Halloween buttons, Twee Boutique, and Good News!

October 14, 2010 by Alexa Leave a Comment

Look at these cute new buttons I made for Twee Boutique in the Fresno Tower District! I used part of the Martha Stewart stickers I bought at Michaels. I mounted them on cute polka dot scrapbook paper. I think they turned out super cute. I love them! I’m also taking a few other Halloweeny items like cute ribbon fascinator pins and hairclips and a couple of button rings.

In other button news, I created 5 new designs for my Fresno buttons that will be available at the store on Friday! Also, Mike Oz featured my designs this past on the Fresno Beehive. Cool, huh?

And more icing on the cake…I won Picture Fresno this past week for my picture I took of the Security Bank in a reflection at Fulton Mall. I won a trip to Come and Get It Chicken and Waffles at the end of Fulton Mall. I’m so excited!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Wednesday is Lensday: Button Edition

August 3, 2010 by Alexa Leave a Comment

Thought I’d bring back Wednesday is Lensday and this week is all about buttons! Here’s some photos of random buttons I’ve taken as well as projects I’ve created using buttons. I just love them so much cause they are just so darn colorful and pretty. I love all the shapes and textures. There’s just something so cool about running your hands through a bowl of them in search of the right one! Oh, and by the way, the photo above is button rings I made using the big 1.25″ buttons layered with other buttons.

This is a button necklace I made for a friend a couple of years back. Love the bow buttons!

No, my buttons weren’t dirty, I just liked the colors for a photo!

Here’s a basic button necklace I made for a craft show.

Buttons and googly eyes, yep this pretty much sums me up.

These rings are one of my favorite crafty things to make!

Yep, they make me very happy! How about you? Do you love buttons or is there another crazy craft supply you can’t seem to get enough of?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Some of my many buttons

March 15, 2010 by Alexa 5 Comments

This weekend, I was very busy working on buttons!!! My boy William (yes, I have a boyfriend now) and I cut and made them using my button maker. Yippee!!!

I made some kitschy ones and also some ones just with Fresno sayings. I plan to sell them locally at Twee, my friend Pattie and Melanie’s store in the Tower District!

What I like about making these is that once you have the machine and the button backs, it takes like no time to make a handful of buttons. I’m all about the quick and easy craft and the result is so polished and perfect that I get really excited (have I mentioned I’m kinda messy crafter/rough around the edges??). I like that I succeeded at creating something so cool. I got a fishbowl today so people can fish through them. I love being able to fish through a bowlful of buttons or beads! There’s something very cool and tangible about discovering a design that is totally you!

Anyway, here are some more or my buttons. As I mentioned before, I created them using loteria wrapping paper.

And here are my Fresno designs…

Hope you guys had a great weekend!! Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

A brand new toy!

March 11, 2010 by Alexa 2 Comments

Guess what? I got a new toy. A brand new button machine. I’ve always wanted one, so I finally bought one. And here are my first buttons I’ve made with it. It was sooooo easy to do too. I purchased my machine from American Button Machines and I also got 1,000 buttons to go with it.

I created my buttons using this wrapping paper by Ken Brown. I wanted my first buttons with this machine to be memorable. I think these ones turned out pretty swell.

I can’t wait to design and print my own! Shouldn’t be long. 🙂

Well, off to bed! Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Simple Halloween Button Earrings

October 8, 2009 by Alexa 1 Comment

There’s no reason to spends lots of cash on buying Halloween jewelry accessories when you can make your own for yourself or family friends in minutes! Here’s some super swell and cute ideas for making sweet button earrings that won’t break the budget!

What you need:
– buttons in various sizes and Halloween colors (go small or large, but in general I’d stay away from 2″ buttons, those may not work so well, but I’d love to see you prove me wrong!)
– Liquid Fusion Glue
– earring posts and backs
– mini rhinestones (optional)
– fine tip permanent marker (optional)
– glitter (optional)

What you do:
1. Lay out your buttons in front of you and play with the different shapes and sizes stacking them on top of each other until you figure out your configuration. You can do exact sets or mix and match styles if you want. Halloween is a kooky time anyway, so have fun with your jewelry!
2. Use a small amount of Liquid Fusion glue to glue your buttons together. Let dry.
3. Glue your finished stacked buttons to your earring posts. At this point I usually set my buttons face down on a flat surface so that the post sticks straight up in the air. Let dry.

That’s it! Have fun with this! Add to the button goodness by doodling around your buttons with a permanent marker (use clear nail polish to seal it) or by sprinkling a little glitter accents. Another fun idea is to bling up your earrings with mini rhinestones. Also consider going goofy by adding some mini googly eyes! The sky’s the limit (at least that’s what a witch told me…hee hee…I realize that was really bad and so not funny).

In honor of my 24 Halloween crafts in 24 hours, I’m giving away a Swell & Spooktastic Halloween prize pack. Click here to check it out and enter!

Check back next hour for another Spooktacular Halloween craft!

Alexa

Make your own doodled buttons!

August 13, 2009 by Alexa 5 Comments

So, if you’ve been seeing my little headbands, you will notice that I had some cute little striped buttons on there. I wish I could find buttons that cute, but in actuality, I had to make my own.

I would offer you a really great tutorial, but there’s nothing to it! You simply doodle on buttons with permanent markers. Easy.as.pie.

Now I don’t recommend you buying expensive buttons (and if you do, draw at your own risk). I’ve messed several buttons up doing this…but if you find yourself doodling anyway, it may be something fun and new to try to add a little extra spice to a scrapbook page, shirt, or embellishment for shoes, earrings, button bouquets, etc.

Go crazy with it. I did a checkerboard design, stripes, polka dots, plaid, circles and more. Also experiment making hearts, peace signs, clovers, or other shapes. If you are getting a head start on your holiday crafting, make some Halloween buttons with bats or pumpkins on them or make some swirls and create lollipops or candy cane stripes for Christmas embellishments.

Of course, the smaller tip you will use will yield finer detail. As you prob. can see, they aren’t perfect, but that can add handmade charm and a nice personalized touch!

Make sure to let them dry fully and you will prob. want to keep them from water (just in case). Also, I just started making these, so I can’t guarantee that they will hold up over the test of time. The more wear and tear you do on the button, the more likely it will rub off over time. So keep this in mind!

Hope you enjoyed this fun and easy project!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

The craft blog thought process

July 15, 2009 by Alexa 24 Comments

I really enjoy writing my blog and sometimes I am super, super inspired to post a new project or something cool I experienced, but there are times where (like now), it is 11:37pm on a weeknight and I have no clue what I’m going to write about for my daily blog post.

As you probably notice, I really try to come up with new content that’s somewhat interesting (at least I hope it is for your sake…ha ha). When I was thinking about what I was going to do tonight, I had an idea…why don’t I share with you the randomness that comes into my head when I develop a blog post (esp. a last minute one). I’m fascinated by how people formalize their ideas and how an idea gets from point a to point b…so, with that in mind, I want to share with you my thought process behind my a post…so here’s the inner dialogue straight from my brain.

You are now entering Alexa’s Brain

“Oh, no. I really need to think of something for my blog. What kind of project can I do in 30 minutes? Hmm…maybe I can do a post on a 30 minute craft and it become a regular feature. But what if I flake out and it doesn’t become a regular feature. Ugh, I can’t make a promise to do a regular feature and not pull through…I don’t think I’m going to do that.

Hmm…hey, I could do a contest and give away some fun stuff from my craft stash. Let’s see…I have this charm, a cool goblin bead, and let’s see, I have some paper clips. Ugh, I can’t give away paper clips. That’s dumb. OK, I do have this tin. I could fill it with beads, charms, and stickers.

But I kinda like it. I don’t want to give it away. Um, and I don’t know if I would ship it right away. I’m going on vacation and it would be several weeks till I would get around to mailing it out. Ugh, can’t do that idea.

Hey, what project do I have around that I could post. Let’s see…oh, there’s that Creative Techniques project I did…people prob. won’t remember it, but I don’t want to have to go and find the instructions in my e-mail. That would take longer than rewriting them from scratch. Can’t do that one. Oh, wait…I do have this John Mayer frame. It has a cool technique on it…

But I don’t really like John Mayer like I used to. He’s too Hollywood now and not as cool. I guess it looks cool and that they are my own photos that I burned on the frame, but I don’t want to have to write instructions and think of how to explain it.

OK, let’s see…hmm, there’s that vase of colorful buttons I could blog about…

Um, yeah, it’s a vase of buttons. That will make for a real exciting read!

Hey, what about if I show off the project that I created just for my blog? I’ve been waiting to feature it…

Ugh, but I’m not entirely finished with it and again, I’d have to write instructions. I don’t want to be up for an hour and a half finishing it and writing instructions too.

I’m at a total loss. I don’t know what the heck to blog about that people actually will want to read about…hey (looking down next to keyboard), I could do something cool with this measuring tape. It would make a super cool vase or bracelet or something.

I don’t have a surface to start with. Hmm, I need to go to plan Z.”

Wait, why don’t I do a blog about how I decide how I choose what to blog…yeah, I think I’ll do that. That won’t take too long and it will be easy to write. I’ll just snap a few pics and I’ll be done in no time. Yeah, I’ll think I’ll do that.

You are now exiting Alexa’s Brain

Hope that made sense and was somewhat easy to follow. I’ve never been one to be perfect about grammatical phrasing. I need to study up.

Hope you enjoyed this little venture inside my head and thinking up a crafty blog post. I promise, it’s not always this hard or this much of a stretch. Some days it just comes, other days it is a little harder, but it’s all worth it. I do enjoy it.

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Living the colorful life

July 14, 2009 by Alexa 4 Comments

I love color. I really do. I wanted to share a few things in my life that inspire me with popping color! First off, the photo above is a detail of some stacking boxes I bought at Ikea. They break down to fit into one small round box; however, I like to display them stacked. Actually, they are like 2 feet tall if you stacked them from top to bottom, but realistically, that’s just not going to work. It falls over in an instant. I use these little boxes to store small trinkets and embellishments for crafting.

Love this little colander I picked up at Michaels for only $2 in the value section. Thought I would spice it up with some multi-colored buttons.

Love these trays I bought for 68¢ a couple years back. I actually use the pink one for a paint palette, but I actually own more than this. I have an idea in the back of my head that I want to do down the road with these fun little trays!

These little umbrellas were a major steal at the local antique store. I got them for a $1! I want to make something with them…the inspiration just hasn’t hit yet.

Oh, yeah, I’m totally pimping myself out above. These are my colorful button rings. Buttons are just so much fun to photograph! I never get tired of looking through a boxful or bowlful of bottons, don’t you. A couple of rings are posted on my Etsy shop. Check them out here.

Well, going to head off to bed. Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Fruit Button Crafting

May 4, 2009 by Alexa Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick and simple papercraft idea using buttons, glue, and dimensional paint that is peachy keen, if you know what I mean!

Well, actually, I didn’t show a peach in the below tutorial, but there’s no reason that you couldn’t create one!

Making the card above was easy as pie (cherry pie, that is..ha ha). First, I simply cut out my card to match my envelope size.

I then dry-brushed on a square of Tulip® Soft Fabric Paint™. It worked great on paper!

Once it was dry, I glued my red buttons in the center with Aleene’s Clear Gel Tacky Glue.

I added the stems using Tulip® 3-D Fashion Paint.

I then created a border by gluing on red sequins and dotting in between the sequins with more dimensional paint.

Here’s a cute orange and strawberry (I dotted black dimensional paint on the button for the seeds) that I also made.

These would make super swell cards, gift tags, or embellishments for your scrapbook pages. They would even be cute as place cards on a summer table (it will be here before we know it)! You can even take it off the page and do this technique on wearables. You just want to use a fabric glue instead of the Tacky Glue. Aleene’s® Fabric Fusion™ Permanent Dry Cleanable Fabric Adhesive™ is a great glue for adhering buttons to fabric!

Hope you found this project inspiring!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Ornament Thursday Week 3

December 12, 2007 by Alexa 8 Comments

So, I’m posting tonight an ornament I did…actually one that I had done for a step by step photo at work. I have to shoot step by steps of my hands (oftentimes I’m shooting the photo and painting at the same time – multitask isn’t my middle name, but I sometimes have to do it). Anyway, I enjoyed the initial look for this ornament so much that I decided to finish it. It actually turned out really cute…kinda retro…and kinda festive. I dig it. It is made using Gold Craft Twinkle Writer from DecoArt and various colored small-sized rhinestones

I also made some fun button ornaments out of vintage and new buttons I’ve bought recently or had from grade school. I decided to put them on a fun mini tree and show them off…you know you have some buttons that just need to be displayed that you’ve got stored away. Now’s your chance to show them off!

Oh, and check out these super cute ornament that our designer, Jane, did at my work.

I just lurve the zebra stripe! I can just see it now with a fabulous hot pink bow. So easy using just a plain white pearl ornament and Black Craft Twinkle Writer! Click here for full instructions and supplies.

Please check out some of the other artists that are featuring ornament designs on their web site this Thursday:

Sara Naumann http://blog.paperwishes.com/sara/

Lynn Kvigne http://beading.consumerhelpweb.com/blog/

Candie Cooper http://candiecooper.typepad.com/savvycrafter/

Katie Hacker http://www.katiehacker.com/index.htm

Margot Potter http://margotpotter.blogspot.com/

Linda Augsburg http://cs.makeitminemag.com/mimcs/blogs/makeitmine/

Melanie Brooks Lukacs http://earthenwood-beads.blogspot.com/

Art Bead Scene http://www.artbeadscene.blogspot.com/

Cindy Gimbrone http://lampworkdiva.blogspot.com

Suzanne http://suzanne-catching-up.blogspot.com/

Humblebeads http://www.humblebeads.blogspot.com/

Polymer Clay Craft Gossip http://polymerclay.craftgossip.com/

Elaine Luther http://www.CreativeTextureTools.com/news

Melissa Lee http://www.strandsofbeads.blogspot.com

Rebecca Peck http://vintagegirlmodernworld.wordpress.com/

Jean Yates http://prettykittydogmoonjewelry.blogspot.com

Michelle McGee http://fromichelle.blogspot.com/

Jenny Harada http://pomly.livejournal.com/