Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Monday, March 25, 2013

Using Vintage Flower Cabochons: DIY Embellished Sun (flower) glasses

 
We've been long enamored of Dolce & Gabbana's Autumn/Winter 2012-13 collection. Big accessories with even bigger jewelry makes this collection remarkable.  
With spring vacation just around the corner, and the promise of warm sandy beaches in the near future, we got to thinking about some pairs of stand out sunglasses.
Inspired by Dolce & Gabanna and this and this, we whipped up a couple pairs of our own beflowered sunnies.
 


We pulled out a large box of flower cabochons and used glue dots to temporarily adhere the cabs to the glasses to plan out a design. 


All of the vintage Japanese and vintage West Geman flower cabochons used are available at Bumbershoot Supplies.
 
 
When we were pleased with the arrangement of flowers, we used E6000 glue to permanently adhere the cabochons to the glasses. (Our pointers for working with E6000 glue here!)
Definitely wait a while for each piece to become firm before gluing the next piece on. 
With these bright sunnies everyone at the pool will know that you're no shrinking violet! 

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

New on Pinterest: Easter Parade

Easter and Spring are just around the corner. With the return of those seasonal Cadbury eggs we're feeling very spring-y as well. On our latest Pinterest board "Easter Parade" we pulled together some of our favorite images. Check them out:

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Spring Fun: Hand Carved Bumbershoot Rubber Stamps

 
Here at Bumbershoot we love rubber stamps. We use them in our mixed media art all the time. So we thought it would be fun to make our own stamps based on our logo, the little green bumbershoot.
 
 
We hand carved our stamps out of a block of carving rubber, but you can even use an ordinary eraser as a base. You can find a really excellent tutorial on how to do that here. Geninne's Art Blog did a whole series of interesting posts on stamp carving too! We used Speedball's block printing cutting tool for cutting and gouging the block, and ordinary scissors for trimming the completed stamp.
 
 
We experimented with different sizes and even freehanded this little stylized bell-shaped bumbershoot. 
 
 
In the end we liked best the results we got from tracing the bumbershoot logo and transferring it to the rubber. We used ordinary waxed paper to trace and transfer.
 
 
Jim made this stamp! It is our favorite, with the really crisp lines and perfect size. 
 

We had a lot of fun going through our stamp pad collection and trying out colors. Those test sheets are now a work of art as well. They would make great wrapping paper.
We had so much fun carving out little bumbershoots, and we're looking forward to sharing them with you. Watch your invoices - you never know when a colorful little bumbershoot may appear!

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Bumbershoot Designs Supplies March 2013 Special for Newsletter Subscribers



Vintage Glass Bead Drop Earring Kit, free with purchase!
Our treat for March for our newsletter subscribers is a new earring kit featuring lovely emerald vintage Japanese glass bead drops and new pendants from our antiqued brass line.
During March, we will send all necessary components to make the earrings shown in the photo above, with any purchase at Bumbershoot Supplies or Bumbershoot Designs.  See your March 1 and March 15 newsletters for details and the coupon code.

Also, don't forget your 1-time free shipping offer that you received when you signed up for our newsletter.

And YES, you can combine specials. So you can have the earring kit and the free shipping code you received upon signing up for the newsletter in the same order!

Not yet a newsletter subscriber? You can read past issues and you can sign up right here and get your free shipping and earring kit at your next purchase!