Another bright idea for biz cards!

I'm always trying to find ways to make some tasks a little bit easier and economical. That doesn't always happen, but one area where I've found some ways to save some time and money is by using business cards for other purposes than "a business card." Last year I blogged about how I used biz cards as merchandising tools for my pins and magnets.

I make some of my sculptures from re-purposed burned out light bulbs.

Click here to see my Recyc-a-lite scultpures

Well, I've also thought of a way to use business cards for tags for some of my products. I try to include some type of info about what my product is and the name of the "collection/series" it belongs to. And then on the back of the card I leave room to write an item number/description/price. Using these helps save time on printing a card each time I need one and makes it easy to write out a price tag when I price new items.

Click here to see my Re-bottled sculptures

I make some of my sculptures from up-cycled shampoo bottles.

See how my shampoo bottle morphed into a cat.

This is a new set of biz cards that I had printed from the Vistaprint website. I tried to keep the same theme throughout my tag cards and biz cards to unify my biz identity.

Burned out bulbs with a "Bright Future" & more!

This week I went to a Recycling Center to pick up some burned out light bulbs for my Recyc-a-lite sculptures. I found out about getting light bulbs from the Auburn Recycling Center in my local Freecycle network. I was so happy to hear of someone offering an unlimited supply of bulbs. Thank you Gerda. Yay! Since some of the bulbs were dirty I hosed them down outside in the beautiful sunshine today. After washing them I thought, "These dirty bulbs are going to have a bright future!"

I've also been working on a new Artful Pen design for a fellow "By Hander" named James, of Birdy Knits. His wife is a bee fan, so I have three different designs in the works. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully in about a week I'll have some "in process" photos posted in my blog. Stay tuned!

Any American Idol fans out there?

Tomorrow I'm going with Renee to see our favorite American Idol, Danny Gokey in Milwaukee! Yay! I am excited. Renee was able to borrow a nice camera to try to get some good pics tomorrow. I will definitely have to post the pics from Danny Gokey Day. :-)

Frankie the Frog "Leaps into Reading"!

Here's my newest piece that I painted last week. I dropped it off at an art gallery in Illinois yesterday. Since I was in Illinois, in the burbs of the Windy City, I was able to visit my sis and her family before I headed to the gallery. I showed my nieces and nephews my new sculptures. While at my sister's house, I was trying to think of a name for my new Frankie the Frog piece and my niece Kristin helped me out during my brainstorming session. I was thinking of naming it, "Leap Reader" and Kristin suggested, "Leap into Reading." And that's what I named it, so here it is, my "Leap into Reading" sculpture of Frankie the Frog. Thank you Kristin! :-)


Frankie is leaping from a book titled, "The Adventures of Lilly the Ladybug" and of course images of Lilly are present on the book cover, Frankie's arm and within the pages of the book that Frankie is reading himself.


I had this sculpture sitting around for awhile unpainted. Before painting it, I wasn't sure if I really liked the piece, but magic always seems to happen once I add paint and color to my sculptures. That's an exciting part of the process. After hours of sculpting in a neutral gray medium, Apoxie Sculpt, seeing it with color brings a whole new life to the sculpture. Up to this point, I have never gotten tired of the transformation from gray to color. I love color!


And here's my cute lil' nephew, Andrew Chung, who will be one year old on Easter Sunday. He's getting close to taking his first steps. In the photo above he's trying to get to one of my Chick-a-lites. I brought some of my craft show pieces to show the Chung family. I thought Andrew looked so adorable peering over the edge of the table, so I snapped a photo. He really wanted to touch the chick and bunny I brought along. He's such a joy to see, I wish I could see the Chungs more often.


The craft show is now only two days away and it seems like I have a mountain of work to get done yet. I posted a few photos of my pieces after they got a coat of "glaze." These pieces will be either a pin or a magnet that I will be selling at the craft show along with my Recyc-a-lites. I think I will have about a 100 pins and/or magnets for my show.




"Hope". . . one of the things I'm trying to hold on tight to is hope. One of my favorite pieces, mainly because it symbolizes something so powerful and encouraging. Without hope, there is no life.



And yes, here they are . . . finally in color, the Bunn-a-lites! I may post some other bunny pics sometime, since the cream colored bunny almost blends in with the background color. There will be 12 bunnies hopping their way to the craft show this weekend.

Take care! :-)

Snowy White "Chick-a-lites" and "Bunn-a-lites"?

After my snowy post, I was anxious to bring a little color to my blog. I'm not much of a snow enthusiast, but a color enthusiast? Yes, definitely.

I wanted to share a peak into my Recyc-a-lite projects. What are Recyc-a-lites? They are sculptures I make with burned out light bulbs. After friends and family have saved their bulbs for me, I had a couple dozen to make some characters with. Oh, and by the way, I'm in need of some more burned out light bulbs. If you have any bulbs needing a new outlook on life send them my way. I give "burned out" light bulbs a new life and prevent them from ending up to a "life in the dumps". Take a look.



Bunnies without eyes and beakless chicks. What's happening?

I'm working on some Recyc-a-lite chicks and bunnies for an upcoming craft show in April. By the way, this craft show is my very first craft show. The "Chick-a-lites" and "Bunn-a-lites" are the newest members of the Recyc-a-lite family. Some of the first Recyc-a-lites were penguin sculptures. My USA Bride and Quebec Groom penguins made it on display at the CHA convention earlier this year. The very first USA Bride and Quebec Groom penguins I made are now living in Quebec with my friend, Megan and her husband, Jean. They were a wedding gift for them last year. I also have a Recyc-a-lite penguin for sale at my Etsy store, Lilly Bug Boutique.

These bunnies and chickies are ready for a little color in their lives and so am I. Once painted, I will post some new chickies and bunnies in bloomin' color.

Talk to you later. C-ya! :-)