A New Generation Begins

Our family is overjoyed to have received two beautiful new baby girls into the fold this month.

Finnley Olivia was born to my cousin Tarn and her husband Morgan on February 4th and

Vanleigh Rae was born to my second cousin Lacy and her husband Peter on February 14th.

When I posted this layout on facebook my aunt Pam reminded me that my grandma Ruth, who is these babies Great Grandma and Great-Great Grandma respectively was born in 1915,

The picture of Ruth was taken on Christmas Eve in the early 70s. She would have loved to hold these new babies, but alas we lost her 30 years ago. It's just amazing to think it's been 100 years between her birth and this new generation.


Top layout uses Club Scrap Digital kits: Hydrangea, Papillon, Bugs, Raku and Natural Resources Template

Next layout uses Club Scrap Digital kit: My Funny Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to my sweetie! and a Happy Valentine's Day to all my family and friends. May you have a wonderful day and lots of hugs and kisses!

Soda Can Dolls

I got to spend a lovely afternoon in my friend Tanny's studio yesterday learning how she makes these wonderful dolls from soda cans. She has them hanging throughout her lovely home and they're all absolutely wonderful. Here are a couple of her creations.

I got about halfway done at Tanny's and then I added a few more things today to finish up. 

I took some pictures along the way, so you can see the steps we took to get to the finished product. 

Start with a smashed soda can

add some arms and legs to the sides by poking a small hole and threading the wire used to make the appendages through. 

add a head and belly and start embellishing to your desired finish. 

Here is another one of Tanny's lovely creations. 

Wintry Peacock

The M&Ms are at it again. Maggie passed out these little round glass vases for us before she taught this great technique using tape and acrylic paint.

It was a really great and fun technique!

You can see I remembered to take a before picture after I had already started my project.

It took a whole day to make the peacock feathers. I started with the video found here and added some of my own modifications, This is a great starting place if you're looking for a how to on paper feathers.

I painted an old hand fan white and then arranged the feathers around it for the peacock tail. I added some white fiber flowers to the centers of each feather.

Here is the finished project. I used a toilet paper cardboard tube as a stand to hold the feathers and then poured glass glitter around it. Disguised it with a some silver fiber and then put a "peace on earth" stamped scroll into the body.

The head of the peacock is an old baby spoon covered with some sort of wound wood fiber I found in my stash of weird things to use someday. I perched an old jewelry brooch onto it's head for the fluffy stock and added some white punched leaves at the back. The feet are the TH poinsettia die cut out and covered with mica.

If we find some place to display our projects I'll try to get a pic of all of them.

33 Years! And Counting!

Happy 33rd Anniversary of the day we met to my wonderful hubby. Still having so much fun together. Here we are in the kayak on Munsel Lake this summer enjoying the osprey and a tranquil day on the water.

Falling for Happy Feet

We have a local shoe store here in town called On Your Feet. They have hundreds of these pressed cardboard forms that come inside the shoes when they get them. They asked our local Mixed Media art group to alter some of these for a fall window display, so I gave it a whirl this week.

I was so excited to get started that I forgot to take a before pic, but I did remember to right after I painted them black. And I've been making leaves for about 3 days now. The leaves are die cut patterned paper with the Tim Holtz Tattered Leaves die and then embossed with the matching embossing folder. Then I dragged them threw a few puddles of Distress Stains (Antique Linen, Wild Honey, Ripe Persimmon, Dusty Concord, Peeled Paint and Walnut Stain).

I also cut some of the smaller Autumn Harvest Leaves and some pine cones from the Tattered Pinecone die. This is my work table with all the leaves out drying. I also spread a little crackle accents on the leaves. It makes them curl wonderfully.

Here is a close up of all the leaves and pine cones arranged on the forms. I added a few red berries for a little bright splash.

And the finished display with an autumn quote from Club Scrap's Autumn Harvest kit and a festive ribbon. So fun to have my studio up and running now so I can create to my heart's content. I'll post a pic of the window display later this month so you can see what the other gals in the group come up with.

Happy Fall everyone! My favorite time of year. 

More Boxes!!

Thought I was close to finished with the studio, and then 17 more boxes arrived from the storage locker. And these were BIG boxes. So, there was a whole lot of tweaking going on to get even more stuff packed in this space. I came to the decision that there was no way I could store fabric for quilting here, so it will be in the old dining room hutch that is at the storage locker. I should be able to "shop" there when I'm looking for fabric for quilting.

Managed to get all of my wood mounted stamps into the rubber stamp frame that Roger built for me in Arizona. It works perfectly above the desk. Also found all the altered art storage that I've created over the years. Have paints and powders and mists and doodads stored right above the desk. 

We had a piece of counter we brought from Arizona that we turned into a good shelf across the end of the work island. I have mostly things that I use all the time there and can bring down to the work surface when I need them. Just to the right of the window I have my Distress Stains, Stickles and Distress Reinkers stored.

One of my favorite quilts "Evening at the Lilipond" works great for a door. Will keep it toasty in there when winter comes. Put 2 fiber holder rings up by the fish window and have my Timmy Tag wreath living above the door, along with my altered radiation mask.

On the end of the cube storage, I was able to get my small altered shadowbox trays up for Pearl Ex, Perfect Pearls and Glitters. Still have a little room for more too! Hehehe!

I have a few more cubes to add to this corner and then I'll be at capacity. Guess I better get started creating!

Here is the sewing area. I found my deck of art fans (which I need to finish, so maybe seeing them everyday will motivate me to do that) and they fit wonderfully on the doors to the cupboard above the sewing machine. A couple of more shelves above the window and some jar storage under it and we're good to go.