Artful Thursday-A week of gifts

I've been busy this week working on my little book for Julie's swap. I have never made anything this small and was a little nervous that it would look awful. Her instructions are fabulous and I had a really fun time making it. I will definitely make more. I plan on getting them in the mail on Friday, to be to her next week. Are you ever nervous about this? It's like when you first meet people, and you feel slightly anxious, you hope they think you are fun, interesting, dare I say cool? You want to be liked. I feel that way about my little books I'm sending off. :) Hopefully, my swap friends will find them fun, interesting and cool. Here is a pic of my supplies for the little book. I think you might be able to guess my theme. I couldn't help it, I'm a romantic.

I titled this post, a week of gifts because I needed to make gifts for those special people in my life. First off, another crown. My sweet niece Madeline turned 5 and Aunt Jen had to make a crown for her. I meant to get a pic of her in it, but forgot the camera. Here's a pic for you to see:

Secondly, tonight Dotter #2 (who is in the first grade) informed me that her teacher's birthday is tomorrow and can we make a gift for her? Now her first grade teacher is an angel. We love her but thanks for the notice honey! I put my craft cap on and came up with this. It was serendipity! We think it turned out cute and Dotter #2 is very happy to take it to school tomorrow.
I just happened to have a pickle jar that I was going to wash and fill with something. It had a fun interesting shape. I also just happened to buy some chocolate covered pretzels at Costco today. I just happened to have a vinyl label that said Pretzels lying around. Like I said SERENDIPITY!

We decided the pretzels needed to a little oomph and got out the pink chocolate.
We cut out a top out of some fun vintage looking paper. It also had a little girl on it which we liked. We adhered the vinyl label and glued ric rack around the lid.

Lastly, we decided it needed what I call a "junk bow". We just take scraps of fabric, ribbon, lace, pom poms whatever scraps we have lying around. We tie them together and add a cute vintage rhinestone button. We also attach elastic so the bow can slip off easily when you open the jar.
The finished product ready to be given with smiles and hugs to her beloved teacher. And the best thing? She wanted to make something handmade for her. She knows the value of handmade...

even in the first grade.

p.s. Make sure you stop by my OWOH giveaway. Fun fairy items to be had.

One World One Heart Blog Giveaway

I have never participated in a blog hop or giveaway, but became really enamored with Lisa Swifka and her blog A Whimsical Bohemian.

Her idea is to bring bloggers around the world together who many not ordinarily meet. I love meeting new people, so here we go....and now I have a story for you, well a dream really........

Last night in my dreams, the dotters and I traveled on a magic carpet to a faraway beautiful land. We soared through the sky for hours, looking at the bright shining stars and finally as the sun began to come up, hundreds of delightful, colorful and magical creatures followed us as the magic carpet began descending into a beautiful lush sweet smelling forest. We stepped off the carpet and were greeted by the most beautiful creature we had ever seen. She had long flowing dark hair weaved with flowers; her gown was pure silk and her wings spanned all around her. She introduced herself as the Queen of all fairies. She was the most delightful host and showed us all around the forest. We had tea and cakes with her and she shared many wonderful fairy secrets with us. As much as we wanted to stay we saw the magic carpet come back to take us home. As we climbed onto the carpet, the Fairy Queen took the beautiful crown she was wearing off her head and presented it to the dotters and myself. She also gave us a charm necklace and our very own captured fairy in a jar. She presented us these tokens, so we will always remember to follow our dreams.

We would like to give these fairy tokens to one lucky winner. Please leave a comment if you would like to win these items. Tell us one of your fondest wishes or dreams. Please comment by February 14 by 5PM MST so we can pick our winner and announce it on the blog on February 15. Please make sure we can contact you.

May your life be filled with many wonderful dreams and wishes.

Artful Thursday-Birthday Crowns

I love making crowns for friends, family and I've recently started selling them and taking orders. I was thinking.....does a crown have to have points or look like something a princess should wear? I went into my craft room, and my eyes went to a stack of vintage hats that I recently purchased. I thought....let's give it a try. I chose a pink hat with feathers, a perfect base. I looked further in my room and came up with sequins, birds, vintage hat flowers, vintage buttons, old sheet music curled and some Christmas picks I had bought on clearance. I added a Birthday Queen slogan and my crown was complete. I thought it turned out pretty cute.


I was in such a "artful" mood I decided to go for a second crown. This one I took a beaded bridal veil base I had bought at a thrift store. I built up the crown with chicken wire and added sparkly embellishments. I included crocheted flowers from a vintage doily I had pulled apart, vintage buttons, (have I told you how much I love vintage buttons?) birds (have I told you how much I love birds?) and some vintage Christmas balls I aquired some time ago. I added glitter leaves around the chicken wire for more glam. I am really pleased with the results and had a lot of fun creating.

Some of my supplies

Have I told you how much I love vintage buttons?

Happy Creating!

Artful Thursdays Project #1

One of my favorite quotes.

This year I have really wanted to step up my artistic adventures. I have always admired Julie Collings whose blog is the adventures of bluegirlxo. Go take a look at her blog here. Her aethsetic is really wonderful and I feel a certain kinship with her art and the projects that she posts. And she loves VINTAGE! I have decided to join her for Artful Thursdays. She posts a project that she works on every Thursday and she has a blog list of others who post Thursday projects. I might be a day late but this is my project this week.

Every year I like to put together an inspiration journal. It's a place where I put clippings, projects, pictures, basically anything that inspires me. So this is my Inspiration Journal for this year. I pulled out from my vintage stash as well as some new supplies I had bought recently.

Some of my stash: My jar full of trim, ribbon, etc. both new and vintage, vintage silk flowers I pulled from an old hat, mod podge, blank sketch book(that I got on sale) and some paper and doodads from Melody Ross's new scrapbook line. (I love it! Very retro.)

Here is the blank book before the embellishments:
I loved the silk vintage flower I had, but wanted to give it a little more oomph. I put some vintage pattern pieces behind it and added some vintage blue silk bias tape I had.
The final product: I added trim, A Melody Ross vintage figure, a vintage button, vintage green french silk ribbon, Melody Ross clips and one of my favorite quotes about being creative.
I decided to organize myself and made tabs for the book. My tabs include: decorating, crafts, outdoor life, cooking, party ideas and theatre projects.
I was really happy with how this turned out my 10 year old daughter has begged me to make her one too. Can't wait to start filling my new journal.

Do you have a someplace to collect inspiration?
Happy Creating!

CHARLOTTE'S WEB

I know many of you were aware that Nat designed and built puppets for Charlotte's Web this past Fall. Utah Valley University opened a new theatre in September, the first show was Charlotte's Web and our brilliant friend and director hired Nat to do these puppets. They were amazing. I have wanted to post the photos on my blog for some time (especially if you weren't able to see it.) I love my amazingly creative husband!

P.S. It took around 6 months from start to finish.