Christmas Decorating

We decorated for Christmas early this year, so I have had a lot of time to put stuff up and adjust so that it is nearly perfect.

Mom bought us a artificially Christmas tree last year for Christmas. It was the perfect gift! Last year Jeff loved our live tree so much he could not bear to part with it (it sat out on our porch until May). So now we can leave the tree up as long as we want.

The tree is a pre-lit 7.5' slim mixed pine. Our color theme this year is Champagne and Gold. We used wide gold and champagne snowflake ribbon as garland, as well as a couple of strands of white metal doves from Possibilities. Over the years we have collected a spectrum of beautiful matte, shiny and sparkley glass ornaments of all shapes and sizes. We used gold, white and champagne glass ornaments in bell, ball and icicle shapes. Jeff and I have taken up the tradition of buying a Hallmark decoration for the tree each year, we read the poems on the back of the box for each Hallmark ornament as we put it on the tree. We also purchased some vintage inspired Martha Stewart metallic glass clip on bird ornaments with real feather tails. Tucked in among the branches are gold and white silk poinsettia blossoms and gold and pearl berries. Topping off our tree is the beautiful cream metal star Mom gave us.

My tablescape starts of with my white jacquard tablecloth as a base. Over that is a red, claret, burgundy and maroon stripped table runner. Each place setting has a burgundy place mat and gold charger. On the charger is a white jacquard napkin in a red berry napkin ring from My Favorite Things. The centerpiece is a twig and red berry wreath from My Favorite Things and a pumpkin spice birch bark candle that I made with birch bark mom gave me.

I made a wreath for our front door, that matches our tree, using the grapevine wreath I re-decorate each season. I used the same wide gold and champagne ribbon as I did on the tree as well as the gold and white poinsettia blossoms and a couple of gold sparkley twirls.

Lexington Avenue of the Arts

Here is Think Pink Crafts at the Lexington Christian Academy for the first annual Lexington Avenue of the Arts. This was an amazingly well organized and very pleasant craft show, over 5o vendors participated! Unfortunately, there was a Nor'easter coming through and turn out was low.

Here I am at my booth!

Setting Sail with PMC

Monday, Marissa O'Brien, a visiting expert/creativity consultant at Spark Craft Studios gave us a free PMC basics class. I am totally hooked.

PMC is Precious Metal Clay, it consists of microscopic particles of silver or gold suspended in an organic binder to create a pliable material with a consistency similar to modeling clay. After firing, what remains can be hallmarked as .999 silver or gold.

I made these great earrings. The back disk is imprinted with a Japanese wave design, the front with a starfish. I burnished them and hammered them into dome shapes. I then put a patina on them with liver of sulfur to highlight the grooves and burnished them again to shine up the raised parts of the designs.

I am soooo pleased with myself and the other pieces that I made. I think that I just formed a new and expensive habit.

Rainy Day Sheep

I have been home sick and bored out of my mind. The Amigurumi craze is irresistible. I found a really cute crochet lamb pattern online and made it yesterday while I was at home in bed. I used Lion Brand Moonlight Mohair in Tundra for the body and head, lion brand worsted weight black for the legs, ears and tail. I used pink crochet cotton for the mouth and nose and am on the lookout for some buttons for the eyes. This little cuttie measured 5 1/2 inches from nose to tail.

Hoppy Easter!

I went to an A Muse Stamp class last night at Spark Craft Studio. Tons of fun, most of the regulars were at class. Sadly it was Renee's last class, she is moving out of state, Spark will not be the same without her.

We did 5 Easter cards, all exploring the use of background stamps. My favorite was the one that has the egg cut-outs on it. I experimented a lot with stamping out different backgrounds and layering and colors, then got to use my favorite of all paper craft tools (Memory Maker cropping system) to cut out an egg shape. Love it. The possibilities are endless. I will definitely have to add some background stamps to my collection so that I can use techniques that I have learned like this and the stamp kissing.

Super Bulky Knit Scarf

I just completed my first ever knitting project!

While we were home in Maine we went to Mardens. Mardens is this fantastic surplus and salvage place where you can get the best things for super cheap. Their tagline is, “You should have bought it when you saw it at Mardens”. That is definitely true, Jeff is still upset about the air hokey table we let get away. Anyway, I picked up a bunch of beautiful Lion Brand yarn and needles. Because I only know the knit stitch I needed to make a simple project for myself.

Ingredients for this scarf:

2 hanks of Lion Brand Big Prints in Grand Canyon
Size 35 knitting needles
Size Q crochet hook – for casting off and attaching the fringe

Recipe:

• Fringe – Cut 14 Strands of yarn, 16 inches long each, before starting scarf

• Scarf – Cast on 7 stitches.Knit every row until scarf is ~ 2 yards long.Single crochet cast off.

• Finishing – Attach fringe on both ends of scarf. Take one 16” strand and fold it in half, use crochet hook to draw folded yarn though the scarf. Pull ends of fringe through loop. Pull to tighten

Stamp Kissing

I recently took an Amuse Stamp card making class. Spark Craft Studio offers these classes for every holiday, we made the cutest Valentines day cards. I love taking these classes! The instructor Renee is awesome and the designs are unbelievably creative. For some reason I just have a hard time being creative with papercraft stuff so classes like this really inspire me.

Renee taught a new technique called stamp kissing. Its really easy and comes out beautifully. Take a solid stamp, one without a lot of detail, stamp it with pigment ink. Then take a patterned stamp and stamp it into the solid stamp. The patterned stamp removes ink from the solid stamp and you are left with the negative of your pattern on your solid stamp. Then take the kissed solid stamp and stamp onto cardstock.

I got so excited by all the ideas I garnered from stamping class that I just had to share them with my Mom and Grammie. So, I made up three card designs: one with the stamp kissing technique, one using polymer clay fruit that we made after Thanksgiving, and one that had a bunny butt stamp that I had been dying to use.

We had a ball! Here are Mom and Grammie in action!

Crafting for the Weekend!

"Everybody's working for the weekend." Well not me I was Crafting for the weekend!

We went home to my parents house in Maine this weekend. But before I could go I had to get some crafting done. My mothers co-worker had given me her broken ankle bracelet to fix before the wedding and I had not done it yet. She had lost some of the beads so I had to re-string with a new pattern and it came out beautifully. With Jodi's done I had to make mom's other co-worker "Aunt" Brenda something special. I made her this beautiful semi-lariat necklace with gold chain and a faceted smokey quartz briolette.

Aunt Brenda had been doing some crafting of her own and had made Jeff and I the most beautiful knit socks. She picked out the perfect colors for us, purple variegated for me and an antique blue for Jeff. They are all warm and snuggly. I can't imagine the time she put into them, 8 hours per sock. I am not sure anyone is worth 16 hours for a pair of socks!

Chandelier Centerpiece

I made the first wire wrap pearl and swarovski crystal necklace , but had some some difficulty coming up with some sassy earrings to match. Thats when a idea struck me like a brick. I quickly started the second necklace that has a chandelier component in the center with pearls and crystals dangling from it. Paired with the matching earrings it is elegant and beautiful.

(This is shown on the my new neck that Jeff bought for me for Christmas. Yay Jeff!)