It's just 3 days before I jet out to LA for the CHA Winter Trade Show and Conference and I'm working on the finishing touches for my Designer Showcase at the moment. Each Show I tease you with some sneak peeks of my showcase but you never get to actually see the final display and this year is no different. But instead of teasing you this time, I' sharing photos of one of the pieces on my Showcase as I make it. You might recall the posts about the LED light strings that decorated my dining room last year for my birthday dinner bash. If not, you can check them out here . I'm going to put those lights to use as a decorative feature on my showcase this year by dressing them up a little. Originally, I thought I'd change the colour because they are quite a bright purple. It would have been easy enough to do - a swipe with methylated spirits would have removed the alcohol ink. But I've decided that the purple works quite well with my "all black and white" the......

What do you do when you have to decorate a cake in a hurry..... in a park..... and without a kitchen? Well, the smart thing to do is to reach for "frosting in a can"! A couple of weeks back we had our first spring picnic for the season. This was more than just a picnic though; it was also a birthday celebration. And no birthday would be complete without a cake; kitchen or no kitchen! If you're a busy working mum then canned frosting could become your best friend. No mixing, no colouring, no flavouring - it's all done for you. Just press the nozzle and out comes the frosting. You even have a choice of 4 nozzles to give you different piping patterns. It's SO easy that a child can do it. And it tastes pretty good too. This is simply the best shortcut to cake decorating that I've seen! So with the cakes frosted, I decorated the cupcakes with chocolate butterflies that I had made the night before.This was definitely the most time consuming part of the cake becaus......

I got carried away with drawing butterflies last week and made so many that I decided to use them for the final frame in my black and white butterfly series. You can see the other ones here , here and here . Not being much of a sketcher, I found it challenging to create a pair of identical wings. But what I discovered is that the wings don't need to be identical. As long as the outline of the butterfly is symmetrical, then your eye doesn't notice the differences in the pattern from one half of the butterfly to the other. And the easy way to get a symmetrical butterfly is to use a die cut! Anyway, here it is: the final black and white butterfly shadow box in the series. For this project I die cut 7 Sizzix butterflies  (retired design) and 1 Cuttlebug butterfly . Then I went to town sketching/colouring butterflies with a Pigma Micro Pen  for the black-on-white butterflies and Inkssentials White Opaque Pen  for the white-on-black butterflies. To help with the patterns, I di......

What do you do when you're staying in a motel room without access to your craft supplies? Sitting around with idle hands drives me crazy (just ask my DH!). So on a recent visit to Canberra, the only crafting supplies I could take were pen and paper. Keeping in mind the butterfly projects I've been creating lately, I die cut several butterflies and packed them into a ziplock bag with a fine black marker. Whenever I got a few spare minutes I whipped them out and started drawing. Here's a peek at what I've been working on. I haven't forgotten about the final shadow box in my black and white butterfly series - it's still on the drawing board. But perhaps some of these will make it into the last one. 'Til next time..... If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs...

Last week, Eli (my cake decorator) invited me to come and see how the cake was progressing and to make changes to anything I didn't like. I was very reassured to see her progress - she was totally on track to creating the cake I had imagined. When we first met a few weeks back to design the cake, I came prepared with lots of images of  what I liked. We put our heads together and discussed what would and wouldn't work, and together we came up with a very clear picture of what the cake would look like - nothing at all like the pictures I'd brought along but they helped us to arrive at the final design. We decided it would be purple and have lots of butterflies; everything would be edible including the ribbon and the greeting. It was exciting to get the sneak peek of the purple butterflies during my visit and my anticipation was growing as I knew Eli was going to create exactly what I wanted. I just couldn't wait to see the finished cake. And finally, here it is! Just as ......

This week, I'm continuing with the butterfly theme. Here's the third of the four butterfly shadow box frames I've made which showcase the elegant simplicity of black and white. Three of these boxes will be displayed together on the wall so I'm trying to keep each one quite simple - their impact will come from being part of a larger group. For this one I've used a central butterfly surrounded by a circle of contrasting black and damask butterflies. I love the soft look the white doodling gives to the black butterfly. With all the little dots, it reminds me of marcasite, especially with a few crystals to highlight the design. They give the butterfly that aged, vintage look. Supplies for this shadow box:  Ikea Ribba shadow box frame ; Inkssentials white opaque pen ; Cuttlebug Combo Butterflies ; Sizzix Birds & Butterflies by Eileen Hull ;  Kaiser Craft crystals ; black card stock and damask tissue paper glued to white card stock. Just one more shadow box to go in......

It's been a while since I Zentangled but working with the framed black and white butterflies earlier in the week prompted me to grab my ultra fine markers and start doodling.  As you can see, I'm still playing with butterflies! Some are black on white......   and some are white on black...... Put them all together....... and you get a flourish of butterflies ready for mounting on the wall. Supplies for this project: Ikea Ribba shadow box frame ; Collections Elements Dainty Butterflies chipboard (painted white); ZVA Creative Flourishing - jet crystal; Inkssentials white opaque pen , Sakura Microperm ; and Martha Stewart Royal Butterfly punch. There are more butterfly frames in this series. Check them out here: Vintage Crystal Butterfly Frame Butterfly Chic Butterfly Bouquet 'Til next time..... If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs...

Butterflies have been popping up in my studio a lot lately. Most of them have been purple but today I've gone back to basic black and white. When my girls flew the nest last year, all the personality in their room went with them to their new homes so I'm taking this opportunity to give the room a new look and add something handmade - a simple butterfly collage in a shadow box frame. Butterflies are by nature so beautiful, but the beauty of this project lies in just how quick it is to make. All you need is a variety of butterfly punches and dies and a selection of coordinating papers. I've chosen black and white to suit the room. The Ribba frame is from Ikea and it comes in both black and white.  Discard the paper that came in the frame and cut a piece of cardboard to the same size. Use a pencil to mark the corners of the cut out and then connect the corners together with a ruler and pencil. Mark the half way point along each of the four sides to give you a guide to work to......

Preparations for the celebrations are continuing and I have a really busy week ahead of me with a few deadlines to meet so blogging has taken a back seat. But I thought you might like to see how the cake is coming along. I found a wonderful local cake decorator to decorate the cake and she invited me to come and see how the cake is progressing.  Here's a little peek!  Masses of butterflies - all made from sugar paste and each one is different! A close up of one of larger ones - lots of detail in the wings!  The lettering - it's all glittery and, of course, purple!  Even the glitter is edible! As you can see, I LIKE purple! I can't wait to see the finished cake. 'Til next time..... If you can't get enough of My Tutorials and you want even more inspiration,  click here to find my books and printable pdfs...