On The First Day of Christmas...

As some of you know (if anyone actually still reads this blog, I know I've been MIA for quite some time and appear only now and then... certainly wouldn't blame anyone for moving on to other pastures, but, hopefully, I still have someone reading every once in a while!) Anyway... as some of you know, last year, I participated in a 12 days of Christmas swap with an art group with which I'm involved. It was so much fun that I decided to join it again this year.

Yesterday, we started opening packages... and for Day one, here is what I received ...

First, check out the incredible wrapping job!

I know, stunning, right? The package is a gift in itself! Love it!

Finally, after staring, totally amazed and mesmerized by the beautiful package for what seemed a good half an hour, I finally pulled the string on the bow to find out what was inside...

Another Stunner! Gwynn absolutely outdid herself. This will make a fantastic addition to my altered art Christmas tree, and I am so happy to have it. What a joyous gift it is!

Thank you Gwynn!

Mental Note to myself: Next Year, also come up with clever packaging for 12 days gifts!

Well, that's all for now, but tune in tomorrow to see what Day 2 has brought. Yes, I already opened that one, (since today, the 14th, is technically the 2nd day of this swap - we started it on the 13th, but, I wanted to do each blog post a day later so that the 12th day ends up on Christmas, plus it would give me ample time to actually compose the post!)

Thanks for reading!

An Altered Ballet Dress

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Well, this year for Halloween, we needed to economize a bit, so we couldn't go out and get a costume for our youngest the way we usually do. Instead, we looked to her closet, in which she has several "old" ballet recital costumes - these were worn only twice: once for her photo, once for the recital. And it seemed like such a waste! (Especially if you saw what we had to spend on them) I suppose I could have sold them on Craigslist but I doubt I would have gotten anywhere near what we paid for them.

Now, fortunately, for the ballet recital, they have a rental system where we rent out the costumes. It doesn't cost as much and we don't have a ballet recital outfit that she'll never wear again.

Anyway, this year, Lilith wanted to be a zombie. So she had her eye on several zombie costumes from Party City, but, we really couldn't afford to spend money on a costume (another outfit that would be worn once). So, my mind started thinking... why spend money on a zombie costume... when really what makes a zombie a zombie is their make-up ... there are no hard-core rules as to what a zombie wears.

So, I told her, either choose an outfit from her wardrobe that she wouldn't mind scuffing up (she has a dress that still fits but is a little worn), or choose one of her ballet recital outfits and we'll alter that and make it zombie-fied.

She chose the latter.

Here are some photos of her as a zombie before we altered the dress:

Cute... but, the dress looked a little too pristine to be a zombie outfit.

So... I altered it:


I guess I could have done more to it than just torn and discolored the tulle, I guess I could have scuffed up the velvet part as well, but, it was hard enough for me to cut, tear and discolor the tulle. The "conservative" parent voice inside my head kept reminding me how much I paid for this dress.

But... when all is said and done, she is REALLY happy with the result. This is the best Halloween costume she's had yet, and it is something that nobody else out there will have. There may be zombies, but none quite as cute! And, we saved about 40 bucks (which is what we probably would have paid for a new costume) in the process, and we probably wouldn't have gotten 40 bucks back from re-selling the costume on Craigslist. In my opinion, it's a win-win!

Hope your Halloween is a fun and frightening one!

Yeah, It's been a while...

But, I've been blogging, just not here. I've been keeping busy doing tea reviews. And ... coincidentally, drinking a lot of tea in the process.

I've not done a lot of art this year, but I am getting back into the swing of things. Lately, I've been working on fatbook pages with a travel theme. We're to do 32 pages for this swap. Each one of mine is a little different from the others... although they are pretty similar in the techniques and colors that I've used. The images is what makes most of them different.

Here's one of them ...


I'm pretty happy with them... I've invested a whole lot more time than I thought I would when I embarked upon this project... each page has a lot of different layers, and since I'm no jewelry artist, the chain embellishment work isn't a piece of cake.

But, it has been fun to be working on art again.

~Anne