As I was assembling this newsletter it struck me that many of my recent articles and blog ideas have come from my friends or been motivated by friends.

What would we do without our friends? I count you among my friends and hope you feel the same.

Thank you for letting me share craft ideas with you through this newsletter. Thank you for visiting The Artful Crafterover and over again.

And most especially, thank you for your letters with comments, questions and suggestions. This is what keeps The Artful Crafter growing in a direction which its readers want.

Dear friends, I wish you all the best for the New Year. May your creative juices flow freely and bring you endless joy!

Eileen

Digital Scrapbooking: I’m Hooked!

A friend who knows I do computer graphics asked me to make a family calendar for her for Christmas.

Rather than just printing a simple photo on every page, I suggested we make each month’s design look like a scrapbook page, with a bit of journaling and some embellishments.

She was delighted with the idea.

I didn’t tell her I’ve never done any digital scrapbooking. I’d been wanting to try, but just hadn’t found the time.

You know how that goes. This was exactly the kick in the pants I needed to get me started!

I’d been receiving a free newsletter from ScrapGirls.com for several months and had even downloaded a couple of their freebies.

I’d been reading about some of the techniques used with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, like layering, blending and using brushes to stamp designs.

Mostly, I’d been drooling over the beautiful pages ScrapGirls includes in each newsletter.

Now I was finally going to take the plunge and order some of their papers and embellishments. What a delightful surprise.

I purchased three items for a little over ten dollars. While I was there I put every freebie in the boutique into my shopping cart as well.

With that small investment, I got everything (instantly – all the items are downloadable) I needed to make my friend’s calendar and probably used only 20% of the items – which means I have goodies to make a boatload of more unique original designs.

Thank you, Scrap Girls. I’m hooked!

Crafty Hors D’Oeuvre: March of the Penguins

Another of my friends made a darling “March of the Penguins” cheese ball for a holiday buffet.

It was just adorable and became the talk of the party. I asked Judy if I could snap a picture and share the idea with all of you. She said “of course!” and kindly shared some tips and tricks she developed while filling the pudgy little penguins.

Each penguin requires one jumbo ripe olive, one small (round) ripe olive, cream cheese to fill the chest and form the tuxedo, one carrot coin for the feet and beak, and a frilled toothpick to hold it all together.

Have cream cheese at room temperature. If it’s too hard, it will tend to break the olive; too soft and it won’t push out the chest to form a nice plump penguin. Slice a jumbo olive down the front. Place softened cream cheese in a quart-size Ziploc bag and cut a small hole in one corner.

Pipe the cream cheese into the olive until the “chest” puffs out. Cut a wedge from a carrot coin. Use a small sharp knife to cut a little slit in the small olive and insert the carrot “beak”. Place the stuffed olive on the carrot “feet”; top with stuffed jumbo olive, then small round olive with beak facing front and secure all the parts with a frilled toothpick.

Find directions for the igloo here.