look what we found: clay pots upcycle

what a fun way to dress up your old clay pots!!! 

guest post: Connie Fong!

Library Drawer Turned Shadow Box

- Connie Fong

A couple years ago, I found the posts for Deb and Paula’s Junk Drawer Advent Calendar, and I was hooked!  Deb and Paula are designers for 7gypsies and I’ve been following their blog (http://www.2gypsygirls.com/) ever since.  I've been inspired by their many creative ideas.


So fast forward to last month when Deb asked me to create a project for the 7gypsies booth at CHA. I was full of emotions: happy, excited, nervous and scared. How fun it would be to receive a box full of 7gypsies product; but how nervous I was to create a project for them that would live up to their standards.


My assignment was to make a shadow box from the library drawer.  I felt that was doable and allowed me to focus in one area.


I have to share with you how I started the project. I layed out and sorted all the product on my kitchen table. I stared at it all day and then went to bed, not doing anything with the supplies yet, but just allowing the ideas to crystallize in my head.   In the middle of the night the ideas came to me and I got up and sketched this.

The sketch got me going and the next day I put it all together. It’s so much fun to be able to take an item and try to use it in a unique way, such as using the rulers as my dividers. 

Here's some close up shots. One of my favorite items are the apothecary bottles.

I was happy with how it came out and hoped they were, too. (we were SO happy!)


Visit Connie's blog for more fun! http://artfulplay.blogspot.com/

gypsy life: office holiday decorations!

decorating for Christmas has been a really fun time here in the gypsy workshop.

using plenty of gypsy goodies, along with some other trinkets we had laying around, we feel we did a pretty darn good job....take a look....

using our 12 days of Christmas tag kit and some ruby dangles, we hung this adorable garland up in our front window for all the passerby's to see...

we love this little display - an old mirror with speckle spray paint, bottles coated in white spray paint and epsom salt and stuffed with glitter sticks, two thrift store candles, "JOY" cutout of book board and covered in Savannah flocked paper - perfect little holiday display!

don't you love these styrofoam tree's? super easy to make and perfect for an anywhere-in-the-house and must-be-seen-by-all holiday display!

we attached these paper flowers to our window shade! 

one of our gypsies created these using paper and our gears for the flower center

do you remember our DIY on the ruler stars? 

if you missed it, click HERE to see how to make these adorable holiday decorations....

our tree is one decor item us gypsies are pretty proud of...we covered some clear plastic ornaments with our tissue paper (inspired by Ellen Hutson - click HERE for tutorial) and rubbings, created a paper chain with scalloped and glittered edges, some princesca dangles and our gypsy Christmas banner!

does it get any better than this?!

stay tuned to the Gypsy Journal Blog all next week for more holiday decor inspiration from the 7gypsies design team!

caught on film: CHAS arrivals part 1

gypsy tip: color rubbings on any surface

have you seen the new 7gypsies color rubbings? 

yes we said COLOR rubbings.

think vintage details and lots of bright colors~ choose from apothecary labels, tickets, ephemera and BUTTERFLIES!

 and these rubbings can be transferred on just about any surface... 

(we'll show you!)

have you noticed that bright colored butterflies are popping up everywhere? - fashion, jewelry, home decor, bottles - you name it - butterflies are in!  

check out the butterflies on these apothecary bottles~ you can create your own set using the butterfly rubbings or how about that FABULOUS globe covered with butterflies to map out the world! 

oh so clever...

It's simple to add your own rubbings to just about any surface.  

We've tried ours on glass, wood, metal, fabric, acrylic, crystals, glass ornaments and even a pair of shoes!

use rubbings to dress up your glass serving bottles, mini tins and wood drawers

or even this mini spoon, metal organizer or right on the surface of a 7gypsies tray!

can you see these crystals and ornaments hanging from your christmas tree? 

what a way to add a bit of gypsy to your old christmas ornaments!

even customize your shoes using rubbings.

gypsy tip: after the rubbings were transferred to the shoes, 

we set them in place with a blast of air from a heat gun.

Ready to try rubbings?  

Here are a few simple tips for transferring onto mixed surfaces:

1.  GO SLOW

2.  Hold rubbing in place firmly with your finger while you rub to transfer your design to the surface

3.  Peel back the top protective sheet slowly to ensure that the design has transferred

4.  Keep rubbing if the design hasn't transferred~ patience helps with this tip!

5.  Once the design has transferred gently rub surface with your finger to smooth and reinforce bond to surface.

here we place our ticket rubbing on the edge of our artist printers tray

gypsy tip: move very slow, working small sections at a time to wrap the rubbing around the edges

we love layering here in the workshop - here we add a rubbing to the tray edge on top of another rubbing! 

we can't resist placing our rubbings on apothecary bottles.  

Just follow our few basic tips and you'll be covering just about everything you can find with rubbings! 

gypsy tip: this is extremely addicting.

Click HERE to shop 7gypsies rubbings.

November Challenge

Can you believe October is gone? We can't either! We have been so busy here...so much for CHA has already begun. For those of you who will attend in January you are going to love what we have up or sleeve for the booth...not to be missed!

Now on to our NOVEMBER CHALLENGE
Textured Rubbings
What is a textured rubbing?
It is a rubbing that has two parts-The first part is a transparent "glue" image that you can adhere to almost anything with a bone folder or popsicle stick. Once the image is adhered to the surface you can choose any of the textures (2nd part) to rub over the glue image; silver glitter, gold glitter, black velvet, red velvet, gold foil or silver foil. The image shown above is combo pack where the images are sold with the silver glitter, black velvet and the gold foil. We also have other glue images as well as the textures packaged separately. Go here to see them all.

EXAMPLE
Can you see the glitter bird on the transparency? That's a textured rubbing!
This is a closure on the cover a a mini book made by gypsy artist Paula C.
Here how she did it:
1. Stamp a large circle on patterned paper, then adhere the paper to a piece of chipboard.
2. Cut out the circle, then layer a transparency over the circle and cut it out again.
3. Add the textured rubbing of the bird.
4. Punch two holes and added eyelets
5. Run elastic through the holes to create closure.

Now the challenge...
What can you do with them? Can you use them for something other than scrapbooking...maybe home decor? Can you find a way to use just the texture sheet and not the "glue" image?
Well, that's the challenge for 3 of our designers this month as well as our guest artist. Which we will mention is someone fabulous. You will just have to wait till next week when we post her projects to see who it is!

If you want to participate in our Textured Rubbing Challenge it very easy.
1. Create something using any of our textured Rubbings
(or even just the texture sheet)
2. Send us a photo of what you created to www.oneluckyday@verizon.net
3. Deadline is November 25

We will be giving away a VENICE prize pack that will include 2 sheets of each of the new papers, paper tape (that we have been raving about) and other VENICE goodies. Now, who wouldn't want that?