Digital Bottle Cap Images Available

For those of you who scrapbook, or make hair bows, I have some of my Digital Bottle Cap images available on Etsy, individually, and in packages.

You can find my Etsy shop here. For the full listing of all my images, you can find them on my facebook page, here. Look at my photo albums- there are 4 individual albums for bottle caps.There are close to 200 individual sheets available, and only a small portion is up on etsy.

Facebook Sale ~ Hair Bows, Necklaces & More

I've been MIA a lot lately- I know! I've been busy. I started a hair bow business, a facebook advertising business, and I've been dealing with kids, family, planning Thanksgiving, Christmas, and juggling craft shows.

I'm one pooped mama!

But, I'm here to shamelessly promote myself and other facebook boutiques- for those who haven't found the niche yet, there are a lot of people who sell boutique items through facebook. Similar to Etsy, but without the fees, and you connect one on one with your clients.

This weekend, using my advertising business, I'm hosting a large Black Friday shopping event- lots of fantastic items (such as Melissa & Doug educational toys, hand knitted hats, hair bows, jewelry, embroidered clothing, and more!) to be found at great prices.

Below are my own auction photos- please do not bid here! Each one will be linked directly to the Facebook page, where you can bid on the items. I work with trusted sellers, and it's a great way to support hand crafted items, and get some shopping done without leaving the comfort of your home.

These are my first 10 auctions, which are open for bidding through Sunday night at 8pm, EST. I have 10 more that will be posted tomorrow- again, all with $1.00 opening bids, and each one is a set of items- anywhere from 5-12 items per set! Better than the dollar store!

If you are in the market to get some Christmas shopping done, stop by and check it out!

Skeleton Hand Hair "Bows"

As I've mentioned before, I'm doing hair items now. I sell them through Facebook (it's the new etsy- without fees!), and have had some fun making new things.

A few weeks back, Dollarstorecrafts.com posted some fun Halloween ideas from last year- including a picture frame with a skeleton hand. I saw that hand, and just knew it would be great in a gothic inspiried hair "bow". You never know what people will like, want, or hate.

I was in a DT last week and found the packs of skeleton hands- 10/$1. I only grabbed one. I was quite a ways from home, and figured that I would be able to find them easily at any of the 4 other DT's between that one and our home. Lived to regret that, let me tell you!

These bows are fun and funky, without being cutesy for kids. Within the first day, I had an order for 3. I've so far sold 10 of them.

This post is linked up at many great parties! Check them all out here!

Clippie Keeper Cup

Today, I drove into Lansing so I could get a few things. Namely, I had gone through almost all of my 100 alligator clips I had picked up just last week. I have a problem- the first step is admitting it. When I think about it, though, it is pretty easy to go through them. When I make clippies, I almost always do 4 pairs that are in similar colors or styles, so they 'match', and I'm doing between 2 & 4 sets of 4 pairs each day, so... you do the math.

I wanted to buy more ribbon today. However, the ribbon was not on sale at Jo-Ann's, Hobby Lobby, or Michaels. Disappointing! I did grab a few of the $1 spools at Michaels, and found 6 or 7 spools on clearance for $.50 each at JoAnn's.

While I was at Michaels, I found little round, tall containers with lids- my first thought was a Clippie container! I picked up just 2 to start, but LOVE what I came up with.

Lately, my hair stuff has ranged towards just small clippies- fully lined alligator clips with minimal, and small decorations on them, or plain if the ribbon was already decorated. Something more for every day use than big old bows and what not.

My initial thought for the cup was that it would store a ton of clippies (and it does- I was able to store 50 individual small clippies in 1 cup, each decorated). My next thought was adding decoration to it, and making it look like a ribbon wrapped present. That, of course, led me to thinking- the ribbon can be used as storage, the same as a bow hanger!

So, that's what I did tonight. I took 2 lengths of ribbon, glued & folded the ends over to make a nice clean edge, then glued them to the cup- first along the bottom of the cup, then to the inside, so that the ribbon running up the side is not glued to the cup- clippies can be clipped onto them.

Totals for this project-

Cup- $1
Ribbon- $.25 (give or take)
Glue- Like what, $.10?

All in all, it was cheap to make. I have my first one up for sale in my Etsy shop, along with some of my clips.

Korker Bows- A How To Tutorial

Well, between it being summer, and starting a photography business, I have very little time on my hands. One of the things I've been doing, though, is making bows. I tote them alone with me to photo shoots, so that they can be used in the shoots, and in some instances, sold.

I've known HOW to make Korker bows for a while, however, it's only been recently that I took the time to actually put the theory to test. While I'm sure most people who play around with bows know how to do these, I figured I would show the rest of the crew how to make them.

What You'll Need:

• 12-16" Dowels, roughly the diameter of a Pencil, give or take a bit. You can use extremely narrow dowels for thin ribbon- these make for cute, TINY little korkers. I've use thick and thin dowels, but pencil width makes the nicest korker size for 3/8" ribbon, IMHO.
• 3/8" ribbon. Anywhere from 1-4 different ribbons look best. When using patterned ribbon, I would recommend using no more than 2 patterns, and adding in at least 1, if not 2-3 solid coordinating ribbons.
• An oven
• Clothing pins
• Elastic Thread
• Alligator Clip, Hair Band tie, or Headband- your choice!
• Felt- This isn't required, but I prefer using it.

All right, so... here's the really "hard" instructions. This first part is just the instructions on how to turn plain ribbon into Korker ribbon.

1. Preheat your oven to 275 Degrees F. 
2. Take a dowel, and your first ribbon. You are going to wind it in a spiral around the dowel. Once you have it started, use a clothing pin to "pin" the ribbon in place. Once you have it started, it's super easy & fast to wind down the dowel. 
3. When the ribbon reaches the end, wind it around, cut it, then pin it in place using the clothing pin again. 
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 to fill as many dowels as you have. To put it into perspective, each full Korker bow is going to use between 4-8 dowels worth of ribbon. The more full you want it, obviously, the more ribbon you'll want to use.
5. Once you have all the dowels you want, place them either on a cookie sheet, or in a casserole dish or cake pan, and stuff them into the oven. Bake them for 25 minutes. You can leave them in longer, if you'd like, but 25 minutes will work good.
6. Remove them from the oven, and let the rods cool for 10 minutes or so, since the wood does get very hot to handle.
7. Once they are cool, you can unspiral them from the dowels. If you twist the ribbon to loosen it, you can slide it right off the dowel, though it may snag on the wood from time to time.

 Part 2- How to turn Korker ribbon into Korker Hair Clips.

1. First up, you want to cut your ribbon into smaller, more managable sections. You can lay it out, measure it, and cut it, but I find that just holding the ends, and stretching the middle tight with my scissors, then cutting it in half works well. I repeat this with each of the two left over strands, so that I get 4 3" korkers out of each dowel's worth of ribbon. You can also cut them smaller, and create "layers" of longer & shorter length.
2. Once you have all your ribbons cut, lay them out flat on the table on top of elastic thread. Pull tight, and tie it. This can sometimes leave your korkers uneven, though. My other meathod is to layer them onto a straight pin, then tie it while it is still on the pin, before removing the pin. You'll find all sorts of meathods on the web, and will find what works bvest for you after a few tries.
3. Once it's tied together, fluff it, and decide what will be the "bottom" of the hair tie. From here, take the felt, and cut a small circle to glue to the bottom. This gives it more surface space to glue to the item you want it on.
4. Take the item you are attaching it to, and add glue to the felt, before attaching it to the item. For skinny, elastic headbands, I add a circle of felt to the bottom, to seal it on with more surface space. With alligator clips and hard plastic headbands, just add the glue in the strip where the item will be.

Ta Da!

Variations- try experimenting with different types of ribbon. I've used Satin & Grosgrain with great results. I also tried Rick Rack, and it left it with a tiny bit of curl, but not a korker effect. You can also try out different widths of ribbon. I used both 1/4" and 1/8" today, and LOVED the teeny tiny Korkers as an addition, though the 1/8" size on a TEENY TINY dowel was hard to secure in place with a clothing pin.