Its getting close to crunch time, so I thought you’d LOVE seeing quick & easy gift ideas for this week’s tutorials.

First one – my own for the grandparent or Aunt who has everything.  A mini album made from a recycled board book.

Another GREAT one for using up odds & ends from other sewing projects, here is Alisa Burke‘s take on Upcycled Coasters.

Sara over at Creative Jewish Mom has this GREAT tutorial for making party favours.  Who wouldn’t want a Christmas cracker like this instead of the usual ones.

Check out Sara’s tutorial also on potatoe printing on those plain brown boxes or bags HERE.

Regan over at Stitch in My Side has given an idea for my leather scraps I got from the thrift store…..these FABULOUS leather flowers, but I will use them on scrapbook pages and/or art pieces.

and last but certainly not least…

A sewing project from Film in the Fridge (I love their name)- pillowcases….who doesn’t need pillowcases.  These could be for Grandmas, Aunts, Kids, etc.  I like the french seam on these ones.

THANK YOU for reading!

For this week’s Tuesday Tutorials, I will list some of the tutorials that caught my eye over the past while.

Kristina Werner is doing a series of Holiday Cards on her blog right now.

From Wee Folk Art, a lovely Poinsettia Garland.

On Craft Gossip, they adapted a BHG felted bead tutorial to make a lovely Felt Bead Necklace (even I could wear this one – as I’m allergic to metal).

Elsa at Just a Few Designs has You Tube videos for mini albums, one that I did for my Mom (for Christmas this year, just have photos to add to it)..  This first one is Mini One Page album.

A second one from Elsa at Just a Few Designs is for 12 X 12 One Page Mini Album.  This is next on my list to work on.  I have done one page so far.

Something that I might be making for a couple people, these Handwritten PILLOWS from Alisa Burke.  I will be using some quotes that I LOVE and find inspiring.

Last one for this week but certainly not the least…..a great tutorial for making simple Quilted Placemats from Ayu at Pink Penguin.

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I was beginning to think I was in a colour rut……using the same colours over & over in everything I was working on.  I had seen THIS blog post by Alisa Burke and thought – YES, I should challenge myself to learn more about colour.  I spent the past month or more, learning all the theory, etc.  I went to stores & picked up all the different paint swatches….people thought I was weird taking one of each row, etc.  My Mom thought it funny that I was so EXCITED about paint swatches!!!

I took this notebook  & turned it into my Colour Journal – a dollar store find a couple years ago (I bought several),  that has a thick plastic cover to protect the inside cover.  I’ve used this kind of notebook before HERE.  I gessoed that inside cover, then I made a colour wheel with some punched out magazine pages (I have a bunch of them in a plastic box).

I had the scalloped punched circle in my paper scraps – its from a paper I painted last year.   I added some Debbie Travis paint swatch cards to the top & bottom, as they have some colour definitions on them – in this case, “Cheerful Colours is a happy mix of lively colours & bright accents.”

Inside my Colour Journal, I did the Primaries, the Secondaries, then the tints, shades & tones.  I punched out some of those collected paint swatches for these studies.  It was a challenge to find the tonal ones….which is adding grey to colours.

After doing studies on Split Complementary, Tetradic, Analogous, Complementary & a square…..I was wanting something more.

So, I treated myself to Alisa Burke‘s Color Your World class…..she’s having a special this week.  I am enjoying the class….yesterday saw me going around town looking for inspiration for the colour I picked for my Monochromatic challenge.  Below is what I came up with.  Now, I’ll be mixing paints to get the whole palette….from the light to the dark.

If you click on the mosaic, it will take you to the larger photos in my Flickr album.

I painted some of the inside pages of the journal with gesso so the studies I do will show up better.

Once, the paint mixing study is done, then I will make a small project using this colour – I am allowed to add one or two neutrals.

I am thinking of challenging myself like this every other week – pick a colour and find things around me in that colour.  I’ll pick colours I wouldn’t normally go to.

How about you?  Are there colours you wouldn’t think about using?

THANK YOU for reading!