• Go read: How to Make a Flower Pinata, just in time for Cinco De Mayo!
• For more party ideas: Piñatas, Cinco de Mayo, Fiesta ideas, and more!
• And for food ideas: We’re having a Fiesta! Foodwhirl’s Gone Mexican…

1. The Stomach, RIP Pterodactyl Pants is always so creative… a plush stomach?
2. Chair pad Love how the chair pad matches the cute sewing machine cover!
3. Dia de muertos brooch from Penny Dog Accessories (Want to try resin? Her tutorial on Resin is HERE!)
4. Silk Tie Easter Eggs from Tresijas [Related: How to make Silk Tie Eggs |  Tresijas has been featured on Dabbled:  How-To Make a Bracelet from an old record Tutorial]

(More links below the photo mosaic)

5. Feed the Dog– Cute robots!
6. Easter Round Ripple – Love the colors!
7. Attic24’s jar cover – Great re-use idea.
8. Cute owl from an old tank top and here is the Tutorial on D is for Delicate
9. Mini-Angler Felted Plush 1, – TOTALLY AWESOME! “He’s 100% dyed, needle-felted wool, with acrylic airbrushed shadows. He also has a working LED light in his “fishing-lure” with a battery pack hidden inside his mouth, and painted polymer clay teeth!” from Felted Chicken (Airbrushing Felt Tutorial is here)
10. Stash Buster Farmer Tote Love the size of this thing, the tutorial is here on Some Art Talk.  (Colleen has been featured on Dabbled: Cute Re-made Girls Jeans Tutorial)
11. Sheep Tote Bag cute!  Tutorial is here.
12. Rose Umbrella Fancy up an umbrella by adding roses!  Tutorial is here

Thanks to all of you for sharing!

Here are the results of The Boy’s safari, and below the pic are some tips for taking one with your kids!

Click here to see the full picture set on flickr!

And here’s a previous one from February..

Tips:

• Do use a decent digital camera.  While I wouldn’t give him a fancy digital SLR or anything, resist the urge to just hand over a disposable (taking LOTS of pictures is key!), or one of those ‘kid cameras’ with less resolution than your cell phone.  A decent digital point and shoot will provide the best pictures… and don’t be surprised if you get a few really nice ones!  And that’s motivating to the kids.
• Review camera handling and rules prior.  His main rule was that he always had to have the wrist strap on.  And also to keep his fingers off the lens!
• Pick a good walk:  It should be long enough for plenty of interesting subjects, but short enough that he or she doesn’t get worn out.  And make sure there is plenty of variety of subjects.   Once you’ve done your neighborhood thoroughly, consider driving or biking a bit a way to start your safari!
• Encourage, but don’t micro-manage.  Let him find what he wants to photograph.  Make occasional suggestions (“Do you see anything cool on the ground?” but not “Take a picture of that red leaf”)
• Switch off occasionally to get a picture of the kid!
• If interest is flagging, try a ‘Find the Picture’ game.  “Can you find something that’s shiny?”  “that is moving?”  “How about something that’s orange?”
• Afterwards, we go back and plug the camera into the computer, and do a slideshow of all his shots.  Blurry pictures can be deleted (although don’t dismiss those with artistic merit!) so you just save off his best.  You go through together to pick your favorites.
• Then upload a set of his favorites to flickr or some other photo sharing spot, where he can share with friends or family!
• You can also use something like big huge labs or Picasa to create a mosaic of a few favorite shots.  Maybe they go up on a bulletin board or become a card for grandma!

So, get going on safari… you don’t even have to be a kid to do it, ya know?

I’ve been playing around with glass tile necklaces, with either prints from my artwork, or original drawings, as fun and wearable art.
Here are the 2 prototypes–based on the watercolor series (“Robot World“) which is currently in the Museum of Science in Boston. One is the robot from “A Clockwork Red” and the other is one of the balloons in the background of “Blue”. I’m really loving the balloon one, I’ve worn it several times!

And yes, I’m about 6 months behind on my shop (I really have to stop starting other projects!), so if you’d be interested in one, drop me an email! I’ll do a “really, the shop will be up soon” special for you guys for $18, including US shipping. [dot-at-dabbled-dot-org] . So if you’ve always wanted to wear some Dot Art around your neck, here’s your chance! It doesn’t have to be one of these 2, but it does need to be something i have a high quality print of lying around the house to slice up for you. And yeah, if you want an original it will be a little more.

These are done with prints (obviously!) but my idea is to also showcase original drawings/watercolors, for something more personalized, or more special.

I’ll do a post on how I made the necklaces next week, but if you’re in a hurry to try it yourself, I’ll point you to this good tutorial that I found at Trey & Lucy, where she does some really cute ones using scrapbook paper. Oh, and I totally screwed up at first — can you figure out what’s wrong with the balloon one shown in the picture?

For my birthday I decided to be crazy-go-nuts on my own birthday cake and really push my boundaries as a novice baker. I figured since the only one to disappoint is myself, no harm in trying something that can fail horribly, right? And ya know what, I didn’t do too bad.

I didn’t use any fondant, since I hate the stuff. It’s almond cake and rice krispie treats with modeling chocolate for the cake and gumpaste for the Daleks. Did you know modeling chocolate is remarkably easy to make? I did learn that you can’t paint it like fondant. It acts like a waxed car. But it tastes DELICIOUS. I mean, who wouldn’t love cake covered in chocolate?? So yup, besides the wooden dowels, it was 100% edible! I’m quite proud of that.

Go read the whole thing!

Jo and I have been doing lots of projects over the last month or so for Little Jo’s birthday party. I’m not gonna let you in on what the theme was just yet, but I want to show you one of the projects I did for part of the party decor. We found ourselves needing some round gems in just the right color of teal. If they could be edible, all the better. So I did some shopping and some research and came up with everything I needed to make hard candy jewels. And I gotta tell you, this turned out to be one of the most fun projects I’ve done in ages!

By the way, there was a lot of trial and error as I figured out just the right techniques for making hard candy, and I’ll tell you about that at the end of this post. But for now, here is the right way to do it!

Go read the whole thing!

So what is it?

We Dare You…

We dare you to reach outside of your craft comfort zone and create pieces you’ve never dreamed of. We dare you to write about the creative issues most important to you. Most of all, we dare you to join a community of other creative people and meet people from all flavors of crafting and creativity.

We dare you to grow as an artist!

Craftdare.com is launching in May with challenges to make, do and talk about ideas that span the boundaries of individual crafts and genres.

Go over to craftdare.com to sign up to be notified of updates. And you can follow @craftdare on twitter.

I’m really excited about it! The team is great… and it should be a great site! Go check it out :)

Paper Towel Spring Wreath

You’d never believe these gorgeous spring flowers were made from paper towels.  Particularly paper towels that were used to clean up from another craft project!  Love this idea of truly turning trash into treasure!

Read it here.

(See the project that spawned the paper towels, a cool homemade paper, here.)

Speaking of cool recycling ideas… – check out the tutorial from last year  by So She Sews on how to make your own fabric out of fused plastic bags!  Tutorial here.

Here are some to get your inspiration going!*

Green Crafting Flickr Roundup (links are below the big pic)

1. piglinks, 2. Ad Bracelet, 3. Recycled Tunic, 4. RCA Record Comb, 5. a batch of studs – copyright amalia versaci 2009, 6. Madonna Wine tote, 7. Olive and Teal Sundress, 8. recycled plastic earrings, 9. around the world in 80 stamps upcycled vintage bag

*I’m recycling these pics from 2009!  See how I can blog Green!? And here are some additional green crafting ideas recycled from the past!