Crafts n' Things Magazine

 Here is a fun holiday how-to project we created for the December 2012 issue of Crafts n' things magazine. We supplied them the step-by-step text and the finished snowmen magnet pieces so the magazine could photograph them.  Here is how the how-to looked in the issue.

These pictures below are shots that we took ourselves to submit the how-to project for consideration in the holiday issue.  The idea behind this project came to us when our son would keep ripping out pictures and writing down all the new toys he wanted for Christmas and sticking them all over the house. With these wish list magnets it could help us organize all his requests in one spot. 

Happy Holidays!

Stitch Craft CREATE magazine feature...

WOW! This year sure did fly by quickly. We never had a chance to tell you about our Creative Business profile we did for this wonderful inspirational magazine; stitch | craft | create; that was on newsstands this Christmas. I believe you can still order a back issue online here.

Working with Shannon the editor and Jennifer who interview us for the story couldn't have been an easier process. We were able to supply all our own photos and we think the piece came out very nice. 

Shannon told us she was thrilled to profile polymer clay artist since they haven't had clay artist in the magazine before. 

Here is a our two two page spread profile:

 

How cute is the fun graphic of our name for the headline of the story.

If you haven't seen this magazine before, be sure to check out an issue next time you are at a book store.  This seasonal magazine is a fun, whimsical, beautifully designed inspirational read.

Holiday How-to Christmas: Penguin Snow Day

Now that the Christmas season is over, we can't think of a better project to do on the cold and snowy days that are ahead. Our new 2012 winter  how-to project is online at Polyform. You can follow these easy steps to create your own winter wonderland with this penguin trio snow day sculpture.

and once you figure out the basic steps you can let your creativity go wild. You can even add little hearts to your penguins and change out the snow sign for your special Valentine.

 

Be sure to like Swirly on Facebook and if you really enjoy this project and would like us to keep creating more it would be so nice if you could "like" the project on Polyform Product fb page and comment telling them. ~ Lianne & Paul

 This project is for personal, non-commercial use.

SoWa Holiday Market 2012

 

The holidays have come and gone :(  But now that we have a little free time we can catch you up and share some of the fun things that happened this month. First one is the SoWa Holiday Market that was in early December. We have been doing this Holiday Market for many, many years and it has always been a home run for us.  The promoter does a wonderful job getting PR for this show and he always brings in the crowds.

The event was held in a new location this year–Benjamin Franklin Institute. This is always a little stressful not knowing if the new location is going to bring in the shoppers. We also had a smaller booth space which required us to rethink our booth layout.

We worked setting up  right up to the last minute when the doors opened early Saturday morning.

Excited so show off our new frosted tree display with our new collection of snowball snowman and Santa ornaments.

The response was very positive to our new designs and many of them found new homes this holiday.

We wished we had more time to take more pictures but we were pretty swamped from start to close both days.

Thanks to everyone who came to see us and all the wonderful artisains at this show and it's new location. 

A Sweet + Swirly collaboration

 

These cookies will last forever!

We have been meaning to post this exciting news on the blog here for months but everything happened so fast this season, that we just kept getting side tracked.

But if you are following us on Facebook or

visited us at our craft shows this season you most likely already know. 

But for the few who may not know here is a quick run down. 

 

Dani Fiori, founder of SweetDaniB.com, is a cookie decorating expert. Her clients include Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren as well as many other party and event hosts who agree with her mantra that "Life is Sweet!". Her holiday cookies have been featured in several top publications such as 

Martha Stewart Living, Good Housekeeping and Real Simple. 

When Dani was looking for a way to preserve her cookie designs, she found us through social media earlier this year and thought what a great way to have her cookies last forever for her customers!  After a few chats through email we knew this was such a nice fit for both of us.  Dani has such beautiful cookie designs that we all felt feel and look of what we create here at Swirly Designs.  We are always looking for something new to offer each year and from the responses we received, everyone one felt the same way. A Sweet + Swirly collaboration was born! 

 

The two cookie designs we decided to try for this Christmas season was a Santa and a Snowglobe.

What we found challenging but also fun about creating these cookies is trying to replicate in clay the texture and color of gingerbread, making the clay resemble her white sprinkles for Santa's beard and searching for just the right seed beads for the snow in the Snowglobe. All the while making sure these designs represents Dani's cookies but also have that Swirly twist to them.

 

 

Comparing the faux with the real deal.

  These Snowglobe cookies are waiting for some sparkly glitter and paper snowflakes.

We were thrilled of how cute these Santas came out with their faux sprinkles beard, candy cherry nose and glittery suit.

 

As we were finishing up the final touches to these designs, Dani happened to be in the area in late October doing a show in Rhode Island; so she and her husband made a little detour after the show and stopped by to meet us, see the studio and the work in progress of the ornaments. 

You can check out her thoughts here.

 

What makes these limited edition ornaments extra sweet, is that they are all signed with love by Dani & Swirly Designs on the back and come packed similar to how Dani packages her real cookies!

If you missed out on getting your own Sweet + Swirly limited faux Santa or Snowglobe designs.  I believe we might have less then a hand full left. Pick one up now for next year or stay tuned to see if something else comes out of this yummy collaboration. ;-) 

Lianne, Dani, and Paul in the Swirly Studio.

Sweet + Swirly

Dani also treated our little ones with some of her really sweet cookies and these pictures say it all.   

Have a Sweet + Swirly Christmas!

Why yellow and silver for Christmas?

We say: why not. What is so great about about being an artist and designer is that YOU have all the creative control and the final say on what subject matters to create and the colors you envision for your designs.

So when we decided to design this mini woodland winter ornament set this season, we choose to go in the not your typical Christmas palette of reds or greens, but instead to try a bold yellow, glittery white and shiny silver. We think the end result is smashing!

The collection did sell out and we are sure everyone who received them this holiday smiled with glee  when admiring these cuties.
  

A little Swirly Christmas eye candy

As Christmas comes to end for us here at Swirly:( we can finally take a breather for a bit and get caught up with our blog and share some fun happenings until we have to jump right back into Swirling a new holiday collection.

The months leading up to any holiday launch are quite busy; we are juggling lots of different things here at the studio. On one hand we are designing and finishing up all our new designs; on the other we are photographing each piece and getting them ready to go online. And then on the other hand we have the business part which involves monitoring the website, keeping up with emails and processing all the orders-making sure all orders are packaged and shipped to ensure everyone gets their Swirlies in time for their celebration. Sometimes we wonder how it all gets done, but if the big red suite wearing, white bearded guy can do it all in one night, then we can too!

Knowing that we have such wonderful followers we always try to take as many pictures as we can of our collections. Most of the designs will find new homes and we're left with only the images to enjoy. Here are some of those "beauty" shots that we just thought were too nice not to share.

And bear with us over the next week or so as we catch up with the blog - we may be posting A LOT! There'll be more Swirly posts to enjoy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!