Tutorial Tuesday - Valentines Treasures

I am super excited! I have sooooo many downloads for you today! I've got a project, card, AND a Valentine's Day font for you! All FREE! And a sale in my shop if you don't have any of the cute silver DVD tins for storing your treasures in!

All the papers and labels needed for this project can be downloaded. In addition to the label PDF here and the case cover PDF here you'll need 1 bag of Hershey's Treasures and 1 DVD tin, some double sided tape, and glitter if you want a little sparkle.

I used the Diamond Stickles. This color is awesome because it takes on the color of whatever you put it on, essentially getting many different colors from one bottle. You'll see in the close-ups below!


Yep, that's all the same Stickles color! I love how it's red, and light pink!

So here's what you do:
Print out the labels onto sheets of Avery label #18160 or #8160. (It's the standard size 1" x 2 5/8" white mailing labels. I like printing them out on regular paper first and then stacking a blank label sheet and the printout on top of each other; hold them to the light to make sure they'll print correctly and are lined up. If they are, go ahead and print onto the sticky labels.)
Cut out the background paper and adhere with double sided tape onto the storage tin. Cut out the sentiment you'd like to use. There are three included that say:
You're Sweet
Happy Valentine's Day
I Love You
(I used the two extra I didn't use on the tin to make a card. They fit great on the front of a standard sized card!)

Next, I used the Stickles to embellish a few of the labels and the hearts on the sentiment. After they've dried, just use some foam tape to adhere the sentiment to the front of the tin.

Wrap all the nuggets in the labels, place in your tin, and you're done.

If you'd like the tins I've got with the rounded corners, you can buy them from my store.
Don't forget to use the coupon code "VAL09" at checkout to get 20% off your entire purchase!


If you like the font that I used in the I Love You sentiment with the hearts cut out, you can download it here. I made it with a free font making website called Your Fonts.

Once again, leave me a comment if you make the project! I'd love to see how yours turn out! If you want a different color scheme let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Edited: Also, I've had a few emails about the printout not lining up with the labels. Make sure that when you print, it's not scaling to print, or fitting to page. Usually printers will default to this setting. If you uncheck the box that says that, it will print at the exact size, which will allow it to line up correctly.
That should be all it takes to get you going on your project!

Happy Valentine's Crafting!

Tuesday Tutorial: Valentines Day Wreath

Ready to get those Valentine's Day decorations up yet? I'm ready! So here's the first idea for you! It's a wrapped yarn heart-shaped wreath.
Supplies you'll need include:
That's:
Tacky Glue
1 package 2" diameter styrofoam balls
1 package 1 1/2" diameter styrofoam balls
Bendable wire
Wire cutters
Flat-head straight pins
2 skeins of coordinating yarn. I LOVED how the variegated red/pink yarn looked when wrapped around the balls! So I would definitely do one of these, and a different solid color to coordinate.
Coordinating ribbon for hanging (not pictured)

Ready to get started?

Wrap the yarn around the balls. I was worried that getting it started wrapping would be challenging, but the yarn kind of held onto the styrofoam texture and I didn't need any additional adhesive to keep it on. Now randomly wrap the yarn all around the ball until you can't see the styrafoam anymore. When you're done wrapping, trim the yarn and put a small dot of tacky glue on the end. I used the straight pin to hold it in place while it was drying. (I had intended to remove the pins when the glue was dry, but the heads were really tiny, so I just left them stuck inside. You can't see them.) You'll have a pile of these when you're done. I did half of each bag a different color.
If you let one get away, they apparently make great cat toys! I had to reclaim one of my pink ones!
Now, layout how you'd like them to look like when you're finished.

Then cut a 4 1/2' length of wire. String the yarn balls onto the wire and shape it into the heart shape.
When you get the ends back together, just wrap the wires around each other.
(Close up of wires.) Then trim.
Tie the coordinating ribbon onto the top of the heart, directly onto the wire. Hang you're finished wreath!
How easy was that? Wrapping the balls is what took the longest, but I did it while I was watching a movie. Once you get the hang of it you can pretty much do it without looking. Shaping the wreath took no time at all! Let me know if you made one, I'd love to see it!
Happy Crafting!

Tutorial Tuesday-Simple Birthday Cards

One of my news years resolutions was to make sure I didn't miss ANY family birthdays. I did really good the first part of last year, but petered off towards the end. (I always called them, it's just that getting a card made and sent out sometimes was a little much.) So, I spent a Friday night and made birthday cards for everyone in one night. Now I just need to put them into envelopes and I'll be ready for an entire year of birthdays! Below are two of the ones I did. To keep it simple I used the same layout and just switched the papers depending on who it was for.


I used a layout from my Project Recipe Book. You can read more about the project book by clicking here. It's a great tool to have and makes it super easy to create cards and scrapbook pages! The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the Hey Cupcake set.

Get ready for some Valentine's Day crafting next week!
Happy Crafting!

Fabric Bowl Pattern Winner

So I made a little mistake when I posted the reminder about the giveaway. I made the entire sentence the same color as the link. So some giveaway entrants left posts at the bottom of this post, and others left their comment at the bottom of this post. Sorry! Because of my error, I will giveaway a pattern free to one from each post.
According to the:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

2 

Timestamp: 2009-01-11 03:32:16 UTC

Which means that the winners are the #2 commenter from both posts:

Congrats to The Duchess and Melissa! Please email me at erinschlosser (at) schlosserdesigns (dot) com and I'll send you a coupon for a free download from my store. For those that didn't win, you can go to the link here to purchase the pattern!

See you soon!

Modern Fabric Bowls

It's in stock now! With the pattern you can make either of these wonderfully modern fabric bowls! It's a PDF available for download in the
Schlosser Designs store. For only $3 you can download the pattern immediately! (No shipping and handling either!) The download includes 11 pages of instructions and the patterns with over 15 full color pictures to help you along the process.

The pattern is for personal use only, however, if you sew and make items for craft fairs and bazaars you're more than welcome to use the pattern for making limited runs of the bowls. (Just nothing mass produced please!) Have an awesome day!

Don't forget to leave me a comment at the bottom of the post here to enter to win the pattern for FREE!

Happy Crafting!

Edited: This giveaway is over but you're more than welcome to leave a comment!

Sorry for the delay, but it's worth the wait!

Here's some sneak peaks of the tutorial for this week! I think you're going to like it!

Fabric Bowls

For my birthday one of my super crafty friends Emily gave me some coveted fabric fortune cookies, straight out of her new Etsy shop, Momma's Apron Strings. I knew that not just any container could hold these great little cookies so I looked around trying to find a great fabric bowl to make. I found a few patterns, but none were what I was looking for, so I created my own!

Don't you just love the slightly curved top? I can't wait to make more! I'm thinking they can hold cotton balls in the bathroom, knick knacks in the laundry room, spare bits of craft parts, keys by the front door, it's endless! And, they don't take much time at all to make. Once I got the pattern worked out it took me about an hour to make 3 of them!

I'm still typing up and editing the photos for the tutorial. I'm somewhat of a detail oriented person so I wanted to make sure everything was just right and won't have it ready tonight, but tomorrow night for sure!

I'm also going to try something a little different. Due to the time (20+ hours) and materials (Lots of fabric and interfacing) I went through, trying to get this pattern just right I will be offering this one for sale at a small cost. The cost will only be $3 for the pattern. It will include detailed instructions with pictures (because pictures ALWAYS help!), full size pattern, and a few different variations. I hope it won't keep you from making them. It will be available tomorrow night in my shop as a PDF download. I'll post here when it's up in the store!

And how about this:

Leave me a comment at the bottom of this post and let me know what you think about the bowls and I'll randomly pick a comment Saturday and the winner gets a FREE pattern sent to them! (If the winner has already purchased the pattern by Saturday because they just couldn't wait to make some I'll refund you the purchase price.)

Happy Crafting!

Edited: The giveaway is over but you're more than welcome to leave me a comment still. Don't forget to subscribe to the Blog feed so you don't miss out on the next giveaway.

Tutorial Tuesday: Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a most wonderful Christmas! I'm still trying to fight off this cold that I got the day after Christmas. At least it waited until after Christmas to show it's ugly face! Anyway, I'm super excited about next weeks tutorial. Think home decor!

So until next week, here's a printable calendar for you! Here's the preview below.
You can download the PDF by clicking here. Just print it on cardstock without scaling or fitting to page. If you trim the page in half you'll have two calendars. One to keep and one to give to a friend. You could also print it onto fabric like this and border it in a coordinating fabric and have a nice hanging calendar for the year. I did a girly color scheme and a little more manly color scheme. (I got my fabric for my printer at Hobby Lobby. Most any craft store should have some!) If there are some other color schemes you'd like, let me know and I can recolor a few!

Happy New Year!!!

Updating the Blog

If it looks a little odd, please let me know! I'm trying to update things a little and will slowly work on updating the template and tutorial pages with images so you don't have to click on each link to see the project! Have a great Friday night!

Glittered Brads and Great Gift Boxes

I started with this:
2 silver brads, glitter, and a glue pad

Just tap the glue pad on the tops of the brads and sprinkle with glitter! Now I have glitter brads!

I made them to put onto this gift box...but I decided to just go with a red velvet ribbon instead.... You can download the template here. It's my little pizza box template from last year! If you print it slightly larger than 100% it will fit a gift card! Also great for jewelry or one cookie for a teacher or coworker gift!

Happy Crafting!

Tutorial Tuesday: Patchwork Pillow

Yep, lucky you! More tutorials today! (I still have a few more also!) I made this for my dad for Christmas. He loves family history, and he's furnishing his home in Germany right now so I thought he might like this:

My maiden name is Williamson so I found a Williamson family crest online, made it a little larger in Photoshop then printed it out onto printable fabric. You can buy these fabric sheets at most any craft store. They are 8 1/2" x 11" sheets of white or cream fabric with a paper backing on it. You just run them through your printer at home and heat set with an iron. The color turned out great!

If you want to make one here's the pieces you'll need for the front:

You'll also need one fat quarter for the back. I used 1/4" seams for this project. After you cut and piece the front together just cut a piece of backing fabric the same size as the front. Place the front and back right sides together and sew around the edge leaving a hole with enough room to turn out and to stuff. Just clip the corners, turn it out, stuff, and sew up the bottom! The finished size is about 15" square.

Happy Crafting!

Tutorial Tuesday: Fat Quarter Accent Pillows

Oh the weather outside is frightful..... It's been a icy, cold day here in Texas. It was too icy to go into work so I used today to finish up all the Christmas gifts I've been working on. I even took a quick break from making gifts and whipped up some quick new pillows for my sofa:
I LOVE this fabric and it has the colors of my home decor in it!

Want to make some? It took me about an hour to make both! Here's how:

You'll need 4 fat quarters total. 2 of the front fabric and 2 of the back fabric
Polyfill stuffing for the inside

I just took my fat quarters and made 18" squares with them. Pin a back and a front piece together with right sides facing. Stitch around the outside of your square and leave about 4" open for stuffing it. (I left my hole in the bottom middle. That way if your hand stitching isn't great the pillow will be sitting on top of it.) Clip the corners and turn it right sides out. Stuff the pillow and hand sew up the bottom and you're finished! This went SO fast and I was so excited to get these done that I forgot to take pictures of the process. If you have any questions just comment and I'll be happy to answer them!

Happy Christmas Crafting!

Merry Soaps Updated

Just a quick note to let you know that the Merry Soaps post has been updated with the word art I used for the inside of the bottles.

Merry Soaps

I know it was just yesterday that we made yummy Krispy treats but here's another great, simple, quick gift.
I asked my husband to help me name this tutorial and he suggested
Merry Soaps: so here it is!

I started with the $1 bottle of soap from Wal-mart. (For your project, any clear soap will do, as long as the label is easy to remove, and there's no printing on the actual plastic bottle. This had a sticker on the front and the back but they were easily removed.)

Print out a few words onto a transparency with a laser printer. (Don't use your inkjet printer because the ink is NOT waterproof. Print out what you'd like and take it to your local copy center and have them make a copy onto a transparency.) I made my images about 3" high by 2 1/2" wide. After I cut them out, I trimmed them down by holding them up to the bottle to get the approximate size. I also rounded the corners which made it look a little nicer. To insert it into the bottle just roll it up and stick it into the top. It will unroll by itself once it's inside the bottle. If you need to adjust it at all just use the pump. When it's in the right spot, just screw the top back on with the pump behind the transparency. Tie a ribbon and you're done!

And, I left work so quickly today to catch my train that I forgot to email the word art to myself so I could post it to share with you. As soon as I get it tomorrow I'll edit the post with the link, then you can download the words I used above and use those if you want. :)

Edited: Here's the link for the downloadable PDF. When you download it, just print at normal scale and it will print to the correct size. A preview of the file is below. You can make 8 different soap bottles with the file. Download it here.

Have fun!

Tutorial Tuesday: Krispy Treat Gifts

I hope everyone had a great weekend! I had a LONG week last week so I was glad to get some relaxing and crafting done. I had a mini crisis when I realized Christmas is almost here! (Or at least, the time to send out all packages so that they get to family in time!) At work we use Photoshop a lot but I've been trying to use Illustrator a little more so today's tutorial I created for you in Adobe Illustrator! I hope you like it! This is a simple gift that would be great for neighbors or a stocking stuffer. It's also great for those that work. I've been taking it to work and it can be made in the microwave!

It's a perfect single sized serving of deliciousness!


For each package you'll need:
1 1/2 cups rice krispies
1 1/2-2 cups mini marshmallows
1 sandwich bag
1 snack size bag

Just add the rice krispies to the sandwich bag and the marshmallows to the snack size bag and layer together like the photo above. Then fold the ends on the top in slightly and staple. Print out the package with instructions here. (I used a piece of white cardstock. It's in a PDF format. Be sure that when you print it you DON'T tell it to scale it or print to fit page. It's just the right size so if you print it at 100% it will work perfectly!) After you print it, just cut down the middle and fold each piece. You'll have two pieces that are 8 1/2" x 5 1/2". Staple to the top and you're done! Super easy!

This is what the back looks like.
This is a preview of what the download looks like. Be sure to print it out from here though. If you click on the image and try saving and printing it may not print out the correct size!

The only thing the person that receives this needs is one tablespoon of butter and they will have a yummy treat!

Happy Crafting!

P.S. Look for more posts this week as I realize that I've got more Christmas related posts than there are Tuesdays before Christmas! So we'll be having more tutorials than just today. I've got a few more gifts, and some home decor. All easy of course!

See you soon!

Tutorial Tuesday - Tile Transfer Art

I wanted to post this earlier, but it took me a little longer than usual to write up this tutorial. Don't let the long list of instructions keep you from doing it, it's actually pretty easy and definitely worth it! Here's some examples of what you can make with this tutorial:


Set of 4" tile coasters. (A little boutique store nearby sells a set similar to this for $40. Each tile only costs about .50 so you can make them MUCH cheaper yourself!)
I made this tile for me to take to work. I have it sitting on my desk so anytime I want I can peek over and see my husband! It's a little more durable, and I think better looking than putting him in a picture frame! It's also a 4" size tile. (How cute is he?!? He also wanted me to let everyone know that he doesn't really have a big black spot on his forehead...it's a small hole in the tile.)

This is the one I'll show you with my tutorial pictures. I made this for a birthday present for a friend who LOVES french things! This is a 6" square tile.

Ready for the supplies?

Tumbled marble tiles. They have these at Home Depot, Lowes, or any other flooring store. Make sure you get the tumbled ones. This will NOT work on tiles that are really smooth and polished. There needs to be some roughness for the transfer to work properly. (See close up below for what it will look like.)


1 jar each of these: Golden Gel Medium (Heavy Gel Matte) and Golden Medium (Matte Medium) These will be the most expensive part of the list, but they will make a TON of tiles! I use my 40% off coupons for Michaels when I buy these. You'll find them by the canvas and acrylic colors.
1 image printed backwards on a LASER printer. (Don't print it at home unless you have a laser copier. Most people, like me, have an inkjet printer.) Just print it out and take to a copy place and have them copy it for you. It doesn't have to be on a special type of paper, regular copy paper is fine.


1 baking sheet lined with newspaper
1 foam paint brush
1 clean sponge (I use the regular side, not the extra abrasive side.)
1 sheet of thin cork (this is only if you make the coasters)

Ok, now you've got your supplies so let's get started!

-Wash and thoroughly air dry your tiles. This will get off any dust from the tumbling process.
-While letting the tiles dry, print out your image and trim down to the size of your tile, plus 1/4" edges. (If you're tile is 6", trim it to 6 1/2" x 6 1/2". If it's a 4" tile trim to 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".)
-When the tile is dry, paint the front, back, and all sides with a coat of the Golden Medium-Matte Medium and let dry.
-When the tile is dry from the acrylic, put a fairly thick coat of the GEL medium directly onto the paper leaving the 1/4" margin around all sides. I tried to show you what your thick coat and margin should look like in the picture below:
Your paper will probably curl up a little bit but that's ok.
Here's the finished Gelled up paper. (I don't think gelled is a word...but you know what I mean!)
Turn your tile upside down and center onto your gelled up paper. By lining up the tile on the paper it's easier to center your tile with the image.

Once it's positioned, turn it over and use a brayer to press down the paper onto the tile and make sure there are NO air bubbles. (Just to clarify. The acrylic on the tile will be dry, but the acrylic gel on the paper will still be wet.)

After you've done that it's time to bake your tile. Place your tile (like seen below) onto your newspaper lined baking sheet. Put it into the oven for 15 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees F. Basically what happens here is that the acrylic on the tile and the acrylic on the paper bake together and bring the laser toner with it.

When the 15 minutes is up, take the tile out of the oven and transfer to a wire rack and let cool for 15 or 20 minutes. (The time here is not critical, so you could leave this sitting for a day or two and it won't affect the outcome.)

Next, transfer the tile to a work surface covered in scrap paper. Grab your sponge and a small bowl of water. Get the sponge wet and start to wet the paper. You'll start to see the image come through when the paper is wet....we want to remove the paper and the image will appear! This is the fun part!

Here's where a few layers of the paper have been sponged off and you can see the image transferred onto the tile. Keep slowly removing the paper until you've got the majority of it off.


Sometimes it helps to let it dry for a minute or two so you can see better where the paper still needs to be removed. If you look at the picture below you can see a few paper fibers hanging onto the black part still, it's where it looks a little cloudy. If it looks like this it's fine. When we put the finished coat of acrylic on it, the few paper fibers left will disappear.

*Notes on removing the paper: Don't rub too hard and make sure your paper is fairly wet. It doesn't have to be dripping, but if it's fairly wet it will make it easier to remove without damaging the acrylic layer.

After removing all the paper and paper fibers, put another 1-2 coats of the Golden Medium-Matte Medium onto the tile and you've got a completed tile. This makes a great gift! Try printing out Christmas images or quotes to make holiday decorations for yourself too!

If you decide to do coasters, place a thin sheet of cork, cut to fit, on the back so they don't scratch your furniture.

*Because the acrylic melts with heat, if you make the coasters, please don't use them with hot drinks. Also don't use them as trivets either or your image will be stuck to the bottom of your hot dish.

If you have any questions please leave me a comment and I'll respond and try to clarify anything that may have been confusing.

Happy Crafting!