerine, Then Peels with Painting...

I have been thinking more about my sweet little blog lately and how much I love it....how much I have already shared through all these posts and how much more I would like to share. 
I was SO inspired just thinking about this little home of mine on the internet.  I once heard someone describe blogs as 'peoples' front porch' on the internet--you know, the way they sort of decorate them, fix them up.  I think of my home page as the front porch, and the rest of the site, a home filled with rooms and rooms full of goodness. 

When you look around your home, there are all sorts of 'things' there....all the little things that chronicle a life.  My blog is my CREATIVE HOME...and it helps me chronicle where I've been as an artist, the things and people that I love and that inspire me as an artist, and it helps me figure out where I might be headed...as an artist, and a human being.





It's called, "Peel," and the artist first paints a tangerine, and then peels it by painting.  It doesn't last that long...it's sped up....and is VERY, VERY COOL.  Go there NOW and check it out for fun:)  Would I steer you wrong????  Enjoy.  And share some other stuff with us in the comments if you find something cool!!!
Click on the link below, then click video, when the photo appears.
http://duanekeiser.blogspot.com/2011/03/peel_16.html


Later!  Cyn

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

RECYCLED GROCERY TOTES!!! the TUTORIAL!!!



http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/07/tutorial-recycled-grocery-totes.html

These awesome looking grocery totes were made from recycled plastic grocery bags.  It's a great way to reuse the plastic materials and it looks incredibly sturdy---long lasting:)  Check it out!!!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Goddess Leonie...Practical Help with Business & Life!!! Love It!!!




The Goddess Circle is an online sacred space with e-courses, meditations & kits to help you discover the creative, wise, joyful Goddess in you!

With each e-course, you’ll receive meditations, videos, guidance and projects. You also get access to a private online message board for you to share your journey with other Goddesses on the journey!  I am currently exploring the Business E-couse.  I have found it to be incredibly helpful already in so many aspects of business and marketing.  It's great to have so many of the questions I've had for so long about my business, what to charge for my art, how to sell, how to feel good about what I'm doing, how to market myself...and all this without spending a fortune!!! 

Over the last five years, Goddess Leonie has helped over a thousand women over the last five years discover the Goddess inside them.  She is helping me...and likewise I am helping others.  It feels good, and it's 100% for real.  Check it out, what have you got to lose?







Take care my Sweet Creative Friends!!!

Cynthia

Friday, September 9, 2011

Using Creativity to Better Our World! Click the Video Link Below!!!

Why isn't there more of this in our world?  In America, obesity is taking over through poor choices which are largely made due to the vast amount of big business campaigns inundating us at every turn.  Instead of being presented with fun, creative, healthy choices....we are presented with easy way out value meals, diet pills, fast food drive-thru surgical proceedures, magazine covers touting the young and Barbie-doll beautiful, tv programs regaling bad behavior in a multitude of forms----everything in excess...partying, drinking, sexing, fighting, belittling others, immaturity, and promoting envy by glorifying lifestyles "of the rich and famous...or celebritous," which is more more and more common these days.  Promoting lifestyles that are just stupid, by the laws of nature.  ---I just saw on tv where someone had a 25,000.00 pair of sunglasses.  And people go hungry in the world every day.  So.....the point is....LET'S GET ON THE GOOD BANDWAGON....promoting the fun, creative, and healthy in our culture instead of letting ourselves be dictated to by big business.  Check out the video...it's cute:)


http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=257180274312288

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

New Katie Kendrick Book Out Soon!




I had a class once with Katie at Art Unraveled in Phoenix, Az., several years ago ---and it was lots of fun.  Her book sounds like all kinds of good fun too!  Her artwork is very "Chagall"-like...I find it quite interesting.  Check her out...buy a book...experiment and have some fun!!!

Have a great day,

Cynthia

Suzi Blu Y'all!!!

Love me some Suzi Blu...and so happy for her that she has a beautiful, new book coming out!!!  You can go to the Amazon link below to pre-order your copy.  Fun stuff!!!





Check her our, she's a really neat lady:)!!

Later, Cynthia

Edwardian Girl Tea Party TUTORIAL!!!

Hi all! Cynthia Anderson, here again to take you on another little fabric journey! This week's tutorial is a fabric mini-quilt using Frenchkissed's "Edwardian Girl Tea Party " postcard. It was SEW MUCH FUN TO MAKE!!!

1. I took a sheet of TAP (transfer artist's paper) and printed the image onto it. I wanted the postcard to appear just as it did on the computer, so I first took it into my Photoshop program and 'flipped it horizontal' to keep the text reading in the right direction. After printing, I then adhered it to muslin by iron-on transfer. Mine here is about 8.5 by 10 inches. For some reason, this one came out a little purple-ish from my printer, so I antiqued it with a wash of Nickel Azo Gold (Golden's paints.) Next, I cut brown felt and batting to the same size as my muslin. I left 2 extra inches at the top to play with.

2. I layed down the felt, batting on top of this, muslin with photo on top of this. It makes a little fabric sandwich, which I then sewed together by using a basic straight stitch all around the photo.

3. I brought out the features of each of the characters by adding a little acrylic paint to their eyes, cheeks and so forth. Anywhere there was some faded color, I bumped it up a notch or two with my paints. 4. I thread-painted a few things into the photo such as, the trim to the tea pot, giant tea cup, top of doll's head and the flower doily on the table. I then found some ribbons that I used to frame the piece. After sewing the initial ribbons in place (as in previous photo) I found a quote that I thought fitting for this particular photo, printed it out on printer fabric paper, color washed it with pink acrylic and sewed it to the top. I then found the white and silver ribbon and added that around the borders. 5. I bunched up some cut black sheer ribbon and made a little bow tie for the dog, which I machine sewed into place. Next, I added a pink flower to the little girl's hair, by hand sewing it on. I had an old piece of fabric with sequins that used to be something to wrap around one's neck. Since I never use it anymore, it looked perfect to repurpose for this project. Strips were cut at the same length and sewn into place. 6. Lastly, I punched a hole in the fabric sandwich on either side of the top so I could add fabric buttons with metal brad attachments on their backs. A bamboo stick was added through the top loops and voila: another adorable fabric creation!!! Happy Wednesday, and happy crafting all!!!
If you like what you've seen here please feel free to come and visit me again at my blog, or have some fun in my ETSY store!!!
Cynthia E. Anderson
Original Cyn Design
http://www.etsy.com/shop/originalcyn01






Vintage French Postcard Downloads and more:
Trishia Jacobs

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Canvas Tote - All Decked Out!!!

Hi all! Here is a fun and informative tutorial I created for this UPCYCLED CANVAS TOTE, while being Artist In Residence on the Frenchkissed Blog for the month of August.  A Vintage Postcard from Frenchkissed was used as the focal piece for the project.  You can check out her full line of postcard downloads on her zibbet page, info at the end of this post!  Also, if you'd like to purchase a plain tote for your own project, they are for sale on my ETSY shop...http://www.etsy.com/shop/originalcyn01.

Here is a photo of the finished project. Pretty cool, huh?! First, a little history: Way back when, I ordered about a hundred of these plain canvas bags with the idea of simply putting my artwork on them with iron-on transfers, much like you would a T-shirt. However, when I received the bags, I wasn't really happy with them. Returning wasn't a good option because of shipping costs, so I kept them for the day I would have another idea and they could be put to good use. Flash forward a year or two ...(sometimes these things take a while), and I started to form an interest in sewing. Now, this isn't 'standard' sewing I'm talking about here. It's more of a little messy, free-motion stitching kind of sewing -- thread painting, if you will. This form of sewing seemed like something I could really do, more free and easy, not so precise and pristine!
Further, the more I got into sewing, the more magazines and things I picked up ... and the more ideas I got! Voila! The idea for upcycled, free motion stitched handbags. (Upcycled: the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value.)
Another term you will need to be familiar with in this tutorial is free-motion stitching. Free-motion stitching makes use of a darning foot for your sewing machine, and then you must put your feed dogs down. This will allow you to move the fabric in whatever direction desired to achieve a quilted look in some places, while 'drawing' with the thread in other areas.

So let's begin.
I started with the plain bag. If you don't have a bag like this, don't worry. You can easily take two pieces of canvas or other sturdy material and cut into roughly 14x14-inch squares. If you do have a bag you'd like to use, cut down either side and through the middle of the bottom. Now you have one single side that will be the front of the bag. We will start adding our fabrics to this side.
1. Choose your fabrics! Sew much fun! 2. For this bag, the first piece I had to cut and stitch on was the green and cream zebra print fabric. I cut a square for the bag front and sewed it into place. Then, I added the green ribbon trim to the sides and top. I often like to use contrasting thread colors when sewing on items such as the ribbon.
3. Now, in order to make the ruffle along the bottom, I took the frayed, straight edge of my plain purple material, measured about 3 1/2-inches in width, and cut into the fabric there. I then ripped it the rest of the way for that nice frayed edge I like. So, this left me with a strip of plain purple fabric that was 3 1/2-inches wide, and enough inches in length to ruffle it across the front bottom of the bag. I then pinned and sewed this into place. Note: I sew the ruffle ALL THE WAY across my front piece so that it goes half way around the side of the bag.
4. Now I can make the focal piece for the middle front of the bag using my FrenchKissed scan. Place "sew-in computer fabric" in the printer paper tray (You can find this at JoAnn's Fabric), and color copy the postcard scan onto the fabric. Once printed, parchment paper is placed over the top and ironed to stabilize the color in the printed fabric. Cut or rip the picture piece out and sew onto the middle of the bag, leaving a little more room at the bottom than on the top. 5. To frame the photo, I used the purple printed fabric. After initially sewing it on, I then went back and quilted over it using free motion stitching in a random pattern. The cute, wavy pink trim was then sewn on top, and the flower embellishment added as well with a few stitches from the sewing machine.
6. OK, so once I got to this point, I decided the cute little girlies could use a caption below their photo. I got on the computer and looked up "friend quotes." I then coppied and pasted them onto one sheet of paper in my writing program (Microsoft Works Word Processor). The quotes were all printed out on a single sheet of fabric paper just as was done with the post card above. After ironing them, I ripped out the one I wanted for this project, dyed the fabric with a wash of lavender acrylic paint, and then free-motion stitched the quote onto the bag.


Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. - Marcel Proust
7. Next, wrong sides facing outward, the bag was then sewn back together and turned right side out. I decided which fabric I wanted to use for a strap, and found some fat, textured ribbon in a closely matching color that could be added to the strap as well. I sewed two pieces of the plain purple material together with the additional ribbon affixed to one of the sides. I did this with a zig-zag stitch using green thread, the color of the zebra print. I ripped out the pieces to my desired length and width. (Just play with it a bit, and pin in place to see how you like it before committing to sewing it on!) The strap was sewn on and bows added to each side. A final touch included a velcro closure in the top middle of the bag to keep it from gaping open. And so then we are left with the final product! If you have any questions, ask away in the comments and I'll reply as soon as I can!
If you like what you see and would like to see more, please visit me here at my blog for more tutorials and at my ETSY site for all kinds of yummy gifts!
Hope you enjoyed the tutorial. Take care and happy creating!

Cynthia E. Anderson
Original Cyn Design
http://originalcyndesign.blogspot.com/
http://www.etsy.com/shop/originalcyn01


Vintage French Postcard Downloads and more:
Trishia Jacobs