Featured Artist of the Month

“Be yourself.
Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe,
shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”

~John Jakes

You might remember a few months ago when I detailed the adventures I had out in Colorado to film four videos for Craft Daily.

What I didn't know at that time was that they would like the content so much that they decided to make DVDs available of the information.

Getting the DVDs in the mail was quite a thrill!

And then imagine my surprise when they asked me in November if I would consider making up kits to go along with one of the DVDS, the Fabulous Facets! Heck, yeah!

So I spent much of November and December focused on producing 100+ kits.

Livie-Elf helping to wrangle all the components for the kits.

I had to decide what would be included, what would make the kit as complete as possible. It was all up to me. I began contacting suppliers and amassing the supplies, they were coming from all over the world! At first, I bought the wrong size bead cores (Doh! Why don't I ever read sizes?) and had to scramble to find the right ones, luckily they were right under my nose, so to speak and I got the right ones for the job (so now I have roughly 1100 tube beads... but I am fleshing out an idea I have had for a long time with them... stay tuned on that one!).

Each piece inside the kits is in its own baggie, so there will be no ink mishaps or missing bead cores!

I had to decide how to package it. I was told that others just put them in a zip-baggie with a note. I decided that I wanted to brand my kits as Creativity To Go Kits© and so I used a white take-out box with paper shreds so everything stayed put. I also know that packaging and branding are oh-so-important, and I wanted each kit to feel like a gift packaged just for you! And it was!

Would you like a side of Creativity To Go? ;-)

My dining room looked like the elves had taken over! Luckily for me, one of the best, named Livie-Elf, lives here and she is pretty meticulous about things like this. She packaged almost all of it and took total pride in completing the task. So now I know she would be good in a shipping department should she ever need a part-time job!

I was told that the contents were up to me. I really thought about what I would want to have if I were watching the video. I would have loved to pack a variety of ink colors in each box, but I also wanted to keep the cost affordable. So I convinced them to allow me to offer the kits in two color ways: Mermaid (bright teal) and Wild Plum (bright magenta purple). Along with the saturated color, you need to have some metal patina paint. I like the Vintaj line because it is very opaque but has that nice shimmering iridescence. Nouveau Silver with the Mermaid and Victorian Gold with the Wild Plum. A block of my favorite clay is included. And of course, to make the beads have to have the bead cores, as I call them. A total of nine, three of each color (antique brass, antique copper and gunmetal grey) will have you creating beads in no time!


Beyond that, I thought it would be nice to include a few tools that help me along my way... a tiny paintbrush, a paint palette and a disposable scalpel for cutting the facets. Could you find something similar? Sure. But I knew that if I were buying a kit and DVD combo like this, I would like to just get started right out of the box.

Then they told me that I would be the Featured Artist of the Month in January. Woohoo! So my kit, bundled with the Fabulous Facets video is highlighted this month and is currently on sale for $35.99... that's 41% off!

But hurry... only 50 of each color are up for grabs and once they are gone, they are gone! (But I might be able to scare up the contents for some more soon!)

Thank you, Interweave, for this marvelous experience and for naming me the Featured Artist of the Month! And also, thank you for allowing me to shine who I am through these kits!