Crafty Lady

As you know I love to share about crafty women and the products they create.  I have another talented lady for you, her name is Anntoinette; she crochets the most beautiful, soft, warm, comfy Afghans, lapghans and baby blankets.  Both my grown children, grandchildren and I all have several of her works of art; we love to cuddle up with her lovely blankets at nap time and wrap up in them on cold winter nights.

Anntoinette is pictured here at a Holiday Boutique which was a benefit for the Alzheimer’s Association, held at the Sunrise Senior Living Home in Danville, California.  She donated a portion of her proceeds to the association, what a great gal.

The colors and patterns are fresh and contemporary with a retro twist.  She has a wonderful website you can visit to see all her work and place an order for something in stock or create a custom order, just perfect for that special someone you want to keep warm on those long winter nights.  Please visit her at her link on her Facebook business page: www.facebook.com/Cr8tiveLefty or you can click on the web link at the, follow these sites section, of this blog page.

This little golden bear is one of the Crafty Christmas Creations designed by me, isn't she pretty with all her sparkle and bling.

Thanks for letting me share another Crafty Lady; I hope you enjoyed a peek at her wonderful work.  Happy Holidays.  See you soon.

A Quick Gift

I know I haven’t written in a week, things are really getting crazy with the holidays and family birthdays.  In fact my oldest granddaughter just turned five yesterday and I have been very busy making her several of her gifts.  I made the pretty purple coat and blue fairy wall hanging I featured in my Super Studio post, then another quick gift just before she arrived to open her presents.

You are probably wondering why the last minute gift and why a box? Well, you see I gave my granddaughter a pretty 18” doll with several sets of doll clothes.  I also bought her a doll trunk, for the clothes, which she will get for Christmas, but I did not think it through.  Where was she going to put all the dolly clothes and shoes until then, they were going to get lost?  I pulled out a blue photo storage box, her favorite color, some rick rack, buttons, ribbons and a photo copy of some really cute paper doll fabric and made up a temporary trunk for the doll accessories.  She absolutely loved everything and has been playing with the dolly, clothes and storage box ever since. Mission accomplished, project completed, good job Grandma.

 Just had to share; this little banner hangs on my studio door, so very cute!

Thanks for letting me share my Quick Gift with you.  Look for more holiday decorations.  Happy creating, see you soon.

Sparkling Santa Tabletop

This year with a new home and a new furniture layout I could not figure out where to start my decorating, I tried a few things here and there but I just could not get into the swing of things.  I fussed around for hours and finally decided to start with my dinning room table, it is the largest piece of furniture in the room and the first thing you see, it would set the tone for the whole room and the other adjoining rooms.  I played with tablecloth colors, runners and center pieces until I landed on a cream, gold, burgundy and green theme for the table and the room.  Once that was decided things just few together as I dug out all my decorating goodies; here’s what I did.

I chose a very basic cream table cloth, a taupe and gold table runner, a really beautiful gold and cream standing Santa, which I collect each year and finally gold chargers with cream napkins and beaded napkin rings. This was my very basic color base which I would use to add the sparkle and bling.

Out came the greens, I could either use silk or fresh greens but chose silk to get a longer lasting centerpiece, but you could use either one and get a fantastic look.  I pulled out my box of bling to add to the greens and went to work adding dimension and sparkle.

I placed some tall crystal candlesticks with some oversize sparkly ornaments on top, and then put them on opposite ends of the Santa to create some symmetry and balance.  More ornaments in different sizes, shape and colors were tucked into the greens to give it extra shine and color variation.  It was still missing something so I pulled out my box of decorative pearls and added those, just the right amount of bling to pick up on the Santa and the tablecloth, more balance.

  

All done and looking very glamorous, I just love the way the dark room came alive, now I have my jumping off point for the rest of the room which should make finishing up my holiday decorating much easier. The tabletop will stay like this until Christmas Eve day which is when I will change it up to make it fun and kid friendly, for our family Christmas dinner, this one is just for show until then.

I can’t wait to start on all the other projects, look for those as the weeks get closer to Christmas, I will try to post them as I finish them, at least a picture or two per project.  Thanks for letting me share my Sparkling Santa Tabletop with you, back to more decorating.  See you soon.

Holiday Beginnings

In Hollister, California the Thanksgiving weekend marks the beginning of the holiday season.  We traditionally kick off the season with The Lights on Parade, held the first Saturday right after Thanksgiving.  There is always a wonderful lighted parade, pictures with Santa, cookies and cider with the shop owners and entertainment of all kinds.  This year the Hollister Downtown Association added some daytime events; a car show and a Holiday Boutique. It seems everyone in town showed up to do their Saturday shopping at the boutique and the downtown shops; the new event was a hit.

There were some fantastic vendors, at the boutique, to share all their creative wares, I met some wonderful new people and caught up with some cherished friends and neighbors.  I thought I would share a couple of the booths I shopped at and give you a peak into what the artists were selling.  I truly believe in supporting others who create for a living, so here they are, enjoy, maybe you will see just the right gift and do your shopping with these talented women.

Here is the booth for Artist Extraordinaire, Shannon Grissom; she is a fantastic painter, photographer, writer and TV show personality.  She is also a singer with a beautiful, soulful voice which brings tears to my eyes and peace to my spirit.  You will see all she does on her web sit at; www.shannongrissom.com.  I am privileged to own several of her paintings, which you can see hanging over the bed in my guest room makeover, on the Paisley Crazy posting.  I also purchased a copy of her Monkey Made of Sockies book for each of my nieces, nephews and granddaughters, and a couple for future grandchildren.  It is a sweet book just right to read to children of all ages.  I could go on for hours about this talented lady; I will stop for now, go to her website and check out all her wonderful products, just right for those special holiday gifts.

Next up was the Sassy Fashions & Accessories booth featuring lots of bling for you and your future little divas.  There were darling little shoes, tutus, jewelry and an assortment of other fun items to dress up your day, glitz and glam everywhere.  We really enjoyed our visit with the designer and can’t wait to shop with her again.  You can find out more by emailing her at sassyfashionz@yahoo.com. What a great place to shop for all the ladies in your life who might like a little glitz and glam of their own for Christmas.

We happened upon this next booth and found Lunar Accents, handcrafted jewelry designs which were out of this world.  The designers, Natalie and Susan are very talented artists who design and make all of their special jewelry pieces; they had a wide variety of earrings, bracelets and necklaces to choose from.  Of course, I had to buy a necklace for a very special person on my Christmas list, I know she will just love it and want more pieces for all her special occasions.  To contact Natalie & Susan you can e-mail them at lunaraccents@rocketmail.com.  Consider custom pieces of jewelry for that special someone on your Christmas list.

All of the women we met at the boutique were incredible artists each in their own right.  I only featured a few of the ladies we did our holiday shopping with, there were so many more artists and women with party plan based businesses, many of which you will find listed below.  Consider doing your holiday shopping and supporting all these women in business this holiday season.

I do have one more artist I want to share with you, her name is Jolene, and she is a graphic artist with her own graphic design business.  I purchased my holiday greeting cards from her this year to send out to all my family and friends, they are just adorable and I know everyone will enjoy getting them in the mail, what fun.  You can view her work at; www.ajewelddesign.blogspot.com.  She has a special going on until Dec. 1, 2011, so hurry and get in on the special pricing now.

Some of the other special women we met were:

Roseanne Talavera

Ty Looti Bows

tylootie@yahoo.com

Jessica Barnes

Switchblade SinDee’s

Custom Aprons

www.wix.com/knifefight/switchbladesindee

Diana Guzman

Sweet Envy

Handbags, apparel, jewelry and more

mysweetenvy@gmail.com

Debra Colmon

Cookie Lee Jewelry

www.cookielee.biz/esuite/home/debracolmon

Kimberly Kimber

Tastefully Simple

kimberlykimber@earthlink.com

Woody Ledbetter

Miche Designer Handbags

https://my.michebag.com/woody

The Holiday Boutique was hosted by: 

Hollister Downtown Association

www.downtownhollister.org

Thanks for letting me share the beginning of our holiday season with you. 

Look for upcoming posts on decorating for the holidays and some fun projects you can do to give your home some special sparkle.  See you soon.

Thanksgiving In A Bag

That’s right; our Thanksgiving came out of a big box with lots of food packaged in bags, kind of like the food from the space shuttle.  You are probably wondering how that happened to someone who entertains so much? It was one of those things which happen when everyone wants to get together, but no one can figure out how to fit in all the cooking with everything else that is going on.  Our local grocery/deli was having a big promotion on pre-prepared meals, we thought it would be fantastic not to have to cook a big meal, just warm it up and eat.  You know, you really have to ask questions, lots of questions and we did not ask enough of them.  When my husband came through the door with just one big box I got my first clue that something was not right.  Oh boy, was I ever right, when we started to unload the box all we saw were sealed plastic bags, even the turkey was sealed in plastic.  Out came the large instruction sheet, oh no, we were in trouble, it looked like we would be assembling and cooking the entire dinner, not what we signed up for, that is what we get for trying to short cut Thanksgiving.

We spent the next 3 hours in the kitchen in a marathon cooking frenzy opening bags, mixing ingredients, putting it in the oven, pulling it out and mixing more or adding more ingredients, all in fifteen minute intervals, we never stopped once until the dinner was ready to be put on the table.  Our guests had to let themselves into the house and stayed in the kitchen watching us in total fascination as we squeezed their dinner out of plastic bags into the appropriate trays and bowls and cook it right in front of them.  We all agreed this was the dinner we wanted but no one had any idea what we had gotten ourselves into. It was ten times the work of the dinner I usually cook for everyone.  The food was very fresh and actually very good, but so much work.  The moral of this story and the lessons for today are; ask lots of questions when trying something new, when in doubt, don’t do it and there are no short cuts.  Next time I will hire a caterer or cook it myself, lessons learned.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, no matter how your meal was prepared and you had a wonderful time sharing it with your family and friends.  Watch for lots of holiday decorating tips, projects and fun family events, all starting this week.  Thanks for letting me share my Thanksgiving dinner with you.  See you soon.

Christmas Stockings for Kids

It is official, the holiday season is about to start, beginning with Thanksgiving on Thursday and black Friday sales and cyber Monday specials and all that shopping… oh my.  For those of us who are not into all the crowds and the sales, we begin our holiday season by decorating the house, getting ready for all the holiday entertaining and making our own gifts and decorations.  On Friday, after the Thanksgiving entertaining clean up, I will go to storage and pull out all the holiday decorations I will need to decorate the house for Christmas with the grandchildren and the holiday parties with friends. It will take me several days to turn my everyday home into a festive wonderland for everyone to enjoy.  There will be lots of DIY projects to share with all of you as I go along, hopefully you will get some creative ideas for your own homes and parties.  More sparkling tabletop decorations, lighted banisters and who knows what else, we also decorate the outside of the house; there will be some fun ideas from there as well.

It appears I have already begun my creative season with the making of the Christmas Stockings to be donated to children in need who are staying at one of the local shelters.  My process began with the making of a pattern, I chose to make a rag stocking, quilters who make rag quilts know what I am talking about.  Finding fabrics from my retro stash and purchasing some newer fabrics and pulling out all my leftover batting from past quilts, more recycling.  The inspiration for the stocking project came from The Pink Slipper Project which makes and donates slippers to children and adults in need, last year they added Christmas stockings to their challenge.  Since I landed in the hospital and was not able to participate then, I picked up the project for this year and I am committed to seeing how many I can make, hopefully I can get others interested in doing the same. I already have a bunch cut out and got several all sewn up and ready to give.  We will see how it goes, I will report back on my progress, keep good thoughts for the projects success.

I truly hope all of you have a wonderful day of giving thanks for all the good things and people you have in your life.  Happy Thanksgiving.  See you very soon with lots of holiday sparkle.

Check them out:

www.pinkslipperproject.org

A Bit of Bling

As you know bling is my thing, having said that, it does not mean everything is covered in gold, silver or rhinestones.  In fact I have very little of it in my own home, something I intend to remedy in a tasteful, limited way.  I decided to start small with little items in my studio and bedroom.  I began the search for things I could add some sparkle to and found a few, here is what I did.

Recently my daughter gave me a very cute black stiletto tape dispenser, I loved it, and I put it on my work counter where it sat for sometime.  It was cute but lacking something, sparkle, a bit of bling, what could I do to glam it up?

Inspiration struck, why not put some crystals on it, some shoe bling just like designer shoes have.  I went right to Michael's to get some princess stick on crystals.  The actual inspiration came from a blog I look at daily, A Dress A Day.  The host did a copy of a Christian Loubouton shoe using silly plastic eyes to cover the whole shoe, just like the designer did.  Since I love sparkle I chose crystals instead and left some of the black shoe showing for better impact.  Very fun looking; it sparkles whenever I turn the lights on.

Next up were two pretty, heavy, glass containers with large black bows on them, they were from my Son’s wedding and the containers originally held small rose buds.  I have a dozen containers and could not figure out what to do to with all of them. I pulled out my glue gun, cutters and some glamour gem buttons and went to work.  I cut off the button shanks so I would have a flat surface to apply my hot glue to.

I hot glued a button to the center of each bow giving them some really elegant sparkle.  Now I use these little glass containers as candle holders and as storage for little bits and pieces while working on projects, what a pretty way to work.

As I looked around I spotted the black & white lampshade with the big black bow, I featured in my Black & White Bling post.  As much as I loved that lampshade, it was missing that special something.  Out came the gems and the glue gun, this time I added two buttons to the bow to give it more glamour.  Now it had the elegant sparkle I was looking for.

I am crazy about decorator pillows and have a great time making them myself.  This little pillow was made from polka dot fabric and ribbons and a pre-printed fashion fabric panel.  The pillow came out great but still felt a bit plain so I added some pretty crystals to give it bit of flare.  All these little projects helped to add small amounts of light to my studio, after all it is winter and the days are getting darker with all the cloud cover, every bit of light helps.

Last but not least, was a new faux-fur leopard pillow with an iridescent chocolate brown, silk backing, which I made in under an hour.  I added an elegant crystal pendant to the middle of the fur side of the pillow and covered a button in fur for the back side of the pillow. The pillow came out absolutely gorgeous, I made it for the center of my king size bed.  Every girl needs a little leopard faux-fur in her bedroom, adding a stunning fur pillow to the bed was just the right amount of glamour without going over the top.

There were a number of other small studio projects I completed but I decided to save those for a future post.  Since I will be adding more glamour to my master bedroom I will share the rest of the bedroom projects with you as I go along.  Look for those after the holidays sometime in January, unless I get the bug to do it as a New Years makeover, something like; New Year New Bedroom.  You never know, watch for it.  Thanks for letting me share my creative ventures from my studio.  See you soon.

Watch for:  Christmas Stockings for Charity and Elegant Elements, coming next week.

If you liked this post also look for past posts;

Black & White Bling

Pumpkin Bling

Holiday Sparkle

Buttons, Bows & Bling

Where to buy:

For crystals and pendants

Michael's

Glam Gem Buttons:

JOANN Fabrics