Hand made holiday decor can welcome guests with a warm greeting. Cutting your own stencil allows you to quickly make more than one, choose your own font, or look like a pro even though your lettering skills are questionable. Carrie Hawkins of Souvenirs From Wonderland shares her inside secrets here:

Items needed:
- permanent marker with thin tip
- piece of glass, edges taped with duct tape
- stencil blank
- stencil cutter (sometimes called stencil burner, Plaid makes one)
- exacto knife
- tape
- stencil brush
- acrylic paint
- cloth or rag

1. draw or print design (if the letters are too thin, you can draw around them with a marker to plump them up)

2. trace design onto stencil material with marker

3. for letters or designs with a shape within a shape such as letter “A”, make a bridge in one part of the letter, you can fill it in with paint later if you want

4. heat stencil cutter

5. place stencil on glass and use cutter tip to “cut” out your design, the burner tip melts the plastic and you drag the tip as the material melts, pulling toward your body is easier, turn the stencil as you go

6. use the exacto knife to cut away any melted plastic that sticks to the edges of your cuts

7. when stencil is cut, practice on scrap paper first

8. dab the stencil brush into paint and remove some on a cloth or piece of paper to avoid too much paint that will bleed under your stencil, pounce with stencil brush to paint your letters

9. for added depth, apply a second darker color in select spots over the first, then blend with a soft brush

10. remove stencil immediately and wipe away any bleeds

11. fill in gaps from stencil bridges, if desired

• Felted Wool Scraps (old sweaters)
• Fabric Glue
• Scissors
• Safety Pin or Pin back
• Needle/Thread

The next mafia event is coming up soon! “Let Them Eat Art” will take place July 8th, from 6pm to 11pm. It features live music, art, and entertainment. The St. Louis Craft Mafia tents will be near the corner of Manchester and Marshall Ave across across Manchester from Citizen’s National Bank. Click on the logo above for more details.

Thank you to everyone who submitted the adorable and fun (and beautifully drawn!) artwork for the Robots & Kitties Design Competition – every piece submitted will be sold at Craft-O-Matic and the proceeds will go to benefit our nonprofit sponsors.  We appreciate the very generous and giving spirit in which all of our artists participated!  It was a really hard choice…we oohed and aahed over every single one and each piece made us very, very happy – they’re all so different from one another!

The winning design is titled “Kittieoid” and was created by Lori Austin – check out more of her amazing artwork and jewelry at her Etsy shop – www.lalalori.etsy.com.

We are SO in love with Kittieoid and we’re going to have some accompanying merchandise available at Craft-O-Matic with his image on it, all proceeds will of course be donated.  Could you love him any more?  Could you?

Check out this adorable piece of artwork by Emily Abrams!  Guaranteed to make you say “awwwww….”  Adoptable kitties make even a mechanical robot heart melt a little!  You can see more of Emily’s work at www.emilysescape.etsy.com – she’s one of our very own Craft Mafia members!

I hope you love cupcakes. I hope you LOVE locally-sourced organic cupcakes even more, because they’re going to be available at Craft-O-Matic!

We’re so excited to have Farm Fresh Cupcakes at our craft show – Kaylen will be selling her delicious and healthy cupcakes all day, or at least until she runs out! Get ‘em early!

Farm Fresh Cupcakes vends at Tower Grove Farmer’s Market – you can check out her Facebook page here – https://www.facebook.com/farmfreshcupcakes

Another ridiculously cute Robots & Kitties submission for Craft-O-Matic from Joe Mohr.  Joe is a painter (www.JoeMohrPaintings.com) and environmental cartoonist and writer (www.JoeMohrToons.com). He is also an aspiring children’s author and illustrator who has two books of verse published on the iphone. Joe and his wife, kids, and bikes live in U City.

We will be selling a print og this awesome artwork at Craft-O-Matic craft show and the proceeds will benefit our amazing nonprofit sponsors!

Robots & Kitties Design Competition

Craft-O-Matic wants to showcase your artwork and support a great cause!

We are looking for both digital and physical artwork with either a Kitty or Robot (or both) theme. It can be whatever you like – the craftier and cuter, the better! We will feature our favorite submissions on our event blog, STL Craft Mafia blog, Flickr group, Facebook page, etc. – it’s a great way to get your work and websites featured.

The winning design will be featured at the Kitty/Robot booth and MADE’s make-and-take table and whatever awesome crafty projects we come up with between now and then. We will also post an artist profile of the winning artist and feature your promotional information on our event program/brochure.

All physical artwork pieces and digital images (printed by show organizers) will be sold at Craft-O-Matic and the proceeds donated to our featured nonprofits – Tenth Life & MADE Collective. We’re going to make an awesome display featuring this art.

All designs must be submitted to craftomaticstl@gmail or postmarked by May 7th. This gives you two and a half weeks to get creative.

To check out the general contest guidelines, go HERE:

It is FREE to submit artwork. All must be received or postmarked by May 7th. Start creating, my crafties!