Tree Trimming

Rebecca was kind to take this photo of her Christmas tree with my wood and clay ornaments.  I love seeing how people decorate with my work.  Thanks for sharing Rebecca!

Thanksgiving

Ready to eat!

  Every Thanksgiving, we go around the table and say what we are thankful for and this year, I was thankful to have all of the boys under one roof.  We really miss Cameron being away at college.

I would say our sassy monkey Luna was thankful for a tummy rub.

I hope you had a beautiful and memorable Thanksgiving.

Mums

I found these large, beautiful mums at the market yesterday.  I thought they would look pretty on our Thanksgiving table.  The colors are so fall!

Christmas 2013 Inspired Ideas!

It's here! It's finally here!

Enjoy!

click here to get the online issue of Inspired Ideas for only $3.99

Joy to the World

A figural gourd snowgirl is available on my website.  I will have one more figural snowman and some Christmas wood and clay ornaments available on small business Saturday.

Holiday Open House at the Village Gift Shoppe

Gnadenhutten's little gem of a shop had beautiful holiday displays and it was perfect to get me in a Christmas kind of mood!  The chilly temps helped, but Lori & her shop partner did a great job with their holiday open house.  Julie and I had fun looking at all of the goodies.  After our shopping trip, we grabbed a late lunch at the Dennison Depot cafe (thanks for the suggestion Lori).  Anyone who loves trains, would go nuts at this railroad museum.  

The Village Gift Shoppe is located at

106 N. Walnut Street

Gnadenhutten, OH 44629

740-254-9530

villagegiftshoppe.blogspot.com

The Dennison Depot

400 Center Street

Dennison, OH 44621

740-922-6776

www.dennisondepot.org

craft fair

I'm getting ready for the craft fair at Alfredo's school this weekend. At the urging of some friends, I signed up for table . My father made rosaries to sell...and I asked sweet Kristen Robinson to make necklaces like the beautiful one she made me. I'm always, always getting compliments on it and people always want to know where I got it. I knew it would be a good thing to offer. She made 10 beautiful necklaces for me to sell. 

So inspired by these two very religious items to sell, I decided to run with it and offer other items with a religious theme.

I set up a table in my family room so I could plan out the displays. Want to see?
 

  

I used kraft wrapping paper with gold stars stamped on it (Dollar Store!) to skirt the table. I'll just use packing tape to tape it along the table top's edge. I had these table runners from my shop years ago. I just cut them in half and hung them along the table front, again using packing tape to secure. I topped the table with some kraft paper printed with scrolls. The nice thing about it is that everything is really sturdy. Sometimes using a cloth, especially a thick one, can make things wobbly.

 

I put my father's rosaries in this flat drawer cabinet. I sorted them by color to make them easy to find. Can you believe these are only $15? And he gives all the money, not just the profit, to his church. Isn't he a sweetie? He's going to be there with me on Saturday, with all of his supplies to make rosaries on the spot.

And how about that sign?

When I saw these chalkboard sandwich signs at Michael's, I knew they'd make great signs! I used white Saral transfer paper to transfer a printout of the sign to the chalkboard. Then I used a white chalk pencil to fill it in. Didn't it turn out great? And it was quick...I did all of these signs in less than an hour!

 

For the necklace display, I spray painted an old dress mirror frame antique gold. I added a flat board to the bottom for stability. I covered some foam core with osnaburg fabric using spray mount and I just used pins to hold the necklaces.

I put the extra necklaces on a velvet lined tray above. As the necklaces sell, I can consolidate the display to go in the mirror frame.

 

Aren't these necklaces breathtaking? Kristen did such a lovely job...I don't know which is my favorite!

These prayer journals were a fun project. I used those cheap plastic photo albums ($1 from Walmart and the dollar store) and filled them with prayers and scripture readings that I machine-stitched to scrapbook paper cut to 4" x 6".

I have a few more things to make but I think I'm ready! We're going to pick up my parents this afternoon (my sister is meeting us halfway with them).

If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by St. Timothy Catholic School in Chantilly, Virginia on Saturday. I'll see you there!

bizzeee bizzeee!

I'm working on the Christmas issue! It's a good one! Hoping to publish on Monday, just in time for some good ol' Thanksgiving afternoon crafting!

I'm hoping today to give you a sneak peek at another fun thing I'm busy working on...the craft fair at Alfredo's school. This weekend! See, I told you I was busy!

12 Songs of Christmas 2013

Just compiled this year's Christmas playlist for some painting inspiration.  Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's Mr. Heatmiser is a great version of the Rankin Bass classic.  Yule Shoot Your Eye Out is one for my Fall Out Boy fan Cameron. 

Fun Fungi

These have to be one of the cutest mercury glass strands ever.  A little on the spendy side at $58 for the strand, but what a good way to spend $58.  They are sold at Terrain.

Fall Things

Canadian Hemlocks have the sweetest little pine cones.

Fringed ornamental cabbage- I know the peeps I've been sending this image to are probably tired of seeing it, but I love this plant!

When I was organizing my art space, I thought my collection of old wooden spools would be nice in a large glass jar that I had purchased for a Halloween party.  

My friend Wendy had sent me this frame with a witch silhouette, but it matches our great room and I didn't want to store it away.  Found a cute vintage Thanksgiving image and embellished the image with some scrapbooking elements.  The velvet pumpkins were a birthday gift from Anne last year.

While trolling Pinterest, I came across the free pilgrim silhouettes.  JoAnns had the round frames on sale for 60% off.  The acorns were collected by Shayne and my mom during his visit to Texas.  Placed some of my Harry Lauder Walking Stick branches and the Canadian Hemlock pine cones on the mantel too.

Oh, I can't wait to have the smell of cooking turkey in a couple of weeks!  

Elves

These two fellas are headed to Texas.  They were a special request from my mom since she wanted to make a fun wreath for their front door.  A Santa gourd ornament will also be joining them, but he's not quite finished.  Can't wait to see what Mom makes with the trio.

Alfredo's house

Alfredo joined me in my freshly cleaned craft room today and made this:

Can you believe how adorable that house is (and that boy!)?

I was playing around with Brenda Walton's new Country Cottage die from Sizzix and Alfredo wanted to make one too. He did great...even lining up the scallop roof! He picked glittery paper for the house and shiny silver metallic paper for the roof. Great choices, right? It looks so adorable.

Best of all, the whole house is hinged so we can tuck in a little battery powered tea light. He wanted to put a little ornament of a teddy bear on a rocking horse in there too. So cute!

 I think this might be our Christmas craft gift from Alfredo this year! He loved making it and can even almost operate the Big Shot on his own!

Zombie Food

Since Cameron missed the Halloween dinners this year, he was able to enjoy at least one spooky dinner for tonight's The Walking Dead show.  I had purchased some sparkling raspberry cider and was hoping to plop some grenadine molded brains into the glass.  Grenadine doesn't freeze completely, so the frozen brains looked great for about 2 seconds.  I'll chalk it up to a learning experience.  I think using cranberry juice in the brain molds and putting them into cherry 7UP would have turned out much better.   Taste wise- this was probably one of my favorite dinners.

Happy Place During the Holidays

Today, three of the Beason boys and I headed to one of my favorite happy places- Suncrest Gardens.  This weekend is their holiday open house and these photos are just a few of the beautiful displays that are adorning the shop.  They do a fantastic job with their dreamy displays.

Beautiful succulent centerpiece.  Love the color combination.

I'll take one of everything!

One of the many festive Christmas trees.

The lit cardboard houses always remind me of my mom.

A vintage-inspired tree

A tree for those who give into their wanderlust.

This tree was in the greenhouse section and it was perfect for the constant gardener.  It had the cutest bee, beehive, fruit, and veggie glass ornaments.  I think Chris would have my head on a candy cane if I did another themed tree!  It was very cute.

We headed to the Don Drumm Gallery's holiday open house right after, but it was so crowded that we didn't stay long.  Now if we had some snowfall, it would have been the perfect Christmas mood day.