Prima Marketing is having a design team call. A long-time fan of theirs, I simply could not resist giving it a try. But the best part???? The best part is how much fun I had creating these projects with Prima products!
Wheeeeeeeee! It’s spring! Unfortunately, here in the Great White North, spring is a relative term. We may not have cherry blossoms and lilacs yet, but at least the snow is mostly melted.
Even if the weather is not cooperative, everyone knows that April showers bring May flowers. Of course, April showers also bring a need for umbrellas. Here at Paper Calliope, that means lots and lots of colorful polka-dotted paper umbrellas!
My love of vintage circus continues today over at the Robin’s Nest. Please step right up and take a gander at this talented menagerie.
Some of you who live in temperature–sane parts of the world are already enjoying spring. It’s usually a different story here in the frozen tundra of Minnesota, where winter almost always lasts well into April.
To remind myself that spring will eventually come, I made this Golden Spring Artist Trading Block (ATB). Please check out the tutorial over at the Robin’s Nest. Read the rest of this entry
Beginning this project was scary. Burned into my memory is the clay dog I proudly gave my mother when I was in elementary school. Purple, with orange zig zags and green dots, it was supposed to be an artsy rendition of our Golden Retriever. In reality it looked like it have five legs and a mass of tumors. I guess I really can’t blame my mom for her less than enthusiastic reception–or at least that’s what I have been telling my analyst every week since 1979.
My post today over at the Robin’s Nest is a crafter’s dream-come-true: it’s quick, it’s easy and it uses scraps. Even better is that when you are done, you have a pretty and useful paper tape that you can use in your scrapbook layouts, crafting and gift wrapping.
I recently acquired a butt-load of embossing folders. Hey, what can I say–they were 80% off–someone had to buy them. For the last month they have been sitting on a shelf, singing their siren song, trying to woo me into playing with them.
So on a recent arctic afternoon, that’s exactly what I did. However, once I began playing, I couldn’t just take out one toy. Noooo, I’m an everything-in-the-toybox-kind-of girl. I took out glassine bags, paper bags, Divine Twine and every color of ink ever conceived by Ranger Industries. All-in-all, it was a perfect day.
You may recall that I entered my Elfville project into a craft engineering contest last fall. I was pleased as punch when I learned I was a winner and got some fabulous prizes. Yesterday, I got even more exciting news.
The folks over at the Robin’s Nest sent me this permanent badge for my blog. They have been so busy with new product launches that they didn’t have time before now to send out the winning badges. I am honored to display this on Paper Calliope. Thank you Robin’s Nest!
So, by now you probably know that I love making vintage circus art. It probably has a little something to do with the fact that my kids have gone to a circus performing arts school since the youngest was still in diapers. Yep, The Daughter™ hung from a trapeze, even before she was out of Pampers.
Aside from my kids’ involvement, I also like making circus-themed art because of the vibrant graphics and the endless opportunities for whimsy and creativity. Over the last week,I have been laboring over a special project that has been on my to-do list for a long, long while. It was finally time to make a paper calliope.
Be still my heart–at least until I get my heart rate down. There’s been such a flurry of Valentine projects underway at Paper Calliope that I haven’t had a moment to blog.
That changes today however. Please stop by the Robin’s Nest and see a tutorial for this fun little box I created using paper and the spring from an old ballpoint pen. Read the rest of this entry
