Maddy's Dress Ups

Our project for this Craft Day was decorating an old hard side piece of luggage.  It is Dawn's niece's birthday the 9th, and we wanted a special place for Maddy's dress ups.

Dawn brought the decoupage and the Disney princess stickers, ribbon and gimpy braid.  I dug into my colorful pages, ripped them apart and deco'ed them down randomly.

 

Wish I had taken a before photo of this drab tan piece of luggage so that you could see the transformation.

Now Dawn and her Mom will fill it with fancy dresses, shoes, tiaras and jewelry for that sweet 6 year old girl!

Four Pin Friday

My next project will be jazzing up an old suitcase.

Dawn and I will be working on a small (21 inch wide) old Towncraft piece of hard side luggage.  It will be used to store dress up clothes for her niece Maddy.

Pinterest provided lots of inspiration for this endeavor that we will be working on it February 3rd . . . the next Craft Day get together here.

Can't wait to see how it turns out.  Hope it will be worthy of posting.  Stay tuned!

Valentine Season

is my favorite time for crafting!

and my favorite crafting partner just spent the day with me.  We turned out six burlap gift bags . . .

each one a masterpiece!!  Thanks Andra for the great day, your husband's amazing lentil soup, and your Mom's chocolate treats.

February Craft Day

Cleaned up the craft room, set the table and was all ready to get Valentiney

 There are usually 5 or 6 of us who get together for crafting and potluck lunch during the winter months

but then a 24~hour blizzard struck (and its not over yet!)

photographed just now out my craft room window

and now it is probably just t.o.b. and me eating chocolate cake!

Kissing Frogs

On our October Craft Day, Kim dug out some tiny little frogs from a jar of minis I have on my desk. They struck a chord with her and she mentioned how much she liked them. 

Ever since that day, I have been rattling my brain to figure out a way to use them. I know if I just gave them to her, they would probably end up in a drawer somewhere. Having several small tins saved up to decorate, this is the result . . . 

 inside

(postage stamps,"Stardust Stack" scrapbooking papers, teeny tiny rubber frogs, kiss ribbon and more)

 top

 opening

(gimp braid, border sticker and a bit of old jewelry)

bottom

(more Stardust Stack along with leather buttons for feet)

Merry Christmas Kimmer!

Get ready . . . Here it Comes!!

Whether we like it or not, winter is on its way.  For me, it means being cooped up in the house most days.  But the highlight of winter is monthly "Craft Day" where up to 6 of my crafting buddies get together in my messy craft room and create wonderful imaginative things.

This year we've decided that third Saturday is our day to get together for fun projects, potluck lunch and great conversations.

Here are a few of the finished art/craft things that came out of our work last Saturday . . .

 Above just a few of Karen's wonderful greeting cards.  She has her own special style (mostly cowboy, rustic, earthy)  Plus a special one for her sweet little granddaughter Kennedy.  Love them all!

Kim picked up a few blank pumpkins from Michaels and blinged 'em up.  Aren't they striking? I will turn her into a crafter yet!

Before

Tracey needed wall decor for her upcoming Halloween party and bought two of these birds and turned them into crows.

It took me a little longer to finish my project but got 'er done yesterday . . .

Thanks Kim for the blank pumpkin to decoupage and splash faux pearls upon.  So much fun!

This Week's Project!

Kim brought over a huge amount of wine corks several months ago.  They have been languishing in my garage all this time.  On our last trip to Michael's, we bought supplies to make wreaths.

I couldn't wait to get started and here is my wine cork wreath all finished and hanging on my wall .. .

Hope to get together and finish one for Kimmer later this month!  Put lots of time into it but it was a fun project.

And I hardly made a dent in the cork supply!

tOO much fun! (repost from 2010)

Another day crafting with Karen.  Lots of laughs, lots of creative juices flowing with tea and sandwiches, serious talk, girl talk and just talk, talk, talk.  Its my favorite way to spend the day.  And .... we actually accomplished what we set out to do!

Here is the November Mail Art for trade with my farmgirl partner on the Mary Jane's Farm site

and the backside along with my little go~along note.

Together we also made several Christmas tags for swapping with farmgirls.  Stay tuned

Throwback Thursday . . . Heartfelt and Handmade Valentines 2013

I'm embarrassed to say that all my handmade Valentines went to women this year.  They are the ones who seem to appreciate the effort that goes into creating them.

There were only three of us at this month's Mother/Daughter get~together . . .  Karen, her daughter and myself.  Sadly Kim was missing while having way too much fun snowmobiling!

So . . . we pushed on without her and here are the results

Karen and I were both in awe of Tracy's colorful banner

Below is the bunting I made (and just sent off in the mail to my daughter so that she would see what she missed by not spending time in my craftroom Saturday!)

 

 closeups
I so enjoy using old sheet music in my crafting 

The following pix are closeups of my blog banner above.  This one went to my daughter~in~law Dawn. 

These and so many beautiful vintage images can be found on the Lilac and Lavender blog.

  A little musical frame along with sheetmusic, heart, glitter, ribbon rose and faux pearls I made when the Valentine spirit first hit me at the beginning of the month.

I whipped out a Valentine for Karen this morning but, in my haste to get it to the mailbox before the post mistress came by, I forgot to take a picture of it.  Maybe Karen will send one along so that I can add it to this post.

And here it is . . . 

Thanks Karen 

Another Craft Day

Every so often I get together with a few women to craft in my "studio" (fancy name for a messy room with all the essentials stored in a haphazard way!).

Yesterday my good friend Andra and my daughter Kim got together to do a few craft projects.  Kim covered some old tile coasters with decoupaged papers and stickers.  Turned out great, but sadly, I didn't photograph them.

Andra, wanting to trade out last year's eclectic variety of tree ornaments, came up with 10 lovely new ones made from sheet music.  Once she got the courage up to rip pages from this old hymnal, she got going with a vengeance.

  

They all turned out beautifully, and at the end of the day, she let me select one for myself . . .

Come the holidays, I will have to find a very special place to hang this.

Beanbags for the Grands

Just recently bean bags were brought to my attention while at the lake cabin.  My friend Judy keeps one there for her grandkids to play with.

  Simply picking it up brought back memories of playing with them as a kid.  Kim tossed it around a bit, made up some games it could be used for and thought maybe her grandkids might have some fun with them.

Hence my latest project . . .

Using some soft corduroy from my stash, I cut 2 each at 6" x 4 1/2", pinned them front sides together and sewed them thusly . . .

 turned them right side out and filled them lightly with these small plastic pellets I had on hand (you want them to be squishy) . . .

 then pinned the opening and hand sewed it closed . . .

 We'll see if two 4~year~olds will find some joy in toys that are not high~tech, totally "hands on" 

I made four of these (different colors for the other set) so each could have two to play with.

And such a fast and easy craft . . . less than two hours to make four (no bean) beanbags!

A Blast from two Years Past

We laid out the tarps, dug out lots of small print cottons and opened jars of decoupage.  After that, it was a free~for~all, messy, fun crafting project for my friend Andra and Grandgirls Selah and Glory and myself.  Truth be told, I was the  sloppiest crafter that day with more goop on my fingers than on the plastic eggs that we decorated. 

Here are my simple offerings (along with some of my small basket collection) .  .  .

Of course, the younger "chicks" couldn't stop there.  They continued with bedazzling, beribboning, berickracking until we had a basketful of sparkling colorful Easter egg spectaculars!