Saturday Morning TV with Pee Wee's Playhouse

I am a child of the 80's. I totes remember having to get my butt off the couch to change channels and adjust the volume. I remember the glory of Saturday morning cartoons. As soon as I saw the Gypsy Soul Altoids TV's I was taken back to those days.

My absolute favorite of all that Saturday morning goodness was Pee Wee's Playhouse. Fellow design team member, Connie Little created an amazing room box of the Playhouse set a while ago and I've been desperate to make my own Pee Wee something ever since. THIS was the perfect opportunity.

Assembly was super simple and yet I somehow managed to mangle almost every step. It was one of those days when everything I touched turned to soup... and yet, even on a craptastic day, it's still awesome, right?! If you're having your own soup day, I have a walk-through with some pointers to avoid all of my mistakes. Pop over HERE for the video.

Don't like Pee Wee? I think you're crazy but you can totally make one of these cute TV's for your favorite show. Just grab a background shot, then add a cutout of your favourite character to add as a focal point. Bewitched is next on my list! Then, maybe, Murder She Wrote. Or how about Golden Girls?! 20 Minute Workout perhaps.

Of course you should use materials suited to the show theme you want to create, but for this particular Pee Wee version here are the supplies I used:

Altoids TV Standard

Altoid Tin

Red, black, white, yellow acrylic paints

Silver and red fine glitter

Glossy Accents

Glue (white, instant)

Background image, foreground character

Adhesive foam squares

Celestial Matchbook Book Box

A dreamy little faux book box for you today.

For this project I took a Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box, and embellished it with stash scraps from the ALCHEMY and COSMOS papers from Stamperia

Working on small projects like this are a wonderful way to use up little leftover bits. It's also a fun exercise to use up stash bits that share a theme. I love stars and moons and all things celestial, so it was nice to collect those little bits and create something new.

Inside I added brass stars, a vial of starry tinsel, and loads of moony imagery all smooshed up together.

I don't have a full tutorial for this project, but I can offer a few tips to help you along.

• try using hockey tape to hinge the lid of the Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box This fabric tape works really, really well for books and bendy foldy parts in mixed media projects

• avoid adding too many embellishments to the inside of the spine, it will impede closing the box

• glue a length of ribbon to the front and back of the cover before covering with paper. It's a super simple closure for your book box.

Perhaps the most important tip I can offer is this: make something that celebrates YOUR interests. While I'm mad for stars and magic and moons, don't shy away from making something that honors your love of unicorns, or gardening, or jelly beans! Explore whatever tugs at your heart, no matter how kooky it might be.

All that said, here are the supplies used in this particular piece:

Matchbox Sized Faux Book Box
Cloth hockey tape
Ribbon
ALCHEMY and COSMOS Stamperia papers
Glue
Glass vial
Artifact Labels
Idea-ology - Tim Holtz - Story Stick
Tinsel stars
Glitter
Stamp pad

A Life-sized Mystic Hutch

A few months ago I made this is "Little Mystics Hutch"

A number of people said that they'd like a life sized version, and I found myself wishing for one too. So, quicker than you can recite the SATOR square I bought myself this big brown hutch for $40 off of facebook marketplace. (Excuse the mess, we were 'cleaning'.)

I finally got my butt in gear and transformed that big brown thing this week.

I painted the old thing with left over house paint. I didn't want to spend a load of money because A) I am cheap B) I didn't know if it would turn out like I envisioned in my head.

Next a smattering of stars with plain old acrylic craft paint. For a nice splatter, make sure that your paint isn't too runny (otherwise it may drip) and not to have too much paint on your brush. You want a brush that is more dry than wet so that you get a spray rather than a splatter. If you do get a splotch, just turn that into the larger star it was meant to be.

I felt like I wanted something more on the cupboard so I added the astrological constellations and the big dipper. I don't feel like it's quite there yet, and will likely add more symbols and designs over time, but for now I'm pleased. For the designs I used a chalk writer then gave a quick spray of top to seal everything.

Finally, I filled my cupboard with all sorts of mystical bits!

Jars of herbs and bottles of oils, candles, a collection of tarot decks, candles, nests, crystals! There's all sorts of magic on there.

It's a bit of a fun mystical mess in these pics. I couldn't wait to fill up my life-sized mystic hutch! It will become a bit more organized and workable over time but for now I'll enjoy the chaos.

Can you spy the original hutch? Awww, looks like a baby here.

That's it dear friends! Make sure to run with your crazy ideas and dreams too. Sometimes, when the planets align just so and your crystals aren't being wieners, things turn out absolutely dandy and just like they are in your noggin.

Free Photo Friday

Once a week I share an old timey photo from my personal collection. Feel free to use them in your mess making, art and crafting.

The images are not polished and left in their grungy, smudged and speckled glory. Just how I like 'em! Without further ado... 

Do NOT sell, give, or distribute the images as your own, digitally or printed, alone or as part of a collection, collage sheet or group. BUT DO absolutely make stuff with them and sell the stuff you make. If you share your project, a link is appreciated.

Violators will be turned into toads, given warts, all the bad stuff... I mean it... It won't be pretty. 

Fuzzy Needlefelted Bumble Bee Tutorial

Who got her act together and made a tutorial for you? MEEEEE!!!!

The supply list:

Needlefelting wool: you'll want cream, yellow, black and some core wool would be handy.

Needlefelting needles
Thin but firm wire (I used florist wire)
Black acrylic paint
Wings: Bee Wings digital download,  Printed Bee Wings on Transparancy, or source your own

Hot glue
Super/Crazy/Instant glue

A few notes:
• start with the medium sized bee... seriously, its the most fun and least pain in the bum
• for the largest bee I wet felted around a foam egg shape to use as the base
• if making a large bee you'll need to create a support for the wings or print it on thick transparency
• the smallest bee was actually the most difficult to make
• you could create a cut into the felted bee to insert the wing ends if you want to camouflage all evidence of glue.
• the leather finger protectors I wear in the video tute are really great. If you you poke yourself too often I recommend!

Pop over HERE for the video tutorial.

Free Photo Friday

Once a week I share an old timey photo from my personal collection. Feel free to use them in your mess making, art and crafting.

The images are not polished and left in their grungy, smudged and speckled glory. Just how I like 'em! Without further ado... 

Do NOT sell, give, or distribute the images as your own, digitally or printed, alone or as part of a collection, collage sheet or group. BUT DO absolutely make stuff with them and sell the stuff you make. If you share your project, a link is appreciated.

Violators will be turned into toads, given warts, all the bad stuff... I mean it... It won't be pretty. 

Woolly Bumble Bee WIngs

I've been working on those fuzzy bumbles, channeling my inner Goldilocks (or is it three bears?) and made three different sizes.

I've been working out the kinks, using different techniques, so that I can do a good and proper tutorial which will be on the way, hopefully by the end of the week.

Too small and things get fumbly and difficult to work with. Too big and the stability of the wings becomes an issue. So I'll be showing how to create the medium sized bee later this week.

I've had a load of questions about those wings. They're bee wings printed on transparency paper. I have a new half sheet with a load of various sized bee wings available from my etsy shop.

I also have a full sheet of Bee Wings Download available if you want to print your own.

Be aware that neither of these contain the extra large wings. To be honest, working on that scale the wings get a bit floppy and I figured that offering more medium and small wings would be more useful to most people.

If you'd like to gather supplies to be a total keener and pre-prepared for the tute, here are all the things you'll need to gather:

- felting wool in white/cream, yellow and black

- felting needles

- fine black wire (initially I used green florist wire and painted it black

- wings (Bee Wings Download, Bee Wings Transparency Half Sheet or your own!)

- crazy/super glue

- hot glue

Note: I already had some supplies on hand but bought THIS needlefelting kit because I needed some yellow wool (also, it was on sale). The wool packets are tiny, but if you're working on a small scale it may work for you. The leather finger protectors are a nice addition. The needles aren't great, but if you want to get started quickly and don't want a huge investment, this might be something you'd be interested in. Not affiliated or anything, just thought it may be useful.