Lark Crafts

In this video tutorial you will learn how to transfer images onto wood using a gel transfer technique. This technique is a great way to incorporate photos and found images into your collage and decoupage projects. In the video I have chosen to use colored laser prints transfered to wood. Wood is preferable because of its rigidity, but a heavy paper would also yield similar results. Continue reading for full step-by-step instructions and to see the finished piece.

Continue reading...

Working in the publishing industry for as long as I have, you would think that I would always have letters, words, paragraphs, and more on my mind. Yes, indeed, it’s true. I must say, though, that things have been a been a bit magnified lately thanks to our brand new book, FOCUS: Letters, just out this month. This fourth book in our FOCUS series encourages all of us to view the world around us with new eyes with a collection of approximately 250 photographs of letters of all varieties, captured by people from around the world.

Letters are the building blocks to our written language and our keys to unlocking communication in the world around us. Oftentimes the vehicle is just as interesting as the message with an infinite variety of ways in which letters can be designed and displayed. This book shines a spotlight on all the letters of the alphabet and the many ways in which they decorate our world.

Just look around you as you walk city streets, and you’ll find them smiling at you from a neon sign, graffiti on an alley wall, or peeking up at you from the sidewalk. Soon you’ll find yourself admiring the artistry of a hand-painted logo, the flaking paint serving as a testament of time along the side of a barn, the bold simplicity of something you may see everyday but can appreciate in a new light once taken out of its usual context. Letters can also be awaiting your discovery where you least expect them. Doesn’t that cloud look a lot like an “L,” that colorful bike wheel an “O,” those wooden boards like an “E,” and the angle of that building like a “Z”?

Check out this fun little preview video highlighting some great shots (in alphabetic order, of course) from the book:

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to enter our big giveaway for all four books in the FOCUS series! You’ve got until 9 p.m. EST on Monday, May 23 to enter.

And while you’re at it, check out our earlier post where Travis chronicles his scavenger hunt to find found letters around the Lark office. Take a little time this weekend to look around you to discover all of the wonderful letters in your home, neighborhood, and beyond!

After reading “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” I noticed how the the paperback cover design has only made the series more iconic. The strong graphic treatment makes me think of the main character’s bold tattoo and how powerful graphic design can be.

And although I don’t have a tattoo of my own (if I did- it would be the Orin from the cover of the Neverending Story book cover), I love the graphic elements of them. So how can someone who loves tattoos rock the strong look (don’t say temporary tattoos…) without committing? 

Continue reading...

Depending on where you live, you may identify with the adage “April showers bring May flowers.” Here in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, we’ve been enjoying a slight twist on that phrase: April showers bring May…showers. All these rainy days have been making me miss my cute polka-dotted umbrella (which my dog elected to reassemble last year), and I’ve grown much more aware of other folks’ umbrellas, rain boots, coats, and general rainy day gear. As you may imagine, Etsy is home to a treasure trove of rainy-day-inspired creativity, so I’m sharing some of my favorite finds with you here. Thanks to the talented artists featured below!

1. “April Bear” art print, by corelladesign

2. “The Fanciful Ballerina Returns” photo, by photosbykaren

3. “Fishing in Oregon” print, by AlexWijnen

4. Rain Drop Hoody, by kachingdesign

5. “Still” art print, by michelemaule

6. “Happy Tears” print, by memoir

7. Brosche: Up in the Sky, by mywalkingdesaster

8. “Rainy Day” print, by majalin

9. Brushed Silver Rain Cloud Earrings, by paperfacestudio

10. “Ocean Rain” painting, by brianelston

11. Rain Sideways Tshirt, by sealmaiden

12. “Fantastic Flying Fox” print, by PeppermintDaydreams

Continue reading...

Marthe Le Van’s new book 30-Minute Rings is the latest title in Lark’s 30-Minute series, with books on earrings and necklaces preceding it and a book on bracelets still to come. 30-Minute Rings is filled with 60 quick, inspirational projects for jewelers from a host of leading designers: from Raissa Bump, Colleen Baran, Boris Bally, and Nina Dinoff to Aja Engel, Dilyana Evtimova, Shirlee Grund, Lora Hart, and Sim Luttin to Nicole Jacquard, Rebecca Mojica, George Swanke, Roberto Zanon … projects from 49 leading jewelers are packed into this special jewelry design book.

Will the book appeal to you? I’m posting PDFs of three of the projects so you can find out! Click on each project photo to download the PDF. Enjoy, and please let us know what you think about the projects and the book. Happy making!

It’s all stash, all the time this May over here at Lark, and we’ve had helpful tips, a tutorial from Stash Happy: Patchwork’s Cynthia Shaffer, free projects, and even a scavenger hunt giveaway. Now we really want to hear more about the little caches of fabric you’ve been saving in every niche nook and closet cranny you can find. Vote in our poll and share the patterns in your stash with us!

For more stitchy good times, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr!

We’re giddy about our stashes this month, in case you’ve forgotten, as we delight in the release of Stash Happy: Patchwork. We’ve had a free project (or two) and there’s a cool scavenger hunt underway now that results in a big fat prize package for the lucky winner. Today I wanted to share a couple of techniques to help you use the colors in your stash to best advantage.

Continue reading...

(I’ve been getting questions from all around the beading community asking what Jamie Cloud Eakin’s book Dimensional Bead Embroidery, due out in October, is all about and how it differentiates from her best-selling Beading with Cabochons. Figuring Jamie would explain it much better than I can, I invited her to write this post for the blog. You can ask your local bead store or bookstore to look for and carry Dimensional Bead Embroidery, a fantastic book that I expect to be among the hottest crafting titles of the fall season. It’s already available for pre-sale online, too.)

Jamie Cloud Eakin

I was inspired to write this new book by all of the fabulous creations I’ve seen over the years that people have created based on Beading with Cabochons. I love how the techniques and methods in that book have inspired people to bead their own fabulous creations.

There are three main areas I wanted to address with Dimensional Bead Embroidery. One was expanding on surface stitches. It seems that many people solely use backstitch, the most common bead embroidery stitch. While the backstitch is very versatile, it is exciting to expand the techniques you can use to cover a surface. Doing so allows you to create more texture and opens up so many more design possibilities. The book includes a chapter that explores and illustrates surface stitches to give a new dimension to bead embroidery.

I am constantly shopping in stores, on the Internet, and at the bead shows and lapidary shows I love. When I see something interesting, I want to use it somehow in bead embroidery. This was the second main area I wanted to address: how to incorporate many types of things instead of just using cabochons.

Woodlands Secrets Purse from Dimensional Bead Embroidery

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE using cabochons, but I find I get very inspired using all kinds of other components. So there’s a chapter in Dimensional Bead Embroidery devoted to how to use all those other kinds of things you find in bead stores—and how to use bead embroidery techniques to incorporate them into your designs. These techniques add a whole new dimension to beadwork.

Thirdly, I wanted to expand on the other areas that have made Beading with Cabochons so popular. So there are more bezel stitches, edge techniques, and attachment methods. These techniques expand the universe of design possibilities, and I hope will inspire more beaders.

Continue reading...