Have You Registered For Your Free Ticket to the Craft and Design Event?

April 3, 2024 by Carina Gardner Leave a comment

Are you ready to dive into a world of creativity? Mark your calendars for the Craft and Design Event happening on Thursday, April 18th, and Friday, April 19th, 2024! This two-day event promises to be an unforgettable experience for creatives, crafters, designers, artists, surface pattern/textile designers, and small business owners alike.

What to Expect:

Inspiring Speakers: Get ready to be inspired by 20 speakers who will share their knowledge, techniques, and insights.
Latest Trends and Techniques: Stay ahead of the curve by learning about the latest trends and techniques in the world of crafting and design. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or just starting out, our event will provide valuable insights to help you stay at the forefront of your craft.
Skill Enhancement: Elevate your skills to the next level with hands-on workshops and demonstrations. Whether you want to master a new software or refine your existing techniques, our event offers something for everyone looking to level up their skills.
New Revenue Streams: Discover new ways to turn your passion into profit. Our event will provide invaluable tips and strategies for earning as a creative.
Holiday Inspiration: Get a head start on your holiday crafting with a plethora of ideas and inspiration.

Don’t miss your chance to be a part of this exciting virtual event! Mark your calendars, gather your crafting supplies, and get ready for an unforgettable experience. Stay tuned for more updates and announcements as we countdown to the Craft and Design Event 2024! Get your FREE ticket here: https://www.designsuitecourses.com/event

See you there!

There Are Going to Be Some Changes Around Here! Illustrator Class & New Digital Scrapbooking Site!

December 7, 2009 by carina 8 Comments

It’s a season of change around my house. Josh started work with a new law firm, Siri has lost tooth number 2, Felicity has been trying out her new potty, and I’ve got some great new projects in the works. The first is this brand new online class for Illustrator, which goes on sale TODAY at Jessica Sprague.com! After teaching Illustrator at DSE, this last September, I was overwhelmed by the number of people asking for an online course. So here it is folks! A four week long Illustrator course that is completely self-paced and easy to use. The videos are broken into smaller tasks so it’s easy to go back to a tutorial. I’ve also included 3 Bonus lessons, digital scrapbooking kits, and vectors in the course.

While I created this course initially for digital scrapbookers, I would recommend it to anyone who is even thinking about getting into design. I’ve incorporated everything I would teach on Illustrator in a university-level introductory graphic design course.

So want to see what the class is going to be all about? Go straight to the Jessica Sprague site to see the introduction video, purchasing information, and the Lesson break downs. You can also go to YouTube to see the video. I recommend watching the video because it will show you a short tutorial of a class lesson along with everything you will need (aka technology requirements) to take the course.

With all change, there is also some sad news. I have decided to move my digital scrapbooking store from Two Peas. You will still be able to find all of my 2008-2009 digital designs there, but I will be moving to a new store come January 1st, 2010.

I’m pretty excited to have been asked to come to the new store (which isn’t even open yet) because it will be site with designers that are so amazing! The name of the site is Design House Digital (http://www.designhousedigital.com/) and the list of designers going there is UNBELIEVABLE! I can’t spill anything yet, but you ought to check out the place holder blog to grab the newsletter freebie (it’s FABULOUS!). And while you are at it, sign up for twitter https://twitter.com/designhousedigi since I was told that people will get updated with the new freebies and store updates there.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m working away at a christmas line for fabric and paper and enjoying my little ones during this holiday season. Hope you are having a happy December too!

My New Mini-Office Space & Free Tag Download

February 28, 2009 by carina 5 Comments

I have to call it a space because that is what it is. It’s not a room. It’s not a studio. It’s a space. A 4 feet x 6 feet bit of space to be exact (if you count all of the rug). It located in my bedroom (something I don’t recommend, but under current circumstances could not be helped) and it was a strain to get a vertical shot of the thing! But here it is, in all it’s mini-glory!

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Basically, I tried to use things I already had around the house. I supplemented it with stuff from Ikea, Antique Shops, and Home Goods (for my budget). I tried really hard to stick to the basics—storage and lighting. I added the numbers because I was inspired by a page in a Pottery Barn decorating book. I REALLY wish I could paint the wall to give everything a nice pop…but since I can’t paint, I’ll try to bring in color other ways (for example, I’d love to paint that wood table I have that is acting as my desk).

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My big bargain buy was a total accident! I got that new chair for $12 down from $150 at Home Goods. It’s a great basic color and I can see recovering it in the near future. I’m also in love with the lamp!

This is the top view of the shelves. I bought the shelves from Ikea. Since I have so little space, I worked my way up to utilize space.

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My desktop…lots of sketching, facebooking, and designing happen here.

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Here was my “number” inspiration to help tie things together a bit. It makes it all a little more graphic:). I printed numbers, used sign stickers, and house numbers.I need a seriously big number to put on the wall but haven’t found one yet.

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Here’s the inspiration for the numbers: A Pottery Barn decorating book.

inspirationpottey1 My tray on the desk keeps me “organized”. Well, sort of, I just dump things in it. It makes the desk less cluttered. It also holds my ugly hard drive (hidden under my Arts & Crafts book!).

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Here are my easy-peasy tags for my jars. I used My Minds Eye Rub-On Alphas and printed out the tags from these templates I made. You can download them here:

Tag Templates Download

They are the same tag, set up for print-ready.

These are the My Minds Eye RubOns.

Setting it up on my computer:

I love the rubons because they are so simple and really take all the work out of this project.

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Hope you enjoyed! I’m sure I”ll be changing this minispace as I find more “stuff.” I especially want to add more color. Have a great Saturday!

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Valentine Gifts for Preschoolers

February 10, 2009 by carina 2 Comments

I posted my valentine freebie from card nirvana earlier, and we actually used them today for Siri’s preschool class! I printed them out back and front, Siri wrote in all her schoolmates names. We then attached the heart lollipops to the cards by punching a little hole in the corner. Fast and sweet…just the way it should be!

A note about the chocolate cards—we used a white gel pen to write on them! You can write on them with black ink, but it’s a little hard to read.

Want to grab these free cards? Grab them here from Card Nirvana, my digital invitation store!

**The Card Nirvana download is no longer available! You can now download them directly from this link:

https://carinagardner.com/valentineskiddiecard.zip

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Kitchen 123: Valentine Project and Heart Freebie

February 7, 2009 by carina 7 Comments

As Valentine’s day is approaching, I decided to be festive and actually do a project. You know, one where I am not on the computer. Ya, that doesn’t happen a lot. lol. If you want to make this heart tree, it’s SO easy and really inexpensive. Use any paper you like…my paper is the Bohemia line from My Minds Eye. I made 9 little “heart trios” as I call them, but you can make any number you like. So here’s the project: I took branches from outside and placed them in a vase. I used a piece of scrapbook paper, rolled it, and stuffed it in the vase. Then I put on these little heart trios. Here’s how to make them:

First, download my heart freebie here. Print is out as your template. Then you are going to want to cute out hearts from 3 different types of papers. I actually folded my heart template in half and folded the scrapbook paper too so my hearts were symmetrical. Then you want to glue stick three of the hearts together so they look like so:

I then punched a little hole in each of these with a “baby” hole puncher. and hung then on string. I think ribbon would be cute too, but at the moment I don’t have ribbon thin enough for this project. So string it was!

I did tie a little crochet lace around the top of the vase. I love how graphic this paper is because it feels so organic. I’d also suggest painting the branches white. I didn’t because I like the natural feeling of the branches, but I think that it could be a cute alternative.

Here’s my Kitchen 123 Recipe card I made to file away this project (See the recipe card post).

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Grab the heart template freebie at my 4shared link: Heart Freebie Template

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Valentine Day Card Freebies!

January 28, 2009 by carina 5 Comments

Jen and I both got up our Valentine Freebies at Card Nirvana! I think you’ll like these cards! Jen put up this fun striped valentine’s day card and I have up some mini 3 in.x 4 in. cards that I made for my daughter’s preschool friends. I probably will attach them to heart lollipops or some other treat (I’ll post it when I do them), but for now, we thought anybody who wanted to use them for Valentine’s Day could grab them in advance! The Valentine Stripe card is for photoshop users and the small cards (Valentine Kiddie Cards) are set in a pdf. You can just print as is (there’s a cute heart wallpaper to print on the back of the cards) or use the Card Nirvana pdf to TYPE IN YOUR INFO. It’s SO easy.

This is what the files look like that you get:

Happy Heart Day! Have fun with the freebies! If you use them at all post the link here so we can see what you did with them! You can download from 4shared just one card. I’d recommend just going straight to Card Nirvana to pick all the freebies up at once though:).

**The Card Nirvana download is no longer available! You can now download them directly from this link:

https://carinagardner.com/studio/freedownloads/valentineskiddiecard.jpg

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