Darcie Heater

No Tricks, Nothing but Treats here....

Hey Blog friends,

Thought I'd post a quick little treat for you.  Here's what you do: Download the flyer showing a selection of our Jumbo U-Cuts and look through it.  Post a comment about which THREE Jumbo U-Cuts you'd like to win for FREE!  Post your comment between now and Halloween evening, October 31st by midnight.  I'll randomly draw a winning name and post the winner on Monday, November 2. Quick and Easy!  How simple is THAT!?!?  Yup, you gotta check this thing often, lol. 

Just click HERE to download the flyer.  The flyer is in a pdf format, which uses Adobe Acrobat Reader.  If you don't have Adobe Acrobat, you can download it for free by clicking HERE.

Here's my oldest grandson with his pumpkin that he and Papa carved earlier this week. 

He and his family are moving approximately 4 hours away tomorrow.... so "Gaga" (yes, that's me.... it was his first name for me and it stuck) is very sad today!  Going to miss this little guy and his brother, Camp Gaga just won't be the same without him here every Saturday night. Word to my other kids: Camp Gaga has an opening, now accepting applications.  ;)

Well, I said No Tricks, but you didn't really believe me did you? Here's Ted's costume:

Lol, I know....I've never seen him wear a suit and tie either... so it MUST be his costume. I know... it's pretty mild compared to last year's costume.  Yup, you showed me the photos, Ted.  You're really hoping I don't have any of those photos, huh? Hehehehehehoohoohahaha.  Sweat bullets, friend.

OK, back to work for me, got to get back to drawing bunnies and Spring flowers, lol.

Don't forget to enter the drawing for the FREE Clear Polymer Flourish Reindeer set also. See the entry on the blog, two posts ago.

:) Darcie

Darcie's Watercolor Pencil Technique Demo Video

Well, this little project was definitely a learning experience!  I wanted to make some demo videos to share with you, but hadn't really edited video before.  I sat down early Sunday afternoon to do this little video and before I knew what happened, it was midnight!  Sheesh.  I had it all finished and was ready to load it to YouTube (which I also hadn't uploaded to previously, since I hadn't made videos before), when I got an error message that said it could only be 10 minutes long.  Yikes, wish I would have checked on that first!!  After all those hours of work, my video was 12 minutes.  So this video is a little choppy as I had to start deleting little sections of it to make it less than 10 minutes long.  Anyway, I learned the program and am thinking of all kinds of things I can share with you in the future.  (And yup, they'll be shorter!)  So here's my first video....(ok, be gentle with the laughter, I know it's kind of dorky, lol!

When I was preparing to do this video, I checked out other videos to get some ideas on how to set it up, etc.  Tim Holtz's videos all begin with music consisting of some type of horn (saxophone, maybe (?)...  I'm an artist and definitely don't know instruments). Whatever it is, it makes my dog go ballistic and he howls like crazy.  Then I checked out some of Donna Downey's video blogs.  I absolutely love how she can just sit down in front of the camera straight out of bed, and show off her hair. I really, really wish I could do that, I do so admire it.  But no....I'm the one who owns Photoshop and knows 5,000 ways to use it.  So hopefully each of my video endeavors will be an improvement over the last one... and I figure from this point I can only get better, right?  Lol.  Oh well, I learned a ton.

If anyone is interested in ordering the Beinfang Watercolor paper or the Palette Paper, here's the item numbers:  The watercolor paper is item #AC401 and the Palette paper is item #AC24.  They can be ordered by calling 1-800-945-3980.

Hey, there's still time to enter the drawing for the FREE CLEAR POLYMER STAMP SET that I told you about in the previous post.  The deadline to enter is Sunday, November 1.

We worked on my "Stockings for Soldiers" project this last weekend... and ended up with about 40 stockings in various stages of completion.  It took awhile to get set up and figured out, and it looks like it will take several weekends to finish, but we had fun:

Here's my Sisters-in-Law:

And me:

Anyone want to come sew with us?

See you soon!  :) Darcie

 
 

One More Penguin Project...

Hi Blog Friends,

I've been busy working on some demo videos for you, and will have those finished soon (hopefully!).  It involves playing with a new program, so we'll see how that goes.  But in the meantime, I wanted to share one more set of instructions for the Penguin Pals Clear Polymer Set.  This one is a card featuring the cute little Penguin, here's the photo of the front of the card:

If you're interested in making this cute guy, you can click on the photo below or click HERE to download a printable pdf set of instructions for the card:

Congrats to the winner of the FREE drawing for the stamp set, Connie K... the stamps are on their way to you.  I'll be doing another FREE drawing soon, so be sure to check back!

:) Darcie

New Home for the Penguins....

Here's the set of FREE Clear Polymer Stamps that will have a new home this week:

I generated a random number using the Random Number Generator on www.random.org and came up with a winner:

Connie K.!

So, Connie, if  you will send me your mailing address I'll get these Penguins on their way to their new home.  Email me at [email protected].

OK, more fun stuff coming soon!

:) Darcie

Penguin Pals Gift Bag

Hey Blog Friends!

In my last post I shared with you one of our new Clear Polymer Stamp Sets and some of the projects we made with the set.  I think the cooler weather starts all of us thinking about the upcoming holidays, and the urge to "make something" kicks in.  I want to show you a super quick and super easy project, made from one of our Jumbo U-Cuts.  We have a whole line of these Jumbo U-Cuts that make a gift bag or gift box, and they are a great way to crank out a whole bunch of gifts in a short amount of time.  Here's the photo:

The bag was made from our Jumbo U-Cut #SKUC54. The Jumbo U-Cut comes with a smaller more general version of the tag.  I decided to make this project into a layered gift mix bag and added a custom tag, which I'll share with you later in this post as a free download.  Here's what the Jumbo U-Cut looks like:

The gift sack is printed on a 12" x 18" sheet of 80 lb. card stock and the finished project measures 4 5/8" wide x 5 5/8" tall x 3" deep. The Jumbo U-Cut retails for $2.99 and can be ordered by calling our toll-free number 1-800-945-3980.  For a link to a flyer containing many of our Jumbo U-Cuts, click HERE.  These projects are all extremely easy.  They have step by step instructions printed on the sheet, but I thought I'd give you a photo tutorial here so you can see just how easy it really is.

STEP 1

Cut out the gift bag.

STEP 2

Score on the dotted lines

STEP 3

Fold on the scored lines.

STEP 4

Apply Versa Tape to the side tab.

STEP 5

Apply Versa Tape to the back side of the gift bag, applying it to the bottom flaps as shown, and around the window cutout.

STEP 6

Remove the backing from the Versa Tape around the window cutout and apply a piece of acetate to the back of the window.

STEP 7

Cut out the embellishment images and apply them to the front of the bag with Versa Tape or double sided foam mounting tape.

STEP 8

Remove the backing from the Versa Tape on the side tab and join the sides together.

STEP 9

Fold the two small bottom flaps over and remove the Versa Tape on the large bottom flap as shown.  Fold the large flap over and attach it to the two smaller flaps.

STEP 10

Remove the Versa Tape backing from the remaining large flap and fold it over to close the bottom of the sack.

STEP 11

Fill the gift sack with the layered mix (recipe shown below), or with small gifts or baked goods.  You can adapt any recipe to a layered gift mix by adding the dry ingredients to separate polypropylene crystal clear bags (http://www.clearbags.com) or by using clear food safe bags (the clearer the better).  Tape the bags shut and layer them in the gift sack. If they don't quite fill up the gift bag, you can use clear shreds or some other type of filler to "plump" out the gift sack and to push the layered bags up against the window in the gift sack. Include the rest of the recipe, (including any ingredients the recipient needs to add) on a tag attached to the gift bag.

STEP 12

Attach the hook side of two Velcro® dots to the inside of the top flap, as shown above.

STEP 13

Apply the loop side of the Velcro dots directly on top of the hook side, with the sticky side exposed.

STEP 14

Fold the top flap over, carefully aligning it with the front of the sack. Press firmly to attach the Velcro loop dots to the front of the sack, as shown below.

STEP 15

Add a bow and the tag... and VIOLA!  Insta-gift.  Pretty cute, huh?

Here's what was going on behind the scenes while I was photographing this:

Chaco, my Chocolate Lab (named after the river sandals), very sweetly asked if there was anything in that little gift bag for him.

This is Huey, my son's Lab mix, (we're babysitting him while my son is serving in other parts of the world).  Huey is named after the helicopter (hmmm, I wonder why)....or Huey Lewis, both favorites of my son.  Huey also wondered if this might be an early Christmas gift for him.

I don't know... do you think these angels would touch my little gift bag?  They're pretty good boys.... Huey really is an angel, the sweetest dog in the world!  And Chaco... well, technically he's still a puppy, but he's growing up a lot and Huey's been a good influence on him.  Still.... I think I'll put it up high on the counter tonight.  

Here's the gift tag you can print out and use with the gift bag.  I included an already layered version of the tag, or a version with all the separate layers if you want to cut them out and attach them with double sided foam tape to enhance the layers.  The recipe is printed on this sheet also.  You can download a printable version by clicking on the picture or by clicking HERE.
 
There's still time to enter the drawing for the FREE Clear Polymer Stamp Set shown below:

For details on how you can win this set of stamps, refer to the post just prior to this one.

Good luck to all of you and thank you for the nice comments and input on which type of stamp you prefer.  On Thursday I'll be doing the random drawing to choose the winner of the stamp set.

See you soon!
Darcie

 

Penguin Pals Clear Polymer Stamp Set

Hey Blog Friends!

It's a gorgeous, crisp Fall day here in Southern Oregon, and the leaves are just starting to turn.  Here's a photo of where I live:

Not my house, exactly, but this is in my neighborhood.  You can see the pretty colors starting to form on some of the trees by the river. This is the Rogue River and it's only a couple miles from my house. My favorite summer place... well, except for Hawaii, of course!

The cool weather always seems to activate the "want to bake, need to create" gene.  I was in Michaels the other day and was amazed at the number of people in the store, it was packed!  I think we're all trying to get a head start on the holidays...we all know it comes way too fast once the weather turns slightly cool.  So toward that end, I thought I'd share some Winter projects with you in case you're in that "holiday project" mode already.  This set of stamps was included in one of our Darcie's Club shipments last winter, and we made a whole bunch of projects with it.  Here's the stamp set:


If you're interested in more information on Darcie's Club you can click HERE to read more about it.  This set is available as a Clear Polymer Set (POL6) and also as a Cling Mounted Set (JCS0106).  In an effort to keep up with the trends we are producing some of our stamp sets in Clear Polymer, in addition to the Cling Mounted Sets and the wood mounted stamps.  We're interested in feedback from our valued customers, YOU, as to which type of stamps you like best.  SO... I'm going to give away this Clear Polymer Set FREE to one of the people who place a comment on this post. Just post a comment as to which type of stamp you prefer, (Clear, Cling or Wood) at the end of this post, and I'll draw a random name to receive the set for FREE.  More information on the drawing will be included at the end of this post.

Here's a few of the projects we made with this set: 

This one is a quick and easy little card using just the bird, the branch and a saying.  Here's another birdy card:

Quick and easy!  Bird, ornaments, branch.  Here's another cute card:

I like the window that Tonya put in this one.  (Wow, she's also the cutting QUEEN on all those branches!) There are so many different looks this one set can produce.  Here's another card using the penguin:

I like the way Tonya cut up the sayings on this one.  The words can be combined in several different ways to create additional variations of the saying.  And yet another card (I told you there are a whole bunch of samples with this one!):
 
These are the papers we used on the projects:  (They're shown at a reduced size to fit in this space.)

All of our papers are available in four different sizes and two different weights:
• 8 1/2" x 11" text weight paper - these item numbers start with PA - price .47¢ each
• 8 1/2" x 11" card stock weight paper - these items numbers start with PAC - price .89¢ each
• 12" x 12" text weight paper - these item numbers start with PTW - price .85¢ each
• 12" x 18" card stock weight paper - these item numbers start with SPAC - price $1.39 each

If you're interested in ordering any of the items shown in this post, you can do so by calling 1-800-945-3980.

Here are a few of the dimensional projects made with my patterns and the larger 12" x 18" sheets of printed papers:

This little shadowbox frame is constructed entirely of card stock!  I was looking for a frame in an odd size and couldn't find one, so I decided to "engineer" a card stock frame that could be made any size I wanted.  It's actually very sturdy.  Here's the pattern used to make this frame:

This pattern includes the frame in four different sizes.  The pattern number is XPT06 and it retails for $6.99.
Here's a cute little purse gift bag that you can make to present a little gift to someone special:

This is the same purse pattern featured in the post "How About some Free Pumpkins" which you can view by clicking HERE.  
Here's another gift bag made from my large papers and patterns:

This is one of our most popular patterns and is extremely simple to assemble.  Here's what the pattern looks like:

This is item #PSX01 and it retails for $5.99.  It includes 3 different sizes of "shopping bag" gift bag patterns.

OK, can you believe all the things you can make with this set? (Those were just a few of the projects...Darcie's Club members receive materials and instructions for several projects with each shipment, plus an idea sheet that shows numerous other projects that can be made with the set.

To enter the drawing for the FREE CLEAR POLYMER STAMP SET, just place a comment at the end of this post stating which type of stamp you prefer to use (Clear, Cling Mount, or Wood Mounted), or if you have a preference at all and why.  Place your comment by midnight Pacific Time on Wednesday, October 14 and I will randomly draw a winner on Thursday, October 15.

In the meantime, I'll be posting instructions for a project made with this stamp set in a couple of days... and of course, I'm also working on something yummy!

Wee you soon!

:) Darcie

Free Pumpkins for....

Hey Blogger Friends,

Many thanks to all of you who took the time to comment on the recent posts!  I used the random number generator on random.org to come up with the winning number for this FREE Clear Polymer Stamp Set:

Here's what the number generator produced:

Here are your random numbers:
 6
Timestamp: 2009-10-05 17:10:46 UTC

Which means Diane Jacobson is the winner!  Diane, if you would please email me with your address I'll get that stamp set right off to you.   (Email me at [email protected]) 

Thanks again to all of you who entered.... I'll be doing another drawing soon, check back often!

:) Darcie