The Elf On The Shelf and A Giveaway!!!!!

I finished my shopping and my custom orders, so now I feel like I can finally enjoy the holidays!! Having a 4 year old really helps you to remember how magical this time of year is. Teaching him what Christmas is really about and all of the other traditions has been so meaningful for me.


I have also introduced a new tradition into our home..."The Elf On The Shelf." I just heard about this from some friends and I thought it was the cutest thing ever. This cute little elf (Jordan named ours Ted) sits somewhere in your home "watching" the little ones and taking notes for Santa. At night when we are all sleeping, he magically travels to the North Pole with his report. The next morning he is in a new place in the home causing a little mischief along the way. My son is all over this!! Every morning he wakes up looking for where Ted's new sitting "spot" is. Ted always seems to knock something over in the process of climbing up to his new spot. This is so much fun!!! I purchased Ted at Barnes and Noble along with a book that accompanies him. There is also a cute website your child can play games and register your family's elf.


Here is Ted in his very first sitting spot (He is on the Christmas tree right now).

Jordan and Ted (Jordan got his face painted at Barnes and Noble). See how Ted is keeping his eye on Jordan making sure he's being a good boy...what a good elf!

Giveaway time:

Does your family have any holiday traditions? Leave a comment about your traditions and you will be entered to win a one of a kind hand illustrated Journal (made from recycled materials). If you don't have any traditions, leave a comment letting me know what you enjoy about this time of year (I would love get to know more about you).

I will draw a winner on Monday December 21!!

A few More Ornaments!

Here are a few more...

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.

Shadow Box "Christmas Morning"

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

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.

Christmas Door Hanger!

Here is a new Christmas piece I just completed. It is painted on a wooden door hanger. I woodburned the girlie and used lots of demension on the piece. I just added her to my shop!! Also, stay tuned for another tutorial. The next one will be on using crackle...

CHRISTMAS BOXES AND SHOP UPDATE!!!

SOLD






I have been working until all hours of the night this week to finish these boxes and I am very pleased with how they turned out!!! These boxes along with the recent Christmas ornaments I made are now in my Etsy Shop (there is no shipping fee for US residents). Making these cute little items have put me in the Holiday spirit (in October?). I hope they put you in the spirit as well!

More Christmas Ornaments!

SOLD





Here are some more ornaments I have been working on. I am going to work on some more boxes now. These were a lot of fun to make!