a peek at fort collins

While I have been super busy the last couple of days, I have been stealing a little time here and there to explore the Fort Collins. Such a fun town- super hip, great food, shops, galleries, home to CSU, old brick buildings, free wireless downtown, trails, cute neighborhoods and the MOST bikes I have seen since the Netherlands (this is what you call a bike friendly town!) Here is a little peek...

I've Taken Over

I have a confession to make- I have a terrible habit of completely taking over and making a "creative mess" in any space that I am in- this includes traveling. Currently I'm in Colorado and spent the last day and 1/2 at my mother in law's house, which I completely took over with all of my supplies. Now I am settled into my hotel room in Fort Collins (its the cutest hotel-more on this later in the week) and I have totally taken over!

I've taken over the entire floor with all of my supplies and projects for sorting and organizing for tomorrow's photo shoot.

I've covered the bed in fabric and sketches for more sorting and organizing

I've set up my sewing machine for some last minute sewing.

Brushes are in the bathroom sink.

And I turned the bed into an office space. Its just like home :)

Important Online Class Announcement

As I mentioned in my post on Saturday, I've made it through one whole year as a full time entrepenuer and artist. And I promised myself that when I hit the one year mark I would reevaluate, tweak, change, learn and move forward in new and different ways. I am at the beginning of starting this process and the first thing on my list is my online classes.

When I first started offering online classes, they were set up in a five week format and were designed feel like a live class- a limited amount of time where you focus on creating during those five weeks. After receiving requests to make them accessible at any time, I decided to open them up for unlimited access. I am incredibly disappointed (sad, mad, frustrated) to announce that I have been forced to change the way I offer my classes due to MAJOR changes on the site I use- Ning. I have been frantically trying to figure out a way to keep the archive of classes available for registration and access at any time and at economic prices. But at this point it looks like I will need to remove all of them on August 19th and return to classes being offered 1 at a time on a five week format. This decision has been really difficult to make and I have been in turmoil about posting this announcement- I just don't want anyone to be mad at me! But it seems to be my only option until I can find/create a site to hold all of my classes.

While the option for unlimited access will not be available after August 19th, I will be offering new classes AND will also be rotating the old classes throughout different months. During those rotations, those of you who have been a part of the classes in the past will gain free access for the five weeks. If you are currently a part of any of my online classes, you will be receiving an

email with more details.

I am still searching for alternative ways to offer online classes with unlimited access (dvd versions, another host site, creating my own site) but this process is going to take some time. In the meantime I would appreciate patience and understanding and would love to hear any feedback you might have at alisaburke@gmail.com.

The good news is-

For the next two weeks I will be offering another sale on ALL online classes- $10 off all classes! This will be an opportunity to "get them while you can" and learn, create and access the information up until August 19th.

AND... I am finally ready to open registration for my next class- Color Your World! I will announce details later this week and will be offering a pre registration discount :)

Altered Straw Purse Tutorial

I am currently waiting to board a plane bound for Colorado and the photoshoot for my book! I will be blogging from the road and have all kinds of things to share but today I have a quick and easy tutorial to start the week.

I frequent the Target dollar section and right now they have a whole bunch of kids straw bags for cheap. At first I passed them by because they were too small for a beach bag but then I got to thinking- with a couple of changes they would make a great little handbag!

I had an old pleather jacket (yes pleather- from my college days) that was really beat up and perfect to use to create leather looking applique leaves to embellish the bag.

I cut out leaf shaped pieces...

that I backed with paper for stability and then stitched the surface to look like leaves.

Once the surface of my leaves were done, I hand sewed the leaves to the surface of the bag- time consuming but a perfect project to work on lounging on the couch watching a movie :)

I have a variety of purse handles and I picked a wooden set that would match my bag.

Next I cut the straw handles off the straw bag.

and then used the straw pieces to sew the wooden handles on,

by hand.

And there you have it- an EASY and CHEAP straw purse!!

(This might be one of my favorite purse projects so far- so simple and chic!)

One Year Anniversary!

This weekend marks the one year anniversary of working for myself! Yep, this time last year I quit my job, held my breath, closed my eyes and jumped into my dream. I wanted to do something special to celebrate- honestly, I just don't make enough time to pay tribute to the good things in my life (its a problem I'm working on). What better way to honor the freedom, the magic and the joy of my journey this year? A carousel ride of course! So along with a day off out and about with my husband, we stopped to ride round and round and round on the antique carousel in Balboa Park. Nothing says celebration like 5 minutes of spinning in circles on a wooden zebra!