Merry Christmas Mom.

Homemade Christmas Gift

So I'm pretty excited about one of the gifts I get to give my sweet niece this Christmas. And it just so happens to be a homemade gift! Here it is - I can't wait to see her put this on and dance around in it!!



There is a gold glittery skirt underneath and then I took an elastic band, sewed it together to make a waistband. Next I cut strips of tulle (light pink and hot pink) and tied them onto the elastic waistband. Then I cut strips of ribbons and tied them on. Lastly, I got a big gerber daisy and cut the stem off and safety pinned it on.

I'll add a picture of Anna modeling this after Christmas.

New Designs

Here are a couple of new earring designs that I made:

My Labor Day Weekend Project

This one is actually a gift for someone and I am really pleased with how it turned out...

A couple of new creations...

I am loving these!!


Thanks for the fun beads for this one, Jasmine!!

Wolfpack Red

So, I decided after 3 years of being at NC State, I should probably own a RED necklace/earring set. Here is what I recently made - it's simple and plain, but that is for the most part what I enjoy. I've already been putting it to good use!




WHAT'S NEXT...I'd love to make something similar to this. I actually took a picture of this necklace when one of my friends showed up to a banquet wearing it. I really like it and would love to figure out how to make a similar one. I'll let you know if I figure that out...

Ribbons...

It's been a few months and I am excited to finally have some free time to work on creating some new jewelry pieces. I had some ribbon left over and decided to try to be creative with it to make necklaces. Here is what I came up with:






This one is a dark purple - I don't think the color shows up so great in the picture.

Here are a few that I made for the craft fair a couple of weekends ago...

Not My Style...

My mom recently bought a solid color teal outfit that she says calls for a big colorful necklace. So I took her to Michaels to pick out some beads. She continued to tell me about this necklace that she wanted me to make. Honestly, that's the hardest kind of necklace to make - the one that exists in someone else's head with lots of expectations that I can't really picture myself. Anyway, here is what I came up with:


Though this is so not my style and nothing that I would personally wear, Mom says that she loves it and that this is exactly what she was hoping for. Whew...mission accomplished.

A sample of Allison's Creations

I laughed this weekend as Allison and I were preparing for the craft show and said to her, "If you had told me in November that I would be doing this craft fair with you, I would have laughed and told you that you were crazy." Around Thanksgiving, Allison began introducing me to the art of making jewelry. I am so incredibly grateful for that because it has turned out to be a great hobby and such a stress reliever for me.

So, in this post, I thought I would give you all a chance to see some of Allison's work. If you like any of it and want to purchase any for gifts or just to treat yourself, let me know and I can work out the details with Allison.

Hand-painted Scarves (hand wash only):



Jewelry Stands:




Unique necklaces:




















Other fun stuff she has made:
Hand Painted Watering Can




Print on a pillow - the body of the zebra is Anna's handprint



Hand-painted mug - the lady bugs are Anna's fingerprints


There are so many other things I could show you, but this is all for now - just a small sampling. I am blessed to have someone so creative and inspiring in my life.

Test run...our first craft fair

So yesterday Allison (my sister-in-law) and I participated in our first craft fair. It was fun for us to figure out how to display our sutff and how to work together to make it all work at one booth. Thankfully our style of jewelry is different, so it made for quite the variety at our table. Allison also has other items (jewelry stands, hand-painted scarves, etc) - so that added to our collection as well. Here are a few pictures of our table...





In general, I think the craft fair could have been better publicized and perhaps scheduled for a better time of year when everyone in Goldsboro isn't at the beach, but I do think that it was fun for Allison and I to do a bit of a test run to see what this might be like. Though the crowd was small, they did love our stuff, which was encouraging and affirming. Allison and I may try to do something like this again in the fall maybe at another craft fair.

In my next post...I am going to show you some pictures of some of Allison's creations...she is incredibly talented and has some beautiful stuff. Be sure to check back for that...

Bracelets

Long Chain Necklaces...

Craft Fair Coming in April...

So...my mom signed me up for a craft fair in April!! The craft fair is a fundraiser for a school. I'll have a booth and well, we'll see if people actually want to buy this stuff. To get ready for the craft fair, I'm going to be making some new stuff for spring. Here are a couple...

Tinkerbell and Turning Three

Well, Anna turns three on Monday (which that in itself is hard for me to believe). Her birthday party was this weekend and mom and I made the cake!! Anna loves Tinkerbell, so we decided to make a Tinkerbell cake. (Disclaimer: before a few days ago, I knew nothing about cake decorating).

I will admit that we took the easy way out and went to Toys-R-Us to buy some Tinkerbell stuff to put on the cake. I realized very quickly that there was no way that I was going to be able to create Tinkerbell out of cake and icing. Thank you for saving the day Toys-R-Us!

So, after about 6 hours, 3 boxes of cake mix, 4 boxes of powdered sugar, and more Crisco than you want to know about - voila - a Tinkerbell cake! I wish that I had taken pictures of the mess in the kitchen...like I said, I've never done this before, so I was scared the whole time that I was going to ruin the cake. The product of my obsessive perfection was tons of paper towels all over the kitchen with practice flowers, leaves, writing in cursive, print, block letters, etc. It was quite a mess.

Here are the pics of what we did!

Weekend Creations

So, this first pair of earrings probably looks familiar (see my last blog post). A friend of mine had asked me to make her some gold earrings with dark brown beads. So I did. And I really, really liked them myself. I don't wear much gold, so I went and found the same pieces in silver and created a pair for me. Also, decided to make some similar ones in a blue/teal color.





These next 2 sets are pretty similar. Some spring colors, with hopes that spring may arrive soon.