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Last month I shared my New Year’s resolution to clear away some of the clutter in my life. My craft room was littered with projects in process and materials purchased for new projects I wanted to try.

I couldn’t see the forest for the trees – or the desktop for the beads and fabric. Rather than a place to be inspired, my craft room was a daily guilt trip that was driving me nuts!

I wanted to slow down and enjoy all the wonderful crafts I get to do and test for The Artful Crafter. That’s really the fun part and the whole reason I launched the website and blog to begin with.

So I decided I need to work more efficiently and be more decisive – to actually finish tasks rather than work them to death. I came up with this list of tactics and am happy to tell you it’s going quite well.

I will:

• Deal with each e-mail as I open it and get it off my plate. I will not agonize so much over the wording and grammar of my replies.
• Schedule more involved e-mail questions on the website calendar, since they usually become new articles and projects.
• Check each in-box once in the morning and once at the end of the day, closing each after check-in to avoid temptation.
• Check Facebook once in the a.m. and close it. Facebook is fun, but what a time drain!
• Eliminate some of the free newsletters I’ve signed up for. I find myself reading the same information over and over just to be sure I don’t miss anything.
• Set aside at least an hour a day for art just for me.

If this works, by the end of the year I should have two or three hours a day for my art. Nirvana.

How about you? Do you have trouble fitting your personal art into your busy day?

And now for all that’s new on The Artful Crafter this month …

Eileen

How to Make Laminated Tasseled Bookmarks - Including how to make your own tassels when you run out as I did!

How to Make Lace Snowflakes - These snowflakes make pretty window decorations or can be hung from chandeliers or light fixtures. They also make lovely gift toppers.

Putting Original Designs on Wine Glasses - Etching is the best way to put delicate designs on glass. Did you know you can DIY?

Find tons of Valentine’s Day Craft Ideas in our Holiday Craft Index page.

Reader Mail

How to Make Flowers from Fabric Remnants or Paper Coffee Filters

I enjoyed making the Flower from Scrap Fabric. They were very easy and quick.

Chrishanthi

Thank you, Chrishanthi. You might also enjoy this article on Making Coffee Filter Roses.

Combine Decals with Decoupage to Put Original Designs under Glass

Hello Artful Crafter!

So glad I found you.

I'm an experienced decoupager who creates reverse decoupage plates - the image goes on the back of the plates and shows through the glass. You probably know this already!

Then the back is painted so you can't see the paper. I'm curious about using waterslide decals instead of paper. I've been talking with Waterslide Decal Companies and they are not familiar with the use of decals on decoupage so I thought I'd contact you before I buy the wrong thing!

My concerns were especially about the finishing process - whether the decals could be painted black on the back.

Thanks for any info you can share. I will read all your articles now!

Best,

I don’t see why not, though you’ll need to make some adjustments.

Here are two polymer clay pendants I made with Lazertran Inkjet Waterslide Decals.

The Peace Pendant uses a solid design decal; and the Baby’s Footprint Pendant is an open design with some transparent areas.

The point is that you can do open designs like lettering to put names, dates and such onto a plate or solid designs with no transparent areas.

Here’s how I would proceed. Do a test on a scrap of glass first. Since you will place the decal under a glass plate, print your design onto the decal in reverse. Follow the package directions for sliding the decaled image into place. Let dry.

Spray the decal with two coats of Krylon Crystal Clear. This will prevent ink bleeding and, if you’ve used the inkjet version of Lazertran Decals, will turn any white areas transparent. [The inkjet decals dry white where there is no ink laid down.]

Then proceed to finish decoupaging and painting the plate as you normally would.

Thank you for your kind comments. To stay in touch with what’s new on The Artful Crafter, sign up for our free monthly newsletter and follow our blog. I hope to hear from you again.

Kudos for The Artful Crafter Digest

I love your newsletter.  Do you have a magazine that I can subscribe to?

Selina

I’m so glad you enjoy our free monthly newsletter and the occasional special editions. No we don’t have a full blown magazine - yet - but you have definitely planted a seed in my brain ;-)

In the meantime, did you know that you can subscribe to our RSS feed to receive an e-mail notice whenever anything new is posted on the website? You’ll find the link in the right hand column on every page of on The Artful Crafter.

You can also follow The Artful Crafter Blog just by clicking on the "Follow" link on the left side of the top toolbar. I follow several other crafting blogs and love how I always know what’s going on with all my blogging buddies.

BTW, I blog almost every day. Isn’t that even better than a magazine? LOL.

Thank you for writing. You made my day!

Kudos for The Artful Crafter Website

Eileen,

I would like to take this moment to say THANK YOU for a very informative site.

As a novice interested in creating my own greeting cards, I have found the information you provided invaluable!!

Thank you,

Sherry

Gosh, I’m blushing ;-)