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Sweet little Sarah, plain and tall? No, not really! She is dressed in a soft vintage chenille dress, with hand crocheted lace, vintage buttons, shimmery threads and a sweet locket at her neckline.
She is sweet though, and sits demurely waiting for her new home. Learn more about her by stopping by my ebay shop.
Good grief where does time go? I have so many things I would like to share but can never seem to get to the computer these days. So here I am, sneaking in before grandson gets here and the twins start fussing.
For the prim lover in your life, here are some hand crafted, cold process soap balls. Softly scented and ready to use, these would look great on any vanity and are perfect as guest soaps.
Here's a couple of sweet and soft vintage chenille pillows to add romance to a bed, dresser or tucked in a corner somewhere. The small pillow has a vintage doilie pocket that can hold photos, a love note, or sweet treats for that special someone. Stop by PFATT today.
Don't you wish you could sleep like a baby? They can sleep any time any where or any place. Husbands can too so I've noticed. Anyway, I sure do, especially when I'm wide awake at 2:30 in the morning. Sometimes though, it's not a bad thing to be awake like that. For instance, this morning as I tried to get back to sleep after getting up to get some Advil for aches and pains, I mentally started the running list of projects I want to finish this week. Miraculously ideas came pouring out of a well of inspiration that I thought was usually dry in January. So I just let them come, one after another, and now am itching to get them all done. I need to write down and flesh out some of the ideas, which will have to wait until I'm home and Kent goes to his meeting. For now though I will enjoy the time with the babies, and know that all good ideas will still be there. I'm finding that amazing that I can remember the ideas as I usually forget them when I get up and can't seem to get any to budge from the dark recesses of my brain and show themselves again.
Oh, it felt so good to sit down and paint again! It's been at least 2 weeks, and I so needed to unwind with a paint brush in my hand. The fella on the right was finished before the holiday rush hit, but tonight I finished dressing up the one on the left. He still needs to be antiqued, but I'm very happy with the way his coat turned out. It's funny how you start with one thought on a piece and go in a totally different direction sometimes.
This fella above started out as a simple Santa with no frills, but when I started to paint him, the paint brush took over and before I knew it I was deep into a design that took much longer than I planned. Although the photo is less than stellar I hope you can see the detail. There are several layers of paints for each stripe. He was done with a Christmas ornament in mind, at least the colors are from one I have, but the different patterns were of my own choosing. So simple he ended up not being, but fun to paint in any case.
This Americana Santa has a bit different spin, but I really like the way he turned out. I can't wait to finish the antiquing and get him ready to send off. I still need to do a few more, but these are destined for Reasons to Believe.
Another wonderful publication by Connie Porcher arrived in the mail! Yes, I'm a tad behind the 8 ball here, but the holiday rush took over and stampeded any hopes of sharing this sooner.
The line up of AHA artists featured in this issue include, besides me (blush):
After I finished reading scriptures this morning I sat looking at the lights blinking on the Christmas tree. I could hear the individual tinkle as each light that twinkles would go on and off. My husband is starting to find the lights annoying, but they are a part of my past, so I will cut down on the number of blinking lights in the future. I may have gone over board this year....lol. 
Oh sure, I still have a lot of the home made ornaments like the angel in the photo above, as well as the tin can lid punched heart ornament and the hand painted bird house. The counted cross stitch ornament below is another I made years ago, as well as the cinnamon star with snowman painted on him and the wooden soldier I made out of a tree branch and popcicle sticks. As my children have grown up though I have passed some of those along to them.
So why not ask my parents for some of the old ornaments? Well, after their divorce our living conditions dropped dramatically. At one point we lived in a tiny home that was pepto bismol pink with white trim. It seemed to be a favorite haven for earwigs, which are evil looking creatures that find their way into everything. It was so bad we had to shake our clothes out before putting them on as there might be one lurking in a pant leg. Ugghhh, I still get shivers thinking about it. The wood stove in the living room had a pipe that would separate sometimes so we would wake up smelling like we'd been camping. Not good for a teenager who liked to smell pretty so as to attract boys attention. The second summer we were there we had a grease fire when someone forgot to turn off the burner under the frying pan full of oil, or perhaps my little brother had turned the burner back on. Let me tell you it was a blessing in some ways. So we moved into a better place in a better location with no bugs but the occasional spider all homes seem to have. That Christmas though we discovered that our Christmas decorations were missing. They had been in the shed at the old place and were forgotten in all the turmoil going on then. We went back to find them, but they were gone. Oh, it was devastating indeed as we were so poor and surely couldn't afford to buy all new stuff! Our hearts were broken as we knew we would never be able to replace the different and what we thought were unique ornaments we had. And yes, some will never be replaced as we had done up some satin ball ornaments with sequins that turned out so pretty. Luckily for us Mom had some good friends who came to our rescue and bought us all gifts and had us over for dinner and such to help brighten our Christmas and try to make up for what we had lost. Their kindness has never been forgotten though they are long gone.
This lovely gingerbread home was created by me years ago when we lived in North Pole, Alaska. The Fairbanks Daily Newsminer would have a gingerbread house contest every year which was a fun challenge for me. I'd learned how to create on when we were stationed on Adak, out on the Aleutian chain. The first year the Newsminer had their contest I was grand champion, and went on to win 2 more grand champion ribbons and a first place before life slowed me down. This home is entirely of ginger bread, with gum drop lights, stick candy light posts and porch columns, sugar wafer cookie shutters and flower boxes, melted Life Saver candy windows, chocolate Non-pariel wafer roof tiles, rock candy chimney, Red Vines "bricks" and loads of red hots for lights around the roof eaves as well as the trim on the windows and as embellishments on the roof. The tree is made from a sugar cone and spearmint leaves. The fence and white fancy trim on the house was made using royal icing. As I look at this house the memories flood back, of the hours of work, the tons of candy we consumed as I created these, the fun the kids had in tearing these apart on New Years day. We all entered houses one year as a family, each of the kids did their own, and they all got ribbons.
This little fella has been featured at American Holiday Artists and in an in an Etsy treasury: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=99444. Thank you to Becca of seasonsart1031 !
We have a new term around our home, "Ho Ho Christmas". My oldest grandson ( I actually have 2 now) calls everything related to Christmas "Ho Ho Christmas". When we play with play dough he asks me to make a Ho Ho Christmas tree for him and so it goes. Aaaah, the joy of having him
close! I wish the other grandchildren were closer as well, but I will take what I can get for now.
Do you think perhaps the reason Emmett came up with "Ho Ho Christmas" has to do with all
the Santa figures that keep popping up around my home? No..... it couldn't be that.........
I was coloring with my grandson the other day when it occurred to me that I'm a conventional artist. Even as a small child, when Mom would get on the floor and color with me, I was very particular about staying within the lines. I don't know if that idea came from her, or I was already there mentally. I know she encouraged me to stay within the defining lines on my color book pages, but she also taught me how to shade, where to put the shadows, and what colors I could use. Even that was fairly well defined, for instance if I was coloring a flower yellow, the shading color was a gold, or if red, I would use a crimson for shadows.
I find that as I am learning to paint, I have discovered that purple is a great shading color for red in my still life paintings. There are more that I can't think of right now, but it has opened a whole new world to see that I don't necessarily always have to go with a similar color to get the results I want. In fact, I should be looking for the true shadow color. Snow scenes are fun as the shadows can be purples, blues, peach or pink, grays, a myriad of color depending on the sunlight, and the mood you are trying to create.
A snowman ACEO with a lot of charm. He comes with an easel or I can attach a hanger.
Vintage Style snowman ornament.
Gourd Snowman with sled. Hand sculpted as all my pieces are.
Each year I work on new Christmas card designs, primarily to send to friends and family, but this year I'm looking into some licensing venues thanks to some very dear friends. The design on the right is finished, the one on the left needs the finishing touches. How am I doing so far? One of my collectors asked for snowmen so I got inspired and busy. Hope you like them.
New snowman art on ebay.
If you haven't seen this one, rent it this week! It's tradition for us to watch this every year just before Halloween.
Can you guess who the murderers are?
What's in the window seat boys?
The best tag line for this photo will win you a free Halloween ornament. No, it doesn't have to be from the movie. Be creative! I can't wait to see what you come up with. I will pick a winner on Sunday, or let Hubby do it, and send out your "treat" on Monday if I get your mailing address by then. Thanks for stopping by!
Christmas is the icing on the cake as we slowly slide into winter. We've put the gardens to bed, the harvest is lined up in gleaming rows of jars in the pantry or frosty bags of goodies in the freezer. We've shared a Thanksgiving feast with loved ones, celebrating the good things we've been blessed with this year. Now all the trimmings are up in the house, evoking a sense of warmth and childlike delight as we anticipate the gift giving season.
Not so good to me at the start, with fussy twins, and an even fussier grandson. The creeping gumboo has been going around our town and everyone is not at their best. We are coming out the other side of this though, and things are looking up.
The twins are napping, such sweet little darlings! Grandson is home now, so grandma is listing items on ebay and etsy. Check out my links to see what's new, and what's ready to end. Hope you are having a wonderful Monday.
My newest creation on etsy. Click on my link to the right to learn more.
And a little someone I just put up on ebay.
Okay.....we won't go there....but here are my latest ebay listings. This fiendish fellow was found hiding in my veggie patch. I captured him, and turned him into something useful. Be careful if you still have a garden to put to bed as Bunnicula is out to spread the fun.....
And lest we forget the upcoming Christmas season, which most of the stores are already putting up by now....sheesh.... I know it seems inconsistent doesn't it? But really now, I want to see Autumn decor in the stores until after Thanksgiving and then they can go Christmas crazy. As for creating Christmas stuff to sell? Well folks are buying so I'm selling! :-) both these pieces can be found by clicking on my ebay button to the left.
