craft party – Bubblegum Sass

Santa’s Workshop: Marble with Nail Polish

December 20, 2016December 19, 2016 Sarah Leave a comment

Santa's Workshop: Marble with Nail Polish ~ DIY Gift Ideas ~ Bubblegum Sass

At this year’s annual Pinterest Christmas Party with the ladies, our lovely host, Shauna, had us try out a quick little project: marbling with nail polish. She picked up white bowls & mugs at the dollar store. Then all you need is a disposable foil container, nail polish, hot water, and some creative bravery.

Santa's Workshop: Marble with Nail Polish ~ DIY Gift Ideas ~ Bubblegum Sass

There’s lots of great full tutorials already out there {like here and here}, so I’m not going to do step by step. Just going to offer some tips we discovered as we each took a turn at this project.

Tip #1: Get your work area set up, all the nail polish colours you’re going to use picked out & open each bottle, so everything is ready to go quickly.

Tip #2: Open a friggin’ window {or two}! It was a damn cold winter night, and I’m pretty sure we got a little high on fumes.

Tip #3: In case you thought doing this with young kids was a good idea {ummm, nail polish & kids don’t usually mix}, please reconsider. It’s a simple “adult” craft. Again, hello, fumes.

Santa's Workshop: Marble with Nail Polish ~ DIY Gift Ideas ~ Bubblegum Sass

Tip #4: Work quickly. Drizzle the nail polish close to the surface of the water, slowly, but do work quickly. The polish will start to get gummy as it hardens & can lead to lumpy {somewhat ugly} results. But hey, if you don’t like how it turns out, just use nail polish remover & start again.

Tip #5: You don’t necessarily have to take the time to swirl the nail polish in the water with a toothpick before dipping your item in. Simply the way you drizzled the nail polish colours into the water can give beautiful results.

Tip #6: Prepare to be surprised! Or brace yourself! Or heck, just dive in & DO NOT overthink it. This is one of those crafty projects that you can’t predict what the end product will look like. Yes, you’re choosing the colour scheme, but that’s about all you have control over. I found it exciting, others found it a little frightening. Experiment!

Santa's Workshop: Marble with Nail Polish ~ DIY Gift Ideas ~ Bubblegum Sass

You can generally rate the success of a Pinterest project by whether you’d repeat it. And yes, I would definitely gives this one another go. Several of us at the party were interested in attempting to dip our bowls upside down, so that the inside gets marbled {not food safe, but to keep jewelry in}. I think tile coasters would be awesome too {and a great hostess gift idea}. But high on the list to try, is a marbled hanging planter! They’re gorgeous!

Happy crafting!

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Treasury Love: January 2015

January 16, 2015 Sarah 2 Comments

This weekend is the Etsy Alberta Street Team treasury blitz, which I was thankfully able to participate in. So many good treasuries being made so far by fellow teammates.

Looking forward to getting together with these crafty gals & guys next week for an Etsy Meet Up. You do not necessarily have to have an Etsy shop or be on our team to attend. We are meeting on Friday, Jan 23 at the Triwood Community Centre (the entrance is at ground level between the main hall and the hockey arena. Please look for an Etsy sign and a forest green awning over the door). Starts at 6:30pm and goes till 9:30pm. We ask for a $5 donation to go towards the cost of renting the room, but other than that, bring yourself, a treat and any de-stash items you want to find a home for. Good company & good conversation pretty much guaranteed.

Sweetheart Treats

March 10, 2014March 9, 2014 Sarah 1 Comment

Last month, I hosted a little get together for friends. There was lots of sweet treats and pretty decorations in pink & purple. Simple doilies, fresh carnations, and cute handmade details.

Instead of trying to make my own little chocolates, I picked up some tasty Bernard Callebaut chocolates. I turned pretty paper cupcake liners inside-out to make little bowls for them.

These tasty Cinnamon Heart Shortbread cookies were a hit with my tummy and I’ll be sure to make them again next year for Valentine’s Day. You can find the recipe for these here. The recipe calls for cinnamon extract, which isn’t something I typically keep with my baking supplies. I found something suitable at Micheal’s. Start by adding a tiny amount, and continue to add more bit by bit until you achieve the flavor you like.

To make some cute little bowls for the cinnamon heart candies, I just folded small circular paper doilies and taped the corners with washi tape (similar idea as these bowls made from paper plates).

These cookies were a super hit! I think I’ll have to make more of them soon, the very next time I have an excuse to serve super sweet sugar bombs! They’re really simple to make too. Sammy and I did these together (sort of). I dipped the wafer cookies in the melted white chocolate and Sam did some of the sprinkles (although mainly he waited for them to dry so he could get a bite or two). Find the recipe here.

And lastly, a little bit of festive decorating. These pretty hearts are made from crayons melted between wax paper. Two lessons learned while making these: First, make the crayon shavings small & don’t over do it. They turn out much better if you don’t use too many shavings. Second, keep the temperature on the iron low and press the wax paper between old tea towels (or t-shirts), otherwise you’ll end up with a very messy iron.

Have fun with all your baking and crafting, whatever the reason or season!

Spring Pinterest Par-tay

June 18, 2012June 16, 2012 Sarah 2 Comments

Over a month ago now (almost two…seriously behind on posts) I had the honor of hosting a Pinterst party. I was so excited for it! Gave me something awesome to look forward to. It was also a great excuse to scour Pinterest for new recipes & party ideas. The theme for the party was “spring”, so I decided to go with lemon flavored treats, fresh fruit and flowers. Here’s what I put together:

Chewy lemon snowdrop cookies

Flower cookies with a no-egg-white royal icing and brush embroidery (a very amateur attempt at cookie decorating… need more practice)

Flower pot fruit cups with button toothpicks, my own invention, inspired from ideas found here.

Lemon feta dip, so tasty on crispy crackers and I’m sure would work well as a dip for veggies too.

As with previous Pinterest parties, guests brought a craft project along to work on. Keeping with the “Spring” theme, I made Sam’s roller derby onesie in preparation for the season opener.

Christine was using her knifty knitter to work on a pretty purple scarf.

Ellen was crocheting a lovely, and oh-so-fine, spring scarf. Her patience with that particular project is amazing! That wool and I would have parted ways long ago.

After finishing up a couple more tag blankets, Shauna began braided together strips of fabric to make a necklace or headband or both. So muh fun! And the colours were so springy! Probably inspired by this.

And Jan was working on this lovely spring wreath made from a foam wreath form, yarn and felt flowers (which she also made). Jan has an entire Pinterest board dedicated to wreaths!

That was our night of craftiness. A good time indeed! And now it’s almost time to start planning the next Pinterest Party. (One day I’ll catch up on posts. Probably. Eventually.)

Hello My Name Is ________

June 13, 2011 Sarah 2 Comments

There was lots of extra hours spent at the doggie daycare last week, hence the lack of posts here. Keeping busy with so many bits and pieces of things that I tend to make myself nauseous with all the spinning to and fro. I’ve started to reach that point where I might be spread a bit thin. Stuff around the house is slowly being neglected and I keep forgetting things. You know it’s bad when your hubby is the one to remind you of an upcoming craft party. That made me stop and realize that I need to re-prioritize things over the coming days, so I don’t get lost in the spinning. We are headed out to the mountains to do some camping at the end of this week, so that should help clear my head a bit. Nothing like fresh air and time to just sit and listen to the birds (and many chipmunks) and the creek of trees.

The craft party that I almost forgot about, but did manage to attend was the 2nd Annual Etsy Global Craft Party. The lovely Darcy of Splurge organized a local party for the Calgary Etsy folks at the Triwood Community Centre on Friday night. I’d had the pleasure of meeting several of the gals at the Calgary Make It event, but did get to meet a few more ladies. And although I was totally pooped from the week and so not in a crafty mood, it was nice to just sit and chat. There was plenty of crafting going on, including card making for charity and sewing mittens from old felted sweaters. I just plopped down in a comfy chair and nibbled cupcakes while chatting and absorbing some great Etsy shop tips. One great little tidbit that I will need to spend some time playing around with is the use of Shmetsy extensions and apps to take a bit of the pain out of making treasuries. Treasuries are a real joy to make and useful for promoting fellow sellers (who generally return the favor, and thus promote you), but they can be a real time-suck to create. Anything that can ease the process or remove a couple steps is definitely appealing to me.

There are a couple of shows that I need to get myself organized for. I will be at the Calgary Weekend Market at the Scenic Acres Community Centre on June 25th. That same weekend is Market Collective and Kalen of Minibytes has offered to include a few of my things on her table, which is awesome! The next “big” show for me is up in Edmonton on July 15 & 16, where I will be a vendor at the Handmade Mafia event during the Edmonton Art Walk. This will be the first out-of-town craft show, which makes me nervous, but with the help of hubby should go just fine. I need to keep reminding myself that I DO INDEED need to make more stuff for these shows. Since my last show at the roller derby, I seemed to have hit a sewing wall. I think I just needed to take a break from it for a while, so switched to crocheting scarflettes. I KNOW! Seems so crazy to start thinking about winter and snow when summer has barely arrived, but I do intend to participate at many craft shows during the Christmas season, which means lots of inventory. At least scarflettes don’t require quite as much brain power as sewing and can be done while crashed on the couch watching a movie with hubby.

On a completely different topic… babies have started arriving. First, my fav blogger Amanda of Soule Mama had a gorgeous baby girl. Lovin’ the photos of this sweet baby as the weeks move along. Also found out that my friend Joanna had her baby (her first) just last night. That leaves two babies yet to come. One due any minute now and another due in August. So wonderful to be surrounded by new babes and their lovely mamas. Prayers of health and patience to them all.