Happy Spring Day

Happy Spring day from a gloomy Lethbridge, AB.  No sun here today, just grey clouds, at least there is no snow with the clouds

My little bird is making me feel in the spring mood.  Hope you are having a wonderful spring day.

13th Birthday

This past weekend was my babies birthday.  We decided on a farewell Princess party.  She helped with the tablescape, our first ever.  All our plates and serving dishes were from the dollar store.

The dishes are plastic from the dollar store.  Candle holders are ramekins and the candles are flameless candles.  The glasses are glass ones from the dollar store.  We served them sparkling grape juice, in place of champagne, so that they could toast the birthday girl.

My daughter came up with the idea for the napkin and cutlery in the glasses.  We could not find napkins to match our table cloth so we used a rollerstamp and Stampin Up blue ink to make our own.

 Close up of napkins

In place of goodie bags I got them each a teenage magazine and a princess toy.  Rolled them together, tied with a ribbon and added the flower.

A cupcake, cake, not my best work, iced to match her color scheme and again bringing in the princess theme.

All done!

My baby!

 Lets add some food.

Mmmmm!

Food and candles lit.  Fit for the princesses

 Cheers and Happy Birthday!

Linking to

http://refreshrestyle.com/  Springtacular link party

http://savvysouthernstyle.blogspot.com/2012/03/wow-us-wednesdays-57.html

http://betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/2012/03/st-patricks-day-table-setting-welcome.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BetweenNapsOnThePorch+%28BETWEEN+NAPS+ON+THE+PORCH%29

Trying out my camera

Quiet time with a book curled up on my couch, not really just set up to look like it.  This book is called Peaceful Thoughts for Busy Women.  I love the pictures in the book and also the inspirational thoughts.  I am trying to learn to take better pictures.  I do not have a fancy camera it is a Sony 1080, which really does not mean anything to me.  I got it as a gift. and it has worked fine for me so far, but I have never tried to take artsy pictures before.  So I will be posting some pictures in the future which will be my experiments.

Here is another shot, not very good but I was also playing around with some effects with this one.

Here is my final one of this particular vignette, which is also something I am still learning about.
Now a couple more things I would like to point out to you.  The wood container is something my brother made when he was in high school, he just turned forty seven, so it really is getting old.  The top is broken off, which is not so bad, considering that it has travelled all the way from South Africa.

Another thing I wanted to point out was the beautiful design on the table.  This table is one of a set.  Two end tables and a coffee table.  I bought the entire set for $80.  A steal, as they are real wood.  I bought them off kijjii, and I was intending to paint them and then distress them.  But when I got them I fell in love with them and now do not know if I should paint or not.  What do you all think.

Hope you enjoy your day

Michele

Linking to
http://www.frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

 

My victorian hearts

Hi everybody, so as promised I was going to share my new hearts I was making.  This was a course taught by the 2 ladies over at  A Gilded life.  I love learning new things so this was made for me.  Christy Tomlinson was a partner in this course.

 I showed you this picture when I shared my basket makeovers.

The hearts are made out of felt.  They are joined with glue so no sewing involved.  Lightly stuff it, not to much stuffing.

 Then the fun starts.  Collect all your trims, pieces of lace, flowers, leaves and bling.

Start layering.  These are just all scraps I used on this one except for the glittery trim around the outside which I got on Michaels, marked 50% off.  The beads are from my stash which I put together in a rosary and then attached to the heart so I can now hang it.

 

Close up of my second heart.  The bling peeking out of the flowers I also got from Michaels in their beading department.  These were also marked down and there were five or six threaded together.  Took it apart so now I can use them on different crafts.

And there they are, cute hearts to display.

Have a wonderful week

Michele

Linking to Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

http://www.frenchcountrycottage.blogspot.com/

Classy Clutter: Saturday Spotlight

http://classyclutter.blogspot.com/2012/03/saturday-spotlight-4.html 

 

Welcome

I would like to welcome my new followers.  Thank you for visiting and following.  I hope you enjoy the journey with me.

Thanks

My first original oil painting

Hi everybody, today I would like to share my first original painting I have done.  My other paintings have always been studies of other painters work.  This one is done from a picture my son took in Victoria, BC.  I loved the quiet feel of the picture so chose it for my first.  This painting is done with oils, which I just love.  I am linking this up to Paint Party Friday.http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/ 

       

My Basket transformation

So all over Pinterest are ideas to transform baskets into cloches.  These baskets I found at our Thriftstore.  I thought they would look good transformed.  After I finished them I realised that the holes need to be a bit bigger, but for my first time the worked.  I took off the handles and then painted them using Martha Stewart craft paints.  I used a couple of different colours to give them a shabby chic look.

I then got out my stash of goodies wondering what to use.   While I had my goodies out I thought I would give you a peek as some of my things.  All my lace trims colour coded.  You can see two hearts that I started making which I will be showing you in another post.

Another look at my fun goodies!

Close up of the hearts!

So here are my cloches on my mantel.  As you can see it is a little difficult to see inside.  I have added some greenery and roses inside as these were the easiest to see.

Close up of the smaller cloche.  This one is done with blue paint, pink and  cream.  Love how it looks.

The bigger one.  This one was painted green with a cream on top.  I think I need to sand it a little to show more of the green.

This is a close up of the top.  This is a door handle I got from Michaels for $1.50.  Took the screw part out and then used glue to attach it to the basket.

Love my little scape.

Linking to the following





Between naps on the Porch 

Tip Junkie's Tip Me Tuesday 




 

A Comeback

I have finally found the nerve to come back to my blog.  Literally been too nervous to come back.  I have been ignoring this blog as I feel I was losing myself.  I find I was putting myself through way to much stress trying to please the invisible audience.  Everybody seems to be so good at this whole blogging thing.  I just felt I was not getting the knack of it.  I finally realised I was not being true to myself.  I jumped into this without thinking how I wanted to  come across to everybody.  I tend to do that I jump into things without thinking it through.  I do that with all of my ventures and then I exhaust myself trying to do it perfectly.  I have decided that I am going to use my blog to find myself.  I turn fifty this year and if I am every going to do that now is the time.  I have loads of interests, crafting, art, paper crafting, interior decorating.  I have always just concentrated on one of those interests at a time.  This year I am going to try and incorporate it all in my life.  I will be blogging only once a week, so that I do not get bogged down in it.  My entries will be about my life not just my interests and I am hoping to grow this year and really find myself.  This is going to be my nirvana.  There will be entries about organisation, decorating, art and anything else I find beautiful or inspiring.  I  hope you will join me on my journey.  Happy trails to all

Michele

P.S.  I will also be working on finding out how to use my blog properly so be patient with me.

Doing some other crafting

 

So I have been busy doing other crafts as well as my regular papercrafting and mixed media.  I found this idea on Alisa Burkes blog.  She has some amazing ideas.  These pumpkins that I painted are from Michaels.  The first two were orange and I painted them white,  I then made my own stamps using craft foam and stamped on the leaves.  I outline the leaves with my permanent marker and did some curliques.

The last pumpkin I got for 70% off  after halloween.  It was a black one which was a bonus.  I then used white rubons to decorate it and then did some doodling to finish them off.  These pumpkins can now be out all year round displayed with other black and white objects.  I have a wreath that I will share with you later and also a cushion that I am busy with.

I hope you love my pumpkins as much as I do.

Have a wonderful day.

Michele

11 x 14 Mixed Media Canvass

 Today I am sharing a canvass I did this last week.  It is much larger that I would usually do but I love it.   I started by covering it with different papers using Modge Podge.  I then used a brayer to apply some paint.  Then I used stamps and rubons to add texture.

Now I started on the girl.  I painted her on and I got my inspiration from Kelly Rae Roberts book Taking Flight.  I did not add features as then you can imagine what you think she would look like.  

This is a closeup of my writing.  I wrote my message and then framed it with bakers twine.

 

This is a close up of my flowers.  These started out as silk flowers which I dipped in UTEE which makes them hard and shiny like this.  I love doing this an making my own carbochans.

I hope you like my canvass and enjoy this post.

Have a wonderful day

Michele

Fatbook pages

Hello everybody,

I have been very quiet lately as I have been very busy learning.  Thanks to a few very talented ladies, Christy Tomlinson, Kelly Rae Roberts, Alisa Burke and Donna Downey, I have discovered some amazing techniques.  I have so enjoyed their blogs and books.  I am starting a new e-course of Christy's on Monday.  More things to learn.  I have used my fatbook pages to practice some of the things I have learnt. 

With this one I practiced doing my backgrounds using stamps and stencils.  Love the baby.

This one is also the backgrounds and added texture with the bows I made out of embroidery thread.

More background and then added the flowers and disc.

This one has the background and then I made the flower using embroidery thread glued to the card.

This one has the flower and the key is glued using diamond glaze.  The heart I made from Fimo clay using my new Melting Pot.  I made the texture on the heart by pressing the sole of a flip flop into it and then added the bling.  I attached the heart using diamond glaze and then covered it with the diamond glaze to strengthen it.  I love how it came out.

So that is what I used on these cards, I have alot more to share with you which I will in my following posts.

Have a wonderful day

Michele