Lemon Bath Bombs

Mar 25, 2015

Lemon Bath Bombs

With all the crazi­ness of bath bombs right now, I decid­ed to give it a go and attempt to make my own. I looked all over Pin­ter­est at the ingre­di­ents in lots of dif­fer­ent bath bombs and by adding and tak­ing away cer­tain ingre­di­ents from recipes here is the recipe I cre­at­ed. These lit­tle bath bombs smell just like lemon bundt cakes. On my next batch I will add a bit more Lemon Essen­tial Oil (EO) to my next batch as it did­n’t smell as strong­ly as I want­ed in my bath but this is the only thing I will change when I make them again. Also depend­ing on the EO used will deter­mine the amount of drops need­ed. If you make Pep­per­mint bath bombs you will not need as many drops because the oil scent...

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Need a crown, of course you do!!!

Mar 18, 2015

Need a crown, of course you do!!!

Sat­ur­day, I was at The Crafty Scrap­per attend­ing a birth­day crop for my super sweet & awe­some friend Trisha Perkins. At her par­ty, she had Cheryl Dar­row of Ten Sec­onds Stu­dio come and instruct every­one on how to make leather crowns. This was WAY WAY WAY out of my com­fort zone as I’m a vin­tage paper kin­da girl and there was zero vin­tage paper to be found here, but let me tell you I now have a new addic­tion. Work­ing with emboss-able leather is so fun and if you ever have the chance to take one of Cheryl’s crown class­es do it, you will LOVE it! Cheryl brought her tools  and molds for the non-doo­dle cal­lig­ra­phy girls in the class, which as you can see I was one of those girls. Once every­one had their leather pieces embossed...

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Valentine Home Decor Accent

Feb 9, 2015

Valentine Home Decor Accent

This valen­tine home decor piece show­cas­es one of the hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Dolls I now have in my etsy shop. I love these dolls from long ago and when pos­si­ble make molds of dolls I think you too would like to use in your craft­ing projects. This lit­tle cutie is hold­ing a book under­neath it’s arm. I put togeth­er a tuto­r­i­al so you too can recre­ate this home decor accent. I plan on dis­play­ing this year round in my stu­dio. Sup­plies Used: Large Wood­en Spool, Vin­tage Sheet Music, White Crepe Paper, 2 Chip­board Hearts, Dina Wak­ley Media Ruby Acrylic Paint, 16 Gauge Wire, Dia­mond Glaze, Maya Road Red Glit­ter, White Embroi­dery Floss, Red & White Bak­er’s Twine, Martha Stew­art Crys­tal Coarse Glit­ter, Ranger Mul­ti Medi­um-Mat­te, Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue, Flocked Flower, Hand­made Pen­ny Can­dy Doll with...

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Tamarack ~ Beckley, WV

Sep 17, 2014

Tamarack ~ Beckley, WV

If you ever find your­self close to Beck­ley, WV you should real­ly take the time to look around Tama­rack. This retail shop is filled with won­der­ful West Vir­ginia arti­sans of all kinds. We always stop on our way home and each time we vis­it they have new artists. You will see some gor­geous hand­made quilts and tucked among arti­sans work are lots of jars filled with local hon­ey, bbq sauces and for those with a sweet tooth, hand­made can­dies. Mom and I instant­ly grav­i­tate to the mold­ed and hand blown glass. You will find glass every­thing there, vas­es, bowls, orna­ments, glass­ware etc. Dad being a wood carv­er he grav­i­tates to all the wood work­ing items. They have hand­carved sculp­tures, bowls, toys, uten­sils, hol­i­day orna­ments and more. They have some bronze stat­ues and cof­fee tables...

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DIY Sugar Body Scrub

Aug 27, 2014

DIY Sugar Body Scrub

Ingre­di­ents: 1/4 Cup Coconut Oil (sol­id jar form not liq­uid form) 1 1/2 Cups Sug­ar (I used Impe­r­i­al Pure Cane Sug­ar but you can use Raw Sug­ar if you want a coars­er scrub) 10 Drops Lemon Essen­tial Oil 2 Drops Pep­per­mint Essen­tial Oi Direc­tions: Place coconut oil into medi­um sized microwave safe bowl for 25–30 sec­onds to melt. Add essen­tial oils to melt­ed coconut oil and stir. Add sug­ar to coconut oil and stir until mixed well. This sug­ar scrub makes enough to fill a small mason jar and one large med­i­cine bot­tle, I know odd choice but it’s all I could find to hold the excess sug­ar scrub. This sug­ar scrub is not over­ly oily which is how I like my sug­ar scrubs. If you pre­fer more oil in your body scrubs you can increase...

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Charm Bracelets and Bangles

Aug 13, 2014

Charm Bracelets and Bangles

I love the sweet sound of charm bracelets and I’m so lucky to have my grand­moth­er’s charm bracelet. I still remem­ber the sound her bracelet made as she wore it. I LOVED being able to find the engraved charm with my name and birth­date, it hung nes­tled among all her grand­chil­dren and oth­er spe­cial charms she had been giv­en. These two charm bracelets are craft­ed from hand cut vin­tage tin, that I cut, sand­ed and turned into charms. Each charm cre­ates a soft sweet sound that reminds me of a wind chime far off in the dis­tance on a Texas farm. I accent­ed each charm bracelet with a strand of pearl like beads and the bot­tom charm bracelet has vin­tage clear glass beads wire wrapped and attach between the tin charms. Each bracelet is a one of a...

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Bellie’s Here For A Visit

Jul 30, 2014

Bellie’s Here For A Visit

This past Sat­ur­day, Isabel­la (a.k.a. Bel­lie) my 7 year old niece came for her week of every­day fun. We have had a blast doing one paint project after the next. This girl LOVES to PAINT! She wants to paint over going to see a movie, get­ting a makeover at Sweet & Sassy, eat­ing break­fast at IHOP etc. I sug­gest some­thing fun to do for the day and all she says is can I just paint. So paint is what we have done all week. I asked her Sun­day what she want­ed to paint and she said a horse. At first I pan­icked because this aun­tie does not draw espe­cial­ly hors­es. So I found some col­or­ing pages of My Lit­tle Pony online, print­ed some out, let her pick which one she want­ed to paint then...

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Being an Aunt…

May 29, 2014

Being an Aunt…

Means you can sur­prise your nieces before bed for a sur­prise adven­ture in their jam­mies. Means you can load your nieces up on a Son­ic Shake sug­ar high right before bed, take them home and let your sis­ter deal with their sug­ar high. Means you will crawl out of bed bright and ear­ly to take them to school for Muffins with Mom & their Book Fair. Means the only pay­ment you want for get­ting up super ear­ly to attend Muffins with Mom and the Book Fair is a sweet self­ie with your nieces plus one best friend. Means you get to throw a sur­prise mini birth­day par­ty for a very spe­cial 7 year old when she comes home from school. Being an aunt is the next best thing to being a mom. Aman­da, Brit­tain, Made­lyn and...

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Hi, Valentine!

Feb 14, 2014

Hi, Valentine!

This adorable image reminds me of the cards I would see in gift shops, when I was lit­tle. These two have such sweet faces and how can you not love all that pink. If you’re in need of cre­at­ing a last minute valen­tine right click on the image to enlarge it, now right click on the image again and choose “save image as” to save it to your com­put­er. Now you can print the image in any size you wish. I think print­ed in 2.5″ x 3.5″ is a sweet size and would be so cute left on your co-work­ers desk. I think adding Dia­mond Stick­les to the flower cen­ters, head­band and the pink on the pup­py would be a nice addi­tion to your card and still keep it in the quick and sim­ple...

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Handmade Eclectic Jewelry

Jan 29, 2014

Handmade Eclectic Jewelry

Late­ly, I’ve been cre­at­ing unique pieces of jew­el­ry in my stu­dio using bits & pieces of vin­tage jew­el­ry I’ve been col­lect­ing. The heart shaped pen­dant in the pho­to above is one I cut from cop­per sheet­ing, sol­dered and accent­ed with a vin­tage post­card image, red rhine­stone trim and Ger­man sil­ver glass glit­ter. The front and back of this pen­dant is cov­ered with a lay­er of clear resin. Then I cre­at­ed the neck­lace from pearl, iri­des­cent pink and red beads. This bracelet is cre­at­ed from a vin­tage ear­ring that I could not pass up at a flea mar­ket. I LOVE the coral col­or and all the detail. The scal­lop lace around the out­er edge and flower cen­ter is so intri­cate. The ear­ring is attached to a bracelet that has a spring type hinge. This type...

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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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Sweet Little Baby of Mine ~ Shadow Box

Nov 14, 2013

Sweet Little Baby of Mine ~ Shadow Box

Last night, I fin­ished my first ful­ly con­struct­ed shad­ow box. The shad­ow box, mini can­vas and baby are all con­struct­ed of plas­ter, then paint­ed with acrylic paint and aged with an acrylic glaze. The inside of the shad­ow box is accent­ed with vin­tage cro­cheted doilies, ledger paper from the ear­ly 1900’s, flocked flow­ers, tulle trim, and a vin­tage per­fume bot­tle per­fect­ly sized to hold baby’s first curl. The space just below the baby can be per­son­al­ized with a child’s name if desired. The name will be typed onto vin­tage note­book paper that has been per­fect­ly aged using my vin­tage Under­wood type­writer. The vin­tage per­fume bot­tle is not attached to the shad­ow box. It sits sweet­ly inside just wait­ing to hold baby’s first curl and there is still space left to place oth­er trea­sured memen­tos, next...

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Strands of Strength

Nov 12, 2013

Strands of Strength

Today, I have to tell you about my super sweet 10 year old niece, Made­lyn. This is a self­ie I took of us soon after I arrived in Beau­mont, last Thurs­day. I want­ed to cap­ture a pho­to that por­trayed how proud I am of her and how adorable she looks with her new hair cut. After learn­ing about “Stands of Strength” in an adver­tise­ment through Altus Can­cer Cen­ter Made­lyn dis­cov­ered there was going to be a local event held for those who wished to, could donate their hair. Well Made­lyn being the super sweet, giv­ing and thought­ful lit­tle girl start­ed grow­ing out her hair so she could donate it to “Strands of Strength”. “Estab­lished in 2011 by a can­cer sur­vivor, Strands of Strength (SOS) is a non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion whose mis­sion is to pro­vide wigs...

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Knick-Knack Paddywack ~ Card

Oct 21, 2013

Knick-Knack Paddywack ~ Card

This lit­tle boy rid­ing his scoot­er image is a stamp from my Anti­quat­ed Col­lec­tion ~ Knick-Knack Pad­dywack stamp set. It reminds me of my sweet uncle Ed as a child. I can pic­ture him rid­ing his scoot­er up and down Dog Run as a lit­tle boy while grow­ing up in Salem, WV. I can also pic­ture and hear Gram­my as she saw uncle Ed shoot down the road from her kitchen win­dow telling him to be care­ful as she came out of the house wear­ing her apron. Gosh I miss that house. I have so many won­der­ful mem­o­ries spent with my grand­par­ents in their home. I decid­ed to keep this card pret­ty sim­ple and just cut rec­tan­gles using pat­terned papers from the Pink Paislee ~ Cot­tage Farms col­lec­tion then added seam bind­ing, a Maya Road Bin­go...

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Sweet Little Girls ~ Card

Oct 17, 2013

Sweet Little Girls ~ Card

This card is stamped using my Anti­quat­ed Col­lec­tion ~ Sweet Lit­tle Girls stamp set. Can you tell I have a seri­ous crush on Cof­fee Archival Ink? It is now my go to ink when I need some­thing per­ma­nent. It’s the per­fect shade of vin­tage brown. The lit­tle girls can be col­ored using Dis­tress Mark­ers or Cop­ics but again, as I did in yes­ter­day’s post I left them sim­ply stamped on sol­id card­stock. I love how the stamped images look as if I just cut them out of a vin­tage mag­a­zine. The pat­terned paper used on this card is Pink Paislee ~ Cot­tage Farms Col­lec­tion. I think the mod­ern design mixed with the vin­tage girls works per­fect­ly...

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Sweet Darling ~ Card

Oct 16, 2013

Sweet Darling ~ Card

Seam Bind­ing and Archival Ink make for a fab­u­lous com­bi­na­tion. I want­ed a lit­tle some­thing dif­fer­ent for the title of my card so I decid­ed to stamp the word­ing onto seam bind­ing. This effect reminds me of the cute satin tags I’ve seen on baby items in antique shops. And the best thing is this is a beau­ti­ful and super sim­ple way to cre­ate unique titles for cards, tags and lay­outs. I mean real­ly could it get any sim­pler? We are talk­ing, ink & stamp, that’s it! The pat­terned paper used on this card is by Pink Paislee. It’s their Cot­tage Farms Col­lec­tion. What I love so much about this line is that it can look vin­tage or mod­ern. I tell ya, that Rebec­ca is so awe­some­ly tal­ent­ed and super sweet. I’m thrilled that...

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My Life In A Dinghy ~ PDF

Oct 7, 2013

My Life In A Dinghy ~ PDF

Thank you ALL for each and every sweet com­ment and email left and sent for this blog fea­ture. I and I’m cer­tain all the amaz­ing artists fea­tured real­ly appre­ci­at­ed them. Since so many of you asked for the dinghy tem­plate I decid­ed to share the PDF so you too can par­tic­i­pate and cre­ate your very own “My Life In A Dinghy”. Please, if you cre­ate a dinghy send me a pho­to as I would love to see and read what life would be like in your dinghy. And you nev­er know you too might be fea­tured on my blog as I’m plan­ning to con­tin­ue this blog fea­ture. So watch for new “My Life In A Dinghy” fea­tures as they will be sail­ing through off and on through­out the remain­der of the year. My Life...

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Sweet Little Girl ~ Hand Stitching

Sep 16, 2013

Sweet Little Girl ~ Hand Stitching

After hav­ing Char­lotte Lyons as my “Delight­ful Arty Crush” last week, she got me inspired to do some embroi­dery. Well, not hav­ing any­thing to stitch I start­ed look­ing around my stu­dio for ideas and it came to me that my Anti­quat­ed Col­lec­tion stamp set “Sweet Lit­tle Girls” just might work. So using Cof­fee Archival Ink I stamped a lit­tle girl onto some muslin and start­ed stitch­ing away. I’m real­ly hap­py with how she turned out. The next stamped images I’m going to attempt to embroi­der are in the Kick-Knack Pad­dywack stamp set. I think sev­er­al of these will make real­ly cute embroi­dered pieces. I’ll keep you post­ed on how they turn...

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Kids Week 1

Jul 8, 2013

Kids Week 1

This week my super sweet amaz­ing­ly awe­some 10 year old niece Made­lyn is vis­it­ing. We have so many fun things planned to do each day that we decid­ed we would share them all week long. We will be doing things like Paint­ing with Can­dy, mak­ing Flip Flop & Sun­dae Cook­ies, Dec­o­rat­ing Jum­bo Marsh­mal­lows, mak­ing Rain­bow Col­ored Spaghet­ti, drink­ing Fish Bowl Punch, cre­at­ing Plas­ter Cup­cakes, design­ing a Fairy Doll, mak­ing our own Cus­tom Nail Pol­ish, mak­ing Bracelets and Charms and any­thing else we can think up or find on Pin­ter­est. I’m telling you it’s going to be an awe­some week I have a Pin­ter­est Board titled “Things to do with my nieces” if you want to check out the board. I pinned things I thought both Made­lyn (10) and Bel­lie (6) might like to do...

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Studio Makeover ~ Part 2

Mar 27, 2013

Studio Makeover ~ Part 2

I am so close to being fin­ished with my stu­dio makeover. I just need to hang the cur­tains over the shelv­ing unit to the left, find a small piece for addi­tion­al stor­age to put up on the shelves along the wall on the far left then hang some vin­tage pho­tos I have and bam… it’s done. I’m real­ly lov­ing the mix of all the things I love with my sup­plies. To me, per­son­al touch­es are what make a room warm and invit­ing.  So let me give you a close up tour and show you how I com­bined per­son­al trea­sures and vin­tage finds among my crafty prod­ucts. This is what I see when sit­ting at my work table. I’m using a berry bas­ket to hold my adhe­sives, a mini pie tin works per­fect­ly for my...

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Valentine’s Day Charms

Feb 10, 2013

Valentine’s Day Charms

These lit­tle charms are so sweet (I know, excuse the pun but I could­n’t help it) that I can hard­ly stand their cute­ness. They are a per­fect accent for any sweet Valen­tine to wear all month long. When Maya Road released their Vin­tage Glass Mem­o­ry Vials I was so excit­ed because they are the per­fect minia­ture size for charms of any kind. You get 10 Vin­tage Glass Mem­o­ry Vials, five of each size per pack­age. I’m going to make a few using the sand I brought back from Greece and Italy then met­al stamp a charm with Mykonos and Bel­la­gio to attach to each vial as a fun memen­to. I love funky jew­el­ry and plan on hav­ing loads of fun with these. The sup­plies need­ed need­ed to make your charms are a pack­age of...

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