Florida Gardening: DIY Vase

Tweet Team leader, The Wooden Bee, has a passion for gardening and nature. She blogs about gardening with her children and recently shared this easy DIY vase idea!

We love upcycling materials around the house. One weekend while playing in the backyard, the little gardeners gathered up a bunch of sticks from our rain tree.  We decided to glue them to a washed tin can to make a little backyard vase.

Materials:

tin can, or other recycled container

sticks

hot glue

We left the sticks different lengths to help arrange and hold the flowers.

We doubled up the stick layers to cover the aluminum.  You could also paint the tin can for a little extra color to show through.

We've been enjoying flowers in our eco-friendly little vase all week!

Thanks, Bee www.backyardFLgardening.com

How to Set Up a Craft Fair Display

Tweet So many of you are debating, planning or taking the "Big Leap" into selling at......
Craft Fairs !
Lots to do!
Which ones to enter? Big expensive ones or small ones? Compile enough stock?
Accept charge cards? Invest in a canopy? How big?
Or the most important question.............
How can I leave to go "pee-pee" when I'm all alone at my booth?

Well here's some help answering one question.
How to Create a Product Display?
I found a great tutorial by Stacey of ElleBelle on etsy
Read and get some great advice ....
check out the comments too, and
I got a nice inexpensive banner at Office Max.
Oh , and the "pee-pee" question....
make immediate friends with your booth neighbor,
she'll need potty breaks too!
ElleBelle Tutorial

A Felted Calendar Cover Tutorial

Tweet
Felt is the oldest fabric know to man and "Felting" is an old fabric making process that has recently become popular again. Felting can be done with wool and a special felting needle that snags and blends the wool. The technique is an art to practice and learn. The felted projects on etsy, mainly animals, are adorable.

Kim of Sassycrafter has a tutorial on her blog, to make this cute pocket calendar cover, from a old sweater that is "felted" with your washing machine and dryer!
Upcycling and repurposing - going green - we all love it!


Here's step one:
1. Find a wool or wool-blend sweater and felt it by machine washing it with hot water and a small amount of detergent. Include an old pair of jeans or a towel to help the felting process. Let dry, either at room temperature or in a dryer set to medium or high.

The whole history of felt & felting for you really curious types - like me.

And another felting project with info here.

Thanks Kim for the tute and How CUTE is this purse she made that's in her etsy shop, Sassycrafter right now!

An Excellent Etsy Photography Tutorial

Tweet If you have a Digital SLR camera and need some pointers on how to get the best photos for etsy?....you are in luck!

Our FEST member, Heather, of GreenHeathTreasures has written an excellent tutorial -

Etsy Photography.

Her guide focuses on white balance, ISO speed, lighting and editing. She even explains how to adjust sizing so etsy's auto crop won't change the effect you have created.



The diagrams and detailed instructions provide an in depth method to getting fantastic views of your artwork.

If you are a novice photographer like me with a very basic camera and a magical "macro" setting that makes me appear to have some photo skills, Heather's tutorial may seem daunting at first. Read it through a few times and you will pick up a few tips.

If you have a SLR camera you can really benefit from her instructions!



Thanks Heather for your hard work putting this tutorial together.

Enjoy a new listing from Heather's shop.


Owl Disk Necklace