HAPPY NEW YEAR MY FRIENDS!!!

May all of your dreams come true in 2009!!!!

Christmas Gifts!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I had a lot of fun. We went to my mom and her husbands house (they live about 1.5 hours away). We were spoiled by my mom (she has the most generous heart) and ate ham and goodies for dinner...yummy!

I received the greatest surprise from my beautiful blog friend Vicki from Nollyposh. She sent me the cutest little gifts! I love them so much!! Thanks Vicki

I have been working on a painting for my mom, but couldn't post any of the progress because she is a frequent reader of my blog. I wanted this to be a total surprise to her.

I used some different techniques for the background (thanks Heather, Becky and Kelly Rae for the inspiration). In my mom's dress is an actual picture of us when I was about 5. My mom's favorite color is black, so I had to incorporate that somehow. I really like the way it came out. I also used white rubons to add some contrast in my dress and at the top. The words in my dress are all of the things my mother has taught or shown me in my life. There is also a title right above our heads that says "Motherhood" but it is very hard to read in the picture. My husband said: "Why does it say Mother-Ho at the top?"--ummmm, no!

My mom was a single parent who worked graveyard shift (I can't imagine how hard that must have been) and she (if I say so myself) did a pretty darn good job. Now that I am a parent, I have so much respect for what she must have gone through raising me by herself. I have a husband who is a great help and I still struggle sometimes (as I'm sure we all do). This painting is a tribute to my mom and our relationship as mother and daughter. She is Truly my best friend and my rock!!! If I can be half the mother to my son as she has been to me, then I will be very happy.

I love you so much mom!!! I'm glad you loved the painting!

HAVE A GREAT CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!

I just wanted to wish you all a very safe and happy Christmas! Thanks to all of my sweet blog readers; your support throughout the year has been a great encouragement to me!!!!

Something New!

Ok, so the ornaments have taken up a lot of my artistic time and I just received a few more commissions (for after Christmas) to complete, but I also just completed a 12X12 Commission for a friend of mine. It was very refreshing to work on a larger scale again. She wanted a "Rock Fairy Princess" with a guitar in her hands. I have never drawn a guitar before but I had a blast with it. What do you think? Can she rock it fairy princess style or what?

Last of Commissioned Ornaments

Whew! I am finished with the last of the ornament requests. It feels good to have it done. Now I just have a few more paintings to do (will post soon).

I THOUGHT I WOULD SHARE SOMETHING HILARIOUS!!!!

">

More Commissioned Ornaments and an Award!!

I have been very busy with commissions, so I thought I would share some of them with you. My first boys!!! Agghhhh! I have been so nervous about painting boys. In addition to these, I have 9 more ornaments I am working on and 4 out of the nine are boys (I will post those later). I think I am getting more comfortable with painting boys now. Practice does help!!

This is for a little boy named Maddox, he is so cute and has a cute little fauxhawk.

This one is for Maddox's cousin Dylan who also likes to wear his hair in a fauxhawk

This one was made for my son's teacher's daughter Elyse. I really love the way she turned out.

Another request for one of my vintage looking snowman.

I also have been given a blog award by the lovely Lorri Lennox of Artivity. Check out her blog, she is an amazing collage artist!!!

Holiday Craft Bazaar!!

The Holiday Craft Bazaar went great! It was totally worth it staying up until 2am every morning getting ready for it. I sold quite a few things and have several commissioned requests. So I am going to be very busy the next few weeks.

Here is what my table set-up looked like. I sold ornaments (the biggest hit), bookmarks, recipe boards, Holiday boxes and some post-it note/pen gift sets I made.



These are some of the new items I made and sold.

Here are a few new items I made and did NOT sell (I will either try and sell them on Etsy or my new Lollishop that I still have to set up)

I hope you all had a great weekend!!

Busy Busy!!!

This has been a very busy week. Thanksgiving, Potty Training and I have been working on several pieces for a craft bazaar I am attending this coming Friday.

My Thanksgiving was very nice, my mom and her husband came over and we had a lot of fun. I think I am still in a Turkey coma!!

I want to thank everyone who left me tips on potty training. Jordan has made such great progress since the beginning of the week. Of course there have been accidents, but due to the reward system I have put into place, he is really getting it down. I have a sticker chart and when it is full, I am taking him to Legoland and every time he goes potty the "Potty Fairy" brings him a jelly bean which magically appears on the kitchen table when he is done washing his hands. I also bought him some Trasformer and Spiderman underwear and he does NOT want to pee on them (it is so cute, he has been playing with the underwear and keeping them in a little box with him at all times). We are still working on the poo poo part (that is much harder).

I have been making more ornaments, shadowboxes and door hangers. I also made a really cute magnetic recipe board for Jordan's teacher. About a year ago, I was really tired of looking down on the counter at my recipe cards and how dirty they got when I was preparing meals. So I created this magnetic board and now the cards stay clean and I don't have to strain my neck looking down at them on the counter. I think they are really neat and a great gift idea. In fact, it is going to be very hard to give away the new one I made because I like it so much better than the one I made a year ago for myself. I am going to make a few more for the craft bazaar (I will post them when I make them).

My mom really wanted me to draw a girlie with a pony tail, so here she is. I really like how she turned out.


This is a commissioned ornament for a friend of mine. Her daughter has a little Christmas tree in her room and all of the ornaments are purples and pinks. This was really fun to make.

Here is another Shadowbox (which I am addicted to making by the way!!)

This ornament is called "Warm Wishes" and I used these really cool clear bubbles (I think they are called raindrops) on the piece which I just love...

When I bought this ornament, it was unfinished wood, so I painted it and crackled it to make it look like an old vintage piece.

Here is the front of the magnetic recipe board (I bought a stand for it as well). I also made the glass magnets.

Here is the back of the magnetic board. I made a pocket for the recipe cards to be placed when not in use.

Here is what it would look like when in use.

I am taking a potty break!!

Potty training that is... I'm going to be a little absent this week. Since we are on Thanksgiving break this week (no pre-school), I have decided to get this kid potty trained. Enough is enough already!!! He turned 3 on Oct. 2nd and boy is he a stubborn one (just like his dad...LOL!). I have tried several times and many potty charts and incentives, even the Potty Fairy...(don't ask) and nothing has worked. Well I am staying home and not going to see the light of day this week until my little boy is peeing and pooing in the potty!!!! Wish me luck...boys are tough!! Feel free to leave comments with potty tips that have worked for you (I could use all the help I can get).

On an art note, I am working on more ornaments, shadow boxes, door hangers and other Christmas goodies for a craft bazaar on Dec. 5th that I will be attending. I will post pictures soon...

I also have a few more tutorials in mind, so stay tuned.

Shadow Box "Christmas Morning"

Here is what I have been working on the past few days. I am adding it to my shop tonight.

Paper Doll

The theme this month for a new challenge blog called "Colors Within my Soul" is paper dolls. It just so happens that I made one for a swap. It was so much fun to make and I will definately be making more.

Blog Award...Woo Hoo!

The very talented Bee from Witchetty has been kind enough to give me a very cute Blog award. Go check out Bee's blog, her work is so fabulous!!!

But of course when you receive a blog award, there are rules...

1. Put the logo on your blog

2. Add a link to the person who awarded you

3. Nominate 10 other blogs for this award

4. Add links to those blogs

5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

6. Give a reason why you consider their blogs cool

Wow, 10 other blogs is a lot...but it won't be hard for me; there are so many blogs I subscribe to it's crazy...

1. Nancye's art and beautiful junk- An amazing artist; I always look forward to seeing her work.

2. Nolly Posh- A beautiful person! Her strength and outlook on life just shines through her blog.

3. Scrappy Jessi- Tons of blog candy and she is having a great give-away right now.

4. Michelle My Belle- I just discovered this lovely chickie's work...AMAZING!!!

5. Just in time designs- Another amazing artist. I just love her girlies!!!

6. Hands & Heart- Monica is one of my all time favorites; her artwork is very special (as is she).

7. Goody-Goody- Great Fabric Art and tutorials.

8. Blue Eyed Girl- She works with all different mediums & makes the cutest wooden ATC's.

9. Distracted by Design- I love watching her style evolve...she is true talent!

10. Michelle Brown- A wonderful watercolorist; she is starting to offer classes online as well.

Whew! That took awhile...there are so many wonderful blogs out there...

One Step Crackle Tutorial!

I had a great response with the last tutorial I posted so I thought I would make it a regular thing. This tutorial is about the crackle method I use on some of my pieces. Most crackle mediums are a two step process, but this medium is only one, which makes life much easier.

This is a very easy process, so I hope you will try it out.

Items needed:

Painted Piece (on any substrait)

One Step Crackle Medium from DecoArt

Dark Brown Stain or Acrylic paint

Damp paper towel

Dark brown or black oil pastel (optional)

Take a generous amount of the crackle and a soft paint brush and brush onto your painting (I even put it over my girlie's face, but you don't have to if you don't want). Remember, don't be stingy with the crackle, put a thick even amount on there...

Next, wait until the Crackle Medium dries (you can use a heat gun to speed up the process). In this picture you can see the cracks but they really don't stand out very well.

Next take about a teaspoon of your dark brown stain or acrylic paint (your choice) and squeeze it onto your pallet. If you are using acrylic paint, mix a little bit of water in the paint to thin it out. I usually take a spray bottle and squeeze it one time and then mix it with my paint brush.

Brush on the paint on in sections and then wipe off with a damp paper towel. Do this until you have stained the whole painting.

Now your cracks are showing...YAY!!

Now because I used dark colors on this piece, the cracks are more subtle, below is another piece I did with lighter colors and the cracks are more prominent.

The last thing I like to do is frame the edges with a dark oil pastel. In this case I used black (again, because the colors I used were so dark. I would normally use dark brown if the background colors are lighter). You color the edges with the oil pastel and then take your finger and blend.

Here is my finished piece after I added some embellishments. I think it looks very Victorian and old. "Christmas Angel" is now in my shop.

You can also see this piece on the Embrace the Face challenge blog. This months theme is Lace.