Domino Ornaments

These are some of the domino ornaments I've made for the upcoming artisan fair. I have been working on these just about every spare minute... Right now, I have about 50 finished, and I hope to have another 20 all cured and ready to roll by Saturday!

The pears are hand painted, the stars with swirls are stamped with a handpainted background.

The 'sepia' toned one is tea stained and then stamped with the swirl background, and accented with vintage text and a transferred image, and then embellished with a rhinestone & a vintage wooden button.

The snowflake design starts with a handpainted background, and then I stamp the images onto tissue paper and decoupage the images onto the domino, and embellish with rhinestones.

They've been a lot of fun! I hope that they sell!

~Anne

We Survived!

We made it back home about an hour ago from our Black Friday Shopping... it wasn't as rough on our pocketbooks as previous years, but, the crowds seem to be growing and growing!

We got most of the things on our list (and then some) -- but there were a couple of things we had planned on getting that were sold out too. Ah well, that's the risk you take when you leave the bulk of your holiday shopping to Black Friday, I suppose.

Anyways, some good did come out of it all (besides the bargain on the Guitar Hero III):

1) I am reminded this time every year just WHY I blend my own tea and prefer it over the chai lattes available from starbucks. Sure, I don't have a milk steamer (yet) and so I add a splash of unheated/unfrothed half and half to my chai instead. And... I don't even brew my chai the same way (they use a concentrated blend that is a tea steeped in milk rather than in boiling water -- I prefer the boiling water method)... but, even without the fancy steeping method and steamed, frothy milk, my chais are still better!

2) I am reminded this time every year just why I don't like the malls much anymore, and why I prefer to do most of my shopping online.

Anyways... how about some art? This isn't new... exactly... although it is from a currently ongoing deco round robin...

This is the cover from my Garden Tea Party deco. I am waiting on it to come home -- I can't wait to see what the others did! Here is the first page of my inside spread...

and here's page 2...

So, that's all for now... coming soon... some pictures of the ornaments I've made for the upcoming artisan's fair!

~Anne

It's Black Friday...

And it's 5:05 am currently... yep, I'm up to commence the "tradition" my hubby and I seemed to have started a few years ago... waking up at hours meant only for sleeping to head out into the cold cruel retail world and shop for gifts. When you think about it, it's really quite ridiculous to continue with this ritual. We have succumbed to the commercialization. Sad. Very very sad.

But, hey, what can I do? I can't "make" a Guitar Hero III bundle set (which is on sale at Target for 85 bucks today), I can't "make" my little pony playsets. :( And these are the treasures that top the lists of my daughters this year. Yes, and the maxi glide hair straightening system, which is purchased online... yay! No crazy lines! Although... I really find the name of the hair system offensive... "maxi glide" -- sounds like some sort of feminine hygene product, not a hair straightening system. Right?

OK... I'm off to shop. Wish me luck!

~Anne

Circus Fatbook Pages

Well, as I promised earlier, I wanted to upload a pic or two of my circus fatbook pages that were mailed off to the hostess yesterday.

When I was "brainstorming" for this page, I wanted something more Pierrot clown-ish as a charm "dangly" but, I'm really pleased with these little silver plated plastic elephants instead... they give such a cool, vintage feel to the whole page. I found them at Vintage Treasures by Judy. (NOTE: after visiting just now at her ebay store, I noticed that she's closed her store for the holidays... be sure to catch her when she reopens her store in 2008! She has amazing deals!)

I can't wait to see the completed book!

Well, that IS all for today...

~Anne

I Am Purple...

Good Morning Everyone ... it's 7:23 am! UGH! Yeah, I know, it's early, but, I have to get my daughter ready and out the door for school... this is her last day for school this week, she'll have Wednesday - Friday off for the holiday.

As I was browsing through my emails this morning while waiting for my daughter to finish her breakfast, one in particular caught my eye... it was about an online quiz where it determines the color that best represents you... Here are my results:

What color is your soul painted? Purple Your soul is painted the color purple, which embodies the characteristics of sensuality, spirituality, creativity, wealth, royalty, nobility, mystery, enlightenment, arrogance, gaudiness, mourning, confusion, pride, delicacy, power, meditation, religion, and ambition. Purple falls under the element of Earth, and was once a European symbol of royalty; today it symbolizes the divine. Click Here to Take This Quiz

Quizzes and Personality Tests

Let's hope that worked!

Anyways, I thought it was interesting since purple is my favorite color. What that means, exactly... I dunno... it's like art, and subject to interpretation.

So, that's all this morning... I'll probably have more later today as I have a picture of the fatbook pages I mailed off yesterday.

~Anne

An additional review of UHU's fabric glue

For those of you who read my blog, you know that I did a review of UHU's Creativ Fabric Glue back in July. I wanted to post another brief review of the product, because I used it again, this time in a somewhat unconventional way, and was very pleased with the results.


This time, I used the glue to adhere handmade paper to the back of needlefelted fabric. I wasn't sure how well it would work, because of the woolen, loose, fibery properties of needlefelted wool fabric.





It worked great!

Some months ago, I hosted a felted ATC swap on my Yahoo Group ... and I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to adhere the information that we ATC artists generally include on the back side of the ATCs. At first, I figured I'd try some standard craft glue, but, I worried that it would cause the paper to warp or buckle, and I didn't want to finish the ATCs like that. So I decided to give the UHU Fabric Glue a try, and it worked amazingly well!

Not a buckle or warp anywhere, and in looking at the back side of the ATCs up close and in person, you can't really see (or feel) any tell-tale signs of how the paper was adhered to the felted fabric. I was very pleased indeed!

So... now all we need to do is convince UHU to start selling this stuff in the states!

~Anne

Decos, Tea & ATCs...

Hello Everyone!

Well, I'm long overdue on this deco spread, I just had so many things going on at once that I shut down from being overwhelmed (an unfortunate symptom of the anxiety thing), and so I just couldn't pull myself out of the "ickies" long enough to work on anything.

However, things have lightened up some, and I'm feeling productive once again. This past weekend, I finished my spread on Julie's Elements deco... this was a very challenging deco for me, we could choose 1 of the elements, but couldn't repeat an element already chosen... since "wood" was one of the remaining ones, and I had just received some "wood" scrapbook paper, I felt inspired enough to select the wood spread... of course, I could have left the "wood" page for Gail, who has some particularly interesting fabric that could have been used on the spread... but, err... ... well, nevermind...

As you can see, the scan cut off the far right side of the spread, and while I did scan the other side of the spread separately, for some reason, it didn't show up in my scan folder when I went to load them here, so, you'll just have to be content with what you see here. :) I hand sketched the trees in the background against the wood paper.... and the dimensional tree in front, as well as the little fence... are actual wood that I found at the craft store. This was a fun deco... and I hope that Julie likes.

Now... on to some ATCs that I recently worked on... These are 3 in my Autumn Batik Series.

Lately, I've also been working on some tea blends... most notably, I've been working on a "Winter Wonderland" blend, that I hope to have finished in time for Ridgefield's craft bizaar the first weekend of December... I'm working on something that will have a bit of a warm, spicy flavor with orange and cranberry notes. I'm also working on a "Fresh Cookies" blend, with flavors that will remind you of gramma's house after she's baked some warm, yummy cookies!

I guess I should have added this information on my tea journal, huh? LOL Maybe I'll head over there in a bit.

~Anne

Skelly Stuffy

I've been so out of it... not feeling entirely creative... I've made a few things in the past few weeks...... a one page swapper 'zine, a witch in a jar (which broke -- apparently the witch was actually a squib, because she didn't reparo her environment when it shattered!), and Mr. Skelly Stuffy.... who is modeling below...

He came about pretty organically. I actually started out with a drawn out pattern on cardstock, but, my first Skelly... um.... well, let's just say, it's back to the graveyard with him. So, I decided to toss the pattern and just create...

He's completely hand stitched (no machine), and... my lack of sewing skills is more apparent in some areas than others... but overall, I'm pretty pleased with him and he's got his own sort of charm. I sent him off to a new home, to live with my secret art pal!

But... a bonus! My oldest daughter actually asked me to make one for her! That made me feel good.

OK, well, that's all for now. :) Thanks for reading along.