I am on the 2012 Graphic Design Team!

Okay I have to write this fast because I have to get to work! I didn't even think it would be posted this early, but I went to peek just in case, and I tried to read through the first paragraph and be all calm and cool, but some how my eyes kept peeking down and I saw the tops of the letters of the first name, and you know, it looks a lot like a D and an H...so I scrolled down and there I was first on the list!!!!
(listed in no particular order so I can't really say I was #1 LOL!)

1.  Denise Hahn - USA

2.  Sharon Ngoo - Singapore

3.  Nicole Eccles - USA

4.  Clare Charvill - UK

5.  Alberto Juárez Díaz - Spain

6.  Arlene Cuevas - USA

7.  Tara Orr - Canada

8.  Jim Hankins - USA

9.   Maiko Miwa - Japan

10.  Gloria Stengel - USA

11.  Susan Lui - Singapore

12.  Kristin Wilson - USA

13.  Jane Tregenza - Australia

14.  Roberto Cesar dos Santos - Brazil

15.  Laura Denison - USA
Congrats to all! here is the whole post . Off to work, I hope this news makes me have a great day, but somehow I am sure work will have a way of zapping all of my joy! LOL
Denise- Thank you Graphic 45 Team!

Graphic 45 Flower Tutorial

Well on the eve of the big announcement for the Graphic 45 Design Team, I figured I would post one of my Graphic 45 video Tutorials. If you happen to take a peek at it, please like it and subscribe to my youtube. I can't say I have high hopes of making the Design Team though.  There are sooo many amazing artists up for it and the fact that since you can be on their team two years in a row, I am competing against current members! Anyway, make it or not I have had such a good time during the process and as always will continue to use their amazing line in my projects. ANYWAY, there is more good news as I will be a guest designer for Clearsnap for the month of April. You may not think you have heard of clearsnap, but if you have any cats eye and colorbox chalk ink pads, then you HAVE heard of clearsnap! I will post a teaser in a few days. Anyway doing all of this has been inspiring and great way to get you to break out of your normal way of creative thinking!

-Denise

Workshop Announcement! French General

I can honestly say from the first time I stepped in the door of Karri Mengs French General, I was in love. I would never imagine that a few years later I would be teaching a class there. I will be sharing my Sew Romantic Lariat necklace. Kaari is also offering a red textile collage class by Mavis Leahy from Turkey Red. Why not come and make a whole day of it! sign up by clicking here: French General.

Brown Bag Gift

If you read this blog you are most likely a crafty person! And if you are like me, it just PAINS me to buy a greeting card for $3.95 and a gift bag for $1.99 when I need to wrap up something last minute! I vowed this year, all gifts get hand made packaging. A perfect opportunity came up when I found out it was my friend Jamies Birthday. I found out we were getting together last minute so I went to work right away making a little piece of art for her. But now to package it. I just grabbed a brown paper bag, my stamps, embossing powder, scalloped scissors, a piece of lace, a piece of seam biding, a rhinestone straight pin, and a Graphic 45 tag from their Fashionista collection. And voila! A brown paper bag never looked so good! Now after I typed that all out it seems like a lot of stuff, but everything was right there out in the open ready to grab and it only too a few minutes.

{I always have brown lunch bags around for storage, glittering things ect.}

{Jamie is a a jewelry Fashionista check her out here at Simply Me Art. I used the rhinestone straight pin- you can get these at Floral Supply Syndicate }

{A gift is always so much better when personalized, grabbed this letter J and a little laurel stamp. i used black embossing powder, which makes it pop off the bag}

How to:  

-make sure you fully open the bag and make light pencil marks where you want to stamp and stamp away.

-close the bag and trim the top with scalloped scissors

-use a straight pin or hat pin and tie a bow with trim around it

-put in your gift and seal it up with a die cut tag or make one of your own

-Denise

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Sew Romantic Lariat Necklace-Workshop preview!

I am so excited to announce that I will be teaching this workshop in April. Details coming soon! This little piece was inspired by cleaning my craft room. I picked up this bag I had from Lena G's, this amazing vintage shop in the central coast. Lena is a little whacky but her shop is filled with vintage stuff you can not find anywhere! She doesn't have website but you can see her listings on her FB page click here. Annnnyyway...like I was saying, I ran across this little stash bag from Lena's with some vintage thread spools and I thought, why did I buy these? As I looked a little closer I saw that the hole in the middle is quite larger than todays plastic thread spools. I had seen other tassel type necklaces made with a thimble, but could it be done with a spool? Why yes it can! A few hours later after I had all my trim and fabric pulled out, my gel medium, my vintage paper, my ball pin hammer, my room was destined to not be clean today. And this was the result:

{this is great project to use all of those little bits of trim you can't bear to throw away}

{The chain and little pave disco ball really just made it pop}

{I have been holding on to this little scissor charm forever, it just fit right in}

{I embellished the spool with vintage paper, but you could just as easily use fabric}

{I am all into making these little steel hammered s links, they look so vintage}

Well I don't want to announce the class info until it's up on the website but it's in a shop in LA that is to DIE for! 

Spaces will be limited so drop me a email or a FB wall post if you want me to email you when it goes live.

-Denise

Test! My new Tutorial intro- Stop motion and all!

I can't believe this actually came out! It was so much fun, can't wait to make more. The only thing was I had to make my hubby hold down the button on my camera, he was NOT amused! LOL!

Graphic 45 Design Team- I made the Top 30!

     Okay, so I was feeling really good about the projects I submitted for the Graphic 45 Design Team call...then I started looking at other artists entries, and was like, BLOWN away! There are so many creative people out there, I don't know how the folks at G45 could have narrowed it down! But narrow they did, and fortunately I made the top 30! Now on to the second part of the audition where they narrow it down to I think 7- but they allow last years designers to reapply, so who knows how many new designers they will choose! I just hope I am one of them. I have to send in three projects, or email 3 videos. I really want to do a mix though, so maybe two live projects and one video. You may not know this but before I got into crafting, I was quite into movie making. I made amazing videos for my employees that they just loved and also made some pretty intense vacation videos, so I am very excited to make more crafty ones. I have this great idea for a stop motion intro so I have been googling tutorials all day! We will see how that goes!

     My trips to Tahoe and Colorado were great. I love the snow and cold weather. Getting to see a lot of friends, sticking my tongue out and catching snowflakes, ice skating on an iced over pond! For me winter is the best season of the year, and of course if you live in a snowy climate you probably think I am crazy! But live near the beach for 40+ years and you too would tire of it!

Well off to ONCE AGAIN clean up my disaster of a studio and get it camera ready!

Wish me luck!

-Denise