EtsyPaper Team Weekly Featured Sellers - Alycia Morales

Our second featured EtsyPaper Team member this week is Alycia of Peek A Boo Productions! Alycia is one of our team admin (Promotions & other general tasks). She makes gorgeous paper pine cones and other pretty paper goods. We have 3 questions that tell us a little about Alycia and her shop and she has chosen 5 out of all of the questions that were submitted by our team members on the forum post. Here are her answers to our questions - happy reading!

Tell us a little about yourself :

I currently live in Alabama, enjoying life close to a major city. We have a house in Upstate, NY, though, which is where we come from. I am very happily married to my husband, Victor, and we'll celebrate 11 years in October. I have a wonderful step-son, Zachary, who is graduating high school this year. We have four children together, Ezra, Caleb, Hannah, and Gideon, who are between 9 and 4.

Tell us about your shop:

*When did you open it?
August 27, 2008

*What items/type of items do you sell?

I sell an assortment of paper items, ranging from cards and stationery, to scrap booking supplies, ornaments and bookmarks.

Getting to know you - 5 Questions

1. What inspires you?

I am inspired by my children, nature, and God. I love looking around me for ideas. I will be driving down a road and pass a field of wildflowers and think, "Hmm...those colors look so naturally perfect together. I think I'll try this." In my humble opinion, I think God's creation is filled with the perfect color blends and patterns. There is so much inspiration to draw from in it. :) My kiddos are very inspiring, as well! Hence, the watercolor stationery in my shop. My kids love to watercolor, and I hate to throw everything away. They do such a beautiful job! But, we all know how quickly their paintings pile up, and sometimes it's a piece of paper with a splash or two of color. One day I was cleaning up the piles and decided to share them with others, rather than waste them and throw them away. So, I turned them into stationery! :)

2. What equipment/ supplies do you use/where do you purchase them?

I use a lot of paper, and I tend to favor Stampin' Up! card stock. It's really thick and sturdy, and they have great colors! I buy mostly solids from them. I love K&Company's prints and colors, as well. I usually get most of my supplies from Stampin' Up!, Creative Memories (can't beat their tape runners, cutting tools, and scrapbook albums), Michael's, and Hobby Lobby. I use my 12" Trimmer from Creative Memories a LOT, and I love embellishments (ribbons, brads, flowers, buttons...pretties).

3. When do you find/make time for your crafting?

With four kids, a husband, and a household to run, it's definitely a challenge to find time for my crafting. Plus, I tend to get caught up in the Etsy community, keeping up with threads in the forum, checking on the FP, and such! :) LOL...So, I have to manage my time really well. Right now I don't have an outside career, but I have been looking to go back to work, so that will add in another challenge to the timing in my day. Currently, I set my priorities for the day, keep up with my morning routine of getting hubby to work, having coffee and reading my Bible, getting the kids up and out the door for the bus, and then I take care of business for the house, take care of business for my Etsy shops, run errands, and hope that I have time to work on my crafts before the kids get off the bus. If I have a chance, I may take an evening or a Saturday afternoon to work on my crafts. I think the most time consuming aspect of running my Etsy business is listing. Between shooting the item, touching up the pictures, and getting them into the shop, it is time consuming. Family and church are my priorities, so I make sure that I plan my day out well. That allows me to find the time to craft. You could say my crafting is my "vent". My dear hubby is great at recognizing when I need a few moments to myself. When I get time to craft, I'm less grumpy about the everyday running of the home! :)

4. Why did you decide to become on Etsy seller?

I have always loved to craft, and I was looking for someplace that I could sell my items, without the fuss of a lot of footwork and having to pay a lot of money to design a website (I'm so in love with using images and writing, that I'd have to do it myself, and I wasn't sure back then how much it costs to start a website of your own for sales purposes). I kind of "stumbled" upon Etsy. I think I was surfing the net one day when I came across the site! LOL :) As soon as I saw it and that the fees were very reasonable, I was in! I really enjoy the simplicity of it, and the encouragement and support is fantastic! I love the community here.

5. Do you have more than one etsy shop?
I do! :)

* Name of shop(s) & link: God's Glory Photography at:
http://www.godsgloryphotography.etsy.com/

* Types of items you sell there.

I sell photography at God's Glory Photography! :) I also sell cards of the photographs, ACEOs of the photographs, and I'm considering adding more items to the list! I would love to add the option of purchasing a coffee table book of my photographs, complete with quotes and such. Please stop by to check it out! It's a fairly new endeavor for me. I try to capture life's moments, without a lot of "foof" and changes to the shots.

Find Alycia Here:
Shop: Peek a Boo Productions
Blog: Peek A Boo Productions
Ning: Alycia

A NOTE: We have a great blog post from Alycia on how to make her beautiful paper pine cones - Give it a try!

A New Paper Project from Team Member Alycia Morales

We have a great "how to" project from EtsyPaper Team member and admin, Alycia Morales of Peek-a-boo Productions. She makes these gorgeous paper pine cones and is sharing her "trade secret" with us!

SUPPLIES:

• A styrofoam ball (example is 3"around)


• 12 x 12 scrapbook paper/card stock - 2 sheets


• Straight pins (I buy them in packs of 250)


• Ribbon


• Scissors, Paper Cutter


• Thimble (You will want this for your forefinger from pushing the pins)

THE FUN PART:

• Step One - cut your paper. You will want to line your paper up with the 2" mark on your paper cutter first. Cut a strip that is 12" x 2". Then, line up the 12" strip with the 1" mark, and cut. You will have rectangles that are 2" x 1" when you are finished. You will need approximately 60 of them for a 3" styrofoam ball, give or take a few.
  

• Step Two - fold the paper rectangles into paper triangles. To do this, start with the first rectangle face down on your work surface. Next, fold one side of the rectangle in to make a small triangle (see photographs below). Then, fold in the second half of the rectangle, making them meet in the middle, forming a triangle with your paper. You may wish to use a bone folder to crease your triangle, especially if you are using thicker paper. This will make it "tight" and not sloppy.
  

• Step Three - start your pine cone...First, pick up your styrofoam ball, and find a starting point. (It's round, so you really can start anywhere.) Place your first triangle on the ball, and place a pin into the tip of the triangle. Take your second triangle, line it up next to the first one, with its tip touching the middle of the ball, like the first one (you are basically making a square on the bottom of your styrofoam ball...). Do the same with the third and the fourth triangles. You are pinning them only at the point right now. (See photographs for more detail.)

Once you have that completed, start pinning down the other corners of all of the triangles. Some may overlap just a tad. That is okay. You will be covering those corners up with the next row of triangles, anyway.

• Step Four - Now we start the second row of triangles going around the ball. Line the first one up with its point directly at the meeting point of one set of your already pinned triangles. It should sit so that the point is at the midsection of the bottom layer of triangles. (See photo.) Pin only the
  TOP 2 points, leaving the bottom point free.
  
  Place three more triangles around the ball, with their top corners almost touching, if they don't touch. (It will depend on your skill how close together they get.) They should be in a straight line around the ball, and your rows will start to alternate as you go further up the ball. Every row will have four triangles, until you reach the top.
  (In the following photograph, you will see that I added ribbon to my ball. It is due to the design of my ball that I did this so early. Normally, you will not add ribbon until your triangle rows reach the mid-section of the ball. I will tell you about that step once we get there.)
  Next, you'll add the third row of triangles. Choose a spot between two of the second row of triangles, line up your point with that second row, and pin the top two corners down. Do this all the way around the ball, placing each triangle between the two triangles from the second row. It should look something like this (minus the ribbon):
  
  

The fourth row of triangles will be place above the third, overlapping the second, like this:

Continue on around your ball, alternating and centering rows until you reach the midsection of the styrofoam ball. In the following picture, I am holding the ball by the ribbon. This is the point in time that you would add your ribbon, cutting it approximately 12" long, so that you can make a loop for the ornament to hang from. Use as many loops as you'd like. Use as many colors as you'd like. Place one end of the ribbon flush with the row of triangles. Pin it down. One pin will be enough, as you will pin paper triangles over it for the remaining half of the ball. Next, pin down the other side of your ribbon, directly across the ball from the first half, keeping it flush with the row of triangles that you last completed.

You're half way there!

Continue with your rows of triangles, making your way up the rest of the styrofoam ball. You may want to start using your thimble by now. I know that my finger is tired of being "pricked" by the pin points at this place in the process!

Once you get to about the spot where you have formed a small square on the top of your styrofoam ball, you will want to decide how you will finish it. I usually continue adding triangles until I have a triangle-made square at the top of the ball, with two triangles forming it and my ribbon pinched between them, forming the hanger. In this design, I chose a different approach:

• Step Five - cut two squares, the bottom one being 2" x 2", the top one being 1.5" x 1.5". Pin the larger one down first, placing your pins toward the middle of the square, inside your row of triangles. Then pin the top one down, layering it directly over the first, so that it makes a framed effect.

This is the point at which I chose to add my hanging ribbon on this particular ornament. I simply pinned it down in the middle of the top of the ball. The bottom ribbon that I displayed previously, I chose to turn into "lapels", hanging out of the bottom layers of the triangles. I cut them off at the midpoint of the ball, removing the "loop" I had been holding it by.

Here, you may choose to be finished with your ornament, or you may want to add some detail to it with the help of any type of pins, beads, etc. On my example, I added a loop of the black ribbon that I had used in the lapels, making it take the shape of a tie around my loop. I then pinned it with a straight pin and some beads, as finishing touches. Here is my final product:

Simply beautiful Alycia - thanks for sharing! If you would like to see more of Alycia's gorgeous Paper Pine cones, visit her shop "Peek-A-Boo Productions. If you decide to try your hand at these, we would love to see the results! This is a great rainy day project for the weekend - enjoy & happy crafting!