Merry Christmas

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Early Christmas Gifts

Look what I got for Christmas!! A Tim Holtz Vagabond!! Whooo Hooo!!! I took it out of the box but have only had time to run an embossing folder through it just to see how it works. Can't wait to have more time to play with it.

My friend Jeanne made this wonderful crown for me out of felt. Isn't it the cutest thing you have ever seen?
My friend Carla who will tell you she is not crafty (but she can be when she wants to) made this wreath. She surprised me and made several this season as gifts for family and friends. She did a great job!

I saw this idea on another blog and I am so sorry because I can't give credit where I saw it. I thought is was a cute idea. I made them for the ladies in one of my art groups. Just get the clear ornaments and fill with buttons. The cool thing though about them is, and you probably can't see it from these photos, but I took the cap off the ornament and pulled out the wire from the cap. Ran the wire through a button then put it back in the cap and then back inside the ornament. Really cute! I then tied lace and ric rac on the cap. Glued a button over the knot.

My friend Melody made this ornament. Love it! The bird inside the cage is so sweet.

Busy Making Art

I made lavender sachets with iron-ons of bird cages and crowns to sell at Stamp Asylum. I also made some snowflake banners that say JOY. They are all packaged and ready to go to the store. There is also some single ornaments made with snowflakes but you could use them as package tags instead. All priced from $6.00 to $18.00. Go by Stamp Asylum http://stampasylum.blogspot.com/ and check them out. They would make perfect gifts or stocking stuffers.


I saw a frame similar to this at an antique store. The price was like $80.00. I could not believe it! I found a frame and made my own using seam binding ribbon, bottles, tags and anything else I thought would be cool and arty.

I filled this bottle later with pearls and another small one with German glass glitter.

My friend Jeanne made this little collage and it was on a card she gave me. I color copied it and added it to this shipping tag with a page from a book and some rhinestones.

This is a swap piece I made for one of my art groups. The snowflake is 17". It is huge! I made a big rosette and sprayed it with glimmer mist and added some stickles. Layered on the square doily and silver round one with the deer made the perfect Christmas ornament.

This is an ornament I made at one of my art group meetings. The host had bought a larger one at an after Christmas sale last year and thought our group could re-create it. Using pipe cleaners, Christmas picks (for flower arrangements), tinsel, color copies and hot glue an ornament was born. It was really fun to make !

This is the top. Taking apart the picks is easy and it makes you look at decorations in a different light. I see more of these in my future. I for sure am going to watch for things on sale after Christmas!

Alice In Wonderland Tea Party

Several weeks ago my friends that were in the Alice journal swap with me got together for a tea party. We finished working in each others journals and created paper crowns and ATC cards.

The tea party was at one of the members homes and she had it done up right. Catered by a special lady who made the most wonderful food, and I wish I had her info so I could pass it along to you. I am sure if someone wants it I can get the info for you. Email me for that.

Below you see the table set up. The food was placed on the buffet to the right of the table.

Bunnies and large globe candle holders were the center pieces.
Beautiful cups and saucers for tea. Each one was a different pattern.

The host made cute little place setting cards for each of us.

Wonderful food was served. This was pumpkin cake pieces and cheese cake tarts.

The buffet table set up.
More desserts! Lemon tarts and heart topped brownie bites.

Cucumber, chicken salad and cream cheese sandwiches.
Chocolate covered strawberries.

On to the goodies! The journals and party favors!

This was the door prize. It is a box of handmade cards.

The crown is on the front of the box. All wrapped up!
These were my party favor boxes. Inside are soldered necklaces with an Alice image.

These are some of the crowns. The pattern is the same but each one of us did something different to the paper. The first one is covered in fabric and organza flowers were added to it. The second one is decorated with paint and colored copied images. My crown, the third one has ink as the base color and a color copied image of the Queen with the words "Off with his head" glued to it. I added some stamped swirls and glitter. The fourth crown is covered in paint and glitter. It has color copied images of Alice in Wonderland book covers.
This is one of the trays we purchased for holding our ATC's.

On to the journals!! I have photographed some of my favorite pages from each members book.
These first few photos are a small accordion book put in Melody's journal. It has pictures of the characters from the Alice movie by Tim Burton and quotes to go with them. Details have been added in some form on each picture. Check out the tiny buttons on Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum's suspenders.

Other side of accordion book.
Great use for a coin holder.

These are pages from Mary's journal. Red Reigns here!

This page is fabulous! My photo with the close-up of the crown did not come out. The crown has lots of texture on it.

This is the cover of Mary's journal.

This is Donna's (the other one) journal.
Love the colors used on these pages. The orange holey item on the right hand side under the photo of the Mad Hatter is a vegetable bag.

It was a challenge to find images that were different. We did not want us all to have the sames pictures in our journals. Searching the Internet was a plus to finding unusual images.
This is the back of one of Donna's pages. She has a wonderful eye for putting colors together. Plus using textures!

This page is in April's journal. Dimension and color were key on this page.

Mary loves quotes and I think all the pages she did in our journals have them. They add a special touch!

These are pages from Anne's journal. She has not bound hers yet. Look at these unusual images.

This photo does not do this page justice. The pink color is wonderful.

This page has some of the Graphic 45 Alice paper on it. If you have not seen that series of paper you need to check it out. It has a Halloween theme to it.

Finally this is my journal. The front cover anyway.

I had my Mom make a bag from Alice material I found at a quilt store. The book fits perfectly inside.

Accordion book inside my book
This picture believe it or not came from a calendar.
I just love this picture! I can not remember what April told me she colored it with but it is wonderful.
Very dimensional page. Love the collage background.

This was a fun swap. We all did such a great job with the artwork created for each of the journals. Ending it with a tea party was the icing on the cake!