Weekend of Family Fun

Dec 23, 2014

Weekend of Family Fun

This past week­end, my sis­ter and her fam­i­ly came up for the week­end. Her Christ­mas gift to Brit­tain was a tick­et to see the Cow­boys play the Colts, Sun­day. It was­n’t the game Brit­tain was hop­ing for but it was a fun time spent with his mom. Since he isn’t able to go to Beau­mont for Christ­mas I decid­ed to have a fam­i­ly Christ­mas par­ty for him at our house. Sat­ur­day morn­ing, Made­lyn and Bel­lie made snow­men out of donuts for break­fast. These were a big hit with the girls. All you need are pow­dered donuts, orange jel­ly beans for the nose and mini choco­late morsels for the mouth and eyes. A cup of hot choco­late is a great drink to go with the snow­man donuts too. Sat­ur­day evening, we had our fam­i­ly par­ty....

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Fun Getting To Know You Christmas Questions

Dec 19, 2014

Fun Getting To Know You Christmas Questions

Here are some fun get­ting to know you Christ­mas ques­tions you can share with friends and fam­i­ly at a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing or par­ty. I always find it inter­est­ing in how oth­ers cel­e­brate the hol­i­day sea­son. If you don’t cel­e­brate Christ­mas you can eas­i­ly change the ques­tions to fit your hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion. My sis­ter and her fam­i­ly arrive late tonight and I can­not wait to have some fun with every­one. You know I’m on “best week­end ever” notice for Made­lyn and Isabel­la. I LOVE being their aunt. I have a week­end of fun all planned out that includes lots of hot choco­late, s’mores, cook­ie bak­ing, hol­i­day light look­ing and presents. It’s going to be a fab­u­lous week­end. 1. Wrap­ping paper or gift bags? This year it’s all about Gift Bags.  2. Real tree or arti­fi­cial? We...

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Now Selling At The Crafty Scrapper

Dec 18, 2014

Now Selling At The Crafty Scrapper

I’m so hap­py to tell you that I am now sell­ing my hand­made vin­tage tin neck­laces at The Crafty Scrap­per in Wax­a­hachie, Texas. Car­olyn Ross moved her amaz­ing store to a new build­ing and she now has a bou­tique that offers unique hand­craft­ed items. So, if you are look­ing for a lit­tle some­thing spe­cial for a friend, co-work­er or fam­i­ly mem­ber please go check out her store. All my neck­lace pen­dants are cre­at­ed from vin­tage tins and jew­el­ry pieces and each piece is one of a kind. No two will ever be alike. Also, I still have a few Mys­tery Goody Box­es avail­able. If you are inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing one, each box is a Medi­um Sized Flat Rate box filled with new and very gen­tly used prod­ucts from major man­u­fac­tures like Ranger, Maya Road, Fiskars,...

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I believe…

Dec 17, 2014

I believe…

Orig­i­nal­ly Post­ed Decem­ber 12, 2011 and to this day it’s still one of my favorites. Just recent­ly my 8 year old niece was ask­ing if San­ta was real. My mom asked Made­lyn what she thought to which she replied, I think he is real. Mom left it at that and Made­lyn went on her mer­ry way. I remem­ber when I found out about San­ta and for a moment I was sad but then dis­cov­ered since I had younger sib­lings I was in a spe­cial secret club… I got to be a secret elf and help with wrap­ping and shop­ping which I just loved. I found this part just as reward­ing if not more on Christ­mas morn­ing. Watch­ing my broth­er and sis­ter run down the stairs, through the hall­way and into the liv­ing room star­ing in amaze­ment...

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Recycle All Those Saved Christmas & Holiday Cards

Dec 10, 2014

Recycle All Those Saved Christmas & Holiday Cards

In keep­ing with the “I’m using what I have for Christ­mas and cut­ting out the need­less things I don’t” I recy­cled some saved Christ­mas cards and cre­at­ed two super easy gift card hold­ers from one Christ­mas card. I know I’m not the only per­son that saves hol­i­day cards. I can­not throw Christ­mas cards of any kind away. I love them all and espe­cial­ly cher­ish the ones that have my grand­par­ents sig­na­tures inside. I start­ed with a Christ­mas card that mea­sured 4″ x 5.75″ but you can use any card size you want. This size just allowed me to keep the entire image with­out hav­ing to cut it down to fit a gift card. My com­plet­ed gift card hold­ers mea­sure 2.75″ x 4″. Once you have your card picked out and if you’re like me and save all your Christ­mas cards...

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Weekend of Holiday Decorating

Dec 8, 2014

Weekend of Holiday Decorating

The Christ­mas tree is the first item to go up in our house dur­ing the hol­i­day sea­son. Ans­ley designed this “Pep­per­mint” tree a few years ago and we’ve kept it since. It’s a fun tree that is easy to put up and take down and lets face it dur­ing the hol­i­days easy is the key word. Once the tree is all set Ans­ley and I start to plan how we want to dec­o­rate the house. This year it is all about lights. In the den, we decid­ed to hang three wreaths with white lights and some gar­land with red and white lights in the bay win­dow. We added white lights on the fire­place man­tel and I accent­ed it with some of my favorite vin­tage mer­cury glass orna­ments, gar­land and green depres­sion glass. I say “I” accent­ed...

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Countdown to Christmas Calendar

Nov 24, 2014

Countdown to Christmas Calendar

This hol­i­day sea­son I’m all about get­ting projects done in a day. This year, I can’t afford the take a week to com­plete a project, you all know I’m very capa­ble of cre­at­ing a mole hill kin­da project into a moun­tain kin­da project. So I thought and thought of how I could cre­ate a “Count­down to Christ­mas Cal­en­dar” with­out it tak­ing me days to com­plete. I love count­ing down to Christ­mas just as much as a kid and thought I would share with you what and how I made mine. This project should take 3  hours tops from start to fin­ish includ­ing dry­ing time for the paints. Prod­ucts Used: Maya Road Count­down Shad­ow­box, Adiron­dack Acrylic Paint Dab­ber Juniper & Metal­lic Gold, Cof­fee Archival Ink, Glue Stick, My Mind’s Eye ~ Joy­ous 6” x 6”...

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Home For Christmas

Dec 27, 2013

Home For Christmas

This year, we seemed to cel­e­brat­ed Christ­mas a lit­tle bit at a time. We had a fam­i­ly get togeth­er with Ter­ri and Laren at their loft on the 23rd then a small Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion at our house Christ­mas Eve.  Christ­mas morn­ing, my nephew Brit­tain and I head­ed down to Beau­mont to see fam­i­ly and cel­e­brate Christ­mas with my par­ents. Alan and Ans­ley both had to work on the 26th so they could­n’t come along but when I return home they’ll have a small Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion with the gifts I bring back. We arrived at mom and dad’s house in the late after­noon and every­one was ready to exchange gifts. It’s always a flur­ry of excite­ment dur­ing Christ­mas at mom and dad’s. I’ve been very blessed to always have an amaz­ing Christ­mas. Mom and Dad...

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Season’s Greetings Altered Hoop

Dec 16, 2013

Season’s Greetings Altered Hoop

I decid­ed to make a fan­cy hol­i­day altered hoop with this lit­tle embroi­dered piece I stitched using two new stamp sets by Pink Per­sim­mon, Christ­mas House & Hol­i­day Hel­lo. I find great joy in hand stitch­ing a bit each night. It’s a great way for me to relax as I’m usu­al­ly wound up tighter than an eight day clock. This sweet hol­i­day decor piece can either hang or sit on an easel to add a lit­tle hol­i­day cheer to any spot. The wood­en hoop mea­sures approx­i­mate­ly 4″ in diam­e­ter. I used Maya Road Rhine­stone Trim, Fab­ric Tape, and Satin, Mini Ging­ham and Tulle Trims to alter the side and back edge of the hoop. A White Snowflake Trans­paren­cy adorned with a vin­tage ear­ring and a clear glass but­ton accents the front. I hope this...

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Documenting My December Album

Dec 11, 2013

Documenting My December Album

This year, I was super inspired by Car­o­line Lau to make a Decem­ber album. I start­ed to call mine a “Cap­tur­ing Christ­mas” album but then thought I real­ly want­ed to doc­u­ment a few oth­er things as the fam­i­ly and I pre­pared for Christ­mas so I decid­ed on call­ing it my “Doc­u­ment­ing Decem­ber” album. I can­not do the every sin­gle day route, this just does not work for me at all. I over think every­thing and hav­ing to com­mit to every­day makes me instant­ly start to stress out. I love see­ing how every­one doc­u­ments their Decem­ber each day and I applaud them for being able to do it, so I’ve decid­ed high­light­ing the month dec­o­rat­ing, bak­ing, wrap­ping and shop­ping is some­thing I can do with­out any stress. Today, I thought I would share what I’ve...

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Something Fun to Entertain the Kids

Dec 4, 2013

Something Fun to Entertain the Kids

When I was a lit­tle girl around the age of 3 or 4 my mom would go to an elder­ly lady’s house to do her hair. This lady had an awe­some album filled with greet­ing cards she put togeth­er for lit­tle ones to flip through. I remem­ber sit­ting on the floor look­ing at page after page in this album. I LOVED it so I thought of a fun idea for young kids dur­ing hol­i­day gath­er­ings. Find some old Christ­mas cards and if you are like me you have lots. I found this one that works per­fect­ly for this type of project. You will want one that you can cut the face out of (snow­man, gin­ger­bread man, San­ta, Elf, Rein­deer even ani­mals will work great). Using a craft knife cut out the face on your...

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Merry and Bright

Nov 27, 2013

Merry and Bright

This shad­ow box is cre­at­ed from plas­ter then paint­ed and glazed with an antique wash to give it that per­fect aged look. It mea­sures approx­i­mate­ly 5.5″ W x 7″ H x 1″ D. The out­side edge of the shad­ow box is wrapped with vin­tage lace, red seam bind­ing and accent­ed with two vin­tage Christ­mas picks. The back­ground of the shad­ow box show­cas­es hand cut words “Mer­ry and Bright” from vin­tage sheet music from the ear­ly 1920’s and a glit­tery snowflake with an iri­des­cent rhine­stone cen­ter. I cre­at­ed the doll from plas­ter using a mold from a vin­tage doll in my col­lec­tion. She is hand paint­ed with acrylic paint and giv­en an antique wash. The dolls dress is cre­at­ed from antique doilies and she wears a crown made from a vin­tage book page sprin­kled with...

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Frozen Charlotte Christmas Ornaments

Nov 4, 2013

Frozen Charlotte Christmas Ornaments

Here is a new Frozen Char­lotte Christ­mas Orna­ment kit I put togeth­er, this week­end. If you are inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing this cute DIY hol­i­day orna­ment kit please vis­it my Etsy shop. Once com­plet­ed your orna­ments will look adorable adorn­ing any tree, wreath or gift. Since I ship Flat Rate if pur­chas­ing more than one kit please con­tact me so I can cre­ate a reserve list­ing for you with the cor­rect ship­ping charge. I can usu­al­ly get up to three kits in one small Flat Rate box depend­ing on which kits are pur­chased. Kit Con­tents: 3 Scal­lop Chip­board Pieces (Small, Medi­um, Large) 2 Hand­made Frozen Char­lotte Doll Busts from mold I cre­at­ed from doll in my stash 1 Small Gold Jin­gle Bell 2 Rosary Beads 1 Small Chan­de­lier Bead 1 White Paper Flocked Flower 3...

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Milk Glass

Sep 17, 2013

Milk Glass

I have a seri­ous love for milk glass. When I spot pieces of it when I’m out look­ing for trin­kets to use in projects I think of every way pos­si­ble I can use it in my stu­dio. So today, I thought I would share with you some of the ways I use the pieces I’ve found. This lit­tle sher­bet dish holds some of my favorite glass but­tons. I placed the lit­tle bird on top of the but­tons just because it looked cute. This is a small ash­tray. I place beads in it when I’m accent­ing embroi­dery pieces or sewing them into flower cen­ters. This is a great way to keep lose beads in one spot when stitch­ing. These items… can­dy dish, cups and saucers, bowl and sug­ar and cream­er are per­fect to use as...

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Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 4

Sep 12, 2013

Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 4

  This Jin­gles stamp is by far my absolute favorite stamp. I love old fash­ioned jin­gle bells and this one is per­fect! The size and detail are amaz­ing. And stamped with Archival Cof­fee Ink… it’s per­fec­tion! I tell ya Judi at Pink Per­sim­mon has some seri­ous mag­ic in her hands. I just don’t know how she does it. But now that I’ve cre­at­ed some things using this new stamp set and we’ve made a few adjust­ments I will share full images with you next week. You’re gonna want this stamp...

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Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 3

Sep 11, 2013

Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 3

I know it’s not even fall nor has there been any frost cov­ered pump­kins but this new stamp set has me dream­ing of snow, hol­i­day dec­o­ra­tions, gift giv­ing and all things mer­ry. I love the font used for the stamps sen­ti­ment as it’s sim­ple with a lit­tle flair. I hope you’re enjoy­ing these sneak peeks because I’m cer­tain­ly enjoy­ing being able to share them with...

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Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 2

Sep 10, 2013

Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 2

Oh how I LOVE this lit­tle girl. She’s all ready to head out for some hol­i­day fun with fam­i­ly and friends wear­ing a jack­et and match­ing knit­ted hat accent­ed with flow­ers and kept in place by a green rib­bon tied under­neath her chin. This stamp has so many pos­si­bil­i­ties and not just for the win­ter months either. I’m going to give it a try and see if I can hand stitch the stamped image on muslin. I think it would look so sweet. I’ll cer­tain­ly let ya know how it turns out...

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Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 1

Sep 9, 2013

Antiquated Collection ~ A Merry Christmas ~ Sneak Peek 1

Today, I have some­thing fun to share, a sneak peek of a project I cre­at­ed using a new Anti­quat­ed Col­lec­tion stamp set. It com­bines two of my favorite things… vin­tage and Christ­mas! And I kid you not, I lit­er­al­ly squealed when I pulled this stamp set out of the enve­lope. I LOVE it so much. I cre­at­ed all week­end so I have sneak peeks ready to share all week long. See ya back here...

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Delightful Arty Crush ~ Nellie Wortman

Aug 30, 2013

Delightful Arty Crush ~ Nellie Wortman

“Delight­ful Arty Crush” is an ongo­ing fea­ture I have on my blog which show­cas­es artists who’s work I admire and find inspir­ing. It fea­tures a wide range of artists from col­lage, tex­tile, encaus­tic and lots of oth­er amaz­ing medi­ums. I’m sure you will find each artists work just as inspir­ing as I do and I hope you will vis­it their blogs and oth­er links includ­ed in their fea­ture. The images I share with you are just the tip of the ice­berg in regards to their awe­some­ness. Today, my “Delight­ful Arty Crush” fea­tured artist is, Nel­lie Wort­man. If you have not seen her blog “Ear­ly Morn­ing Thoughts” you must give it a vis­it. What Nel­lie cre­ates using tex­tiles and oth­er medi­ums is tru­ly inspir­ing. Her blog is filled with pho­tographs of items she has cre­at­ed....

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Home for Christmas

Aug 14, 2013

Home for Christmas

This is the sec­ond of three class­es I will be teach­ing at Cre­ative Cards and Crafts in Vil­la Park, IL ~ Oct.18th & 19th. In this Home for Christ­mas class I will show you how to cre­ate three old fash­ioned Putz style hous­es using pat­terned papers from the new Graphic45 12 Days of Christ­mas line. Once all three hous­es are built and accent­ed with Stick­les and glit­ter you will group them on a dec­o­ra­tive acrylic plat­ter cov­ered with faux snow and sisal trees to com­plete a minia­ture win­ter themed neigh­bor­hood. As a bonus I will show you how easy it is to bleach sisal trees at home if you wish for yours to be off white in col­or. And a vin­tage Christ­mas project would not be com­plete with­out includ­ing a few vin­tage mer­cury glass...

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Estes Park

Apr 30, 2013

Estes Park

Fri­day, morn­ing I jumped out of bed just as I did as a child Christ­mas morn­ing. I was so excit­ed to get to wan­der around town with Ron­da before my After­noon Tea class, because well, you all know laugh­ter fol­lows us where ever we go. Before walk­ing out of my room I had to take a peek out the bed­room win­dow and this is what I saw… a per­fect sun­ny, blue sky Col­orado morn­ing. Talk about mak­ing me real­ly get a jump start on my Texas makeover. But before get­ting ready, I quick­ly got side tracked watch­ing birds and the cutest lit­tle chip­munk stuff his cheeks full of bird seeds. They were just out­side this win­dow singing and scur­ry­ing about. The chip­munk was super busy fill­ing his cheeks with bird seeds, run­ning off to...

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