Happy Summer!

It has finally started to heat up here in the Rockies.  Normally June is a fairly wet month for us but this year, not the case.  I have been busy with the garden and out of state company.  Hub's sister from Illinois was here for a short visit and we had a bbq for the family.  My five year old granddaughter stayed the week with me while her mommy was out of town.  It was great fun, but busy.  We went to the movies, went shopping, had a picnic, went to the park, walked in the woods, and went to a mini amusement park called Tiny Town.

I did finish up a couple of items for the fall shows:

I bought a couple of these oars at the thrift store.  I painted one of these a couple of years ago and it sold immediately.  I still see it show up now and again on Pinterest.

 This one has been rattling around in my brain for a while.  I bought this white spindle at a Home Depot a year or two ago.  The moulding I purchased at the thrift store for $1.  I glittered the "wings", painted a wooden ball and drilled holes across the top of the head for the wire hair.  (I sell these little wire springs in my Etsy shop)  Added a halo and some pips and you have the perfect 38" tall skinny angel!

Have you checked out my Etsy shops?  I have lots of supplies at this one  and antique and vintage items at this one.   

Have a great week, my friends!            

Easy, Peasy Thursday Tutorial

So I have this room off of the garage where we keep our freezer and my saw, sander, hand tools.  I also store my excess craft hoard.  It had kinda gotten out of hand so I went out and started sorting and cleaning.  To my amazement, (my attempt at sarcasm here), I found some things I had forgotten I had. Enter this box of glass ornaments.  Okay, I know the box is empty, but it was full.  Trust me....

I also had a bag of white feathers.....

So I simply put one little feather in each of the clear glass ornaments.

I cut 12 pieces of white organza ribbon, each 10" long.  You could use whatever ribbon you want.  I had this on hand.

Then I printed these little angel poems and used my tag punch to cut them out.

I threaded one piece of ribbon through the hole in the tag and then through the top of the ornament hanger.  I tied it into a bow.  The other piece got looped through the same place and knotted for hanging.

What a sweet little ornament!  I sell a ton of these at craft shows.  One tip is to keep them in the box that they came in.  These are breakable and it never fails that one gets broken.  These ornaments are the glass discs.  You could use round ones if you like.  You could use plastic ones or grosgrain ribbon.  You could make the tags round or use a fancy scissors to cut them out.

Here is the short poem that I used:

This is an Angel Feather

Sent from God Above

To Serve as a Reminder

Of His Most Precious Love

I simply put it in a word document.  I used this font: Freehand471 BT, in size 9 text.  You can play around with it to get the size and font that you like best.  Have fun with this!

Pumpkins, already????

With all the fall shows that I do, I start early on my fall and winter items.  These little pumpkins are a variation on the ones I did a couple of years ago, these being more prim.

These little guys are great to sit in the dinner plate for each guest at your Thanksgiving meal.  And they are very simple to make.  There is a tutorial on this blog;  just type pumpkin in the search bar.

And I redid the lettering on my angel:

Better huh?  I stamped and then painted over the stamp to make it darker.  Both the pumpkins and the angel are listed in my Etsy shop.  I sold all my corn on the cobs this week and the carrots that I had listed.  I also sold my long-legged bunny at my friend Dawn's show as well as some of my bunny sachets on Etsy.  I always feel so grateful when someone enjoys my work.  And I do appreciate all of the comments as well. 

Have a great week, my bloggie friends.  More to come.

Birthday Week!

This, my peeps, is my birthday week.  No big celebrations planned, just excited to have made it another year.  Before my daughter Brandi went to Heaven, she and I always celebrated birthday week.  We always did little special things for each other each day.  I miss that.  Its times like this when I miss her most.

Over the weekend, I was going through some of my stash (I listed some doll making supplies on Etsy) and I ran across some chair spindles that I saved from the trash last summer.  They were from a couple of chairs that were sitting on the deck and were being ruined from the rain.  I tore them apart and threw the badly damaged pieces in the kindling pile and salvaged the spindles.  I really didn't know quite what to do with them but here is what I came up with:

Here is what I did:  I drilled a hole into a large wooden ball that I had on hand, just big enough to fit the dowel end of the spindle.  I cut the spindle off so that the widest part would be on the bottom (for stability)  I freehanded the wings and cut them out of very thin plywood (I had the scrap)  I painted the ball flesh tone, the wings and base (a scrap of 1 x 3" cut into a square) white and put a coat of crackle over the already brownish colored spindle.  I recoated when dry and where needed.  Paint white over the crackle but make sure it is really dry before you do that.  Add glitter to one side of the wings.  I use modpodge to adhere the glitter.  Assemble.  I screwed the spindle to the base and put wood glue in the drill hole on the head.  I glued and screwed on the wings.  Then trim.  Moss and tiny grapevine wreath on the head, draw in eyes with black sharpie, blush cheeks.  I put pearls around the "neck" and glued on some rusty bells.  What do you think???

I have a bunch of spindles, so I am going to try some shorter ones, and vary the wings a bit.  Any ideas?  Let me know.

I also finished one of my big angels:

I added a candle box and a hand tipped silicone bulb.  I really like her but I worry about transporting her to my shows.  Any ideas???

Better get to work.  I have so many projects in the works.

Busy....birthday....anniversary.....

Its been a couple of weeks since I last posted but I have been so busy!  We had company from Illinois last weekend.  My brother in law and family spent a few nights here and it was so great to see them all.  We spent one day sightseeing in the mountains and one day celebrating hubby's birthday.  We had a cook out and the family came over to celebrate.  We also celebrated our 43rd wedding anniverary.  What a busy week!

So now it is back to creating.  I am working on two raggedies, a teddy bear, and some candy corns.  Right now it is a pile of unfinished fabric.  I did finish up some more angel ornies from dollar store flowers.  These are pink, and I think any little girl would love to hang these on her tree!

I also made some "Santa Clotheslines".  These are a great seller at my shows but are time consuming to do because they have quite a bit of hand stitching.  I pack them in bags, unassembled, so that they don't tangle.

Well, I've finished my second cup of coffee so it is really time to get started on my to do list.  More later....

Tutorial Tuesday

Hello, my peeps.  Hope your weekend was great.  Well, its back to the grindstone today.  We spent the weekend with our home improvement list, and I could hardly wait to get back in the studio.....and to get it cleaned up.  I bought 10 packages of the ping pong balls for the snowmen (prior post) and some other goodies from the dollar store.  So here is my latest creation:

And can you guess what this little sweetie is made from????

These disposable champange glasses have that great bell shape for a skirt.  You get 6 in a package for a dollar.  For the dress, I tore a piece of homespun(use whatever pattern or fabric suits your fancy) 5" x 10".  I ran a loose gathering stitch about a half inch from one of the long ends and pulled it tight.  Knot off your thread.  Then place atop the stem of the inverted glass.  Of course, you will remove the plastic base.  Hot glue into place.  I also placed just a dot of glue on the back to hold the skirt together.  Hot glue the head in place.  For the heads, I simply paint 1" wooden balls in a flesh tone.  I do several of these at a time and like to use the ones with a flat side. (hint:  Put a piece of masking tape sticky side up on your painting surface.  This will hold the balls in place while you paint.)  Paint on eyes or use a marker.  Blush the cheeks.  I tied a piece of jute over the stitching line and glued on a rusty bell.  I tore another piece of matching homespun 5" long and about an inch and a half wide and glued to the back.  I glued a tiny flesh painted ball to the area where the ends meet to simulate hands.  For the wings, I took some strands of raffia, tied it in a bow and glued it on the back.  Glue on some moss for hair.  I used rusty wire for a tiny halo.  I can see alot of uses for these.  How about a name tag where the ball (hand) is?  They are light weight enough to use as an ornament or a topper on a small tree.  Let your imagination run wild!

A bonus post....

It seems like sometimes I get so caught up in things that I don't get around to posting, and then there are other days....Well, anyway, I don't know about you, but sometimes I get an idea for something while I am sleeping.  I think this particular idea came from this really cute snowman that an artisan was selling at a craft show.  She had taken mismatched salt and pepper shakers and put a styrofoam head on it and filled the shaker with glitter.  I thought,  "I am going to try to make them."  Well, I bought the shakers, the styrofoam balls, and I had plenty of glitter.  That was a few months ago and I have never done anything with it.  Then I had this dream or vision, or night time idea that instead of snowmen, maybe angels......
So, I started with this:

The salt shakers were 2/$1 at Dollar Tree and the little wooden butterflies were $.25 at Michaels.  I had the balls which are flat on one end.

And this:

These flurries are seasonal, so if you plan to make them for next year, buy some now because they are really seasonal.  You could use glitter, but that gets a bit expensive and these flurries add just the right amount of sparkle.

 

Paint the balls a flesh color.  Here is a trick for you.  Put masking tape, sticky side up on your work space.  Tape it down so it doesn't move.  Put those balls on the tape and they will not move while you paint them.  If you tape them to a piece of cardboard, you can turn the board so that you can get to all sides.

Paint the butterflies (wings) white.  You need to paint both sides and don't forget that little bit that is the depth of the wood. 

 

If you are using acrylic paint, these will dry pretty quickly.  While they are drying, I lightly fill the shakers with the flurries and replace the top.  Now is a good time to gather supplies like lace, beads, etc for finishing off your angels. 



When the heads are dry, create hair by painting on white glue and using the hair of your choice

 

For the hair, I used black glitter.  You could use fiber, moss, doll hair, etc.  I put each head on a pen or stick so my fingers didn't get in the glue.

 

Then assemble!  I used bits of lace to trim, little beads and pearls, and some crocheted trim around the "necks", and silver key rings, hoop earrings, and gold ribbon for halos.  I made each one a bit different.  Use either black paint or marker for the eyes and blush for the cheeks. 

The angel in the center is made from a mismatched shaker that I had.

One has a hoop earring for a halo, one has some gold wired ribbon.

I had a tiny circle of battenburg lace.  She also has an orphan earring for a halo.

Two different halos, laces, wings, and neck trim. 

 

 

Use this idea for a creative gift, decoration, stocking stuffer.