The Crafty Lefty

The Crafty Lefty was a part of this year's Fort Worth ArtsGoggle! It was the first time folks saw our new Holiday line and we got to meet our customers face to face! In addition to our traditional toppers and banners, we also sold greeting cards, rose bobby pins, and table banners. We are super excited to have another booth this Saturday at the Eagle Mountain Annual Fall Carnival in Fort Worth!

Our Holiday Collection is here! Cupcake toppers and banners for your holiday parties are available for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! If you want to get these goodies, be sure to check out our Etsy shop.

Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat in French) is a cupcake bordello and bakery in Fort Worth that specializes in custom cakes and scrumptious cupcakes. We created brand new toppers and banners for their retail location on Magnolia Avenue. Stop by to see some of our new designs displayed in Le Chat Noir including mini bridal gowns with gold accents, our new shadow heart banner and our new rosette toppers.

The Cakeroom, a swank and Marie Antoinette-inspired cupcakery in DC is now selling The Crafty Lefty's cupcake toppers and cake banners! We are so excited to start branching out in the DC market where there are tons of cute mom-and-pop run bakeries and cake shops. If you're in the area, stop by The Cakeroom for their famous nutella chocolate chip cookies or mini banoffee pies. Yummmmmmm All of the toppers available at The Cakeroom can also be found in our Etsy shop: Love is in the Air toppers, Little Black Dress toppers, Congrats Banner, Happily Ever After toppers, and our tiny balloon toppers. Not in the DC area? No problem! Click here to purchase these cuties from our Etsy shop.

My cutie patootie niece (18 months) and nephew (5 years) were traveling with my sister-in-law on their first international flight last month. My bro and sister-in-law don't like using the TV or the Ipad as a distractor, and only use it when all else fails -- i.e. group dinners and when traveling. So, I wanted to come up with some easy and fun activities for the tots to do on the plane before they evenually give up and give in to the kids' screams for "Ipad! Ipad!". Here's what I came up with after much Pinterest stalking, Google searching, and Dollar Tree visits: 1) Popsicle Stick Puzzles - I picked a large image from a coloring book, colored it, and cut it out. Then, I used the edge of the popsicle stick to measure and draw lines on top of the image with a pencil. I used the lines as markers for cutting out strips of the puzzle in the exact width of the stick. After all of the strips were cut, I glued them to the stick. I used harder puzzels (7 - 8 sticks) for my nephew and easier ones (4 sticks) for my niece. Why it's good for the plane? The pieces are easier to keep track of (and store!) than a real puzzle. Why the kids like it? It's a fun (and new!) puzzle they haven't done before so it'll take them several tries to get it right = at least 5 minutes of snooze time for you. 2) Foam Shape Activities - I let my nephew pick out which packet of foam shapes he wants. He picked farm animals and sports balls. So, I made a few activity sheets for him to do on the plane. I stuck a bunch of different farm animals all over the page in different colors. On the next page I asked him a bunch of sorting questions like: How many ducks do you see? How many pink animals do you see? How many animals are looking to the left? to the right? How many tails do you see? How many ears? How many blue rabbits plus purple ducks? 3) I used the leftover foam shapes + mini pom poms and containers with lids that I got from - you guessed it - The Dollar Tree - to make a sorting activity that uses fine motor skills for my niece. I practiced this activity with her before the plane ride so that she would know what to do when she got on the plane. First, I practiced opening and closing the lids with her. Then, I asked her to open all the lids and put one pom pom in, and close all the lids. We repeated with a foam shape. Then, with a foam shape and a pom pom. She really liked this activity but my SIL told me that the pom poms were falling off the tray tables and it was annoying to keep picking them up over and over again. If you have a box or a tray you can put them in when you're on the plane, this might work better. 4) I also used the foam shapes for an alphabet activity. I bought a notebook with plain white paper, and drew a large letter starting with "A" on each page. Then, I added a few foam shapes or hand drew recognizable objects/animals on each page for my nephew to practice his writing. Pictured here is the "F" page. 5) I also bought dry erase boards and markers that were lined for him to practice his alphabets in English and Punjabi. Leave me a message in the comments if you tried any of these activities or if you came up with your own for those long plane rides.

Stir Crazy opened a second location on Magnolia in Fort Worth today! I was delighted because 1) I absolutely love their cupcakes and other goodies and 2) because my handmade cake banners and cupcake toppers are available for sale there! My girlfriend and I visited the grand opening today and helped ourselves to some cupcakes and savory tarts. I was ecstatic to see my toppers and banners on display for purchase! If you're interested in placing an order, please visit the Shop link above. Below are pictures of my display at Stir Crazy. I made an assortment of toppers -- scrabble letters, hearts, flags, paper candles, and banners. I wanted to do something special for Robbie, the shop owner, so I made her a banner for the grand opening. She put it on a fresh batch of sprinkled cupcakes. See pics below!

I used another template from Paper Source's Wall Art Calendar the other day: pillow boxes and matching tags! Here is the print for the month of September and the pillow box/tag template. Who knew mushrooms could look so artistic? Paper Source. Paper Source knew. Okay, so the first thing I did was cut out the pillow box along the solid lines. After that, I scored the dashed lines with the blade from a small pair of scissors. Scoring just means pressing down really hard on the paper in a line for the intended purpose of folding on that line. If you're using scissors instead of a bone folder or a butter knife, be sure not to push down too hard or you'll pierce the page. After that, I folded the dashed lines really carefully. This is a harder template because the lines are not straight, they are the curved lines lines you see in the template above. Here's what mine looked like before and after scoring and folding. Okay, don't hate! It hard to fold on a round edge! Don't worry. It'll look fine once you're done. Then, you're going to fold that bottom flap in, so that you see the print. Take double-sided tape and place some along the bottom flap on the print side. You're going to fold the box in half so that the print side touches that top straight edge and press down firmly. This is what your pillow box should look like now. It should form a loop with two open sides. Then, take one side of the pillow box., and fold the flap with the cutout flap down and in towards the other flap. On the exposed flap (the one without the cutout), you're going to put double sided tape on the top and bottom of the flap (see below). Then, press the taped flap firmly into the folded flap and hold until the tape stays firm. I put my fingers in through the open side of the box and pushed up on the flaps so that I could apply more pressure. And that's it! You're done! You want to leave one side open so that you can put your gift in there. There were two tags that you could use with either this pillow box or any other gift. I cut out the circle one using my 2" circle punch and punched a hole using my super tiny hole punch that's perfect for stringing in some twine. To make the rounded edges on the rectangular tag, I just used my corner rounder tool. Above, you can see all the tools I used for this pillow box and matching tags.

Anyone that knows me knows that I love all things Paper Source. If you're lucky enough to have a store in your city -- make a trip this weekend! Besides having all sorts of really cool supplies that any crafter should have in their toolbox -- punches, stationary, stamps, etc., it also inspires me to stay creative. Sometimes, I just browse the store for their handmade crafts and take pictures on my phone. Later, I upload the pics to my Pinterest board so I have new designs to try next time I feel like being creative. I know. I sound sooo cool right now. One of their products that I love the most are their wall calendars. Specifically, their Wall Art Calendar -- it's two great products in one. When you're ready to flip to the next month, each page has a template on the back to make anything from cards to gift boxes. I tried the easiest template first -- turning the page into a file folder. Here's the print for the month of July and the template on the back. Then, I followed the instructions on the back, and cut along the solid lines. The corners are supposed to be round so instead of cutting them, I used a corner rounder tool from - you guessed it - Paper Source. In the template, it suggests that you score and fold the folder along the three dotted lines in the middle. Instead of using a bone folder (which I don't have), I just used the blade from a small pair of scissors. I didn't see why I needed three folds, so I just folded the folder in half. The final product is below. As you can see in the second image, the back of the folder will still show the calendar portion. But, I don't mind since it's on the back. I'll do another post when I use a different template in a few days. If you have this calendar at home, leave a message in the comments and tell me what template you used!

My entry into the crafting world started with scrapbooking. I was in high school, and I remember making scrapbooks with my mom for friends and family. I started making scrapbooks to record my own memories my senior year in high school, and continued scrapbooking until I graduated college. And then - don't judge - I haven't made a scrapbook for over 10 years. I still save movie stubs, maps, boarding passes, etc. in a big box in my closet in the hope that one day I'll have time to make one again. I'm a scrapbook hoarder. In the meantime, I've been making a Book of Birthdays for my cutie pie neice and nephew. Every year for their birthday, I make one page for each of them with pictures, poems, and fun times from our last year together. I'm hoping that when they're older, they can remind themselves of all of the memories we shared by going through the pages of the scrapbook.