More Hands on Fun and CHA

You might have noticed that a good deal of the projects I share with you on this blog are jewellery related. But I work with a far wider range of products than just beads. And that is why I love doing MITIs at CHA - not only do you get to play with great products but you get a taste for a new craft as well.

Working with mosaics is something I've always wanted to try and I finally got the opportunity. The folks at Mosaic Mercantile provided a selection of flat mosics and glass pebbles to create a fridge magnet. Designing you own pattern was part of the fun of this project and my eye was immediately drawn to the purple glass pebbles which I tried to fashion into a bunch of grapes.

OK, so you have to use your imagination to see that they are grapes, but I really do like the colour combination.

To keep this project super simple, we only used the adhesive (and no grout). Too easy and a lot of fun!

At DecoArt they were creating iron on transfers using their special transfer inks called "ink effects".

Now this is a really cool product. Ink effects is a transfer ink that allows you to paint your very own design onto photocopy paper and then iron it on to fabric. It doesn't affect the feel of the finished garment like decals do and you never have to worry about the decal peeling away.

At Craftwell we created a stubby holder. For those of you who don't know what a stubby holder is, it's a foam sleeve to wrap around a cold ale!

Using some precut dotty stencils created with the eCraft cutting system, we placed adhesive backed crystals into the holes of the stencil which were then ironed into place to activate the adhesive. Another super easy and eyecatching MITI! I don't think my husband will use this one but I'm sure that there will be some girls who'd love a bit of bling on their stubby holder!

At Thermoweb we used iCraft Adhesive Dots to create a fabulous frilly flower. I'm not quite sure whether mine is a full blown rose, a carnation or a camellia and I don't think it really matters because the finished flower is beautiful no matter what you call it. Once you remove the liner from the dot (mine is a whopping 2"), you just place the end of the frilly ribbon in the centre of the dot and wind it around and around itself. The adhesive makes sure it stays in place as you go. And it's strong... so you don't have to worry about it falling apart later on.

And my last MITI was at Faber Castell playing with the gorgeous creamy Gelatos to create a layered pin on canvas fabric.

Gelatos are vibrant and opaque when you apply them but they blend together really easily with water. Water also makes them become transparent so if you get too heavy handed with the colour you can use water to lift it back off.

Gelatos are gorgeous to work with: they go on easily and they blend beautifully. They come in a slide up tube that looks a lot like a chap stick which makes them very easy to use on a variety of surfaces.

I hope you enjoyed my round up of some of the different MITIs at CHA! Look out for the new products as they begin to hit the stores in the coming months - they're sure to be fun to play with!

'Til next time.....