This and That

The weather keeps changing on me and today it is so cool and breezy I think I'll try to bake cookies today before it gets hot again. I've been working on a few more shop things which will be up sometime soon. I've got a few more houses to put up (just sold the little Prim French house and shipped it out today) and also some new silhouettes on vintage paper backgrounds.

These are all on wood, antiqued and sealed with a notch in the back for hanging, though I think they also look cute on a bookshelf:

I've also worked on Christmas ornaments. Those will be up maybe in September, October - I'll be in the hospital for November and I want to make sure they are shipped out before then.

I've also been working on the side to make a little doll for myself. Christina of Du Buh Du Designs is so talented and creative and I've been drooling over her dolls. I still hope to catch one for myself, but until then I thought it would be fun to work with sculpey and make a small version of my own. Here it is after I baked it:

Not much to look at so far, I know, but I'm still busy painting it and I haven't made her face yet - which is the hardest part. I also gave her a kitty to keep her company. ;) She's rather flawed, but as a first time attempt so far it's been fun.

Grab Your Reading Glasses

It's graduation time and my cousin Stephanie is graduating in June so her parents designed the cutest little invitation I've ever seen!

Inside the envelope was this:

and you pull out the invite to reveal:

Guess you can tell she's an optometrist now! Such a cool invitation. My aunt and uncle designed it themselves and I think it's a great idea - most graduation invitations look alike and are forgettable - this one is a keeper. Not only is it cute, but if you have trouble reading the bottom lines you know it's time for another eye exam. ;)

Congratulations, Stephanie!! We're VERY proud of you!

The Looong Weekend

Don't forget your Memorial Day poppy!

We're having fun this weekend, spending time with family and celebrating the beginning of summer. Friday we went to see a movie, a nice little treat we haven't indulged in for quite awhile. We saw the new Star Trek movie - I am a die hard Trekkie, but wasn't quite sure if I wanted to see this new take on the franchise. I'm so glad I got dragged in to see it because it was pretty darn good. Lots of laughs and my favorite character, Dr. McCoy, was done perfectly - he looked the part and the accent and lines were just great. (Best scene EVER was the one where he kept injecting Kirk and making his condition worse, lol!)


Saturday we went out for errands and a little trip to Hobby Lobby and today we spent the day painting my new studio! Yay!! It's all white at the moment and I'm thinking of painting the walls a light sage maybe in the future, but for now it makes the room all light and beautiful.

I bought a print for my mother for her birthday last week - a Danita print! It's the Frida print that was featured on the cover of Somerset Studio. I think it'll look fab in my studio and give us plenty of inspiration. And I also want to hang up the ornament that Heather of Audrey Eclectic sent me a few months ago. I'm thinking I'll set up my little white christmas tree down there to display my favorite ornaments and also to take pictures of the ones I'm making for my shop. It'll be great to finally have a space just for my art and business because I'm really cramped and disorganized right now.

So tomorrow is Memorial Day and we'll likely go to the Gypsy Caravan - it's a great big flea market and lots of fun so I'm hoping to remember my camera and plenty of cash. Hope everyone's having a great weekend!!

Etsy Update!

Just an update on a few things I've added to the shop:

A cute little box



The box has been papered with vintage french book paper and then stenciled with the young girl stencil. I just love it on a shelf amongst my vintage finds. It looks so sweet there.



A Paris sign -
I chose the 1889 date for the year the Eiffel Tower was made. I really love the fleur de lis and the font I stenciled was 17th century style.

And here is the last of the framed silhouettes. If you've been eyeing them now is the time to snatch them up. I have to look for some more frames. The only other one still available is the Prim Dress print.

SOLD

I stenciled these on a sheet of vintage music paper - I think they look best side by side so you can see they are on one sheet and the music is continuous. A very sweet pair and so very Austen style - the high collar on the gentleman is one of my favorites. Very Mr. Darcy.

And I have some very special items coming up for sale soon - just need to post them tomorrow.

Happy Monday

If ever a Monday can be happy. ;) Especially if your camera died over the weekend. I tried using the other cameras in the house and felt like Goldilocks - Mom's camera wouldn't stay focused, Dad's camera was too complicated - my old one was juuuuust right. If only it hadn't died on me. So I guess I must buy a new one. For now I finally got a few of my new items photographed and even a few up on etsy so I'm content enough for now.

Here's one that was so much fun to make:

Ill met by moonlight, fair Tatania!

I was making a new silhouette and I just kept hearing the same phrase over and over in my head: Fairies skip hence - from Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm not sure why, but this silhouette was definitely a fairy. I gave her vintage music paper wings and a crown of white and pink rosettes and she was happy to stay. ;) I just love this piece.

And happy belated Mother's Day to all you moms out there. Hope you had as nice a time as we did - beautiful weather and sunshine and BBQ for dinner. Yum. ;)

Shop Update

Just a note that I've posted a few things in my shop and will be posting more over the rest of today. It can be exhausting trying to take decent pictures of my items - getting the lighting right and not letting my shakey hands ruin the shot, not to mention working on a verrrry slow laptop. I managed to get just two items up so far, here's a glimpse:

A keepsake box, because they are sooo much fun to make. I used pages from a vintage french book, stenciled a silhouette and painted some jewelry on her and added a little crown - voila, tres chic, no?

And the other item is from my obsessive love of all things Tudor. A bracelet featuring the six wives of Henry VIII.

This little detail photo has young Katherine of Aragon and her bitter rival, Anne Boleyn.

This beautiful bracelet was made by my mother (after much whining and nagging by me). She was making typewriter bracelets with Beatrix Potter images (she's as obsessed with Peter Rabbit as I am with Henry's six wives) and I kept begging for a bracelet with the Tudor wives on it until she made me a few. ;) The bracelets take a LOT of work - just preparing the old keys takes a lot of cleaning, grinding and hard work, not to mention the portrait glass keys are very rare and hard to alter. But the end result is so worth it, I think.

Pretty Things

Just a few pictures to share - a few of my favorite things:

The ever so lovely Gerber Daisies my mother gave me for my Birthday. Thanks, mum!!

The garden shop near my home, appropriately named 'Colors of Spring' - they always have a beautiful display outside that brightens up the whole neighborhood. I took this picture a few weeks ago and ended up buying a whole tray of pansies and violas, some geraniums and ivy. Dangerous store to drive by - your wallet empties itself and your gardening chores grow.

And last, but not least -

A way guilty pleasure - this is the best place to get donuts in St. Louis.


And I dig their vintage sign, it's one of the last few remnants of Route 66 still in evidence.

Blowing dust off the blog...

Happy Belated Easter to all that celebrated last week. My family celebrates 'Greek' Easter which is on a different calendar from the regular Easter and that was just yesterday. Also my birthday was Saturday - dare I admit it was the big 30?? I prefer to think I am aging backwards now, though - so I'm 28 again. ;)

Anyway, despite all that celebrating I've been rather bummed and not wanting to spread it around so that's the real reason for my quiet. Far too often I find myself trying to go to sleep at night and awake thinking of my pending operation and all the hassle, pain, and stress it will cause. But I know I have to go through with this operation as I'm in far too much pain and there is no real future to look forward to unless I try to fix my back.

So anyway - putting that aside. I do desperately need good vibes and positive thoughts. I finally managed to clear some space and time aside again to get back focused on my many, many half finished projects. I think crafting and today's sunshine (it rained ALL weekend) will lift my spirits so I'm ready to jump back in.

Next week I know at least two flea markets I want to go to and a show 'Artopy' which is a Indie type art and craft show by the local Show Me Etsy group. I'm definitely looking forward to that show - the last one, Green with Indie didn't go well for me. I can't walk for more than a minute or two and ended up seeing barely anything at all and the pain was horrible. So this week I'm buying a wheel chair and experiencing the show. If you are in St. Louis then or near enough to come - check out the link above for details. I'll take a few pictures if I can.

(I'm so shy in person that I usually chicken out from taking pictures of people's booths or stores as I think they'll get mad and think I'm stealing ideas or something - does anyone else have that problem?? Should I mention I have a blog and will be promoting their stuff rather than taking away from them? Just a paranoid question from a paranoid person...)

A Few Spring Touches

Just a little fyi and etsy update. I've posted a few items at my shop - the French house with shutters in my earlier post, a new improved version of a Lit House with a red roof:

(I just love the floral front door and button doorknob)

And also a new item - a spring keepsake box with scalloped edges, vintage paper, assorted bits and pieces on the lid, a little surprise on the inside and antiqued with robin's egg blue paint.

Yoyo Crazed

My mother and I have been hooked on making yoyo's the past year or two. My aunt Mae got us onto it and it really is a nice simple thing to do when you're sick or can't do anything strenuous (like me with my back problem). We work on it off and on, but we are slowly working our little pieces into some pillows. This one is all in shades of tourquois-y robin's egg blue, brown and off-white. Originally my mom was going to put this in her room, but then we realized it has all the colors of our living room and looks great on the couch so we'll likely put it in there.


So cute! The letter fabric and the brown polka dot fabric are my favorites.

And then this one is my project - I took the next size down yoyo (we have at least four different sizes at the moment) and I have quite a few of the same fabrics, but accented with some soft pink fabrics.

They look much cuter in person. They will likely end up as a small bed pillow. Again, it features my lovely letter fabric - I just love letters and numbers in decorating. I wish I had some dishes with big black numbers on them, but I've yet to find any I like available for purchase.

And only one picture of my other project turned out okay, but this is just the start of a tabletop centerpiece with even smaller yoyo's (the smallest yoyo's aren't much use at the moment being teeny tiny little things). It'll have lots of different colors, blues, reds, pinks, greens, white, etc. I'm making it similar to the great one my aunt made for my grandmother. I really must get a good picture of her because it is so cute.

Anyone else yoyo crazed?