http://embellished-dreams.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-shimmer-sheetz-crafty-secrets.html

http://yogiemp.blogspot.com/

http://terresscraptherapy.blogspot.com/

link:

http://www.favecrafts.com/Unexpected-Ideas/The-Fan-Club#

Please check out the amazing works of art created by Yogi Grunwald on her website http://www.yogiemp.com/.

Happy Holidays,

Els van de Burgt

We are very proud to announce that one of the Christmas cards made by Els has made it on to the Winter edition cover of  Paper Creations www.papercreationsmag.com!

Check out the three other Elizabeth Craft Designs Christmas cards featured in this edition of Paper Creations

In this newsletter I want to tell you something about the use and possibilities of the Sticky Shapes.

You will find three pictures of projects that I created using the Sticky Shapes and black and white Peel Off’s.

You can use the Sticky Shapes in different ways.

With the butterflies I did the following. You leave the protective sheet on top of the Sticky Shape. Then you cut out the butterflies. After you have taken of the protective sheet you sprinkle two different colours of the Micro Fine glitter on top of the Sticky Shape and burnish. Burnish means you rub over the glittered Sticky Shapes with your index finger which will give it a totally different look. Now you have a glittered outline (positive) and a negative that you can use.

If you take a good look at the pictures of the cards you will see that I used both positive and negative for these two cards with the butterflies.

For the card with the circles I took a white Peel Off, stick the two butterflies onto a piece of watercolour paper and use a pair of tweezers to put the negative parts back into the white Peel Off. Some parts, the body, head, dots and small leaves, are coloured with the Tombows. For the card with the one butterfly on the square I did put the Sticky Shape outline on a piece of watercolour paper and put some parts, the body, head and the dots, of the Sticky Shape negative back with the pair of tweezers. The other parts are coloured with the Tombows. As you can see I also used the text sheet  ‘’Just for You’’.  I used a silver text sheet and coloured the text with the Peel Off markers. The other technique you can do with the Sticky Shapes I used for the doodles with leaves. You take a full sheet of Sticky Shapes. Take of the protective sheet and sprinkle a few different colours of the micro fine glitter over the full sheet. Burnish it with your  index finger and you are ready to use the doodles. If you take a good look in the gallery you fill find some cards with the Fantasy Flower where I used the ‘’leftover’’ of the sheet with the doodles with leaves. Whenever you have used all the doodles you take a matching colour of background cardstock, take off the full sheet of ‘’leftover’’ in one time and stick it onto the cardstock. Press it down firmly and you are ready to use this part as a background.

The third card it the card with the Sticky Shape leaves and the ladybug. For the leaves I did glitter the full sheet of leaves in one time with three different colour of the micro fine glitter. Burnished it and then stick the leaves on watercolour paper. The leaves are coloured with the Tombows. For the ladybug I took a black Peel Off, stick it on the watercolour paper and colour it with the Tombows and the Sakura Glaze pen black.

I hope you can all use this information to get started with the Sticky Shapes. Working with the Sticky Shapes is so much fun and different than the ‘’regular’’ Peel Off’s that you should try it for sure.

If you have a look on the website www.ecraftdesigns.com you will also see that we added some images in Sticky Shapes.

I also want to invite you to send pictures of some projects you created using my designs. I want to start a gallery with projects created by you. Everybody has a different style and ideas and it is so nice to get ideas from other people. We are always learning and taking a look at work from other people can only inspire us for creating more and different projects.

Happy crafting,

Els

Dear Crafters,

Are you all enjoying the summer?

I just came back from a trip to Bali and Java and it has been wonderful. One huge source of inspiration. Wood and stone carving, paintings, jewellery and even the most beautiful decorated eggs. You won’t believe how creative the people are over there. I could go on with the tropical fish, beautiful flowers, fresh green rice fields, the shells, fishing boats and the many, many temples. And last but not least the people itself. Nice and colourful with the typical Indonesian batik decorated cloths. So you can imagine that I took lots of photo’s!

Back in California now and the weather is great but I need and want to start working again. In between I went to the beach for a walk and found some rocks. Inspired by all the creative ideas I took from Bali and Java I got an idea for these rocks, so I took them home and started to work.

First I put a layer of ModPodge over the stones. This way you brighten up the colour of the stones. After that I took a black sheet of Peel Off’s and Sticky Shapes of the big leaves (nr. 0437) took of the protective sheet of the Sticky Shapes and glittered the full sheet with different colours of green from the micro fine glitters of Glitter Ritz and burnished it with my index finger.

Burnishing means rub over it with your index finger which gives it a totally different look. Try it and you will see what I mean. When you have done that the rest is easy. You stick a black leave on a stone and take a tweezers to pick up the glittered parts and put that back in the black outline. You can also do it the other way around or take a piece of Magic Tape and just pick up the negatives of the glittered leave and stick that on the stone. It was so much fun to do and very easy.

You can just use the stones for decoration or use is as a paper press which makes a nice present. I found my stones at the beach in California but I’m sure you can all find some not too far from your own home or even in the garden.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Happy Crafting, Els

www.ecraftdesigns.com

Take a special look at the Sticky Shapes. These are outline double sided Peel Off's that you can use in combination with micro fine glitter. One thing I found out on my travels from the last few weeks. One of the best glitters around is for sure the glitter from the Glitter Ritz. Sticky Shapes in combination with this glitter and Be Creative Tape and you will have a wonderful time! The pictures in this e-mail are pages from the books. Just to make you excited! The one with the butterflies is from the book with the glitter. The outlines are the Sticky Shapes with purple glitter and the doodle is a Sticky Shape as well. The page with the fish is from the other book. I used the Sakura Metallic and Stardust pens for the fish and the Glaze for the seaweed.

Happy crafting, Els

I’m almost on my way out to the tradeshow CHA in Anaheim, California and so many things happened the last few months of 2008 that I couldn’t leave without telling you something about it. Even writing about it makes me all excited again. First of all I had a great time in November at the Kreadoe which is a consumer craft show in the Netherlands. It was very busy and I met so many nice people that I really hope to go back again this year. Back in Canada I had to get started designing new Peel Off’s™ which are going to be released this month. This is always a nice time because you start with a drawing and after a few weeks I get my first samples which is very exciting because than I can start colouring and creating. When I design I kind of have an idea what the end result can be but seeing it coming together is even more fulfilling. I also did some classes at Paper Pastimes in Calgary and Stampers in Victoria. Carole from Paper Pastimes and Ann and Steve from Stampers are the best to meet in this business, very nice people, beautiful stores and a lot of enthusiastic customers. At Stampers I had the pleasure to do some crafting with Steve. They had samples in the store made with the Glitter and Tape from Haroldine Wingfield and Deanne Pannell of British Columbia. The people that know these ladies already know what I’m talking about. Steve showed me how they were made and I immediately saw some great possibilities combining this glitter with my Peel Off’s. To make a long story short I wrote a small book about the use of the glitter in combination with the Peel Off’s™ that will be released at Paperworld Expo in Germany. I have the pleasure to go there right after CHA and demonstrate the visitors this new technique. If you like glitter and Peel Off’s™ you will for sure want to try this technique. It is so much fun and the results are fabulous. I also wrote another book together with Connie Westenberg about combining the Elizabeth Craft Designs Peel Off’s™ with all the different gel pens from Sakura. \r\nI have mentioned it many times already: I never get bored working with the Sakura products. The possibilities are endless and many times I use those pens I find new combinations. These are a few of the things that took most of my time these last few months. Finally there is something else exciting going to happen that I would like to share with you. We are moving to California! My husband’s work takes us there. We really, really love living in Canada however California is going to bring me to the center of the craft industry which is a huge opportunity and as much as we are said to leave this beautiful country and all the wonderful people we met we are looking forward to the move as well. So, maybe I will write the next newsletter in the US.

Don’t forget to check out my website www.ecraftdesigns.com to have a look at my new designs and samples. The new designs and my books will be available from the end of February.

For now, happy colourful crafting, Els

It’s the beginning of September and I’m very happy to be able to send out my first newsletter. If you receive this letter it is because you registered to the newsletter, I met you demonstrating at one of the shows where you showed interest in the designs or you took one of my classes or I just think that you are into crafts. If you or your friends are not registered for the newsletter but want to be kept updated you can register online trough the website www.ecraftdesigns.com or just email me at ecraftdesigns@yahoo.com I will display a new project in every newsletter.

While I’m writing this newsletter I’m looking out over the Rocky Mountains seeing the first snow on the mountaintops. This sight could inspire me to start making Christmas cards but I want to hold on to the summer just a little bit longer. That’s why I chose for a project that is colourful and bright. I used one of my favourite designs, the birds. The birds can be used for so many different occasions like Birth and Birthday, Christmas, and Spring etc. If you look for the birds in the webstore you will find some more samples done with these birds. I also used the ‘’Happy Birthday’’ Peel-Off. I’m very proud of the collection of words, greetings and text. I have to let you know that I can’t take credit for those designs. I always wanted to have these in my collection but didn’t want them to look computerized. These designs are made by a wonderful and talented lady in Calgary, Yogi Grunwald, that I met at one of the classes and as you can see is an excellent calligrapher.

Let me just give you some details about the card showed in this letter. As some of you know already, I mostly work with all the different and wonderful products of Sakura™. This is not a coincidence. I worked for that company for more than eight years and that’s why I know the quality and the possibilities of these products. I just love to work with them. Of course it’s up to you if you want to make the card the same as I did. As you can see looking at the picture the Peel Off’s are soft purple. To begin with these where silver Peel Off’s. You can change the color of the Peel Off’s if you color them, while they are still on the sheet. I suggest using the Sakura™ Identipen®. With the purple Identipen® you can leave it purple or you can make it a bit lighter by rubbing over the Peel-Off with a tissue while it’s still whet. The other products I used for coloring are the Glaze 3D® and Souffle® and for adding the glitter I used the Quickie Glue™ pen.

Happy colourful crafting, Els

My name is Els van de Burgt, owner of Elizabeth Craft Designs and an active and enthusiastic crafter for over 25 years now. I got professionally involved in the craft industry back in the Netherlands some 12 years ago as a shop manager in a hobby and craft store followed by a sales career with a production/distribution company of writing, coloring and drawing product for the hobby market. In 2005 I moved to Canada where I started my work as a designer of Peel-Off stickers and product development for several companies in the hobby and craft industry. Besides that I organize workshops, classes, demonstrations and make and takes at hobby & craft shows throughout North America, Europe and write articles for magazines. I have started this website/store to share my ideas and designs with you and hope you will be just as excited and enthusiastic as I’m about the final results.

Please contact me through this website if you have any questions about the projects or the use of the Peel-Off stickers. I also would appreciate if you share your ideas and/or experience with me and please send me pictures of your work.