Have You Heard of Pinterest?

Pinterest is a word I have been hearing a lot, and seeing all over the place online. Many of you may already know about this new cool, and creative site, but for those of you who may not know about it, I am here to fill you in. Pinterest describes itself as a virtual pinboard. As stated on their site: Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes. Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

I love finding inspiration online, and usually I can spend several hours looking for my next craft inspiration. Pinterest is a place online where you can now find inspiration in one central place. It is definitely a great way to keep track of all the things you want to try out. For several months Pinterest was in beta mode, and people were only allowed to join the site by invite only. Now anyone may request an invite, or if you know someone on Pinterest they can directly send you an invite.

Once you are able to become a member on the site, set up your profile page, and honestly before you begin pinning things you should spend sometime just browsing the site. There are so many things to view, plus by browsing it will allow you to become more familiar and comfortable with how to navigate the site.

Here is a great tutorial on how to get started on Pinterest. Plaid is also excited to announce that we are on Pinterest (plaidcrafts is our name on Pinterest). We are constantly adding new projects daily, so please check us out here for some craft inspiration.

Hot Glue Gun Helpers Top 20 Finalist for CHA Innovations

I know you’ve heard of Hot Glue Gun Helpers by Cathie and Steve.  No?  They are only the coolest tools for using hot glue without those nasty burns!  Cathie and Steve brought the tools to Plaid and they are now available at the HGGH Etsy Shop.  I’d also love for you to watch a video about these awesome tools here.

The exciting news about HGGH is that they in the TOP 20 finalists for the CHA Innovations Award!  As the name suggests, this prestigious honor is awarded to the most innovative product of the winter show as determined by a panel of judges.  For the nomination Cathie and Steve had to set up a table and give a 60-second presentation in front of a group of CHA press and bigwigs.  Then they had 40 minutes to show off how the HGGH works at their station.  It’s a lot of pressure, but Cathie and Steve handled it like champs (of course).

Stencil Cutter Review and Giveaway

I can’t say enough about stenciling!  I’m not a free-hand-on-my-projects-type gal, so I’m a huge fan. One thing I’m also a huge fan of is transferring designs that I like to a stencil, so I wanted to share the Stencil Cutter with you.  I just don’t want you to take my word for it though – Charlene from eWillow.com got a chance to use and review this project, and you have got to see what she did. She’s also giving you an opportunity to win one!  There’s nothing better than making the exact design you want into a stencil, so I suggest you visit eWillow here to learn more about it.  Good luck on the drawing!

Technique Thursday: Using White Transfer Paper

I have a confession. Until yesterday, I had no idea how to use transfer paper. I thought I could get through life without learning this little tidbit, but then I realized that since I really enjoy painting I should acquire this skill.

And then there was the dark surface.  Black, to be exact.

Regular transfer paper is gray, right? That’s all the transfer paper I knew of, until I was told about white transfer paper.  You see, I had a black pumpkin that I wanted to paint a skull on, but it required transferring the skull pattern I had to the surface of the pumpkin.  With a little help, I learned the ins-and-outs of using transfer paper.  I’d love to share with you today.

Luckily, the supplies for transferring a pattern are minimal:

• Pattern (got mine from Microsoft Clip Art if you can believe it, isn’t he wonderful?)
• Stylus
• White transfer paper (that’s it on the left, looks brown but will transfer white)
• Tape

So how do you start?

I grabbed my pumpkin and taped my pattern to the top of it. You just want to secure it in one place.

The next step is to have Chris, your local resident transfer paper expert, teach you what side is correct. THIS IS THE BAD SIDE.

This is the RIGHT SIDE. You can remember because it is the lighter side – the side that will transfer to your surface.

Slip your transfer paper RIGHT SIDE DOWN underneath your taped pattern. You obviously want to make sure that the transfer paper is all the way under all parts of the pattern that you are going to transfer.  I then secured the bottom with a piece of tape.  Depending on your surface, you may want to secure more sides with some tape. I didn’t because my surface was round.

Use your stylus to trace all parts of the pattern. I had a great time with this for some reason. I guess I’m easily entertained.  If you can’t remember if you traced over a particular part of your design, the stylus does a very nice thing for you, which is leave a groove in the paper where you traced. So you can actually run your fingers over it and tell.  Did I mention that I’m easily forgetful?

Peel the transfer paper off of your surfaces and behold your work. Amazing, huh? I was shocked to find that my transfer paper had worked great!  Now I realize that I can transfer nearly ANY pattern to ANY surface, and I’m pretty much forever changed.  Come back soon to see what I actually do with this pumpkin. I think you’ll love it!

A special thanks to Chris Williams, one of our contributors, for showing me how to use transfer paper and for the hand modeling.

Color Palette Generator

My co-worker was cool enough to tip me off on this color generator from BigHugeLabs, and I think you should know about it:

What is it and why would you want to use it? Well, it’s great for helping you pick paint colors! Let’s say that you see the following photo in a magazine, and you love the image – especially the project colors. Maybe the yellow in the card is the exact same as your bedroom wall . . . . (scroll down) . . .

Fresh Home, Spring 2010

and you want to paint a coordinating accessory to go into your room.  Let’s say you need help choosing colors.  To solve your problem, you take a trip to the color palette generator! You upload the photograph into the generator, the hamster runs its wheel and a palette like this results:

Is this cool or what??  You now have a printout that you can take to the store, assisting you in choosing your acrylic paint colors. If you are really hard core, it gives you the HTML color codes AND lets you download the palette into Photoshop.  Ingenious! Visit here for the link and give one of your photos a try.