Happy Birthday to Me Last Friday

 Last Friday was my birthday. I received lots of well wishes on Facebook and from my family. Grateful for another year!! Terrible picture of me and Duke though. Can hardly see him even after I fixed it in Photoshop. LOL

My husband knows I love Gerber Daises so he got me these.

My friend Mary gave me this wonderful chocolate chocolate chip bunt cake! It was so good! And packaged so cute.

My friend Carla took me to see the Chilhuly exhibit at the Arboretum on Saturday. More photos to follow on another day. This is the last weekend to be able to see it. It was so pretty! So amazing!

New Bed and Linens

I took down my black metal canopy bed and bought a new bed frame. Still looking for a headboard I like. Want a fireplace surround but have not found one I could afford yet. LOL I already had the framed mirror on the wall so I left it up. Sorta makes for a headboard in the meantime.

 

close-up of bed

Christmas Eve I finished a bed skirt to extend down to the floor. The ruffled one wasn't long enough since I raised the bed up. I used the selvage edge of the material around the bottom. I thought it gave a nice look. Plus I only had to hem the top which is always a plus, especially when the fabric you use is slippery and wants to move all over the place when sewing.

Yesterday, I finished this pillow using the same material as the bed skirt. I coffee dyed the small lace trim and the ruffled one to give a vintage look. I definitely am not a sewer like my Mom and Grandmother, but I did all right!

House Mouse Card January 2013 and Some Art

 Here is the January 2013 card for House Mouse. He is starting the year off right eating a donut with sprinkles!

side view of house bezel

I took an online solder course to learn how to do this cool texture. http://vintiquitiesworkshop.blogspot.com/ Thespeona McLaughlin is the teacher and if you can take the class I highly recommend it. She shows you how to make bezels, use ice resin and how to do the texture. Plus wire wrapping.

front view of house bezel

 This is just a sample that I was playing with but I really liked the texture and I added a button inside but filled the bezel up with the ice resin. Thespeona doesn't fill over the rhinestones, she only fills up to them. She thinks the resin dulls the rhinestones. I ended up with some bubbles in my resin but I was just playing around so it's not that big of a deal on this piece.

 A friend of mine has been playing around with joint compound on hard cradle boards. So I tried my hand at it this week. These two pieces are for my Mother-in-Law and my Husband. My Father-in-Law passed away in June this year so I thought they would like pieces done with his pictures. He was in the army and stationed in Germany. That is where he met my Mother-in-Law. She is German and my Husband was born there. The piece below is for him and his Father is holding him as a baby.

Creative Torso

What do you get for the person that doesn't need anything but you want to get her something because she is very special? She is always there for you and helping out with whatever you need.

A torso of course!! This is for my great friend Mary. She did love it when I gave it to her this week.

 

I found this idea on a blog and at the moment I can't remember which one to give them credit. But the lady did a great job decorating hers and gave the source for these torsos. Stand is separate and they are hollow and do not have a back. But they are fun to decorate and the ideas are endless of what you can do with them. Company is called  Barr Design http://www.barrdisplay.com/ . They are not expensive and so unusual as a gift.

I used some jewelry pieces from Michaels from Art-i-Cake to decorate the neckline. The whole thing is covered in dictionary paper. I circled some words that reminded me of Mary.

The bottom has crepe paper ruffle, tulle fringe, lace and rhinestone chain on it.

Finally Presents & New Solder Piece

I finally got some presents wrapped and put under the tree!

 

In one of my art groups we decided to make one gift and then draw numbers to see who got what gift. This is the piece I made for my gift. I wanted to try the Looking Glass spray paint.  I love it! It works wonderful!

Christmas Around the House

This globe I made at work using a Time Holtz frozen charlotte doll and his bottle brush tree. Covered the box with music paper and distressed edges with Sepia Archival ink.

I bought this little guy at My Favorite Room in McKinney http://kbmdesigns.com/ . I think he is soo cute!!

One of my mini trees.

I made a coffee filter wreath this year. Really easy and fun to make! Have to thank Margie Romney Aslett http://www.margieromney-aslett.typepad.com/ because it is her idea!

I have had a lot of fun bleaching bottle brush trees this season. I tried to make this box look vintage. I used platinum glitter, a rhinestone button, music paper, lace and ink on the paper mache box. Oh and I added mica to the tree plus a real wooden tree piece for the base. My friend Nikki cut them.

Love these paper trees!

I made two banners this season too! I put this small one in one of my bathrooms on the mirror.

Another bottle brush tree box. This one is in my bedroom hence the aqua color.

 The other banner I made. Burlap is great for these things! Another Margie idea!

Mini tree in my bedroom.

Tree in my den. Looks kinda bare but I was lazy this year and decided to just have the lights on it. Didn't want to take the time to add the ornaments. Actually every year I leave the lights on it and place it in a zippered bag for storage. So it was easy to just pull it out and plug in the lights. Well I did have to straighten out some of the limbs. LOL I love this tree since it is skinny and fits in a tight space.

I added burlap and a glittered deer at the bottom of the tree. Time to wrap some gifts to put under the tree!

December House Mouse Card

Last card for the year 2012! I always love making the December cards.

Donna Downey Weekend

Two weekends ago I was fortunate to travel to Friendswood, TX to take 3 wonderful classes from Donna Downey http://donnadowney.typepad.com/ . I am taking her canvas create monthly class online now. I highly recommend it. She is going to continue to teach it next year per an email I just received with this months canvas directions and video. Her videos are great because they are yours forever. You download them on your computer and can watch them anytime and as much as you like.

The classes were at Novel Approach there in Friendswood. I had never been to this store before but know it has been in business for a long time. They have a nice classroom setup.

me and Donna D

This is my sample from the Pan Pastel class. We glued tissue paper down to a flat canvas board. I think I have a few to many wrinkles but all in all I like how the finished piece turned out. Lots of spray sealing in between those colors!

This is a journal we did with 40 techniques inside! This was a long class! But great ideas were done inside. I look forward to using some of them in my card classes at the Stamp Asylum http://stampasylum.blogspot.com/ .

This was my favorite class! Corrugated cardboard was what the pages were made from! We gessoed them and gilded the edges. Lots of Prima goodness to add to the pages from our class kits. I used photos from a recent trip to Jefferson, TX my husband and I took for our 25th wedding anniversary.

If you ever get to take a class from Donna in person jump for it! She is a funny lady! Love her stories from travel teaching on the road. I would love to visit her retail store in North Carolina. They do some great classes there also.

Halloween Art

For one of my art groups, I made these canvases for Halloween. I really love how they turned out. I took a Halloween class from Margie Romney-Aslett http://www.margieromney-aslett.typepad.com/ and we did something similar. She is getting ready to do another class for Christmas. She can do some fabulous things with dollar store finds! I would sign up if I were you!!

I have a friend that her birthday is Oct 25th so I usually do something Halloween theme as well as normal for her big day. This year I wrapped the gifts in this box and glued a skeleton to the top. I added a paper cone party hat to his head. Another idea from Margie's class! There were several comments at the restaraunt about him from guests. He did turn out very cute if you can call a skeleton cute!

November House Mouse Card

Here is the House Mouse card for November. Lots of bubbles going on!!