Glass Vase's

Now that you have all those clean wine bottles, what do you do with them?

Here are some of the things I've been doing:

You can see most of these items for sale in the Glass section of my Etsy shop!

Enjoy!

Upcycled Wine Bottles - Getting Those Labels Off 2.0!

I realized in my post the other day I left out something important; not all wine bottles have glued on labels! So what do you do when the next wine bottle you want to use has a label or barcode like this:

Since these labels are painted on it's easy to think you can't use them, either because you want just clear glass or because the label is so thick it'll show up even painted over. Well here is my little secret to getting painted labels and barcodes off bottles:

Vinegar!

Any white vinegar will do, this is just what I happened to have on hand. Here's how you do it:

Fill your sink or a pan with vinegar.

Place the bottle in a leave it to set for awhile. I 

like to work on other crafty things while waiting.

Since the vinegar wont be reusable (unless you can pour it back into the bottle)
 it's a good idea to save up bottles and do a whole bunch at a time.

You can test the bottle labels by wiping with a sponge.

If the label doesn't wipe away easily let it soak longer.

Here is the difference after about 3 minutes soaking.

Vinegar will also take any use by dates off if they are painted on.

Here the use by date has been wiped off.

Here is a bottle with the label, and one with the label 

wiped off.

Here you can see half the plane and wine name wiped away.

Once you wipe the label away, rinse the bottle with warm

water and dry it off. If the bottle is not rinsed, the vinegar will

dry on it with paint flecks and it will look dirty. If this happens

the bottle will need to be re-soaked in vinegar and wiped off again.

Now your bottle is ready to be turned into a beautiful piece of art!

Fuzzy Photography

I got some fuzzy new Ameraucana chicks and I just had to take some pictures of them. Aren't they so adorable?! 

I love how curious they are! The darker one runs to me every time I put my hand in his box. Pretty soon they will be big enough to go into the coop with the older layers! I also snapped this picture of my cat Honey the other day:

She loves to sit in the cupboard! I think its so funny she is the almost the same color as the wood. In other news: it's spring! My tulips are starting to come up and that means it's time to bring out the spray paints again, so I will soon have more items in the painting section of my shop. Check back often to see what's new!

Behind On Everything

I know I said I was going to try to blog several times a week, but since I haven't been doing many art projects there hasn't been anything to blog about. But today there is!

Here is my latest bit of glass art:

Patron Chrome and Gold Candle Holders

I painted the bottles with a different technique and am very pleased with how different they turned out. Both are painted with the same two bottles of chrome and gold paint, but the first one looks almost like it has a coat of black flecks as well. Both of these will be going up on Etsy sometime today =)

Also my camera and printer should be arriving today, so there will be many more things to blog, like pictures of art and artistic pictures! I'm so exited to play with all the camera settings and have a photo printer! I'm sure I'll blog again soon with the first few pictures I take with my camera!

What's Up Wednesday

Well today I don't have any messy projects going for a Wacky Wednesday, so I thought I'd just tell you what I've been up to lately. It's a What's Up Wednesday!

I made almost a dozen egg ornaments yesterday, so there are new eggs in my shop! Here is a picture of my favorite one:

Fading Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures In Wonderland Egg Ornament

I've also been playing around with spray paint ideas since we've had a few warm days in a row here. Maybe I'll bring out the spray paints tomorrow if its warm in the morning. I also need to hunt around some specialty paint shops in town for a few specific colors I need =) I have several ideas for stencils and reverse stencils for spray painting that I need to have made before I can take on any big spray paint projects.

And coming soon to my Etsy shop: A Photography section! I'll be ordering my new camera and photo printer this weekend and I'm so excited to have be able to take pictures again! And this will be my first photo printer so I'm sure it'll be an adventure figuring out how to use!

In other news, I'm in the process of figuring out what I need to make.... Wine Bottle Tiki Torches! I'm excited to get everything here so I can make a few test tiki torches for myself and my family!

I have so many projects going right now, I really need to slow down and do one at a time, but that's just not the way my artistic creativity works! I hope all your artistic projects are going fantastic as well!

Wacky Wednesday!

Well its time for another wacky Wednesday! This week I got to spray paint in the house due to our floor being up for repairs. This is a picture of my bedroom floor, the white and green in the square in the middle is where my painting was. Before the linoleum goes back in the floor will be painted with a sealant so it didn't matter if I made a mess. Hooray for messes!

In other wacky news, one of my hens stuck her face through the chicken wire and managed to sheer off her neck feathers pulling her face back in. Now she looks like a turkey!

Falling Behind and Catching Up!

I've been a little busy here lately and so guess what I did? I missed a Sneak Peak Sunday, Motivation Monday, and a Wacky Wednesday! Well it's time to get caught up here, so here is the sneak peak:

Can you guess what I'm going to do with this? =)

And as for a Motivation Monday - 

Spray paint always motivates me. I plan on bringing out my spray paints again soon and painting a bunch of pictures with them. I will definitely be taking a heater to the garage with me! But what do I paint? Well here is one of my previous paintings:

And my Wacky Wednesday? Well the only thing I made a total mess of this week was my car. So I don't have any projects to show you that have gone wrong, guess we'll skip the Wacky Wednesday post then.

On to my Finished Friday! I finished a few more egg ornaments which I added to my Etsy shop, along with the finished painting from last week. Here are some of the eggs:

This egg is just a tad drunk =P

This one is perfect for a unique wedding gift!

You can find the eggs for sale here: Wedding Egg, Cheers Egg

So looks like I'm all caught up on posts now, but I will be working overtime for the holidays  so there will be no more posts until I'm back on a regular schedual. Until then:

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Finished Friday!

So what have I finished this week? Only one painting sadly, but I did manage to blow out and string a few more eggs for etching! I really need to move out to the country though, this whole 4 chickens per back yard thing (OK so I have 5, shhhhh!) is making for slow egg production. The fact that it's winter doesn't help either. But I digress, here's my finished painting:

This painting is a mixture of oil paints and oil pastels.

I don't have any pictures of my eggs, but there are about a dozen that are ready to be etched. And I do have a few more projects that are in the works. I can't wait until its warm outside again so I can spray paint again. 

In other news, I made it into another treasury on Etsy =) You can find it here, <3 My Whimsical heart <3. This is the piece that made it into the treasury: 

Butterfly Glass Candle Holder

I hope all your projects are going well this week!

Painting And Pricing

Since I'm new to selling anything I make, I'm still trying to figure out the right pricing. Lots of people favorite my items, but I've had very few sales. So I think I'm going to go through my Etsy shop and reprice a few items. Maybe that will help. I also need to paint faster so I have more things to add every day, and I need to start listing glass projects.

There just aren't enough hours in the day to get every thing done I want to!

It's also a bit cold for painting right now. Since my favorite medium is spray paint, I can't exactly paint in the house. I need to set up a few heaters in the garage so I can bring out my paints =) I've been working on a few projects with oil paints, but I get frustrated with how long oil takes to dry.


But anyway, here's a sneak peek of my latest painting:

I know it looks like a bit of a mess right now, but just wait till it's finished! Now I'm off to my day (I mean night) job!

Etsy Treasuries

Just wanted to mention that treasuries are a super cool feature on Etsy. It's sort of a list of favorite items that all kind of go together. And I made my first one the yesterday titled Bit Of Blue. You can check it out here if you want.

I've also been featured in two treasuries since opening my Etsy shop, which is very exciting! My JOY egg ornament was put into a treasury called  Spread The Joy, and my 'Twin Night' painting was put into Trees Of Life.

I can't wait to add more items to my shop! It's really uplifting to know that other people enjoy my work as much as I do! =)

JOY Etched Egg Ornament.

Welcome!

Welcome to KTBelleCrafts' Blog! This is where I will be sharing my artsy projects and my excitement about finally being able to sell my work!

My shop where I sell my artwork can be located here.

Fell free to browse my shop, ask me questions about my art projects, and compliment or critique my work!

I do many different art projects, everything from cutting glass, hand blowing eggs, and painting with oil, water colors and spray paint. I like to keep busy and try just about every artsy craft that I come across!

Here are some pictures of my latest bits of work:

Christmas Tree laser etched into a hand blown chicken egg.

'Sun and Moon' spray painted yin yang.

'Twin Night' Spray paint.

'Two Souls' Oil on canvas.

Tree of Life laser etched onto hand blown chicken egg.

Thanks for stopping by!