Sunday, October 5, 2014

announcement time, announcement time!

hi, friends!

i have a very exciting announcement to share with you all. a couple weeks ago, i discovered the website, darby smart. darby smart is a craft website with individual materials but also kits for projects created by DS designers. in the kit, you get everything you need to complete the project - some of the projects are very simple, and some require more advanced techniques. complete with competitive prices, free shipping, and a pretty user-interface, i was sold!

after perusing DS for awhile, i decided to apply to be a designer. and yesterday i was accepted! this means that i will be creating some crafting kits to sell on darby smart - you may see some familiar projects on there, lifted from my nailed it series on this blog. i'm also planning on spending the next couple days coming up with some new projects, so expect to see those too (hopefully)!

i'll keep the updates coming as things happen, but in the meanwhile, let me know if there are any projects you've seen here that you would like to see made into a DS kit!

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

west coasters

i should be working, but it occurred to me that i made something and then didn't tell you all about it which means i need to fix that tout suite.

this is a ten-minute craft, max. not counting drying time, but no one counts drying time because you can instagram a craft while it's still wet, and that's when it's real, right?

this is what i made:


this craft has four amazing steps:

1) find and purchase birch coasters. i mean, if you're super ambitious and you've recently cut some dead branches off a birch tree outside your house (currently happening at my home), you could cut some cookies off of that and sand them down. your call.
2) purchase washi tape. i opted for two kids: straight and chevron. 
3) attach washi tape semi-haphazardly across the birch. i wanted each one to be a little different, so my washi taping was a little intentional.
4) mod podge over the top. this seems to protect it from things like condensation from bottles, so i wouldn't skip this step if i were you.

one thing i did that i would not recommend is i put little felt disks on the bottom (three on each). this would have been key if i were using these coasters on glass, but i'm using them on a slated wood coffee table which means the felt has the opposite effect i wanted, and makes the coasters wobble a little. 

give it a try! wood cookie coasters are popular and there are so many ways to make them your own. 

bisoux!