Kaleidoscope Kreator has been mentioned a couple of times on other blogs in the past few days.  I thought you might like to see how other people are using KK.

SewCalGal wrote an article on how to use kaleidoscope images from Kaleidoscope Kreator in Electric Quilt (quilt design software).  This is something that I’ve been meaning to research for quite a while now, so I’m thrilled that SewCalGal has already spelled out the basics!

The Design Team at Creatively Green has been busy with KK again!

• Ali MacDonald used KK to make a beautiful sympathy card for a close friend.
• And Nicole Gailliot used KK to create a Valentine’s Day Gift Set.

If you know of any other blogs that have mentioned KK (or if you’ve written one yourself), but sure to let us know!

Our Make & Take project at the CHA Craft Super Show

The Dilemma

When we decided to participate in the CHA Craft Super Show (in Anaheim a couple of weeks ago), we were encouraged to offer a Make & Take project for attendees. (A “Make & Take” project means that attendees make a project in our booth and then take it with them.) The trick was coming up with a fun project that didn’t take too much time to make. I wanted to do our layered kaleidoscope ornaments, but was worried that it would take too long to cut out each of the kaleidoscope pieces. As I was wandering through my local craft store looking for ideas, I realized that we could use paper punches that come in graduated sizes – just the ticket for the layered ornaments! (You may wonder why I hadn’t thought of using punches before. That’s a really good question! )

The Solution

Marvy-Uchida deserves a major shout-out here. Our M&T would not have been nearly as successful without their help!  continue reading…

Every so often a customer will send us a photo of something that they have made with Kaleidoscope Kreator. And more often than not we just love what we see! Now that we have a blog, we are happy to be able to share some of these with you.

Yesterday we received an e-mail from Julie Miller of Julie Miller Photography. She made an awesome card for the holidays using Kaleidoscope Kreator with the Quilters’ Polygons Template Pack. (I’m pretty sure she also used Photoshop to create the kaleidoscope composite and layout the card.)

Julie Miller's holiday card made with Kaleidoscope Kreator

I love this card because it shows the “genius” of kaleidoscopes.  Who would have thought that a photo of “water seen through a catamaran’s web of ropes” could look like icy snowflakes? Brilliant!

Many thanks to Julie for allowing us to share her kaleidoscope composite with you!  You can see more of Julie’s photos and some of the other kaleidoscopes that she has created at her website: www.juliemillerphoto.com.

OK, I know you’re probably thinking that Road to California IS a quilt show. But this year there was a quilt entitled “The Quilt Show” that won the Judges Choice award. Why is this quilt so special? Laura Peterson (the artist) used Kaleidoscope Kreator in the making of the quilt!  Of course, that’s not the only reason the quilt is special. It is one of the most unique and creative quilts I’ve seen. Laura made 12 mini quilts (a few of them are super mini!) to hang within the larger quilt and one of those quilts was made with Kaleidoscope Kreator.  You can read all about the making of the The Quilt Show and see close-up photos on Laura’s website: http://laurapetersonquilts.com. Check it out! And congratulations on your award Laura!

Kaleidoscope Kreator was the Featured Product for the January 2010 Creatively Green* Design Team Challenge! The designers came up with some very creative projects using Kaleidoscope Kreator and we were very pleased to have designer Jennifer Hansen’s cards in our booth at the CHA Craft Super Show. Take a look at their creations (a small sampling is shown below) and be inspired!

Creatively Green Design Team Projects

You can find more details about the projects on the Creatively Green blog:

Getting Scrappy by Jackie Laing

Kaleidoscope Kreations by Nicole Terry

Creating a Tangible Memory by Alison MacDonald

Easy Vintage Paper Posies by Nicole Gailliot

Recycled Container Idea by Amy Duff

Not Just for Flowers by Marcie Morgan

Sweet and Sassy Layouts by Nicole Gailliot

Creating Your Own Patterned Paper by Nicole Gailliot

Card Creations by Jennifer Hansen

*Creatively Green is dedicated to providing you with unique, quality, eco-friendly, art and craft supplies. Check out their 100% recycled card stock (and if you like Nicole’s paper posies, you can find those in the store too!)

Welcome to our new blog!

Here’s where I’ll be sharing tips and tricks for Kaleidoscope Kreator, project ideas and other (hopefully interesting) aspects of my crafting work.  If you scroll down, you’ll find I’ve already added some posts that you might enjoy. Your feedback is always welcome – let me know what you’d like to see!

Thanks for visiting!

Original photo

OK, I know what you’re thinking… How difficult can it be to save a kaleidoscope? Really, it’s not difficult at all! But based on the number of questions we get about this, I thought maybe I should address it here on the blog. For this discussion, we’ll start with this picture of a building on the San Diego Wharf.

There are three different “saves” in Kaleidoscope Kreator 3 (aka KK3): Save Kaleidoscope, Save Workspace and Save As Pattern.

Save Kaleidoscope saves the kaleidoscope design to an image file (such as JPEG). Figure 1 shows one such saved kaleidoscope.
continue reading…

Kaleidoscope Flower Ornament

If you own Kaleidoscope Kreator Favorite Projects Volume 1, then you might recognize the techniques used in these ornaments. They’re a combination of our layered ornaments and our 3-D flower cards. You can use any digital image you’d like (flowers are particularly colorful), but I find it’s fun to use a photo of kids or pets. The original photo is not immediately apparent in the final ornament and it’s a fun to watch the reaction when someone recognizes the subject of the photo.

Supplies

Kaleidoscope Kreator™ 3
Computer with inkjet printer & plain paper
Glossy photo paper (lightweight)
Digital or scanned photo
Ranger Stickles™ glitter glue
Sharp scissors
Paper piercer
Two brads
Two 4-inch squares of coordinating cardstock
Removable adhesive
10-inch cording or ribbon
Red liner tape (or similar high-tack tape)

Instructions

continue reading…

I had completely cleaned up my studio at the beginning of the year and though there were plastic tubs of fabric in another room and boxes of supplies that lined one wall because I didn’t have anywhere else to put them, I was feeling pretty good about things. Then in the first four months of the year I had to prepare booth samples for two shows in January, design and create multiple projects (with step-outs) for two TV tapings in February and March and finally prepare for three more shows in April. Oh, and there was a trip to the Philippines thrown in the middle of all that. The end result was a complete disaster in my studio!

Studio - Before photo #1

I’m totally embarrassed to show how bad things got, but I have a strange feeling that I may not be alone. So in the spirit of sharing the process that I went through to create a usable studio space, here is the disaster in all its glory.

I had no idea where to begin. The biggest problem was that I simply didn’t have enough storage space. The only “official” storage I had were a wall of plastic drawers. I had lots of other “storage” in boxes and plastic bins, but I didn’t even know what was inside of those any more.

continue reading…