Begining to look alot like Christmas.....

I spent the last TWO weekends getting my house ready for Christmas....I mean cleaning and dusting and getting out the Christmas Decor , putting up lights and the Christmas Tree....phew! Yes I have an artificial tree, but I love it since I don't have to worry about fire! It takes hours to fluff it just right and then put up the ornaments takes another couple of hours, I so wish I wasn't such a perfectionist..but can't change that now! I decided to do simple this year, well my version of simple anyway. I only put out about half of my decorations...and focused on some new ones, white and silver, tatter and torn is my inspiration! see for yourself.....

Simple torn books tied with twine add alittle glitter "JOY" a wreath and candle for a cute vignette.

A table scape of white and silver.....................

This tray I purchased at the Three Speckled Hens Antiques Show in Paso Robles is a new favorite of mine....made out of and old cabinet door. Picked up the silver candle holders at Goodwill for $2.99 each, added a mercury glass one that I had and my cute little soldered box that I made at one of Terri Brushes classes.

This is a silver tray scape of white pitchers that I keep on my kitchen island that I added some holiday decor too..alittle sprig of greenery and my cute little girl image inside of the chicken wire cloche.

Place simple vintage Christmas trees inside of silver aged cups and creamers. The littlest one with the green tree is my silver baby cup , hard to see but it is engraved with my name "JOY" perfect for the season.....

I love my cute galvanized buckets that I picked up at an antiques shop and stenciled with the numbers "2" and "5"............

with that I got the idea to stencil the number "25" on my bags that I made to hold my ornaments for an exchange that I doing...I think they came out cute!

Close up....

Last but not least...my latest purchase of a pair of old ice skates that I placed at the base of my mantle along with a poinsettia.

Thanks for looking...and Have a Merry Christmas!

Missing in Action......

You know we all have times that we just go MISSING IN ACTION ......from our blogging! Well I have been MIA, but for good reasons! I have been busy with a couple of projects. One I am still in the process of finishing up and will post real soon........(don't you just love it when people do that to you....he...he) but the other one ...well check out the picture below. I finally DID IT!!!!! I sent some of my handmade bags off the Stampington submission for Haute Handbags. YIKES...........we will see what happens! It came to be when Beth Livesay (Managing Editor, Stampington & Company)saw my sweet friend Kim Caldwell carrying one of my bags and she asked her about it...well the rest is history. Keep your fingers crossed!

Cute Ruffled Towels.....Tutorial

My good friend Karen (Some days are Diamonds) asked me to do a tutorial for her Bloggerette Sorority..YIKES! I have never done that before....but I said "SURE" so here goes...............
My inspiration came from seeing so many beautiful white linen kitchen towels with vintage images and ruffles on them....but my dilemma was I don't have a white kitchen! So I decided that I would make my own to match my kitchen. So lets get started....Pick up a pack of cotton kitchen towels, they usually come 4 or 5 in a pack . I got these at Home goods for $4.99, choose the colors that match your kitchen, mine is yellow/golds and deep reds.Next pick your favorite towel for the main piece of towel and pick a matching towel which will be the ruffle. I laid it out so you can see the contrast between the two towels.

Take the towel that will be your ruffle and fold in half then in half again.Note that you will have finished edges on both right and left sides and across the bottom. It will measure 18" in width.

You will then mark it into thirds or at 6" from each edge. I used a disappearing ink marker to mark my towel. Then cut into three pieces each one is 6" wide. You will use only the two pieces with the finished edges, discarding the middle piece. I like wide ruffles so I chose to cut them at 6" but if you want a smaller ruffle you can cut to your desired width. Now set that aside for now.

Next you can choose from a couple of options , I wanted to put an image on my towels so I printed out my image onto fabric. I found the most wonderful images from http://www.oliverue.blogspot.com/ check out her blog for tips and tricks on transferring the images, and be sure to check out the photo gallery for some inspiration, you can also purchase her images at her Esty site noted on her blog....and guess what she is having a SALE right now so you can get these images for only $2 each...WOW that's a great deal!!! You can purchase the cotton fabric sheets at most fabric or craft stores. I then cut my design to the desired size and stitched it to the center of the front of the main towel piece as shown below.

The fabric sheets have a backing you peel away leaving a very soft and flexible piece of fabric to work with.
Now get your ruffle piece and stitch across raw edge length wise using a basting/gathering (long stitch) at 1" and then again at 1/2" (note: leaving long ends of thread on both sides to gather with, do not back stitch) now gather the ruffle by pulling together the top threads only on each side and pin to the bottom edge of your main towel (as shown in picture above). Knot both ends of thread by tying behind ruffle as shown below. Then using a zig zag stitch , sew right between the two rows of gathering to stitch ruffle to your towel. No need to finish the top edge, as it gives it a very vintage feel, but you can if you do not care for this raw look.
You can then add a bit of vintage lace over the top if you so desire.

Here is what your towel will look like when complete.

Now I will show you another option. You can use Tee shirt iron on transfers to print out your designs then you cut around design and following directions on the package iron on your image for a different look.

I chose this Christmas Birdcage design to make some cute Christmas towels.......

Make your ruffle the same manner as above but if you want you can add some cute little buttons over your lace. Or .........

Maybe just a simple little red button for some added color. That is the best part about these, you can embellish them however you want too! Wouldn't these make great gifts ????? Isn't this a cute towel.....


You can also just leave them plain using your color scheme. Here are a few of my finished towels hanging in my kitchen....


These are plain and simple towels that match my kitchen.
These are fun , quick and easy to make... I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial.

Fall Findings Swap

I recently participated in the "Fall Findings Swap" with Karen Decapites (http://www.somedaysarediamonds.blogspot.com/) Bloggerette Sorority Sisters. The idea was that you decorate a box and fill it with fall findings for your swap partner. Now, you did not know who had your name so you were asked to fill out a questionnaire so that you could get some info about your swap partner without contacting them.....Well, I was matched up with Debi Huntsman (http://www.lifeinmystudio.blogspot.com/) Karen did a good job matching me with her as she loves to sew ...just like me...and alot of her crafting is similar to my style too! So if you click over to her blog (noted above) you will see what I did for her....Now the twist, Karen had actually matched us up to each other but we did not know that...Yeah!!!!! So are you ready to see what Debi created for me?????? This is a close up of the box...just beautiful (note that the box did not have to be a fall box) the details are just amazing!
Here it is on my craft table along with the things she sent that were outside the box...really..she sent so much it was just like Christmas opening up all the little extra gifts. She also sent a little pumpkin candle holder, it got cut off in the pic but you can see the corner of it.
Here is a shot of the inside lid of the box, isn't it just lovely??

And all the lovelies inside the box, a little fall pillow, an old thread spool with dreamy lace on it, decorated thread spools, and bric a brac....
Some old buttons and beautiful flowers too!

This Bottle full of vintage pearls was one of the gifts outside the box, has a vintage looking label on the outside "Extra Strength Cauldron Bubbles" very cute.

These three little thread spools decorated with flowers, lace , ribbon and bling...love them!

And this beautiful tussie mussy full of lace and a a white pumpkin, I already hung up to display.....
Last but not least....of course I saved my favorite thing for last...is this darling canvas with the witches on it and the words read "He...He...He" this is SOOoooo me! Isn't it just so stikin cute??? Of course it is also already displayed proudly in my home with all my other Halloween decorations...

Thanks Debi for all your goodness....and thanks to Karen for putting this all together so we could all enjoy some new Fall Findings!

Just Jo.......

Just Jo...ARE YOU KIDDING..JUST JO! If you follow this lady you can't help but to be amazed at who she is and what she does! I had the honor of spending some one on one time with Jo Packham along with my friends Karen Decapite and Tiffany (The Fancy Farm Girl) while on a trip to Washington State. When Tiffany told me that she needed to pick up Jo Packham at the airport around the same time Karen and I were coming in (we were renting a car) I said to her we can bring Jo to your house don't make that extra trip, well unless Jo would not be comfortable with that arrangement. Well of course she would not....she really is just Jo..as we would be in awe of her she just kept telling us I am just Jo...so it stuck. I took this PIC of her and Tiffany at Tiffany's home, her bedroom to be exact. What a beautiful home she has, every room just arranged to perfection. I am sure Jo gets asked so much to have her picture taken I was alittle remiss about asking too much,but I did click off a couple. We had a wonderful dinner cooked by Ms. Tiffany and had such a wonderful time hearing about Jo's adventures and Tiffany's crazy busy life. When we awoke in the morning it was misting and overcast, we walked outside only to see the most amazing sight.....spider webs everywhere..I mean everywhere, on trees and bushes all around....now who would of thought that Jo Packham would have been so amazed with this sight (as she sees the most amazing things on a daily basis) but she was just looking and laughing and asked Tiffany to take some pics for her...of course her camera is just a little nicer than mine..he..he...but I did manage to get a couple of good shots.

On our way to art camp we stopped over in Portland and did some shopping...when I got a call from Tiffany asking if Karen and would like to join her and Jo for dinner....ARE YOU KIDDING! What time we will be there.....so we got to spend some more time talking and enjoying her company, really she is just so sweet! Then on our way to Art Camp where we met up again with Tiffany and Jo.....Here is a pic of Tiffany and I , we were trying to show off our outfits that were very similar..do you think?

In the end we said our goodbyes.....Karen got this shot with Jo as we all giggled.....GOODBYE JUST JO!!!!!

Art Camp.....

Upon Arrival the tables were set up so beautiful with these old jugs and sunflowers....simple but lovely! We each had our own wine glass with a handmade charm by Terri with our name on it..cute idea.....and the name tags were beautiful too , Terri told us they used an old wedding dress for the fabric to make all of the name tags and dresses on the front of our bags.

See the trim on the top is also from the wedding dress...

Sunflowers are my favorite and I just loved the way they displayed them..

Each day they did a menu board .


And just look at these cupcakes we had for desert made by Teresita...awesome!!!!!!

These ladies were the cooks....Joy and Terri (sisters) there worked their butts off...I mean really they were in the kitchen 24/7 and always the first ones up in the morning at 5:30 to start breakfast....thank you so much for all your hard work..you ROCK!!!!!!



Now the projects were just as amazing.....first my crown taught my Tiffany, I did not get any before pics..too busy working but it is made out of chicken wire and a heating duct vent....who a thought????

Everybody was so creative with their crowns.....some did Halloween ones...I think I may have to make one when I get home..sorry no pics I was having so much fun....
Then the amazing snow angel...this was taught my Christy Meyers...paper clay molded and baked in the oven overnight.....

The we made this box and the tree inside while we waited for our angels to cook.

When they came out of the oven we painted them and put them in our boxes...

Oh ...but we were not done yet....

The we added glass to the front and soldered it..added feet and I added a ribbon all around it...I just loved this project..she is so cute!
Lastly the soldered crown...this was amazing, I did not think I could do this with all these round pieces..but I did! First step to wrap all of the parts then lay out your design.


The start with making a circle...not so easy.....

But it all came together somehow...I did not quite finish but will add some more at home but I like it so far......
I had such an amazing time.....and so glad to have spent some time with Tiffany , she is an amazing , wonderful woman who I am so glad to call my friend.....