Inspired Barn Product Reviews: Quick Fuse, Canvas Corp, and Crystyler

Another Inspired Barn workshop has wrapped up and I’m still glowing over the fun we had. Each attendee left with a spectacularly designed, embellished and sparkly flea market shopping bag. The products mentioned and linked to in this post were fully or partially gifted for the workshop attendees projects. All products were sourced and requested by me and the opinions expressed here are my own.Our starting point was a large, blank, khaki green, top quality canvas tote that was partially sponsored by my good friends at PromoCo.com. PromoCo.com is a creative promotional marketing company that offers a full range of promotional products, marketing & branding tools, and more. Though it is not typically a resource for craft supplies or one-item orders, it is a wonderful resource for custom event products, and pretty much anything you can think of (and can’t think of) to creatively embellish with a logo or graphic.

I sourced, created, digitized and machine-cut a whole slew of antique-design stencils for adding text-graphics to the bags. The stencil work by these women was quite impressive, a lot of thinking outside the box.I went looking for just the right product for turning vintage cigar box label images into colorful patches to apply to the bags. The best I found was June Tailor Quick Fuse, 100% cotton fabric with iron-on, fusible backing, that is also hand-washable. The super-white sheets fed in and printed out so beautiful and vibrant.

Crafters chose either hand- or machine-stitched edging for some of their patches prior to ironing onto the totes, other patches were left with scissor cut edges. The fusible fabric was so awesome to work with and was the perfect fit for this project. When most stenciling and patch-work was complete, adding sparkle to the bags was in order. For that, I called on my new friend Norma Rapko Vargas. Though I had corresponded with Norma in the past, I only just met her and her beautiful family last November at the Spellbound Event Mercantile in Pasadena. Norma demonstrated her amazing invention, the Crystyler, a tool with a tip that picks up and loads the crystals which can then be released with the click of a thumb. It’s a fast and precise method of adding sparkle to any surface.

Completely hooked, I could hardly wait to incorporate her tool and crystals into an Inspired Barn project.We used Beacon’s Fabri-Tac permanent adhesive to secure the crystals to the canvas totes, patches, buttons and other embellishments. You know it’s a good day at the flea market when your tote begins to fill, but we don’t want any precious small items to get lost and damaged in the bottom of them. So I called on Canvas Corp to save the day with their blank 8″ x 8″ and 5″ x 7″drawstring canvas bags. Canvas Corp products are a custom crafter’s dream supply, if you haven’t discovered their goods yet, you’re in for a real treat!The small canvas bags were each embellished just as the larger totes.

Here are some of the finished Alameda Flea Market bags displayed by the artists! Thank you to all the fantastic sponsors and fabulous attendees for making this such an exciting experience.