I need your help!

I've entered

Michael's Holiday Christmas Project Contest!

Please help me win by clicking on

the link below and rating my project.

Michaels Photo Entry - Felt Christmas Snow Banner

OR

http://tinyurl.com/yf4egyy

Help me spread the word
by posting on your blog

and you'll be entered to win a set

of 4 of my Story Angel Cards below:

Be sure to leave a comment with a

link back and your email if you do.

Christmas Spirit

I spent time with friends this weekend and attended an open house called Christmas in the Barn. It was just the ticket to jump start the holiday spirit within me and get my Christmas MoJo going. Enjoy the pictures and let the magical holiday spirit surround you!

Christmas Felt Banner Pennant

Here's a new larger size banner I made for a Christmas boutique I'm participating in. Unfortunately the picture doesn't show the cool snow-globe medallion in the center of the snowflake. It has sparkling snow that you can shake around.

I made this one larger so it can actually be hung on it's own.

Click HERE to view my other banners

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Fun Day in the City

Check out the latest fashion in lamp shade hats!

I had the pleasure of spending a fun afternoon in the city with my art buds Kris and Bev this week. Check out out Kris' Blog to read more about our excursion to artist Susan Kinzig's working studio.

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Crafty Blogger Blurbs

The Artful Crafter Make some romantic mood light candles with decorative tissue paper and decoupage medium.

The Impatient Crafter This is a story of a refugee who found her strength in creativity. Though she recently died, her story lives on. Please read and share the story of Haiffaa Ali.

About Family Crafts Sherri gives you an excuse to craft every day during the month of November using this calendar of events.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world On the Craftside of things there is a free Japanese bunnies and moon piece of clip art, a cool video full of tips on altering a pattern, a how-to on folding paper ricrac, a cool source for vintage style findings and using research magazine pictures as ATC canvases in an altered book.

Crafty Princess Diaries Tammy found out crocheting chemo hats is trickier than she thought, but she found success.

Mixed Media Artist Cyndi has started another small quilt, this time featuring pears!

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Halloween Decoration using my craft supply stash to make Jack O' Lanterns.

Vickie Howell-Craft.Rock.Love Vickie shows how to customize photo mats to go with your favorite photos!

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Make a Wish!

Meet my newest Story Angel, Celeste she

watches over the heavens and grants your wishes.

Click HERE to view my other Story Angels

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Simple Pleasures

I stumbled upon a wonderful blog today by artist Veronica Funk. She paints cozy and comfortable paintings of chairs and more. While I was there it just so happens that she's having a giveaway for one of her paintings if you become a follower of her blog.

Stop by and peruse the Simple Pleasures of Veronica Funk

HERE

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Winter Wonderland Felt Banners

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween! Now to get ready for the "C"word...prepare yourself I'm gonna say it...Christmas! I'm participating in a Winter Wonderland Banner Swap and the theme is winter whites with a touch of blue or teal.

Here's my finished banners. I found a great base to use, stiff glittered felt. They also have stiff felt that's un glittered. I highly recommend using the stiff felt for making banners. It's so easy to cut and firm enough to add heavier objects on without having to add a backing if you don't want to.

Here's some of them up close. At the dollar store I was able to find some great snowflakes to use. The bottom elements were also from the dollar store that I seperated, and glued to the tips using clear fabric glue.

Here they are all, no two are the same. They're now ready to be package up.

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

RIP

I'm in mourning for our lone palm tree we had growing in our yard *sniff*. What would a home in California be without a palm tree I mean after all don't all homes in California have palm trees and orange trees!?! (wry grin) We truly did love our palm tree, but it kept loosing its palm fromms whenever it was windy (like yesterday) and they are huge spiky things that fly off. Luckily they didn't hit any one or any cars, but they did hit the power lines several times causing the power to go out yesterday. Finally our power company showed up and said they were going to trim it....fine by us...then they came back and said they were topping it and that meant it would die and be left with a lone stick left in the air....read ugly! OR they would remove it for us at no charge OR we could have it done at our expense. Sadly we had to say good-bye to our palm tree....it just didn't make good sense not to remove it. The palm tree was here when we moved in...not quite as large as it is now but still it towered over our house but right about at the power lines at that time....now it towers way over the power lines. It was a haven for a variety of birds, owls include. Though I'm sure with all the fromms flying off yesterday and the winds they had found new living arraignments. The only condition my husband had was that could they please leave lengths as long as possible so he could make totem poles out of them which he has wanted to do for a long time....we'll see when that happens LOL They worked until 9 pm last night just to get it topped below the power lines and then came back this morning to take it the rest of the way down *sniff*

This is what it looked like this morning after they topped it.	Here they are cutting it little by little.
The mess left	and more mess	These are just the topped pieces they felled last night.

Art Workshop Peeve

For those of you who take workshops and for the rest of you who are thinking about it here's some food for thought. Make sure to find out what level the workshop is geared towards by asking. They don't always tell you in the class details. I recently took a art journaling workshop with a couple of art buds and we were all three disappointed. It became apparent about 5 mins into the workshop that we were well beyond the level of the workshop. It was geared for very beginning budding artists. We made the most of it by using the time to create, but what an expensive play day. We could have done that on our own. We should have asked more questions but we were excited to find a workshop in our neck of the woods and about getting together that we didn't think about asking that important question. If you teach workshops make sure you include what level your workshop is designed for and be ready for several different level artists, so they don't come away disappointed. None of us are experienced art journalers but do have a fair amount of experience under our belts and it was really disappointing to not learn anything new or be inspired. Even if its past info we already know, if presented right it could have re inspired us.

Below are a couple of journal pages

I worked on while I was there.

The flamingo page I still need to finish.

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Crafty Blogger Blurbs

This week's blogger blurbs give you some great last min. Halloween ideas, stop by and check them out.

About Family Crafts Sherri offers several free pumpkin carving patterns for you to download and use!

Cathie Filian Make a warm mug of Chai Tea at home with this traditional recipe from Cathie.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world At Craftside there is a free cross stitch pattern, a downloadable label and idea for a spooky Halloween decoration and some wild pumpkins, a sneak peek into the new book What is Illustration?, how to sew gathers and ruffles and finally a fun question to be answered to be entered to win a free craft book.

Crafty Princess Diaries Diggity Doggity, the crocheted dog blanket is done!

Farm Girl Roots, City Girl Style Linda revisits a quilt she made a while back.

Mixed Media Artist Do you have a signature style? Cyndi wants to know what it is and wants to help you show it off!

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Polymer Clay Candy Corn Beads Hot out of the Oven made using a "recipe" from the book The Polymer Clay Cookbook

The Artful Crafter Make a pretty fall triple wreath wall hanging for your own wall or as a housewarming gift. With a little imagination, you can adapt the design for Christmas or just about any other occasion/season.

The Impatient Crafter Madge scares up another fiendishly fabulous mixed media design for Halloween!

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

And the winner is...

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S ! ! !

Goes to Marilyn at Cigarboxbeads for being the winner of my fall giveaway!

Once Marilyn contacts me with her mailing info I'll be popping her fun fall giftee into the mail.

Many thanks to everyone who participated :-)

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Day of the Dead Bottle Cap Earring's Tutorial

Day of the Dead Bottle Cap Earring's Tutorial

I made these funkadelic bottle cap earrings just barely in time for Day of the Dead (Día De Los Muertos). Click HERE for my easy peasy tutorial.

To view my past Dia De Los Muertos projects click HERE

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Full Bloom

Freebie e-card

(Save, and email or print)

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Spooky Halloween Printable Site

Sorry so quiet...in the meantime I've been saving this very cool Halloween site to share with you. It's chockful of printable spooky Halloween projects HERE.

I've also extended the deadline to sign up for my blog fall giveaway so stay tuned.

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Crafty Blogger Blurbs

About Family Crafts Follow these directions and disscover how easy it is to sew a felt tote bag that is perfect for trick-or-treating!

Cathie Filian Check out Cathie's quick video on how to spook up china ball lanterns.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world Craftside went a little artsy this week with inside peeks into the books; Hope: A Collection of Obama Posters and Prints, The Daily Book of Art, Really Good Packaging Design Explained and 1001 Ideas for Stonework, but there are also tons of great Sizzix die cut applique designs made by the designers at Halloween Swap-o-Rama-Rama.

Crafty Princess Diaries Tammy has a package ready to go out the door for her new jewelry making book.

Cross Stitch at About.com Connie has another inspirational pattern, this time with an abstract flair. The chart is easy - whole cross stitch and a wee bit of back stitch.

Farm Girl Roots, City Girl Style Linda visited a few quilt shops in Toronto and shares her finds.

Mixed Media Artist Cyndi is starting a new quilt...this time featuring pears!

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Vintage Hankie Scarf made using the tutorial from the Indygo Junction book Hankie Style

The Artful Crafter Eileen shows you how to create a simple but festive Halloween cupcake stand from terracotta pots.

The Impatient Crafter Madge is one degree from Martha! Check out her upcoming appearance at the Grand Opening of Michaels in Manhattan!

Vickie Howell-Craft.Rock.Love This week Vickie launched her new PBS Parents column, Craft Apparent. Check out her first article, a how-to on making utterly adorable baby costumes, starting with just a plain onsie!

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Free Pumpkin Label and Photo Manipulation

I recently came across this cool site from visiting my friend Kris' blog where you can make a photo Rubik's cube using your own image.

Below is the pumpkin label I scanned and used for my Rubik's cube pic above. Feel free to download the label to use in your art.

(Click the image then save to your computer and print)

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Draw Skulls for Day of the Dead

I recently came across a very cool art website that has a great How to Draw Skulls for your Day of the Dead project. For those of you shy on the drawing front I drew a skull for you to download and decorate just click, save and print.

You can view my past

Day of the Dead projects

and tutorials HERE

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!

Halloween Postcards

(Click image to download and save to send to a friend)

What a nice surprise to have Herm & Ethel (click HERE for past Herm & Ethel Pics) show up yesterday! We figured they weren't going to come for a visit this year since we expected them sooner! As always they love to pop in and surprise us! We plied them with plenty of food and Spirits (as you can see they can use a bit of fattenin' up), while they regaled us with their past year's travel adventures! Once
again they were gracious enough to pose while we snapped a picture of them

They were very impressed with Morgan's pumpkin that weighs over 200lbs! (no he didn't grow this one, but hopes to grow his own gigantic pumpkin next year with the seeds).
(Click image to download and save to send to a friend)

Visit my Zazzle Store &
view my newest additions!