Valentine Art Day- A Sweet Success!

Where has the time gone? I promised myself I’d be better about getting back to blogging more often but, DARN IT LIFE GETS IN THE WAY SOMETIMES! I plan on working on that but, in the mean time a small catch up on an amazing SWEET DAY with friends. WHAT A GIFT A FRIEND IS! We had lots of sweets to fuel our creative fires. I made a cake, Angela brought cupcakes, gooey butter cake & heart shaped brownies.

I bought a red plastic table cloth (we were painting & gluing on the dinning room table!) as well as red flowers & the cutest insulated mugs for each girl! BLINGED MUGS OF COURSE!

In the photo above you can see Angela’s letters (that had been decoupaged) sitting at her spot. And there is sweet Jan with her amazing pillow of lace making tools. Just the pillow alone was so interesting (with little drawers & padded just right with pretty trim along the edges) but, that lace OMG!!!! And the bobbins of thread… Each Bobbin a work of art in it’s own right!

See what I mean?

I just wanted to pick each one up & touch/feel it. They have been hand made from artist all over the world & Jan can tell us amazing stories about each one. A TRUE COLLECTION of beauty.

Just watching her for a few hours I can’t imagine how she doesn’t YANK her hair out!

This takes about an hour to hour & a half for an INCH!!!!! The patience of a SAINT I’m telling you!!!! But, it’s stunning don’t you think? Below you can see Angela & Cindy really taking it all in. Remember to click on the names that are highlighted in dark blue for a link to their blogs.

Cindy & I were working on cases for our altered compacts (for the swap we are in for the up coming Art Event An Affaire At Tiffany’s by the amazing Kim Caldwell) & below you can see a few peeks of those.

Lots of fun to create!

And then I cut out & stitched A BUNCH of these. I saw a photo on Pinterest (OH HOW I’M HOOKED on that & that is where MANY hours go for me) for a scarf that I really liked & thought “I want one of those” & while I’m at it I’ll whip up one for Diane & Riki as thank you gifts for my up coming trip out for A Charming Romance Class”. LORDY LORDY!!!! I had NO IDEA what a LOT of work that this would prove to be. Here’s the photo from Pinterest to give you an idea of started the madness.

This one was made by Karoline at Cherished Vintage. She makes these & sells them on Etsy if you’re interested. Then Sandy was doing some sleuth work for me since Karoline doesn’t have a tutorial & found the one below made by Amy at Watch Me Daddy which does have a tutorial.

Amy’s tutorial does not cut out each flower shape & although it’s cute I wanted to go more for Karoline’s look so I bought cookie cutters & used a disappearing ink pen to draw around the cutters. That’s 12 flowers per scarf… 6 different sized flower shapes in EACH flower… That’s 72 flower shapes cut for each scarf! YIKES!!!! Maybe I should have started a few months ago. Well, Angela helped me sew 3 of them & I worked on a few more but, I don’t even have one scarf done. Instead of using felt for my scarf I chose to use a really soft beautiful feeling light fleece which will make it feel good (I was afraid the felt would be stiff or rough on the neck) & is a softer look. Also a few pearls are added to mine & I really like the way things are shaping up. Stay tuned….

In the mean time I’m thankful for a fun filled SWEET crafty kind of day with these Crafty Buddies of mine. Hope you had a wonderful Valentines Day & I’ll be staying busy heading out for my Charmed Romance Class while hubby keeps the home fires burning & Ms Elle fed & entertained.

HUGS! Charlene

Creating!

This is being created in my backyard right now. This is a photo from Christmas Eve but, it is snowing again here in Texas! I can't believe it! I'm not sure how much we will get tonight but, it sure is a pretty thing to see.
During the Christmas season I have been busy creating some things for our home & for gifts & I want to share some of these items with you. This is the wreath that one of the girls at the Christmas Tea spoke about. Yes, I decorate my bathroom too, so I wanted to carry the snowy theme on through in there. I bought these adorable children's ice skates at Winnie & Tallulah's in Athens, TX. They were so sweet & even said Lake Placid on the side. But, they were scuffed & needed some bling. White craft pain to the rescue! And then they needed serious SPARKLE & that was done using glass glitter. Simple to do & oh so pretty! What's not simple to do... replace those nasty old shoe strings with beautiful vintage seam tape AFTER applying the GLASS glitter. OUCH!!!! But, oh so worth it don't you think?
Last February I went with a friend to a needlework shop & while waiting for her I fell in love with this needle point stocking cuff. Mid December I went in for my first lesson thinking "I bet get started on this since the year is almost over". Seemed pretty silly to pay what I paid (needlepoint is NOT a cheap hobby to take up) for this & not work on it. Below is the progress made at the first class. I can say it is moving along nicely. I'll keep you posted.

Close up of Santa on the stocking topper.

More details...

A close up of my stitching at class. This really is fun!

Back in the fall I had taken a class to learn how to make rusched (ruffled roses) from Jana at Collected Treasures & I wanted to make something with this new knowledge. So, I started the search for vintage velvet. That is not an easy thing to find but, thank goodness for EBay! I made these 3 flowers for a hat that I wanted to give to my friend Susan. A pretty burgundy Christmas Rose with a couple of black velvet beauties to complete the hat. She loved them!

A close up of this little treat. When we went to lunch today Susan was sporting her new hat.

Just a few of the goodies that I have been creating. Now, back to the grind of balancing a checkbook that should have been done 2 weeks ago. Arggggggggggg creating is so much more fun. Have a wonderful week dear friends.

Heart & Soul Jacket by Janna

There is so much talent out there in each of us! I wanted to show you my new little treasure created by Janna of http://collectedtreasures.blogspot.com/ She has the most wonderful Antique Store/Mall in Arlington, Texas. Jana has a treasure trove of vintage lace, ribbons, buttons, fabric,table linens & she uses this private stash to create wonders like this. She started out with a vintage tablecloth & started adding other pieces of vintage crochet to create the sleeves... Magic!!!!!! A feminine little summer cover up.

This is a view of the very front & the two big white vintage buttons she added. And who could miss the wonderful ribbon technique used down the front of the jacket. Hundreds of little tucks with this luscious deep rusty coral colored ribbon.

Here is a view of the back. Are you in Love yet?

Detail of the ribbon treatment around the back collar area. If you look closely you will see that she has used a beautiful deep green fringed ribbon under the looped coral ribbon to create the look of greenery under flowers.

And this is a closeup of the back bottom section. Not one ruffle of antique lace but TWO added to the bottom edge to give this feminine little flourish. And satin ribbon running through it.

A side view shows the ruffled collar & you can see she has connected yet another set of vintage lace crochet mid arm using a green & pink floral ribbon. This section is made of a much closer crochet which then opens up to another more open one that comes to a point just over my hand.

Here is a close up of the point of the sleeve. It creates the most wonderful focal point. And Janna used that wonderful deep rusty coral colored ribbon along with another deep green. I think this may need a special set of jewelry designed for it. What do you think? This whole jacket has such a Magnolia Pearl http://www.magnoliapearl.com/ look to it doesn't it? Did you see Robin's wedding featured in Summer 2009 Romantic Country Magazine?

Thank you Janna my very talented friend for a piece I will treasure forever! I know I will LOVE wearing this & I will think of you each time I do. Happy Creating!