Today's featured artist is Cheryl Waters - Vintage Bday Banner

When I was relatively new to Charity Wings, I participated in a Live from CHA webcast.  During the webcast, I was able to not only see some of the cool new products coming to stores, I was also introduced to some really cool people.

One of those people was Cheryl Waters, a Fiskateer and Brave Girl Extradinaire!

So it is my pleasure to share one of her cool projects - a vintage birthday banner.  With graduation parties, father's day, summer fun...I know that this project will come in handy for many of us!  

Cheryl is also pulling together a little giveway, so check back for an update on what the goodies and how to enter to win.

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I shared a little while ago that I am a May baby and my landmark day was May 9th.  Let’s just say I’m in the over forty club.  I had a lot of lovely wishes from friends, family and fiskateers!  Thank you so much.  They meant a great deal.

Also in May my husband’s birthday is celebrated (the day after mine), my sister’s on the 14th and my cousin’s on the 30th.  We sure have a lot of celebrating in our family!

So whether you’re a May baby or not . . . join me this coming Saturday for a fun filled on-line birthday bash with special guests, ideas, prizes and eats.



So let’s get started planning and preparing for the party by announcing your party with a vintage type banner.  It’s super simple, elegant, inexpensive and easy.  Whether it’s a banner to be used inside or out . . . here’s a simple way to create your own.

What you’ll need:

• Computer
• Favorite Font
• Fiskars Micro tip Scissors
• Fiskars Paper Edgers
• Fiskars Poppy Lever punch or Fiskars hand hole punch
• Smooch Spritz
• Ribbon

The How to:
1. Print on an image of an old dictionary page or newspaper type of patterned paper.  Then put those back into your printer.


2. Print desired letters using a favorite font . . . one character per page.  Remember your font size should be large and make sure to center the letter in the middle of your page b going to page preview in Microsoft Word.

 

3. Using your Fiskars Paper Edgers . . . whether scalloped, mini pinking, or Victorian . . . cut the top of your page/letter.

4.  Using your Fiskars micro tip scissors cut the page into a pendant shape by simply cutting from each corner towards the center until you have a pendant shaped page/letter.

5. Punch holes near the top of your page/letter and thread with ribbon or string.  Use string especially if you’re using a small hole punch.  If you know your banner will be in the sun and outside, simply add some Mod Podge (front and back to seal) to allow it to withstand the weather a bit better.  Easy peasy and cute.



6.  Keep it simple and plain or add little elements like flowers or this Fisk-a-girlie I made.  I’ll be sharing the how to and a few more ideas for these little fisk-girlies that can add a sweet touch to your party.



7.  After your party is over . . . you can hang it in your crafting area.



There you have it . . . a nice little banner to announce your party and that’s what it’s going to be this week and on Saturday.  So stay tuned.  Don’t forget . . . Celebrate Anything!

Brown Paper Packages with Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

I feel so luck to have gotten Julie Fei-Fan Balzer for this Friday’s tutorial.  If you haven’t heard of Julie, go check out her blog/website (click on her name above).  I love the boldness of color of her art pieces but her doodling blows me away!!!

I’ve taken this from bio from Julie’s blog.

“

Hello! My name is Julie Fei-Fan Balzer and I am a mixed-media artist living in New York City.

I tend to focus integrating my every day life into everything I do. I love art that looks handmade - lots of tearing and inking and handwriting and hand cutting. I'm also a technique and tool junkie, always trying to find a way to push my supplies further and see all the possibilities.

I'm a general craft-a-holic. I've dabbled in everything from polymer clay to cross stitch to paper making. But the great crafty loves of mine are scrapbooking, art quilts and jewelry. And I like to combine all three of my favorite methods of expression into mixed media creations!”

Read more: http://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/about-me-julie-feifan-balzer.html#ixzz1MCo49WEX

Julie wanted to share the following tutorial with you.  While it was originally written for the holidays, it could certainly be used for anytime of the year!!!

One of the things about the holidays is that there's lots of cooking and baking going on.  At our house that means paper bags.

We are going to transform those bags into funky home made wrapping paper!  I've got three different decorating ideas for you, but the prep is the same every time.

Cut the handles off of  your bags.

Cut down the side of the bag and around the bottom...

...so that you'll be left with a long strip and the bottom of the bag (which you can throw away).

Flip that long strip over and you've got a great surface for decorating!

STITCH IT

Cut out a collection of fabric circles.

Using the free motion foot on your machine, stitch around each fabric circle.

To get to the next circle simply doodle with your sewing machine in a swirling line.

Your finished wrapping paper is ready to be wrapped around a gift!

You can see that I added one of the leaves from this tutorial to finish off the packaging.

PAINT IT

I'm the girl who can't stay away from paint, so here's a quick way to use a little bit of acrylic paint for some holiday cheer!

Paint stripes (no points for neatness) with teal paint.

Add some red stripes.

Do a little bit of doodling with black paint.

Add a bit of gesso (the white paint doodles) and you're done!

I simply added a decorated tag to finish off my gift!

MIST IT

Place several large doilies on your bag.

Mist over them using your favorite spray ink.  I used a combination of Adirondack Color Wash and home made Glimmer Mist.

Remove the doilies to see your design.

Check out the shine from that home made Glimmer Mist!

I used acrylic paint to add a little note inside each of the doilies.

Here are all three of my packages together:

I hope you feel inspired to transform those brown paper bags into fabulous wrapping paper!

I love Julie’s tutorial, don’t you?  I’m inspired to go out and make some wrapping paper!!!

The Lovely and Charitable Suzi Blu

We are so lucky to have Suzi Blu as a part of the Charity Wings family.  She helps with make and takes at Scrapbook Expo and is always willing to share her artistic talents with Charity Wings.

Today we are sharing a recent post that Suzi did for Crescendoh.

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It’s Saturday morning at the Boys and Girls Club of San Marcos, California, and I am at a table in a large conference room setting up canvases, watercolor pencils, brushes, and rubber Suzi Stamps from Unity Stamp Co. Behind me are table after table of art supplies, decorative papers, rhinestones in buckets, and women ready to play. Today is about making art, but not just for our own amusement — we are also raising money for charity.

[char-i-tee]
–noun, plural -ties.
1. generous actions or donations to aid the poor, ill, or helpless.

Charity & Creativity
We haven’t heard that word too much this year, eh? Charity. Things are bad: house foreclosures, a steadily increasing unemployment rate. Many of us think maybe it’s we who deserve a bit of charity, that there’s no way we “have it made” enough and are secure. We certainly don’t have enough to give others without taking away from ourselves. Right?

But think for a moment. Do you think you are worse off than most people? If you are reading this on crescendoh.com more than likely you are a mixed-media artist and I believe we are an abundant bunch. We see the beauty and usefulness in nearly everything: discarded Styrofoam plates become excellent stamps, broken jewelry stitched onto leather transforms into a bracelet, cracked china emerges as chips for the garden. As long as we have creativity, we artists have very much.

Having creativity means you have creativity to give. What? You don’t have a degree? Haven’t written a book? Who are you to teach anyone anything creative? Listen, just a little bit of knowledge is magical to someone who knows nothing. Remember the saying I heard at an AA meaning and apply in my own life, “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” Whatever you know about helps someone who knows nothing. And in giving your knowledge, whatever that may be — how to crochet a baby hat, how to make a glittery mini scrapbook, or how to draw a pretty face — both the art teacher and the student can use their time together to help someone in need.

Charity Wings
This is what Charity Wings is all about. Starting in 2005, Elena Lai Etcheverry, founder of Charity Wings, has planned unique events that combine camaraderie, food, art classes, and goodie bags filled with products from brands like Wescott and Faber Castell to raise money for other non profits, like The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The American Heart Association, and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. To date, Charity Wings has raised $347,665.41 for noble causes.

Your interest in art, however small, can literally save others. Pick a charity that means something to you and either teach, or find a teacher you want to learn from, and that is how easy it is. Can you imagine if charity events like this went on every day, however small? Last summer I taught an art journal class and gave all the money to Holly’s Garden Rescue, where my shih tsu Finnegan came from. I raised $500.00. Maybe that one afternoon didn’t save the world, but it was a huge help to the dogs at the rescue at the time. And it made me feel amazing to do it. Yes, I need 500.00 too, lol, but one day is not going to make me starve. I saw firsthand where the money went to and I felt I made a difference.

If you want abundance in your life you must act abundantly, LIVE A BIG LIFE! Tell the universe, “I have so much in my cup it’s literally flowing over. Let me let someone else have some too. Then we both can be happy.”

Charity Wings is a resource for artists and crafters that want to give!

Contact them if you would like to raise money for a noble cause. They will help you at charitywings.org.

To learn more about Suzi Blu, visit suziblu.typepad.com.

Nominate your favorite Charity!!!

NOW IS YOUR CHANCE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE!  

NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE CHARITY

We are hosting a LIVE STREAMING @ CHA event July 19-20 and we need to choose a charity to benefit!

Please leave a comment with:

1. Your charity of choice (must be a 501(c)(3) non profit organization)
2. The website to this Charity
3. A short statement on why you are nominating them.

We will choose 3 charities to be voted on by our amazing supporters.

and keep an eye out for details on the LIVE STREAMING @ CHA  event!

Thank so much for your support!

Today's Featured Artist is Irene Swain! (plus a bonus giveaway)

We are very excited to be featuring a very talented card-maker, Irene Swain, this week.  I know many of us dabble in all sorts of paper crafts, and cards are those deceiving small projects that end up being harder than you often imagine.  A beautiful card often takes as long as a great 12x12 layout, doesn't it?  Well, maybe just for me :)

This would be a great project to try for a dramatic Mother's Day Card - I think this format is very impressive visually!  Double kudos points with the moms for a handmade card that is also unique in shape!

And now on to Irene.....

Hi, I'm Irene. I'm excited to be featured here on Charity Wings! This blog is such a valuable resource of inspiring crafts tutorials!

I live in northern California with my wonderful husband and our "fur children." I love to make greeting cards, and my blog is called It's All In The Cards. I also enjoy scrapbooking, reading, hiking, traveling, good vegetarian food and everything Disney.

My greeting cards are for sale at the Studio Seven art gallery in Pleasanton, California, under the name "Ivy Swan Cards." I write the local and national scrapbooking columns at Examiner.com and serve as a member of the design team at Michelle Perkett Studio. My mom and I offer free card-making events through our charity, Scrapbooking Together. 

Ballerina bunny zig zag card and tutorial

Other views:

The digi stamps are Happy Easter Bunny and Happy Spring by Michelle Perkett (colored with Prismacolor pencils). The papers are all from Boxer Scrapbook Productions.


My zig zag card tutorial is at the end of this blog post. A feline assistant is optional.

Tutorial: 
I learned how to make this card during Technique Tuesday's Expanding Your Creative Borders class at Scrapbook Expo. I would recommend that class to anyone who enjoys learning new card-making techniques. I'm not sure of the proper name for this style of card, so I'm calling it a zig zag card. It's a lot of fun to make, and the decorating possibilities are endless!

[Step 1]
Start with a 12 inch by 5 inch sheet of paper.

[Step 2]
Score (crease) at 2, 4, 8 and 10 inches.

[Step 3]
Turn the paper and starting at the 2 inch horizontal score and ending at the 10 inch horizontal score that you made in step 2, score (crease) at 1.5 and 3.5 inches.

[Step 4]
Cut only along the 2 creases that you made in step 3.

[Step 5] 
Make mountain and valley folds along the creases, as shown in the picture below. (Note that the 3 horizontal sections have alternating orders of their mountain and valley folds.)

[Step 6]
Your card is now ready to decorate. Here is how it will look open and closed:

Irene is also offering a giveaway for those of you that post a comment below!  A winner will be drawn next Thursday and announced with the posting of next week's tutorial!  Unfortunately, Irene is only able to ship domestically, so we're sorry to exclude our international readers from this giveaway.  Perhaps we'll have to do an international only giveaway soon :)  

Here are the great items up for the lucky winner!

Japan fundraiser raffle winners!

Thank you to everyone who was generous enough to support the AmeriCares fundraising efforts to support the people of Japan.

As a thank you, we promised some incredible prizes!

Here are the winners so far:

• Our first winner (May 1st) was Liz Goldsberry. She chose the Westcott prize pack!
• May 2nd's winner is: Sophia Trujillo! She chose the beautiful Kat Baker piece
• May 3rd's winner is: Krystal Lemke (still choosing her prize)
• May 4th's winner is: Meghan Raines
• May 5th's winner is: Emily W
• We got a little behind... but still picking names! winner is: Sophia Trujillo AGAIN!!

Congratulations to you all!

This is just our way of thanking you for your generosity!