look at all the pretty colors

So this summer I was "supposed" to be participating in Louise's Creative Color Challenge. But as with any thing, I would see the weekly color get selected, get super excited about it, ponder it, contemplate it, even think of wonderful things that could be done with it, sometimes even actually have it come to life and photograph it, and then before I knew it it was Saturday evening and I was reading Louise's recap of that week and I hadn't even posted. Did anyone else's summer fly by...

Week 1 was Sunflower Yellow. I posted here.

Week 2 Raspberry Red. I actually did a great collage here. But here is the perfect picture from that week when I was in Charleston.

whoops, forgive me ;)

Week 3 was Turquoise Blue, this piece is still in progress but it has a lot of shiny which was the twist that week and is majority turquoise.

Week 4 was Sea Green.

Week 5, this week, the FINAL week, was Lavender.

And here is a collage of all the pretty colors - hope you enjoy!

procrastinator

Yep, that's me! I procrastinate. I try not to. But who am I kidding?! I think it is in my blood. It drives my parents crazy!!! But the truth is, they can't fault me. It bothers my mom but not nearly as much as it does my dad. My mom doesn't say much about it. My dad doesn't either really but you can tell it irks him. It's gotten to the point though where he just shakes his head and laughs. In fact, it is kind of a joke now. When I was a freshman in college, he even gave me a sign that read: "Don't rush me! I'm waiting for the last minute!"

It is SO me! Somehow that sign got lost between here and Ann Arbor and by my second week of school a new one arrived at my mailbox! I've never lost it since. It's hanging right where I can see it. I imagine one day this skill I have perfected will bite me in the butt. However, for now I seem to work better under pressure. Like tonight.

This month I am participating in The Creative Color Challenge over at my friend Louise's blog. I've been looking forward to this challenge, but this week just got away from me. Plus, it was another one of those, oh my everyone created such masterpiece's. And a while ago I kind of decided I didn't really want to "compete" and feel like my creations were inadequate. That wasn't doing much good for my soul. But this challenge just seemed fun, so it seemed okay that I took my time with it, and I hope the group will be okay that I am an hour or so late in posting. I had a hard time deciding what to do with the color given this week - sunflower yellow. You are only allowed to use that color, and then white or black. I am pretty pleased with my creation. I die cut flowers using all different shades of paint chips. Used some acrylic paint and gel, and a few beads, buttons, and ribbon, a little paper, stamps, and its all on canvas. Hope it makes you smile!

going with it - with a 5 year old

The twins come home today! I know a 5 year old who is very excited. Its so cute. Yesterday her, my mom, and aunt (the proud grandmother) started decorating the house for the big welcome home. Finally, when I was able I joined the party. I had promised Miss L that she and I could make a banner to hang across the fireplace mantle. Now she's pretty good with her art, I must say. But even I had visions in my head of how I wanted it to be. Would I be able to let my perfectionism go out the window and truly let the Big Sister help? I had no idea. But I knew I needed to. This was a moment she would always remember. So here we went...

I really wish I had someone taking pictures of this whole process. Its just hard to photograph when you are the one doing it. But I traced circles for L, she cut them, they didn't look like circles when she was done. They looked like rocks. In fact, I'm pretty sure those were her words. And there we have lesson number 1 in letting go. Well if we didn't have perfect circles to work with for the outer portion, why'd we need them for the inner portion? We used any shape that came out, which made this a lot easier for me = no being precise. Hey, I like letting it go! L glued the patterned paper and letters. Lesson 2 in letting things go - things won't be centered. Well if the letters aren't centered, it didn't matter where the holes from the hole puncher fell did it? GREAT! Then I punched those. Yay, I got to use my Crop-A-Dile for the first time! We put eyelets in. L called them eyelids a couple of times and then eyelashes. This totally cracked me up!!! And of course she wanted to try. Well I'm here to tell you that that thing is hard to squeeze so that one wasn't perfect either, but guess what? Neither were mine! How do you get them to do without cracking on the front? I need help with that I guess. Then she left me. She ate and took a bath. I was left with the ribbon and stringing. I ran out of one ribbon after one name. Yep, that seemed about par for the course on this project. So you'll notice one name has gold ribbon and the other blue. I tried to tie it all together by giving them both the same color on the ends. I will say, if you didn't know in my head how it was supposed to look, it looks pretty darn good. We're pretty proud. I still think when the mom wants to take it off the fireplace she can hang it above their individual cribs if she wanted. 

And when we were all finished I got asked if there was time to do another art project. Gotta love 'em!

** I should say that this was a compilation of ideas from my earlier banner for my niece
and this post from the lovely paper blog.

and we definitely  so we'll share...

you can also go ahead and get some great some great tips over at

 

right on, Target!

All the way back in March I saw this on the Pleated Poppy.  I had long admired Lindsey's product, but in this purse revamp I was finally like, "I can do this! And the bag is from Target - my Mecca!"

So off to Target I went and stocked up on bags. I started playing around with fabrics. Just looking at fabrics is fun enough there are so many pretty ones. Lindsey is absolutely correct when she says you should check out Hawthorne Threads - uh-mazing! 

Now with my nice little stash of fabric and embellishments I had made an awesome bag for myself. 

Well, as you can imagine, I started getting lots of compliments on this fun bag. And it is fun. I had fun playing with all the different types of materials - I've got a zipper flower on there, ribbon flowers, fabric flowers, and little felt buttons. It is definitely something that took time. I had reached a point where I thought I was done, so I hung it on the back of a chair and kept looking at it for a day. A few things stuck out at me so I pulled them off and readjusted - just like fine tuning or "sleeping on it."

I kind of had in mind that these bags would make excellent diaper bags and my cousin was expecting twins this month. Back in April she said to me, "what if I found some fabric for you, would you maybe make me a bag?" And I said, "what if you just wait and see what people have planned for you!"

Well there went my surprise, but it did take me all the way until now to get it to her. She had those two sweet girls yesterday morning and I got to meet them today. Baby A weighed 4 lbs. 1oz. Baby B weighed 4 lbs. 11ozs. I can officially say those are the smallest babies I have ever held, let alone seen. Here's how her bag turned out:

And well for me, it's all about presentation, so you have to fill a diaper bag with all kind of little goodies!

I made sure to include the Big Sis, with her very cool t-shirt of course. And at Target, of course, they have these awesome marker boxes and notebooks that you can 'make your own.' See how they are black and white and have designs? You just get markers to color in the designs. I thought she would have fun with that. Plus a few new frames for the babies when she is in kindergarten next year. Then, in the diaper bag went two receiving blankets, their Lil Sis t's and two dry erase boards that I made. Again, the frames came from Target. They came in a two-pack (ha, so did the receiving blankets). I used some of the same fabric from the diaper bag, put it inside the glass, as well as a few stickers on the inside, and voila! I think my cousin will be all set, at least for a couple of hours :)

*go see this and lots of other great ideas at 

and since this was a gift, go check out  for this and more great gift ideas! 

made in the USA

Being an artist I have a love for all things hand and homemade. Being an Aunt I have a love for all things family. The two often meet when it comes to my niece. I may have mentioned her a time or two before as the most adorable thing ever. I say that without prejudiced ;) But she is. She may be the only niece I have at the moment. So what do I know? I do know that I truly never knew it was possible to love someone else's child this much. But again, it is!

I can't say I'm one to be gung ho holidays. Well, maybe that is not entirely true. I get into the spirit. I like Valentine's. I like to bake and make decor. I LOVE gift giving. I always make a kid friendly Thanksgiving treat when our family gets together. And Chanukah - well the decorating is endless, and the Christmas fun of gift-giving and assembling is the same. Much can be said about the 4th of July, it's another opportunity to be a little creative.

Then I reversed (mirror imaged) the image, this will depend on the type of iron on transfer paper you wind up using, so that I could print it on my transfer paper. I then ironed it on a white t-shirt. I got some Aleene's glitter and gem fabric glue and went over the red letters of USA with the glue and then sprinkled over the glue with red glitter.  It's got just the right sparkle for my cutie on Sunday morning. I can't wait to see her in it. 

The t-shirt is drying as I type. But I will post a picture of the complete finished project as an update tomorrow morning, but what you see above is what I designed. I am most proud. I am linking up to my, CSI Challenge, with one of my other favorite's Lindsey from The Pleated Poppy judging AND sponsoring this week! Plus some other fun link parties that I love and admire at These Creative Juices and Craftaholics Anonymous, plus be sure to check out this page of my blog to see what parties I like to link up to!

***UPDATE*** - TADA! Hope you love it as much as I do. I even got a daytime shot for you in front of the pool, how festive?! Plus two pics as I was ironing and gluing the glitter. Enjoy and Happy 4th!

super cute mini clipboard

Do you ever just see something cute and fun and you're like, "Oh I like that, I'm gonna go ahead and get that and I'm sure I'll find a use for it?" So, you plop it in your basket and take it home and then figure out what to do with it later? Then of course you wind up with something super cute as if you had planned it all along, and people are like, how'd you think to do that? I love when that happens. Oprah refers to it in her magazine as an Aha! moment. I guess I had one of those Aha moments the other night. 

My aunt gave me a gift card to Michael's as a get well little 'happy' when I was recovering from having my tonsils out. I had never received a gift card from Michael's, but how perfect of an idea was that?! So naturally Michael's had this little section in the middle. I think they put cool stuff there on purpose, like oh she'll see me sitting here and have to buy me. And then the kicker, it said "specialty designer paper" on top of it. Well, I still don't know what made it designer. I mean, I loved the patterns on it. They were definitely more artistic than crafty/cutesy. But I didn't know the name of the designer. It was the same brand, K&Company, as half the other stuff I have bought there and at other stores. It was just a little pad of paper, you know the mat size pad. Then I saw where it said, 'self-adhesive.'  Hmmmmm. The prints were neat. It was sticky which meant I didn't really need glue. I didn't really need to cut too much cause it wasn't big. What could I do with this? What could I put it on?? I had NO idea. But it would make something cool. In my basket it went. UGH, I went in for one thing to get with that gift card - a Crop-a-Dile that had been recommended to me, and I left with so much more. I need blinders in those stores. Needless to say, by the end of the night, my fun paper find made this:

I remebered I had some picture frames that you can decorate and thought the sticky paper might be perfect for that, but if you can't tell, I have A LOT of picture frames (and you've hardly seen half of them). And I would have just put another picture of my niece in it, not that that is a problem either - she's stinking adorable. But then I was searching through my drawer and stumbled upon this blank clipboard that I have had forever. How perfect! I just started sticking and layering until I liked the way it looked, combining and mixing the different patterns. I tore the pieces to get a little bit of texture and distressed them with some distressing ink. To get a few smaller pieces on top for some color contrast, I used my paper punches and layered those. Then I used some clear quote stickers I had. I'm debating whether or not I want to Mod Podge it. But, I'm pretty happy with my spur of the moment find and 5 minute creating came out. 

more fun with frames and wall art

Like I said, I LOVE frames. Even on my website's 'About Me' page I have mentioned on there somewhere that my dad said to me one day "you have more frames and pictures than the Louvre!" Well, it's kind of true, I do. And I do have a lot of stuff. Sometimes I think though its what comes along with being a creative person. In fact, I've yet to meet a true creative person who is also a true minimalist. They may appear to be one, but that just means they can organize and hide it well. We all have our stuff. In the end it's all how we use it and display it. I think right now my stuff looks a little cluttered cause I am cramped in a smaller space. Sometimes I think all my dad sees no matter what is clutter. But I know for a fact that I have a friend who wonders, "how does she do that?" "how does she just take these thing and make it look like that and then arrange it so it doesn't look so boring?" <--- that's the thinking that keeps me going.

So I took a regular frame, one of the ones I use for my clocks, and turned it into a jewelry organizer. I know there are a lot of these out there on blogland. But I hope you'll keep reading because I haven't seen many like these. I see a lot of these in store displays and sometimes at craft/art shows and fairs. So I went ahead and made my own. I like the open-ness of the frame. It doesn't distract from any of my jewelry. I wanted to be able to put more than just earrings and bracelets, so I just drilled a screw in over there and hang my necklaces down the side. The bottlecap earrings and the necklace with the big butterfly are both done by my friend Jenni. She's very talented. 

And this below was another piece of wall art, though mine is propped up because as mentioned I am dealing with a small space, that I use to display/organize. This also was done one night while babysitting. I knew P&A would love to pick out their own fabrics, ribbons, and buttons for their own boards. Theirs actually do hang on the walls in their bedrooms. I'll have to get pictures. P's is hot pink, lime green, and black. A's is turquoise blue and lime green. They are so fitting of their personalities. We even used tools that they could control - a hot glue gun (with my supervision of course) and instead of those crazy staple guns, Staples office store has some staplers that are kind of automatic in themselves in the regular aisle and worked awesome! Here's a pic of a smaller one I did that night. We also found these cute buttons. I let the girls each pick one for theirs, too. I think P has one that says Peace maybe and A's says girlfriends. I'm sure they'll correct me if I am wrong. 

You can also see on mine I save some of my favorite placecards from my friends' weddings (we'll see if they read my blog!). It's always good for ideas. :)

scrap happy and a happy friday!

Yep, it's pretty much official - the Wal-Mart Singer machine has bit the dust. I guess that sweet little old man I went to visit last weekend was right, "Ya get what ya pay for!"

I needed something I could whip up quick, and boy was this the project!

Basically all you need are some scrap strips of fabric, about 15 inches long. and braid them. I used a safety pin to hold each end until both braids were done. Then I held both  braids together and put one end through the sewing machine (this was right before it broke), and then did the same on the other end. This way both braids are now attached to each other. Like this:

Then the last step once you have attached the two braids is to cut the excess off the ends, and attach the elastic (approx. 5-6 inches). I had to hand stitch that part. 

I've got the most adorable 7 month-old niece with beautiful red hair. This little mini will be beyond cute, I have a feeling!

You can see I even used a paperclip to hold the spot in the braids because I couldn't find another safety pin at that moment. Whatever works! All this with just some scraps. Quick and fun, what could be better?!

Check this other one out, she did a great job. 

Also, here's another fun giveaway going on...love stitched is hosting one for Sherri's Boutique for this awesome Amy Butler bag. Love it!

oh yes, crafting is where it's at!

...and I can't even stand it when people end their sentences with a preposition, but there! Right there in my own post title, I just did it. You see I was an English major, and I think I've said it before, but I also worked in book publishing. I have a thing for grammar. There's a fine line between being all grammatically correct and also being all casual in my writing so that it feels like it's just conversational, so the YOU feel, well like I am just chit-chatting with YOU! But fine, so there you have it - crafting is where it's at, no ifs, ands or buts about it!

I just completed another projected. I mean JUST. Now. At almost 3:00 a.m! I'm nuts, I know, I've already said so. I even hung it and as I got in bed with my laptop to write this, it fell. I didn't even care. I mean, I got up to make sure everything was okay and I put everything back in its place, but in the end all I cared about was that I had something cute and pretty and new, that I had made! Look at it.

I am loving how this came out. I found a small cookie sheet at the Dollar Tree. I spray painted it green, like an olive type green. Then I had this gold wood-gran paper that I had been longing to use and thought it would go perfectly. I had these pink paper roses from another one of my rose attempts (still trying, trying being the operative word, but obviously not there yet). The paper was cool. It was from a Martha Stewart pack where each pack that looks like bandanas, and this shade was a pink that was the perfect color compliment. Oh, and the cookie sheet didn't have the two holes in it for the ribbon. I drilled those with my handy dandy drill I use to make all my clocks. This was so fun and easy to make. 

It's felt so good to be able to be creating every day. I hope that this can continue. I'm sure others around me think I'm crazy. I long for others with these creative juices. I need this outlet. That's for sure. 

ya still gotta look cute!

It's true. I haven't felt good all week. So who in their right mind gets up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning to shower when they don't even have to be somewhere til 8:30, especially when they don't feel well?! Yep, that would be me. As I've said before, my advantage in the sleep department is that, I don't have kids so if I wanted to sleep in I really could. But, I do love kids. I mean, I go and teach them math at 8:30 on Saturday mornings for goodness sakes - and because I truly like doing so! But this Saturday I wasn't feelin' it -- I needed something cute to make me feel better. Check out this headband I came up with.

Yes, just this morning, I cranked this beauty out - half of it while I waited for my shower to warm up and the other half while I waited for part of my hair to dry. I know, I'm nuts! But, I really do like it, don't you? I'm thinking that for future headbands maybe more than one flower but using slightly smaller ones and then use these bigger ones for broaches. Any thoughts?

this is what i do!

Yep! It's a clock and I make them. I needed a little outlet, and so on the side this was what I came up with: memorable minutes!

Stop by sometime and check it out. I use baby announcements, wedding invitations, all kinds of things and I'm having so much fun!

hardware store challenge...and linking up to weekend wrap-up!

and after all that,

**Yep, I was indeed late to the CSI challenge, by like 10 minutes! Me and my procrastinating self! Though for what it's worth I have been sick all week. Oh well, I left the link to CSI because there is always amazing stuff over there. But well, I'm pretty proud of how this necklace finally did come out that I'm going to link it up over at:

and

For a few more details on the necklace in case you're interested:

Yes the chains - they are all from Lowe's as I said. I am sure the guy was loving me being all like, "Okay a foot of that, and 2 feet of that." He was probably thinking the whole time, 'Does she even know what she's doing?!' And then when he had a jagged end left on one of them, I said, "Oh that's okay I'll use my jewelry tools and take care of that!" I'm sure he was like, 'Greeeat she's making jewelry!'

Well yes I did! But I didn't need my tools. I used the keychain rings as I said. I just bought one small pack with varied sizes and voila. I just decided where to link what chain depending on how I wanted which one to hang. As for the fabric flower, if people have amazing lessons, bring them on. I've studied and studied many, but am extremely visual and am having a hard time. The zipper flower, no problem. I just got out the hot glue gun and rolled with it, literally, til it met my liking! I think next up is a belt!

So I'm a little late in posting this. I just found out yesterday my tonsils are coming out in 8 days! Hope you'll still accept this one. School's out and I finally had some time.  I love a good challenge and this one was LOTS of fun. I made a necklace with just about everything from the chain aisle from Lowe's!!! There are key rings on there and other rings and about 4 or five diferent types of chain. And then for some color, a zipper rose, some fabric roses, a ribbon, and a rhinestone. Hope you like it.