Back this summer, I was approached by Cat, of Cut Out + Keep, asking if I would like to be featured as one of their Crafty Superstars. I immediately said YES. I have been using Cut Out + Keep since I was in Junior/Senior high for crafting inspiration.

I am so excited to be featured on the main page and at the lead of the Superstars tab for an entire week! Every day, for a week, a new crafting tutorial will be revealed for those who visit Cut Out + Keep.

Past Crafty Superstars include Erica Domesek (PS I made this) and Mark Montano (TLC). Check out the Can Can Dancer tutorials and an interview here: Link.

(Look its MEEEEEE! on the footer of every page this week. 🙂 )

Happy almost New Year! And happy crafting!

~Crafty Superstar #109 (aka Can Can Dancer)

Here is another post courtesy of my mom. My parents have multiple Christmas trees in their house each with a different theme- purple/girly, angels/pastel, santas/red and sometimes a cowboy tree. My mom took step-by-step pictures of how she decorates her red tree.

Check out below to see how:

Here is a naked 9 ft pre-lit tree.

This is a tree skirt that my mom has had for over 20 years. My aunt made it. It even is reversible with green on the other side.

Find some large ribbon to decorate the tree with. (I have sparkly purple on my own tree and I got it on clearance at Michael’s after Christmas last year- leftover from the custom floral department.)

This year my mom decided to use candy-cane looking ribbon. She gathered 12 loops and left the two tail ends free. She secured the 12 loops with thin wire. (She bought her ribbon from Costco for $7ish)

Wire the bow to the top of your tree and cascade more ribbon down the body of your tree. (6-8 rows of cascading ribbon depending on the thickness of your wire.)

My mom bought red Christmas ornaments at Kmart.

She also gathered personal ornaments that matched the tree. (I made some of them a LONG time ago. lol)

Here is the tree with ribbon, red balls and homemade ornaments.

She also bought simple metallic bows at Kmart to fill in any gaps.

She also added a star to the top of the tree (It’s hiding behind the ribbon. lol)

Here are their new custom cabinets- with the shelves all filled. Check out how they built them here: link.

Hello World,

I currently am in a Digital Imaging class and our latest project was to revise an icon. I have always adored Dorothy, and I made cinema-graphs for the first time!

And now that I have used an expensive digital SLR, I am hooked. I am now saving up for one, along with a less expensive lens.  The only problems I came across with my cinemagraphs was I could not get the file size small enough with CS6. I compressed these puppies multiple times and they still are not small enough.

I only used the last three for my project, but I had them arranged in a different formation and the title is “Waiting to __________.”

Enjoy! And have a great Thanksgiving!

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