I was on a tear for new Christmas and holiday card designs this year because I have a craft fair this weekend (if you mention this blog, I’ll give you 15% off your purchase at the Framingham High School Holiday Marketplace this Saturday, 12/6 — from 10-4). Check out the new designs on my Christmas card page!
A few weeks ago, I was asked to be interviewed for PayPal’s Online Merchant Network for FramesByDana.com. Read the interview here.
beach frame
Please tell people about the site. It’s what I love doing. And I don’t know what better thing you can say about an income stream than that.
If you’re wondering why I redid the site this week, between 2 big vacations and while researching our book, it’s because I’ve taken an ad on a local deli’s paper placemats. There’s 800 placemats, I think, which should last Kugel’s Deli about 8 or 9 months. My ad is top and center, so should be very visible. I’m hoping to get real business from that investment. I’ve known all along that my site gets WONDERFUL SEO (search engine optimization) — that is, Google loves me. But the lack of constant ordering is because I don’t have what you expect at a commerce website: a shopping cart. Well, now I do. So with the site now at over 17,000 page views, I decided to add it and give myself a real chance at this.
I hope you’ll help me by simply telling people about FramesByDana.com.
I still have much to add to the site — a greeting card section, for one — but I wanted to get what I’ve been working on the past year (the wedding section) online and also add the shopping cart. So stay tuned for more goodies in the months to come. And make sure to navigate all the pages/sections. There’s a handy-dandy nav bar on every page so you don’t get lost. Tell me what you think about the new and improved site!
Thanks for any publicity you can toss my way! Or feel free to order something… š
I made all of our Christmas cards this year. There were about 50 different designs, the best of which I put in a video and offer for sale. See the FramesByDana.com Christmas card page for the video and ordering info.
Well, it’s been a while since I blogged here. To be fair, I did say posts would be inconsistent!
But FramesByDana has been doing well. In December, I got a custom order for a hair salon multi-picture frame. I’ve never done a multi-picture frame before and after much searching in stores, I couldn’t find anything I could use to decorate the frame if I did make it. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say, so I decided to solve my problem by making the items on the frame.
I made brushes (complete with individual bristles), combs, mirrors, scissors (actually two parts glued together), and hair dryers. The brushes were probably my favorite, closely followed by the scissors.
Here’s the pic of the completed frame:
(Click on the pic to see an enlarged view.)
I was just surfing on FramesByDana.com and I was looking at the dishwasher magnet page and I remembered a dream I had last night. I think it got started because this past weekend my brother Brett said to me “We need more magnets!” (Sara, his new wife, quickly reminded him that they have 2 pairs of summer magnets — flower pots and the dragonfly/butterfly combo.)
Anyway, the dream was that I was going through some box in my craft room and I came across all these different summer magnets I had made — I remember an ice cream cone pair in particular.
Since I just started making the magnets last October (my pumpkin ones were quite cute), and I haven’t had any time to create too many new summer ones this year (besides the flower pots and bugs), I can’t imagine where that would have come from, but it does mean that there are more ideas in my head for next year…
Incidentally, I just made the pumpkin and turkey magnets for our house. After the wedding and honeymoon, I’ll work on some for my family.
You can order dishwasher magnets here.
So I just spent all afternoon not making invitations, as I probably should have, but instead updating FramesByDana.com with a new navigation structure that’s hopefully more user-friendly (not to mention more scalable as I continue to post the new projects I keep coming up with).
So check out the new digs and let me know if it’s as user-friendly as I think it is… Don’t be shy!
Here is a picture of one of the 8 guest books that I made for Paul’s and my wedding. Instead of one big guest book, we have one per table. They’re all different, but only slightly.
(Click on the pic to see an enlarged view.)
The process
I started with artist paper I got from Michaels craft store. It’s called “harvest” because it has brown seeds in it. They also have a busier version of harvest and a few with purple petals and seeds in them, but I wanted something subtle for the books so that printed letters wouldn’t disappear when written over a darker petal. The pieces come in huge 19″x25″ sheets, so the first step was cutting the 6″x6″ pages. I held the artist paper horizontally, then measured and cut 6″ horizontal strips (and wasted about an inch on top).
To get the deckled edge (handmade paper is known for deckled edges, so I thought I’d make it a bit handmade-looking and include this), I measured 6″ widths on the strips of paper and drew a faint pencil line. Then I took a wet paintbrush (really wet, because I wanted to let the water soak into the paper) and ran it up and down the line. I did this with a strip or two, then tore along the wet parts to get the nice edge. Because I had cut the top and bottom with scissors, they’re even (so the book can stand up on even edges when the pages are splayed). And I used the deckled edge for the outside (right side) ofthe pages in the book. Only half of the pages have deckled left sides because that was the edge of the paper, but I put them in the binding so you can’t really tell.
Paper sized, I now made the covers. I cut out 8 different scrapbook papers I had bought (this is part of the differentiation between each book) into 4″x4″, so an inch of the artist paper would show through on each side. I used 4 different cuts (with those funky-cutting scissors you can get in just about any craft store for under $2 each) on the 8 papers — 2 pages of each cut.
My recent investment (about $5, I think) was in a hot glue gun, and I perfected my technique with these guest books. I had been using super glue for, well, everything, up until a few weeks ago. At any rate, I glued the scrapbook paper on the artist paper, Swarovski crystals onto the metal scrapbooking frame (which is set in a diamond on these books), a paper or silk flower inside the frame, and a “love” heart charm under the flower. The letters are alphabet stickers. Four books say “Wedding Wishes” and four say “Guest book.”
Cover done. Now to bind the book. I used a method I use with my Christmas Carols book (another post entirely!), namely thread ribbon (the carols book uses yarn, but you get the point) through punched holes. I could have done only 2 holes, but then I wouldn’t have had the middle ribbon to tie the book together. The middle yellow ribbon is, obviously, an optional bit. It just adds a bit to the book, I think, and balances the aesthetics with the ribbons. I got matching ribbon in both light blue and yellow (the wedding colors) and tied the blue through the punches (not tight, or you won’t be able to open the book or lay it flat when you do). The yellow is glued with two small dabs on the back of the book, allowing for slack so that when you open the book it doesn’t cinch in the middle. Some of the books has the yellow ribbon on top of the paper on the cover, for a horizontal design element, and some has it run behind the paper so it’s barely visible from the hole on the left and then appears again just in the bow to close the book.
Full disclosure: I got the basis of this design from a craft book and sketched it out. Then I added things like the Swarovski crystals and deckled edges (can’t remember if that was part of the book’s design or not, actually). I also changed the binding of the book, as the original design had it be an accordian, which I didn’t particularly like, with just the one middle ribbon. I made each page separate and added the two blue ribbons. I can’t remember the name of the book, but it was something obvious like Wedding Crafts or something like that.
Welcome to my new Frames By Dana blog. I needed a place to post all the ideas I have, especially with our wedding coming up (I’m making a lot of things for the wedding, like save the date cards, invitations, centerpieces, and guest books). Posts here will probably be sporadic, but hopefully interesting. When I have time, I’ll try to write about how I get ideas, designs, materials, etc. Stay tuned!
Looking for an affordable present for my family brought out my crafty side. Who knew?! Read about me.
Frames By Dana 
