Discover new Valentine's Day Jewelry

Valentine's Day is coming up soon and for B.B. Bellezza that means HEARTS! 

I have all new heart jewelry! 

The hearts started out as wire.  I twist and wrap the wire.  After it's formed, I hammered the wire to harden it and help it keep it's shape.  Plus it gives the hearts a beautiful texture.

You can find all the designs in my etsy shop.

Available are:

Copper,
Silver plated copper
and Black coated copper.

You can get earrings, pendant or a gift set.

$15 each

Show your love or give a thoughtful Valentine's Day gift!  Just let me know if it's a gift and I place it in a gift box, send it to the recipient and add your custom message!

Note:  I do note have the black coated or silver plated heart necklaces listed yet, but feel free to contact me to order them.

These are all made to order, so give me a couple of extra days to get your order in the mail.

Click here to go to my shop and find your Valentine's Day gift!

My Booth at BUiLDiNG CHARACTER 2-4-11

In case you missed it, here's what my booth at BUiLDiNG CHARACTER looks like as of 2-4-11.  Also, you can see the stuffed newspaper hearts in action!  (People loved them.  I loved them even more once I saw them hanging!!

Valentine's Day Decorations that Anyone Can Do!

I needed some Valentine's Day decorations and I just don't like buying mass produced junk that I will probably just lose or rip and not use again anyway.  

Plus, we all know I love to make "trash" into something special.

One of my favorite materials to use when making decorations is newspaper.  Probably mostly because it's so easily accessible.  Also, I really love the black and white and the look of words on a page.

I didn't take step-by-step photos, but they are really simple to make!

Supplies:

Imagination 

Newspaper

Scissors

Any ribbons, paints, buttons, string, embroidery floss and needle that you have around

Stapler

Hole punch

Instructions

Step #1

Fold 2 pieces of newspaper in half, and in half again.  You can just randomly place the images on the newspaper, or you can try to place certain words and images where you want them.  (I just randomly placed mine)

Step #2

Even if you haven't made hearts in a while, I'm sure that you made them sometime in your past.  

Draw half a heart making sure that the fold is the middle of the heart.

Step #3

Cut along the line you just drew.  Now you have identical heart shapes.

Step #4

Here is where your imagination begins!  The first heart I embroidered around the heart with hot pink thread.  It took a little while.  For the rest of them, I just stapled around.  The embroidery is definitely cuter, but took much longer.

Make sure you leave one side open when sewing or stapling so you can stuff your heart.

Step #5

Use your hole puncher to punch a hole in the top of the heart.  Later we'll tie a ribbon through it to hang it.

Step #6

Stuff your partially closed newspaper heart with newspaper.  You can use the waste from when you cut out the hearts.  Rip into smaller(ish) pieces and stuff in the heart.

Step #7

Close up the heart by sewing or finishing stapling.

Step #8

Now you can decorate your heart any way you choose!

On each of my hearts I put buttons in the middle for a really cute look.  Just hold a button on each side of the heart and use your embroidery floss and needle to secure the buttons to the heart.

You could paint your hearts.  (I happened to not have any paint.  :(  My paints got put into storage when I moved.)

I added some ribbon and lace hanging from the bottom of some of my hearts.  I just stapled it in when I was stapling around the edges.

You could glue pictures to them, create a collage, whatever you can think of!

Step #9

Add a ribbon to hang your heart.

Step #10

Enjoy!

If you would like to see my newspaper hearts in person, just stop by BUiLDiNG CHARACTER tomorrow night (Friday, February 4, 2011) for First Friday!  (6pm - 9pm)

So Grateful and Thrilled!

I recently participated in a Valentine's Day Swap hosted by Audrey's Country Crafts.

My partner was Audrey herself. And look what I got:

This awesome bag.
I ALWAYS need a new bag. I always have a project going, stuff to tote around, a camera to transport, books I am reading...and this bag will definitely come in handy with that!!

She also sent along this yummy-looking Fiesta Dip Mix! It looks very simple, so it's perfect for me.

Plus some great-smelling soap, which I am always thrilled.

Thanks for the AWESOME swap, Audrey!

Recycled Newspaper Puffy Heart Update

Earlier in the week I shared the Recycled Newspaper Puffy Heart Tutorial. Well, I improved upon my finished project.

I added keys with jump rings to the fronts. Does this improve them? Or do you think that the keys are too much?

Recycled Newspaper Puffy Heart

I first found this Recycled Paper Heart Valentine project on Art Projects for Kids. I was doing a search for recycled Valentine's Day projects.

I just loved this project. You can check out the Art Projects for Kids site, or see my own take on the project here.

1. I started out with 16 sheets of newspaper (the original project called for 8, but I always go bigger for everything! I made 4 hearts with this amount.) 2. Cut the newspapers into strips about 1" wide.

3. Cut the strips into 1/2" pieces.

4. Place the pieces into a bowl.

5. Cover the pieces with hot water and let it soak for 24 hours. (I know, it's tough, but you really have to wait...)

6. The paper starts to look like a pulp or a big blob of paper. Work though the blob with your fingers and tear up any large lumps. The Art Project for Kids blog states it should look like gray oatmeal, and that is a good example.

7. Once you have gotten rid of the lumps, squeeze out the extra water.

8. Add white glue to the mixture at a rate of about 1 unit of glue to 4 units of pulp. (I just eyed it and mixed it in and went from there.) Work the glue through.

9. Form a ball.

10. Form into hearts on wax paper.

11. Let dry for several hours.

12. When you can pick up the heart, wrap it with string pulling firmly to make an indention and tuck the ends into the back.

NOTE: I decided to try lace because that would be pretty. It didn't work. After the hearts dried, the lace was too loose. Make sure when you wrap the string (if you do that) you pull it tightly.

13. Let the heart dry completely. This took a couple of days with my hearts.

14. After it is dry, paint the entire heart with a thick layer of white acrylic paint.

15. Let the white paint dry and paint with a thick layer of colored acrylic paint. I used both pink and red. You can experiment with different painting techniques, colors, glitter, etc.

16. The Art Projects for Kids project suggest a spray of glossy sealer. (I didn't do this.)

17. To add a string or ribbon, you can pretty easily use an awl to poke a hole through the heart.

18. To get the ribbon through, I just took an extra piece of wire and pulled the ribbon through the hole.

19. Enjoy your Valentine's Day decorations!

These will make really cute decorations! I like things to be relatively plain and clean, but you can get really creative with these hearts.

I think you could really do this with any shape. I am thinking eggs for Easter, trees for Christmas, etc.

Great way to reuse newspaper in a fun way!

Get a Free Valentine's Day Zine!

I finished up this sweet Valentine's Day Zine and it's listed in my Etsy Shop. You can get this zine for free with any purchase of $15 or more in my shop from now until Valentine's Day. Just put "VD Zine" in the notes to seller when you check out and I'll send it along.

To my local customers, you can get this zine free on First Friday, 2/5/10, with any purchase of $15 or more at my booth at BUiLDiNG CHARACTER (342 N. Queen Street, Warehouse C, Lancaster, PA 17603)

You, of course, can also purchase this zine all by itself. The zine has some history about Valentine's Day, love quotes, games and much more! It's black and white and has 13 pages.

More Upcycled Button Bouquets

I just made these sweet upcycled button bouquets. Each floral stem has a cute heart button. They are about 8 inches long and tied up with a ribbon or lace. These bouquets are great because they are flowers that never die and you are supporting recycling by purchasing these items that have been made from upcycled materials.

You can find them in my Etsy Shop or at my stand at BUiLDiNG CHARACTER 342 N. Queen St., Rear Warehouses, Lancaster, PA

In Progress

Upcycled Key Pendant

Remember the inspiration post from Sunday? I showed you a plain unusable key. Well, now that key (and others!) have been transformed into funky one-of-a-kind upcycled key pendants!

One side has pretty paper applied with a hard glaze on top. The reverse side has left alone and shows the key. I tried covering that side, too, with a message (i.e. "I love you" for Valentine's Day), but that didn't really work out. I really prefer this way because you can still see the key.

What do you think?