MERRY CHRISTMAS

I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.

I also want to take this time to thank all of you who follow my little blog and thank those that leave such heart warming comments.  I appreciate you all.

Michele

MORE WINTER WONDERLAND BIRTHDAY PARTY GOODIES

Let me just say, if you don't like blue turn back now!!

I've been busy creating for my Lil O's 1st birthday party, the theme is Winter Wonderland and Woodland Animals.

You can see another post here 

I made bird nests using floral straw, spray painted white, spray painted adhesive then sprinkled with blue and silver fine glitter, the pictures really do not capture the colors, too sparkly...

I glittered the tops of acorns and actually used silver and blue Styrofoam balls as the acorns, I found these at Michael's.

Remember when I said there were no acorns around here to be found?

I did manage to find some tops I had around my home.

I spray painted the pine cones white and glittered.

 These squirrels I found at Creative Habitat for half off, they were fall items and were brown.

I spray painted white and glittered with silver, these are so darling.

The party is coming right up.  I may have one more post with some items but if not I will be sure to take lots of pictures of the decorations and share with you all soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

CHRISTMAS IN A TEA CUP

I purchased this pink tea cup and saucer several months ago when I first signed up for "A Christmas In A Tea Cup" swap over at Bliss Angels Swap Group.

As you all know I love birds, dried roses and bird nests.

This angel I purchased at a barn sale awhile ago.

The wooden bird I painted with pink glitter paint, don't you just love her hat?

I filled the tea cup with floral hay and moss along with some tiny pine cones.

I really love the way this piece came together.

Maybe you will be inspired to create something in a tea cup, go ahead-give it a try.

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

MY HALLS ARE DECKED

My halls are decked for the season.

I will be doing a vignette for the dining room table and one outside the front door on the porch.

I will share them when I have finished.

This is our tree.

 Mr. Nook purchased these mice for me last year.  This year I have decided they will sit in the tree.

This is the girl.

I have a handful of small teddy bears tucked in the tree.

This is the boy mouse, don't you just love his trousers?

I love my birds!!

I purchased several of these bags a few years ago.

My dress form has a new altered holiday bag this year.

I picked up a box of gold glittered leaf ornaments and have stuck them into different places.

 I filled this wooden bird cage with vintage ornaments.

My bread bowl filled with ornies and other fun items.

Are your halls decked for the holidays yet?

Thanks for stopping  by.

Michele

CHRISTMAS GARLAND

I created six of these for a garland swap over at Vintage Dragonfly

Using an image from The Feathered Nest

Dawn is a very sharing person, she shared some fantastic holiday images.  I follow her blog and love it, you should go ahead over and have a look, you won't be disappointed.

Using the image I cut it to fit a template of card stock that has a point on the end.

I punched holes all around the pieces and crocheted all the way around with a very soft tan colored yarn.

I then embellished around each one with some beige colored vintage trim.

Sorry the pictures are not crisp (it was dark out), had to get pics taken in order to package up and mail out.

I finished off each one with three tiny pine cones and some wording from recycled holiday greeting cards.

I've been busy this week getting my holiday swap commitments wrapped up before the deadlines.

I've also been busy creating for my Lil O's birthday party that is coming up very soon.

I have more creations from that to share with you soon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

A DOLL TO DRESS

I purchased this doll at a local rummage sale a few weeks ago.

I plan on taking off her dress and the bows out of her hair.

I will be redressing her for the holidays and gifting her to my friend Betsy.

A few months ago Betsy gifted me with these vintage dresses, see post here.

The tiny pink pillowcase full of baby clothes was a gift I so loved.

I told Betsy I thought a doll dressed in one of the dresses was in order for the holiday.

I will post when I have finished.

Do you have a doll project in mind for the holidays?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

I LOVE ORNIES

I so love Ornies.

I joined a swap over at Bumblebeelanecottage

A big thanks to Amy for being our hostess!

I made four ornies and received four ornies back.

You can see the ornies I created here.

This ornie is from Fran at thebagglady

THANKS so much Fran, I am thinking of a bread bowl of holiday ornies, love it...

These cuties are from Tammy at

threesmallfryprimitives

THANKS so much Tammy, these pins are amazing...

These lil stars are from Marti at

artymarti

THANKS so much Marti, I am thinking these will join other ornies in the bread bowl.

This ornie snowman hanger is from Cyn at

cynzplace

THANKS so much Cyn

love, love it...

I do love country/primitives specially for the holidays.

Do you have a collection or ornies?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

WHAT'S ON MY WORK TABLE

I've been busy at the craft stores.  I have a lot of work to do for the holidays.

I found a formula for rusty bells and will be getting to this very soon.  I love using tiny rusty bells in my holiday creations.

I have a love affair with burlap so I purchased yet another roll from JoAnn's Fabrics.  I will be making more sacks for special gifts.

Do you see this green trim?  Well I found this in the 80% off Halloween bin, it ended up costing 1.29, yup $1.29.  Well, while browsing around more in the store I came upon a rack with this exact trim only with a holiday/Christmas packaging and it was $6.99, same exact thing, go figure that!

I determined I love the color and can use it in some holiday art, don't you think so?

I needed all of these items, too.

I have several swap projects to create, a banner, a tea cup, a secret santa box to prepare and two cake boxes to make.

 I needed these items, too.

I am going to make several nest from brown hay material, spray with adhesive and glitter with this red, gold and white. 

I think this will be beautiful on my tree...

I found this pearl necklace at a rummage sale.

The pearls are all ready to go.

What is on your work bench?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

THE YEAR HAS TURNED ITS CIRCLE

THE SEASONS COME AND GO

THE HARVEST ALL IS GATHERED

THE CHILLY NORTH WINDS BLOW

GARDENS HAVE SHARED THEIR TREASURES

SO OPEN WIDE THE DOORWAY

THANKSGIVING IS ONCE AGAIN

Happy Thanksgiving to you all.

Michele

TINY VINTAGE DRESSES

A few weeks ago Mr. Nook and I stopped at a barn sale.  We have stopped here several times this season.

There is always something different to look at for the barn belongs to a church and community is always donating.

I found these two darling little vintage dresses.  I think they were created using the idea from the large dresses that were created as pot holders, colors seem to be the same.

I will be removing the blue bows and using in a holiday project or two.

Are these just darling or what?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

I LOVE A CLOTHES PIN

Have I ever told you I love clothes pins?

When my Figgy and I had our gift shop for a few years, we started grudging up clothes pins to use in our crafts.

After awhile we got the notion (don't recall where the notion even came from) to use these clothes pins to close up our customers bags when finished up with their purchase/visit to our shop.

We got crafty with the many different ways of creating an interesting clothes pin.

We glued buttons on, we glued vintage ribbon on, we glued other small items on, we made some with magnets on the back, we glittered some, we put paper on some, but all had our name on them.

Now let me just say; this was such a hit in our shop, the smiles we got were amazing and the thank yous were so sincere.  We were told it was a fantastic touch every other time at least.

We had repeat customers to the shop (which was great) some of these women told us they were starting a collection of our clothes pins.

All of this made us very happy of course.

I love to include some of these in my art and I specially love including them in my packaging for my swaps.

Do you love a clothes pin?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

COFFEE BURLAP SACK

A few weeks ago Mr. Nook and I decided to go out for lunch on a Sunday afternoon.

In a town nearby there is a coffee shop that makes a pretty good sandwich.

This coffee shop has a very large coffee bean grinder that sits in the middle of the room.

Surrounding the grinder are many burlap coffee sacks full of coffee beans.

I told Mr. Nook, I should ask what they do with the empty sacks, he agreed.

When the waitress came I asked her, she told me they give them away to those that ask.

"Well then, I would love to have one",  I said.

I am a true believer in, if you want to know something you should just ask...

Do you collect burlap coffee bean sacks?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele

CREATING BAGS

I wanted to repost my recent bag/pouches I've created lately, and share with you on how I created the ones made of burlap.

If you follow my blog you know I love a good swap and join in when I can.  

While sending my swap item off to my swap partner I also love to add a little something extra.   I love to add a lot of flare to my packaging, somethings I think this is more exciting than the item being swapped.

 I created a couple of bags using burlap on a roll that I purchased from JoAnn's Fabric's.

These rolls are approx. 5" wide by several yards on the roll (sorry I don't remember).

Folding enough burlap in half, I determine how large/long I want my bag/sack to be.

These were created for the Halloween season so using orange and black thin ribbon I crocheted the top edges over to stop fraying and with crocheting the sides I created the bag/sack.

I embellished with vintage linens, doily pieces, bows and tiny rusty bells.

I am so looking forward to creating some more of these for the holiday season, I can't wait to get started on that, so stay tuned.

I have more thoughts for the bag/sacks if you'd like to create some for yourself; you could use for your gift giving, fill with candy in a plastic bag, a greeting card, make one tall enough to hold a bottle of wine, the possibilities are endless.

 These rolled oat bags I have had for awhile, I embellished with some vintage trims and such and restrung with black lace for closure of the bag.

These bags I purchased at a recycle shop for very little.

I do wish I had a ton more of these sacks, I just loved them.

Maybe I will be lucky once again and find something just like it in my travels.

Are you all about the details when it comes to your packaging of gifts?

Thanks for stopping by.

Michele