I can't believe it's that time of year again! Time for pumpkin and peppermint flavored everything, time for full fridges and full bellies, and presents, oh the presents! Well we are kicking things off right at Charcoal Designs with our annual Black Friday sale! Save 25% off sitewide and get FREE U.S. shipping too! Sale starts first thing Thanksgiving day and ends midnight Sunday!

Let's get those stockings filled with 'Coal'! www.charcoaldesigns.com

It's been a long, hot and interesting summer. Our cash and carry booth at the POOLTradeshow in Las Vegas, was a success and so much fun! We met new customer and ran into some old favs.

Now that the season is coming to a close and finally cooling off I can get back to my favorite thing ever...designing! I have a few new things in the shop and many many new products in the works, which I'm really excited about!

Our teeth necklace is here in plenty of time for Halloween, or for those of us who celebrate all year round.

Seamstresses and crafters alike will dig our new hand cast resin colorful button sets, retro reproductions offered in an array of colors, sizes and shapes!

'Pulling Teeth' Necklace $24.99

Assorted style handmade buttons

See you soon at CharcoalDesigns.Com!

Pheww, it's been a very long past few weeks. My husband and I are painting/sprucing up our kitchen, then we relaxed with a short vacation to Hicksville Trailer Palace in beautiful Joshua Tree, CA, back to kitchen painting, then a fun time vending at the Johnny Cash Festival in Ventura, CA and now back to the shop with some new items...a girl's gotta stay busy!

My husband and I on a short but sweet two day vaca at Hicksville Trailer Palace. On this trip we stayed in 'the pony' trailer.

I'm really proud of the way my new mermaid and seahorse plaques came out and the bonus part is that they can hold your keys for you or perhaps your favorite vintage apron!

Now available in our NEW shop! www.charcoaldesigns.com

New necklaces in stock!

New jewelry in stock, including our ever popular 'Demons are a ghoul's best fiend' necklace now available in purple, fink pink and ghoul green! Come see what's new at Charcoal Designs!

Salty Seas necklaces available in blue or red, $14.99 ea.

Pearl, glitter bow necklace with glass pearl chain $27.99

Demons Are A Ghoul's Best Fiend Necklace, $18.99 ea.

Custom, now available in hot pink $15.99

Come visit the Kustom Voodoo and Charcoal Designs booth this year at the Ink 'N' Iron car and tattoo festival in Long Beach on June 10th, 11th and 12th! 280 tattoo artists from around the globe with tons of great punk, rockabilly, and psychobilly bands, you don't want to miss it! Lots of talented vendors will be there, come see our great stuff in person and take home something unforgettable!

New Mermaids & Cameo Jewelry!

Lots of new jewelry in stock! Just added: Mermaid necklaces with a glass pearl beaded chain and framed cameo necklaces with skulls, skeletons and Virgin De Guadalupe!

www.charcoaldesigns.com












Available exclusively at www.charcoaldesigns.com!

Mexican Paper Flower How-To

Last year I made some paper flowers for my wedding reception centerpieces (blogged here) and I made a new batch of flowers for my Frida Kahlo 'self portrait' Halloween costume!

Paper flowers are very inexpensive to make and lots of fun, all you will need is tissue paper, pipe cleaners (or string) and a little bit of time!

Here's what you need:

1. Tissue paper or crepe paper

2. colorful pipe cleaners or yarn

(I chose yarn this time around because I want to tie them around a headband to put in my hair for my Frida costume and didn't want to worry about pipe cleaners poking me in the head) :]

3. Scissors


Start off with square pieces of tissue paper. The more pieces you use per flower, the fuller your flower will look. To make extra large flowers use full sheets of paper, for medium flowers use 1/4 of a full sheet, for small flowers (like the green one I made for this tutorial) cut the paper down even more to 1/8 the size of a full sheet.



Once you have your squares cut (I am using 9 cut squares to make one flower, but you can use more for a fuller looking flower), stack them on top of each other then fold them into an accordion shape.

Cut a triangle shape on each side of your 'accordion'.

Tie a string or wrap a pipe cleaner around the center of your flower. Make sure your knot is at the bottom of your flower (the bottom of my sample flower is dark green).

I like to trim the edges because sometimes my square pieces aren't completely square, this way your flower petals will come out more evenly on each side of your flower.

I also like to cut the tips of the 'petals' into a wavy shape (or cut triangles for a jagged look) to make the petals look more realistic, because flower petals in nature usually have pointed or rounded edges.



Fan out your flower and start to pull each 'petal' towards the center, carefully...

until you have completed a whole side. Once one side is complete, you can move onto the other side.

Once you're finished your flower will look something like this.

As you can see, I went a little crazy. I probably won't be using all of these for my costume but the left overs will be great for shrines, altars, and other craft projects!

NEW Bang Bang Necklace!

Bang bang, shot my baby down, old skool gun gag necklace!


Peace love and kitties! -L


www.charcoaldesigns.com

Etsy-Russian Roulette Week #1

There's a game I like to play on Etsy that I like to call 'Russian Roulette', basically you search for a certain word...like 'hobo' or 'wicker' and see what pops up! Yesterday I was flippin' for 'Tentacles' and woo did I find some doozies!

The winner of the following categories is:

Cuteness:



$9.99 www.doctorgus.etsy.com

Insane In The Membrane (Crazyness but I love it):



$60.00 www.societysedso.etsy.com

Budget Breaker:



$160.00 www.octopusme.etsy.com

Budget Buddy:



Made by Voz Perkins, $2.50 www.vozamer.etsy.com

Cleverness:



$13.00 www.oddball.etsy.com



$40.00 www.lumpkin.etsy.com



Creepiness:



$15.00 www.flushplease.etsy.com

Wanna' play Etsy Russian Roulette? Found something I might like to feature next week?, please comment and let me know!

Clever Bag Lady

I totally need this bag to go with my sweater that has holes cut out where the thumbs would go. Seriously, I don't have one of those (when we were younger we'd have to cut our own holes now they have sweaters with them stitched in, la de da) but if I did this would go perfectly with it!



By: Broth giuggiole hand-made accessories / www.ilbrododigiuggiole.it

As seen on: popgloss.com

Sparkle Cameos!

Today I battled the heat in my studio to create some new sparklerific cameos! I might use them for religious praying hand necklaces or maybe something else, the options are endless...as long as whatever I pick fits in a 18X13mm space!