How Cool are These?

Front of earring!

These are my newest listing of EcoLoops earrings. This pair is made from pages of a Nordstrom Catalog from this fall. I thought the watch faces were too cool to pass up so I turned them into earring disc/beads for this pair of EcoLoops earring. They are one of a kind and are available in my shop!

Back of earring!

Here's more about my EcoLoops Jewelry:

I have had a serious dilemma with the amount of junk mail that I have to recycle. I have signed up with Green Dimes to try to limit how much gets sent to me but I am still getting more than I like. What can I do with all the paper waste and junk mail I receive other than send it to recycling? I have wanted to create something with it for quite some time and have tried a few things and they just weren’t quite what I liked or wanted until now. I have started making jewelry and earring discs with this junk mail that has been piling up. I have used many things like cereal boxes, mail order catalogs, post cards and the top to the oatmeal canister to create these abstract designs on these jewelry discs. They are constructed with non-toxic adhesives and glazes and are all made out of recycled paper form my home. They are lightweight and have a beautiful finish. They are resistant to moisture but remember they are made from paper and therefore should not be washed or submerged in any liquid. You may clean them with a barely damp or dry cloth.

Tutorial: Make Christmas Tree Ornaments From Recycled Starbucks Cup!

Well my sister and I started a tradition of making our own Christmas tree ornaments last year by hand painting salvaged wood. The theme last year was icons. This year we decided to change it up a bit so we chose to make a collection of wood ornaments out of recycling Christmas Starbucks cups and applying them to our salvaged wood blocks to create a theme with Reindeer from Santa's sleigh. Here is a tutorial on how we made our ornaments.


Supplies Needed:

• Scissors
  
• Mod Podge
• Sobo glue (optional as you can use Mod Podge as glue and glaze)
  
• Paint brushes
• Starbucks cups - we used our own cups to recycle them after they were used. Just bring them on home instead of throwing them away!
  
• File
• Exacto Knife or box cutter
  
• Wood scrap blocks - different sizes and lengths are fun
  
• Ribbon
• embellishments like rhinestones, buttons (optional)

1. First you will need to prepare your Starbucks cup by rinsing/washing it out and drying the inside of the cup if it has been used. Then you want to do the following to the cup:

Unroll top edge of Starbucks cup.

Cut along cup side seam with box cutter or exact o knife.

Cut bottom of cup off with scissors.

2. Second you will need to decide the layout of where you want your designs from the cup to lay on your block of wood and glue the cup onto the wood as follows:

Layout your cup flat and pick what part of the cup you want to use for your picture.

Trim the cup down to a more manageable size but make sure it is still large enough to cover your block of wood.

Apply Sobo glue or Mod Podge to block of wood with a paint brush.

Hold desired part of cup up to the light with printed part facing away from you. this allows you to see the design through the cup from the backside.

Still holding it up to the light, place glued side of block against the back of the cup cutout exactly where you want it

Then gently lay it upside down on the work surface and press it down firmly.

flip it right side up and smooth out the front surface using a small tissue or cloth pressing the whole surface into the glue so there are no bubbles.
Allow this to dry 30 minutes before proceeding.

3. Thirdly you want to trim and finish your block of wood once the glue is dry following the steps below:

Place wood block face down on a cutting board or cutting mat and using an exacto knife or box cutters trim away the excess paper around the edges.

Then use a file at a 45 degree angle to the front of the block and file with downward strokes only. This will nicely bevel your edges and expose a nice white border to your desired picture. It also makes your edges of the picture blend flush with your block of wood giving it a nice finished edge.

I use the exacto knife at a a perpendicular angle just to scrape any glue residue along the edges of the block after the filing.

Mod Podge the front of the wood block over top of the Starbucks cup design as this seals and glazes the design. If you apply multiple layers of Mod Podge it makes it glossier!
Let layers of Mod Podge dry about 15 minutes each.

Then cut ribbons to use for hanging the ornaments. We cut nice angles at each end to make them fun.

Dab a dot of Sobo glue or of Mod Podge on the end of the ribbon .

Press it firmly to the side of the block and hold it in place for a minute or so to let it start to set. then lay it aside to dry for a t least 30 minutes before hanging.

With some blocks we Mod Podged flat backed rhinestones onto the designs to give them a little sparkle and we used a round punch to cut out just some snow flakes off the Starbucks cups to decoupage for the semblance of snow. We also decoupaged letters cut from newspaper to form names of the Reindeer (Vixen, Prancer, Rudolph Etc..).

So be creative and play with recycling items to decorate for your Holidays to come!

Beginner Bloggers: How to add a Twitter badge to your blog for FREE!

I have seen badges (buttons) on blogs that say "Follow Me on Twitter" and when you click on them you are linked to their twitter page. So I joined Twitter a little while ago and have been wanting to add a twitter badge to my blog but the dilemma is how to do it myself with minimal tech knowledge. So I searched Etsy and found a few badges but they were all for sale and I was wanting to do it myself for FREE.

Next On my quest I Google searched "twitter badges for your blog" and came up with several helpful tips and sources for free twitter badges.
I chose my free twitter badge from:

• Siah Design

but some of my other favorite sources for cute twitter badges included:

• Vincent Abri.com
• Limeshot.com
• Randa Clay Design

So the next step was how to use or set up the badge graphics so it would work on my blog.

Here is how I did it:

1. I chose my graphics badge here.


2. I right clicked on the graphic image that I chose and saved it to a file on my own computer.


3. Then I navigated to my Blog home page and clicked on "Customize" in the top right hand corner of the nav bar at the top of my blog.



4. Under "Layout" tab that opened up I clicked on "Add Gadget" for my right hand sidebar area.


5. Then I scrolled down until I found "Add Picture" and clicked on it.


6. This brought up the "Configure image" menu.


7. In another firefox window I went to twitter and clicked on "Profile" to bring up my personal twitter address and then I copied the address.


8. Back in the Configure image menu I titled the image "Follow me on Twitter", then I pasted the address I had copied from twitter into the box where it says "Link". Then I "Browsed" my computer for the saved image file I had chosen for my twitter badge (what I selected in step 2).



9. Here is what my "Configure image" window looked like when I was done.


10. All I did then was hit "SAVE" on the "Configure image" menu and voila I have my own functioning link to help others find me on twitter.


11. Last but not least I select "Save" on the "Layout" menu then select 'View Blog". The END!

*** This tutorial is for beginner bloggers with little tech knowledge like myself. I only hope this will save someone a little time and money. This tutorial is meant for Blogspot bloggers and I used Firefox as my web browser for the tutorial.

Happiness!

No words can describe the fun DeLuca had in the Snow.

What Am I Doing Tonight?

My sister and I are making Christmas Tree ornaments from recycled weathered wood and Starbucks cups. We are going to try to do a how to tutorial for the blog if we can find the time in the next few days. They are really cute ornaments!

Etsy! Front Page screen shots on Flickr.

Don't worry if you don't get to see your Etsy front page moment. There is a Flickr group that posts screen shot of them for you. Check it out and enjoy your moment of Etsy Front Page glory a little longer if you want to. Here is my Front Page Moment that I missed today.

Etsy! Front Page.

I did not see it but but early this morning my Unfurl Earrings made the font page of Etsy. El from IndieSmiles informed me that I was on the front page and wrote about it here. Thanks El!