At the recent Brisbane Paper Crafts Festival show, I was demoing Friendly Plastic and I promised that I'd make up some of the samples I made into jewellery. So here's the first one: a stretchy bracelet featuring leaves cast from Friendly Plastic Designer Sticks. Regular readers will recognise the leaves from the tutorial I posted after the show. If you're not familiar with how I created them you can check out the tutorial here or on my website . Because the leaves are cast from Friendly Plastic sticks they are hollow and they needed to be filled with resin before I could drill holes sideways through them. I've strung them on Beadalon Elasticity to make it easy to stretch the bracelet over my knuckles. Drilling holes sideways was one heck of a challenge because the leaves are quite thin. Try as I might, I just didn't seem to be able to drill straight and I had to top them up with more resin where I'd accidentally drilled through to the back of the leaves. My or......

It's been Paper Crafts Festival time in Brisbane this weekend. Spending time at a paper crafts show is always a fun way to spend a weekend. I spent a few hours each day demoing Friendly Plastic: a slot on the stage each morning and then a stint on the Stamp Antics stand each afternoon. So I thought you might like to see what I got up to. What you see above is just a small sampling of the all the pieces I created during the demos - I did a lot of marbling and cutting, casting, bead making and texturing so now I have a big pile of pieces ready to be turned into other creations. I've already begun to turn some of the beads I made during Friday's demos into jewellery. Firstly, a pendant..... and then a matching bracelet. I'll try to get a few more pieces posted over the next week or so. But my, oh my, oh my...... look at the big jumble of cutouts I have left! I'll show you one way to use them all up in the next couple of weeks, so look out for a tutorial on how to mould......

Just a quick announcement tonight before I return to my daily bangle challenge tomorrow. I'll be demonstrating at the Brisbane Paper Crafts Festival Friday 5th, Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th February. That's this weekend folks! The show is at the RNA Showgrounds and is open from 10.00am - 4.30pm each day. If you'd like to see some of the amazing things you can do with Friendly Plastic and learn some new techniques to incorporate into your card making and scrapbooking, you can catch me demonstrating on stage at 10.30am each day. I'll also be demoing on the Stamp Antics stand each afternoon where you'll be able to buy all your Friendly Plastic supplies. Hope to see you at the show! And don't forget to check back tomorrow for the next instalment of the bangle challenge....

Dekoda Marketing (the new owners of the show) have just updated their website with the latest show details including the exhibitors and workshop information. If you'd like to take a class with me and learn how to create the textured backgrounds on these two cards, then give Dekoda a call (02 9674 4488) to register for the workshops. On the left is From Trash to Treasure (a really interesting technique if you're into recycling!) and on the right is Bubbled Tyvek - a project working with an interesting paper called Tyvek and Lumiere paints. My workshops are being sponsored by Stamp Antics and class numbers are limited so be sure to book early....

Newsflash...... Newsflash...... Newsflash!!! You may not have heard yet, but it's back on! Yes, that's right... Brisbane Paper Crafts Festival is now being run by Dekota Marketing who are breathing new life into the event with the intention of returning the show to its former glory. And it's less than two weeks away, from 13-15 March 2009! With such a short lead up to the event, I've been working overtime to get class samples ready and I've designed a couple of cards with very interesting, textured backgrounds. At this stage they're not yet listed on the official website so I've included the details below. Once booking information is available I'll post it here, so check back again later or check the show website. Friday Morning Class (repeated Saturday afternoon) From Trash to Treasure! --> Recycle, Re-use and Repurpose is the motto of this class. We will take an ordinary cardboard box, paper scraps and Lumiere paints and turn them into a card whi......