I Love to Create -Customized Ice Cream Cartons

Today is an ice cream double whammy. I warmed you up (or maybe I should say cooled you down) yesterday with our Top 10 Favorite Ice Cream Posts roundup. Today we have an all new ice cream craft, two of them actually. First up you can pop over to Craft Magazine and read my post about how to make homemade pumpkin pie ice cream. My husband and I make this frozen treat every fall and it is always a big hit. So much of a hit we sometimes give it as a gift which brought about today's I Love to Create post. How do you customize and gift wrap ice cream? Well luckily it starts with eating ice cream.


SUPPLIES
Empty Ice Cream Carton
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Packs
Sponge Brush
Fabric Scraps
Ice Cream Cone Applique from Sew Darn Cute
Scissors
Collage Pauge
Rick Rack
Aleene's Tacky Glue


EAT ICE CREAM
If you are like me you always have a carton of ice cream in the freezer. When the carton is empty rinse it out, dry it off and set it aside for revamping.


PAINT
Using a Crafty Chica Paint and sponge brush paint your empty ice cream carton. This may take several coats. I went with a warm fall color palette since my carton was going to hold pumpkin pie ice cream. Allow to dry completely.


DECORATE
I used the applique pattern of an ice cream cone from Jenny Ryan's book Sew Darn Cute to adorn my carton, but feel free to create your own. I traced the image onto 3 different types of fabric in fall pumpkiny colors and cut out. Using Collage Pauge I adhered my ice cream cones to the carton

For extra spice using Aleene's Tacky Glue I also applied gold colored rick-rack to the rim of the carton lid.


VARIATION
I just so happened to have some vintage ice cream themed wrapping paper laying about that begged to be used. I cut the paper to the size I needed and using Collage Pauge Sparkle I applied it to another empty ice cream carton.

Now all that is left to do is make some homemade loquat or pumpkin pie ice cream to fill my cartons with!

Top 10 Favorite Ice Cream Related Blog Posts

I'm one of those weird people that prefers ice cream in the winter over the summer. Call me kooky. Check the blog tomorrow for a fun ice cream related craft project and an ice cream recipe on the Craft Magazine blog. In the meantime to kick things off I thought I would do a round up of some of my favorite ice cream related blog posts through the years!


Ice Cream Cone Tights


Art Trends: There is Something in Your Hair


Homemade Loquat Ice Cream


Soaps that look good enough to eat


Taxidermy Trends


Ice Cream Maker Planter


Please Mr. Panda, Don't Leave Me


My Sister's Old Kitchen


Lamps from Ice Cream Cartons from Better Homes abd Gardens: Treasures from Throwaways Ok so it is not a blog post, but I had to show you.


Trendy is as Trendy Does: Suitcase Conversions

Remeber if you heart ice cream tune in tomorrow for some fun!

I Love to Create - Tiger Art on the Walls and My Neck!

Lord knows I love a good theme. I'm one of those people that is likely to read Memoirs of a Geisha, while eating sushi and wear a kimono while doing it. Tonight my amazingly talented sister Hope Perkins (check out her I Love to Create interview about glitter) is having an art opening and you bet your bottom dollar I am working a theme with my outfit. You can look at the walls or my neck to see the art.


SUPPLIES
Cast resin cabochons of paintings
Wooden drops
Dremel
Crafty Chica Little Chica Paint Pack
Sponge Brush
Head Pins
Decorative Paper
Collage Pauge Instant Decoupage
Plastic Flower Petals
Jewelry Wire
Pliers
Beads
Crimp Beads
Liquid Fusion Glue


Casting Resin
I won't go into all the details of how to cast resin, you can get all the info in my book The Naughty Secretary Club: The Working Girls Guide to Handmade Jewelry and all the supplies from ETI. In a nut shell choose the pictures you want to use, print out on photo paper and cast images in resin using a plastic painters palette as your mold.


Paint
The raw wood aisle at the craft store is always one of my faves. I found these rain drop shaped wooden discs that work perfectly for necklaces. Mix Crafty Chica Paint to get desired shade and use a sponge brush to apply two coats. Allow to dry completely.


Collage
Once your paint has dried add decorative papers to the wood to add interest. I used Collage Pauge and zebra print Decopatch paper. Allow to dry.


Glue
Once my custom resin cabochons had set up and been sanded I used Liquid Fusion Glue to attach them to my wooden rain drops.


Drill
Using a Dremel I drilled holes at the tops of all my wooden drops. Next using an eye pin, plastic flower petals, small heart shaped lockets and beads I did some wire wrapping. The wrapping not only adorned my pendants with funky flowers it also gave them loops at the top for hanging.


String
Using jewelry wire and beads string your necklace into desired pattern. Finish the ends with crimp beads and clasp.

If you can't make it out to the Austin Art Garage tonight, never fear the art will be up all month long. If you don't live in Austin check out art by Hope Perkins and Cory Ryan online!

This Sunday - Turn on the Radio and Take a Class!

This Sunday I would love you forever if you listened in to Inspired at Home on Blog Talk Radio. I will be chatting with Tiffany Windsor, daughter of Aleene Jackson. Ya as in Aleene's Tacky Glue. We are going to be talking about all kinds of stuff from crafts to crafty business. Not to mention there will be a roundtable discussion afterwards with a whole gaggle of awesome crafters! 6pm Central Sunday Nov 8th be there with bells on!

Also on Sunday I will be up at The Stitch Lab teaching my Crafty Business Seminar. You still have a couple of days to sign up to join me for a 4 hour discussion about starting a craft business, marketing a craft business and taking your craft business to the next level.

Don't live in Austin? Don't worry. I will be teaching the class in Houston spring 2010 at Adorn Me.

I Love to Create - DIY Fabric Design

Recently I took a 3 part sewing class at Stitch Lab. For the first class we made a little drawstring bag. I brought in some fabulous vintage Barkcloth to make a pillow in class number 2. For the 3rd class we were making a skirt and I could not decide on the right fabric. Sure the stores were full of choices, but I thought it would be more fun to make my own. No, I didn’t go out and grow my own cotton and start from absolute scratch I should say I thought it would be more fun to embellish some fabric for my skirt. Today for I Love to Create I’ll show you what I came up with.


SUPPLIES
Black and White Cotton Fabric
Sponge Roll Brush
Tulip Fabric Spray Paint
Stencil 101 Décor
Tulip Slick Fabric Paint


The first thing I did was snag a few yards of black and white polka dot fabric. I thought it would be a nice back drop. Next I spread my fabric out in the yard and emptied a few bottles of Tulip Cool Color Spray onto the fabric in a random pattern. My pumping finger was sore for days, but the effect was worth it.


Chronicle Books had recently sent over a copy of Stencil 101 Décor: Customize Walls, Floors, and Furniture with Oversized Stencil Art for me to review. You might recall from my Raised in Craftivity and I Love to Create: Stencil 101 that I am a bit of an Ed Roth fan. I am still trying to find just the right piece of home décor to embellish with the stencils, but in the meantime I thought I would use one on my skirt. The book is full of several cool choices like birds, butterflies, circles, hounds tooth and more. I also love that new patterns are plastic which makes for super easy clean up. I always wondered how people who stenciled walls got the patterns to line up so perfectly and after reading Stencil 101 Décor I now know all about handy dandy registration marks.


Armed with my stencil, pencil, foam roll brush and some Tulip Slick Fabric Paint I spread the dyed fabric out on a flat surface and got busy. The stencils are large squares so it went quickly. I allowed the print to dry completely.


After that my fabric was ready for sewing class. The material worked perfect for my drawstring A-line skirt and I was pleased as punch with the results!


I just so happen to have enough fabric and enough time in class left to whip up Tallulah a matching version!

Goodbye Halloween I Miss You Already

I thought I would give Halloween a proper send off by sharing a few pictures from my Halloween home decorating and Pint Size Halloween Party. Hope your Halloween was equally festive and fabulous!


















It made me a little sad to start packing everything away today into their black and orange storage tubs for a long stay in our attic. I'm thinking I might make this baby Halloween party a tradition. In the meantime as I put away Halloween I can drag down Christmas and just you wait for those pictures - I'm up to 6 tinsel trees at this point in colors like hot pink, teal and silver.