A Joyful Snowman

Dec 3, 2014

A Joyful Snowman

This is one of my very favorite orna­ments I’ve ever cre­at­ed. It was orig­i­nal­ly post­ed on Decem­ber 4, 2009 but I love it so much that I thought I would repost the tuto­r­i­al again today. All the dif­fer­ent tex­tures and the col­or scheme make me super hap­py. Sup­plies Used: Paper Mache Rec­tan­gu­lar Orna­ment (Hob­by Lob­by), Cream Felt, Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Vin­tage Sheet Music, 2.5″ Sisal Brush Tree (Christ­mas Sec­tion of most large Craft Stores), Maya Road Mini Snowflakes, Maya Road Mini Noah Chip­board Let­ters, Fab­ric Rem­nant, Red, Cream and Black Embroi­dery Floss, Rhine­stone, Gold Self Adhe­sive Gems, Gold Ger­man Glass Glit­ter, White Seam Bind­ing, Gold Jin­gle Bell, 3 — Vin­tage But­tons, 24 Guage Wire, Fab­ri-Tac, Col­lage Pauge Instant Decoupage — Glossy, Sizzix Snow­man Die, Adiron­dack Metallics Acrylic Paint Dab­ber — Gold, Mak­ing Mem­o­ries Acrylic Paint...

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Needle Felted Santa Ornament

Oct 2, 2014

Needle Felted Santa Ornament

Yes­ter­day, I thought I would try and nee­dle felt a San­ta orna­ment. Today, I’m going to try to make him a pair of glass­es. I love try­ing and dis­cov­er­ing new art forms. One nev­er knows if they can until they try. I will always try. I hope I inspire you to do the...

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Needle Felted Oak Leaf

Sep 26, 2014

Needle Felted Oak Leaf

I always love a cre­ative chal­lenge so when a cus­tomer asked if I could cre­ate a pen­dant from one of my dried acorns I of course said sure. As I thought more about the neck­lace I felt (no pun intend­ed) hav­ing a nee­dle felt­ed oak leaf would look adorable along side the acorn. The chal­lenge came when I real­ized I had nev­er nee­dle felt­ed an oak leaf. Amy picked the col­or of the felt for her leaf and away I went. I think this is the cutest pen­dant and I already have anoth­er cus­tomer request­ing a sim­i­lar neck­lace, this time with a teal leaf. Amy’s oak leaf is made using the #3 felt col­or and Diana’s will be cre­at­ed using #9. If you would like a neck­lace cre­at­ed with a dried acorn pen­dant and nee­dle felt­ed...

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Needle Felted Acorn Necklace

Sep 24, 2014

Needle Felted Acorn Necklace

Here are a few items I cre­at­ed yes­ter­day using some of the acorn caps from all those dried acorns I’ve been show­ing you. I love nee­dle felt­ing in the fall so I decid­ed to nee­dle felt some acorns. Once I had the acorn felt­ed I decid­ed to accent each acorn cap with a slight amount of metal­lic gold paint. It’s just enough to give the cap a slight shim­mer. To make the hang­er so it can hang from a neck­lace I first drilled a small hole in the top of the dried acorn cap, then wire wrapped a hang­er and attached the cap to the nee­dle felt­ed acorn. The acorn pen­dant hangs from a 24″ sil­ver ball chain and looks adorable.  I had so much fun mak­ing the first felt­ed acorn I decid­ed to make 9 more in dif­fer­ent col­ors....

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Altered Art Journal Page 1

Aug 22, 2014

Altered Art Journal Page 1

Well I final­ly did it, I start­ed an art jour­nal. But let me tell ya it was not an easy start. I start­ed out with one page, real­ly did­n’t like the bold col­ors because let’s face it, I’m not a bold col­or kin­da gal, so I then thought I would tone it down a bit, then I real­ly did­n’t like it and had to step away from the table because I could feel some major frus­tra­tion com­ing on. This is when I decid­ed I would try to make some DIY lip gloss, so I did. It was super fast, easy and I real­ly like it. DIY Lip Gloss Recipe All you need is 1 table­spoon of coconut oil, 1/4 tea­spoon of Vase­line and 5 drops of Pep­per­mint essen­tial oil or the essen­tial oil of your choice....

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Handmade Art Journal

Aug 21, 2014

Handmade Art Journal

I real­ly love see­ing all the amaz­ing art jour­nal­ing that lots of my friends do but I have issues, like seri­ous issues when it comes to the jour­nals. I love dimen­sion­al col­lage which means, I like to stick LOTS of bulky things in my art. Well, this does not work well with a lot of art jour­nals due to the type of bind­ing most have so the prob­lem was solved this week by cre­at­ing my own art jour­nal. Now I can add all the bulky items I want and the art jour­nal will still close. The thick­er my art jour­nal gets is no big­gie because all I need to do is use larg­er binder rings. Even though I’ve used vin­tage items that you might not have on had to cre­ate my art jour­nal my ideas...

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Road Trip with Madelyn Day 1

Jul 1, 2014

Road Trip with Madelyn Day 1

Last week, my niece Made­lyn was vis­it­ing. Tues­day, start­ed our insane­ly fun road trip. We left Frisco bright and ear­ly (7AM) to head to San Anto­nio. On our way we saw bill­boards for the Inner Space Cav­ern and decid­ed that once we got to George­town we would stop and tour this cav­ern. We loved the tour and high­ly rec­om­mend it. It does get a bit humid and warm inside but we all felt it was worth the sweat. If you decide to take a tour make sure you are wear­ing run­ning shoes. Flip flops would be a real chal­lenge when walk­ing into the cav­ern. You are walk­ing at a slant for quite a bit, it is wet and in some areas a bit slip­pery. We were all glad we were wear­ing run­ning shoes. Hav­ing some cold water bot­tles wait­ing for...

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Observations from an Alcoholic’s Sister ~ Emotions

Apr 16, 2014

Observations from an Alcoholic’s Sister ~ Emotions

There are so many dif­fer­ent emo­tions fam­i­ly mem­bers of alco­holics feel. One emo­tion I def­i­nite­ly felt was anger. I was angry because of what I saw Richard’s alco­holism doing to him and to our fam­i­ly, espe­cial­ly mom. I felt as though Richard was being self­ish and unap­pre­cia­tive of all that mom and dad were doing in hopes of him get­ting sober and it made me furi­ous. I under­stand alco­holism is a brain dis­ease but like any dis­ease most do what they can to con­trol or get rid of their dis­ease, most don’t let the dis­ease con­trol them or end their life with­out some sort of fight. Alco­holism is a beast to con­trol and I saw first­hand how strong the crav­ings were but I still felt Richard could have tried a lit­tle hard­er to gain...

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10 Years

Mar 28, 2014

10 Years

Today marks the 10 year anniver­sary of my brother’s death. Ten years is a long time yet it still feels like yes­ter­day, I was enjoy­ing a fab­u­lous morn­ing sun­rise train­ing my gold­en retriev­er, Son­ny in the field. I went to my car to get us some water and noticed I had a bazil­lion missed calls on my phone. I called home ask­ing what was up and I will nev­er for­get Alan’s words,” Its Richard.” He didn’t have to say anoth­er word, I knew he was gone. I could hear it in his voice and I felt it deep in my soul, my lit­tle broth­er was gone. At that moment, my life and the lives of my fam­i­ly changed for­ev­er. Mom and Dad lost a son, my sis­ter and I lost a broth­er, my daughter’s,...

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Felted Heart

Feb 7, 2014

Felted Heart

Incor­po­rat­ing an assort­ment of tex­tiles not only adds visu­al inter­est to your projects but it can also add unique tex­tures too. The back­ground of this can­vas is lay­ered with sev­er­al dif­fer­ent types of tex­tiles and each lay­er adds beau­ty and tex­ture. When I start­ed this can­vas I knew I want­ed to cre­ate a some­what mono­chro­mat­ic back­ground as I want­ed the felt­ed heart embell­ish­ment to be the main fea­ture. I decid­ed on cre­at­ing a soft cream back­ground but knew I could not just go with one piece of fab­ric. I love to add tex­ture and dimen­sion to all my projects so I need­ed at least three tex­tile lay­ers. Once I had my game plan most­ly fig­ured out, using fab­ric adhe­sive I attached a piece of cream col­ored wool felt to the can­vas. After the felt was...

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Cupid’s Feathered Friend

Jan 21, 2014

Cupid’s Feathered Friend

Place a few drops of pink dye or Mist into a small cup of water, (the more dye the dark­er the col­or, less dye the lighter the col­or), mix togeth­er. Using a paint brush, apply dyed water onto white bird and let dry. You can speed up the dry­ing process using a hair dry­er set on the cool set­ting. Cov­er the body of the bird with a thin lay­er of instant decoupage, then apply Light Pink Glit­ter, tap off excess glit­ter and let dry. Cov­er the wings of the bird with instant decoupage and apply a thin lay­er of Iri­des­cent Glit­ter and let dry. Apply instant decoupage to the beak of the bird then apply Fine Sil­ver Glass Glit­ter, let dry. As you can see there is a lot of dry­ing time but it should not take long...

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Delight In The Seasons ~ Autumn & Winter

Oct 25, 2013

Delight In The Seasons ~ Autumn & Winter

These are just a sam­pling of the projects you will find inside “Delight In The Sea­sons” Autumn and Win­ter chap­ters. In these chap­ters you will learn fun tech­niques to cre­ate 3‑D Embell­ish­ments, Tis­sue Paper Trims, Inter­ac­tive Lay­ers, a Paint & Ink Pati­na, Altered Bot­tle Brush Trees, Cre­at­ing Pearles­cent Water­col­ors, Paper and Felt Bows, Fab­ric Cuffs and more. This book is filled with loads of inspi­ra­tion and right now when you order an auto­graphed copy the ship­ping is FREE! This is an awe­some deal. So if you are look­ing for a beau­ti­ful idea book that is not only pret­ty to look at but also filled with easy to fol­low step by step tech­niques for you or your craft­ing friends, I hope you con­sid­er pur­chas­ing this...

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Pre~Order ~ Delight In The Art of Collage ~ Book 3

May 23, 2013

Pre~Order ~ Delight In The Art of Collage ~ Book 3

I real­ly have no words to describe the excite­ment I feel over know­ing “Delight In The Art of Col­lage” is avail­able for PRE-ORDER on Ama­zon. This book pushed me cre­ative­ly in ways I would have nev­er imag­ined. But in order to grow as an artist you must push past your com­fort zone. There were days I thought I would nev­er ever have anoth­er cre­ative idea come to mind but they did and here I sit with book 3. This cre­ative jour­ney, as well as the oth­er two I’ve been on was filled with days of self doubt, ela­tion, frus­tra­tion, hap­py dances, I’m nev­er ever writ­ing anoth­er book again, this would be a great idea for book 4, call­ing my super awe­some edi­tor Kristy Con­lin in pure pan­ic mode and so on. But in the end...

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Thrift Store Finds

May 8, 2013

Thrift Store Finds

It’s time again to share this weeks won­der­ful thrift store finds. I spot­ted this beau­ti­ful doll from across the store and seri­ous­ly could not get to her fast enough. As soon as I saw her I had instant tun­nel vision and was ready to start hur­dling fur­ni­ture if I felt it was war­rant­ed. I’m sim­ply gid­dy, I love her so much. Her rust col­ored satin dress is a lit­tle worn in areas and her pan­taloons have dark­ened with age but all I see is pure beau­ty. I’ve named her Lau­ra and you will see her lots in blog posts. I also scored a great vin­tage piano book filled with beau­ti­ful­ly aged music sheets. I can­not pass up vin­tage music sheets. They are one of my favorite items to use in col­lages. The five cute 4.5″ leaf...

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Up The Mountain

Apr 29, 2013

Up The Mountain

Col­orado ~ anoth­er amaz­ing place to add to my “Trav­el­ing Apron” sam­pler. Thurs­day, after­noon Ron­da drove me to Estes Park so I could teach a few class­es at Rocky Moun­tain Mem­o­ries. Cheryl sug­gest­ed that as Ron­da brought me to the store she take the scenic route through the moun­tains and good­ness am I ever so grate­ful for the sug­ges­tion. The views were sim­ply amaz­ing. I could eas­i­ly trade liv­ing in the sub­urbs and live in the Rocky Moun­tains. I’ve nev­er felt so at home in all my life. This is just one of the stops along the way to Cheryl’s store in Estes Park. The scenery was sim­ply stun­ning. Every turn was tru­ly a pic­ture post­card view. I loved hear­ing all the birds singing and chirp­ing as well as the water run­ning down the...

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Mother’s Day Projects

Apr 25, 2013

Mother’s Day Projects

With Moth­er’s Day just around the cor­ner I thought I would share a few project ideas from my book “Delight In The Sea­sons” that would make won­der­ful gifts for any mom on Moth­er’s Day. You can cre­ate a beau­ti­ful mini album just for mom shar­ing sto­ries and pho­tos from spe­cial times and moments spent togeth­er. This project is fea­tured in the Spring Chap­ter on pages 46 — 49. I show you how to cre­ate the beau­ti­ful flower accent­ing the front cov­er of this album. If you pre­fer to cre­ate projects, this piece can be found in the Spring Chap­ter on pages 50 — 54. I show you how to cre­ate this beau­ti­ful felt mes­sage ban­ner.  You can hand stitch any spe­cial sen­ti­ment you wish for your mom. My mom has this project sit­ting in her...

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Book of The Week

Jan 23, 2013

Book of The Week

So hap­py to share that my book “Delight In The Sea­sons” is the “Book of the Week” over at Cut Out + Keep. If you’re not famil­iar with this site you real­ly need to check it out. It’s FILLED with all kinds of awe­some craft­ing tuto­ri­als. Cat is even giv­ing away a signed copy of “Delight In The Sea­sons” so don’t miss out, you can enter HERE. She also has four sam­ple project/techniques from “Delight In The Sea­sons” for you to cre­ate. The Altered Bot­tle Brush Tree, a Felt Mes­sage Ban­ner, Embell­ished Clear But­tons and the Chip­board Cameo. As you scroll fur­ther down the page you will find a “Meet the Author” sec­tion that tells a lit­tle bit about me, my book, where I find my inspi­ra­tion, etc. So go check it out. Cut Out +...

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EnviroTex Resin Key Chain

Jan 2, 2013

EnviroTex Resin Key Chain

I cre­at­ed this key chain for my sis­ter, Belin­da. It was cre­at­ed in mem­o­ry of my broth­er, Richard who passed away from alco­holism, March 28, 2004. He loved the water and worked on a boat off the Gulf of Mex­i­co. I found this image of the anchor by doing a google search and the quote from Quote Gar­den. I had Alan resize the image for me to fit inside the bezel then print­ed it out on my laser print­er. Next, I applied Nunn Design Glue on the bezel and placed the image on top, press­ing the bub­bles out from under­neath the image as best I could using my fin­ger and paint brush for the cor­ners. Once I felt I got all the bub­bles out, using a paint brush I applied a lay­er of Nunn...

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Kitting and a Contract

Aug 8, 2012

Kitting and a Contract

I’m so hap­py to show you this pho­to… the offi­cial con­tract for book 3 arrived. I’m so super excit­ed about the con­cept for this book I can hard­ly stand it. I’m also very for­tu­nate to get to con­tin­ue work­ing with such loy­al spon­sors. I have a few new spon­sors that I’m real­ly hap­py to have that will be added to this LIST soon! Thank you all so much for your sup­port and ongo­ing spon­sor­ship. I real­ly appre­ci­ate both tremen­dous­ly. This week it’s been all about get­ting kits ready and shipped to Lake Como, Italy for “A Kiss On The Chic’s Cre­ative Retreat in Italy” Lau­ra’s put togeth­er a fab­u­lous event and Sept. 15th can­not get here soon enough. I’ve nev­er in my life wished I had a Sizzix Vagabond Machine so bad­ly as I...

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Felting Bunnies

Mar 1, 2012

Felting Bunnies

Late­ly, I have real­ly been inter­est­ed in the art of felt­ing. So the oth­er night while I was sit­ting with Alan watch­ing Amer­i­can Idol a few nights ago I  tried mak­ing a bun­ny. I can­not just sit and do noth­ing when watch­ing TV, it makes me a ner­vous wreck, so felt­ing is some­thing that works per­fect­ly for me.  THIS pic­ture TUTORIAL is what I used to make the bun­ny shown above. I thought instead of using yarn to make the head and body and felt to cre­ate the ears I could make them using wool rov­ing. This is an easy way to learn how to make adorable lit­tle bun­nies. Mine stands a lit­tle less than 3″ tall.   Last night, while watch­ing Amer­i­can Idol once again, I start­ed anoth­er bun­ny, but this time I’m going to...

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So many doors..

Feb 20, 2012

So many doors..

You nev­er know when oppor­tu­ni­ty will come knock­ing on your door. And I’m hap­py to say it came knock­ing on mine while I was attend­ing CHA. This oppor­tu­ni­ty came com­plete­ly out of the blue and was total­ly unex­pect­ed and cer­tain­ly not planned. For the past 10 days (rea­son for my lack of blog posts) I have cre­at­ed into the wee hours of the morn­ing, slept 4 or 5 hours, cre­at­ed all day, took a 2 hour nap, cre­at­ed into the wee hours of the morn­ing and start­ed the process all over again. In the end I cre­at­ed 64 items and all but 13 were cho­sen. Cho­sen for what, you might ask… well I’m now a sig­na­ture design­er for Blos­som Buck­et and I’m thrilled beyond belief.  This is a new area for me since my items...

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