Designer Craft Tip

Tips For Painting Unfinished Wood Crafts

There are many different types of paint you can use to paint on unfinished wood. Although you can use that leftover latex paint you painted the walls with, latex paint isn't guaranteed to hold up under duress.

Acrylic paint is the best choice for unfinished wood crafts. Craft stores like Michael's, AC Moore, Hobby Lobby, Wal-Mart, or Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts carry several inexpensive brands of acrylic paint in a tremendous range of colors. Depending on the color of the paint, it will cover better and take fewer coats if you basecoat the wood first with a primer. Let dry, and then paint. After the paint is dry, you should coat your painted surface with an acrylic sealer unless you are using a gloss paint, which has a sealer built in.

Happy crafting!

Fun with Felt

Even though it's summer and temperatures are soaring across the country, there are still plenty of fun crafts you can do with felt. Don't believe me? Then take it from my friends over at FaveCrafts. Their every expanding list of things to do with felt is amazing and will get your creative juices flowing. Check it out!

Designer Craft Tip

Designer Susan Philpott loves experimenting with her craft supplies. Here is a little something she figured out after painting a few suncatchers.

Craft Tip for Different Ways to Use Suncatcher Stain

Did you know Suncatcher stain can be used on other surfaces than our Kelly's Suncatchers?  Suncatcher stain can be used on clear acrylic rhinestones or  beads in a variety of craft projects.

Stay tuned for to this blog for craft projects like making jewelry or rhinestones using suncatchers stain! 

Girl Scouts Get Crafty with Kelly's Suncatchers

Recently a Hobby Town USA store in Cumming, Georgia, hosted a local Girl Scout Troop for a day of crafting. What did the girls do? They painted suncatchers, of course! Here's Keith Pruitt's article about the event from Hobby Merchandiser magazine.

Kelly’s Crafts offers several lines of craft projects that provide inspiration, creative fun and a bit of education while entertaining kids of all ages. One of its lines is Suncatchers. These are a type of stained glass window decoration made to “catch the sun” and allow the sunlight to bring out the brilliance of the colors and shapes. Kelly’s Crafts’ Suncatcher Kits are made of clear plastic and include brushes and transparent liquid stains that allow kids and adults to create beautiful craft art pieces to hang in their windows.

Recently the HobbyTown USA store in Cumming, Georgia, hosted a craft workshop for the Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, Troop 10881, in which the girls painted Kelly’s Crafts Suncatchers. With the wide variety of Suncatchers available, each girl had the opportunity to paint several different ones. They were able to choose from animals, cartoon characters, fairies, sea creatures, pirate paraphernalia and 3-D butterflies.

Girl Scouts is an organization that enables girls and young women to exercise their talents, gain new skills in leadership and practical applications and have fun during the process. There are several types of projects that Girl Scouts perform, including outdoor activities like canoeing and horseback riding, as well as various forms of arts and crafts. Kelly’s Crafts Suncatchers were a natural fit for their arts and crafts endeavors.

On a sunny spring afternoon, Troop 10881 arrived at Hobbytown USA ready to have some fun and promptly went to work. As the girls began to paint the Suncatchers, their conversation varied from an obstacle course the girls had recently completed to “World Thinking Day,” a festival about globalization and world cultures. They also discussed the Suncatchers, deciding which colors to use on the different designs and what they wanted to do with them after they had finished. They considered donating them to the pediatric wing at the local hospital or perhaps to the convalescent home to brighten up the rooms of the elderly patients living there.

Kelly’s Crafts Suncatcher Kits each include multiple containers of paint in various colors, allowing mixing and matching of colors on the various pieces. These kits, many containing multiple Suncatchers, make a workshop like this simple, inexpensive and easy to perform in any hobby shop. The Suncatcher Kits also make an excellent choice of afternoon or evening activity for any family at home. Obviously, the young ladies of Troop 10881 had a blast painting the Kelly’s Crafts Suncatchers, and it was great fun watching them.

Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 8th!

It seems like Mother's Day snuck up this year, doesn’t it? Don’t worry! We have great project ideas to let Mom know that she’s #1 in your heart and mind.

Gift Card Holder
Sometimes the best gift is a gift card to one of Mom’s favorite shops or salons. A great way to give the card a little extra pizzazz is to create a personalized gift card holder just for Mom. She can use it past Mother’s Day to hold other cards, or maybe slip a little picture in behind the gift card, giving Mom an extra reason to keep this lovely little holder close.

Felt Clutch
This darling bag is easy to make and a great gift! Make it out of Mom’s favorite colors, or to coordinate with a special outfit. Mom will love carrying it around and bragging that it was made with love.











Felt Family Tree
If your mom is anything like mine, she loves bragging about her family. Create this tree with favorite family photos and give Mom another opportunity to show off.

Beaded Bracelets
These bracelets are fun and easy to make. Paint messages like “I Love Mom” on the beads or just go simple and paint them in her favorite colors. Either way, Mom will love this gift from the heart, that even small crafters can help make.

New Image Produces Felt From 100% Post-Consumer Recycled Fibers

Do you recycle your plastic water and soda bottles? If you don’t, you should! Recycling those bottles gives them a second, environmentally friendly life in tons of products including building materials, school supplies, lawn furniture and felt!

New Image felt is produced from recycling plastic bottles. Here’s how:

• Plastic bottles are collected and brought to recycling plants


• The bottles are crushed and then broken into chipped plastic bits


• The bits are sorted to filter out dirt and other impurities (Ever shove a food wrapper in an empty plastic bottle?)


• The chipped bits are melted into liquid form and then spun into fiber filaments


• These filaments become the base of the polyester felt we produce

New Image prevents more than one million pounds of waste from entering our landfills every year. In fact, our manufacturing process recycles so effectively that we have virtually eliminated all waste.

Looking for more reasons to recycle? Check this out:

• Every ton of plastic that is recycled saves 3.8 barrels of oil and 7.4 cubic yards of landfill space


• In 2007 the U.S. recycled enough plastic to heat over 2.1 million homes


• Using recycled plastics reduces greenhouse gas emissions

New Image is proud to create products that are made of 100% post-consumer recycled fibers. We are committed to continuing this practice and constantly looking for more and better ways to create environmentally friendly products.

This symbol lets you know that you are crafting with sustainable, earth-friendly products.

Do you have ideas for more ways that we can use recycled products? Let us know what they are!

Back to School Projects

The ringing of the first day of school bell is fastly approaching and, depending on their age, the mood can range from excitement to dread. 

Why not try to create some on of a kind projects to help build or harness excitement for the new school year.  Somethings are as simple as applying a few stickers while others take a little bit more work.

Try your hand at some of these Back to School projects:
1) Handy Bookmarks

This is a great project for those wary First Day of Schoolers.  Trace around their hand  on a piece of felt and then decorate any which way they would like with Stick-It Felt Stickers.

You can spell your name, choose a subject, or turn it into a turkey. 

If you are inspired, you can create 10 different hands to help teach colors, numbers, or shapes.

2) Pencil Pouch

With just a little bit of glue and some imagination, you can transform a simple 9 x 12 felt sheet into a brand new pencil pouch. 

These look great in our new printed felt designs!



Check out the rest of our project pages to find more fun back to school crafts!