Saturday, September 28, 2013
Our New Bathroom
We made some updates to our guest bathroom and so proud of the results. Here are a few pictures of the new toilet and tile floor. Its so nice to have a room that is freshly painted, new floor and with a water saving toilet. Does not take much to get me excited ! All the credit really goes to my husband and brother in law for their hard work to bring it to it's final finished grandeur !! Thanks guys !
Ribbon Necklace
In a jewelry making creative mood. Working on finding my jewelry creative style and came up with this. Used sari silk scraps plaided and attached to a triangle lace charm made from my embroidery machine. Added a crystal charm for a final touch. Trying to come up with something different from what I have seen out on the Etsy sites. By the way the picture was taken using my home made photo box to help take better pictures of small items.
Fall is Brownie Time
Pumpkin Patch Brownies
So glad it is finally FALL in Texas and to celebrate I have made a pan of brownies !!
So glad it is finally FALL in Texas and to celebrate I have made a pan of brownies !!
Monograms and Tea Towels
Fun with embroidery
I have to say that I really have been enjoying making things from my embroidery machine. I love the way monograms looks on pillows and made one for our bed and I love kitchen towels with embroidery on them. Here are the finished items.
I have to say that I really have been enjoying making things from my embroidery machine. I love the way monograms looks on pillows and made one for our bed and I love kitchen towels with embroidery on them. Here are the finished items.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Our Etsy shop
My daughter and I opened an Etsy jewelry shop last summer. I have to applaud the other shop owners as it takes a lot of time and thought to make your shop a successful one. My best customer is my sister Patti. She has purchased through the web several of the necklaces I made and I treated her like all my customers by packing her purchase in a cutesy box and mailing to her out of state address. Opening your mailbox and finding a goodie is always a fun thing. Certainly one of my favorite things to do. My husband is so puzzled as to why that is exciting.
My greatest take away from opening the shop is that it has given me the opportunity to develop another loved past time and that is making jewelry. I have always loved jewelry since very small. My mother could not put her dresser jewelry box up high enough to keep me out of it. I don't know why she didn't just give me some of my own (maybe some old pieces) to play with and maybe I would stay out of hers. (not likely). Searching for the box's new hiding place and finding it is one of my fondest childhood memories. Come to think of it maybe it was one of her fondest memories of me. Ahhhh
Another reason for opening the shop was for my daughter who graduated from college with a degree in Fine Studio Arts. Her "think out of the box" approach to making things with her artful hands is the mark of a true artist. For example I would have never put a wine cork on a chain for a necklace. It turned out precious !
Since she is young and has to work a full time job for the next 20 years the shop will give her a place to keep her hands in what she really loves and that is ART. That is what the Etsy shops are all about.
I received an email recently that the Etsy shop members are now 30 million in number, a global community of entrepreneurs. Kind of exciting being a part of an artist community.
So after year one of my shop opening I am ever improving on the things that make a shop successful.
Improved photos of the jewelry pieces and think out of the box techniques as inspired by my daughter.
Here is our shop address if you would like see what we love to do. www.studiointhepines.etsy.com
My greatest take away from opening the shop is that it has given me the opportunity to develop another loved past time and that is making jewelry. I have always loved jewelry since very small. My mother could not put her dresser jewelry box up high enough to keep me out of it. I don't know why she didn't just give me some of my own (maybe some old pieces) to play with and maybe I would stay out of hers. (not likely). Searching for the box's new hiding place and finding it is one of my fondest childhood memories. Come to think of it maybe it was one of her fondest memories of me. Ahhhh
Another reason for opening the shop was for my daughter who graduated from college with a degree in Fine Studio Arts. Her "think out of the box" approach to making things with her artful hands is the mark of a true artist. For example I would have never put a wine cork on a chain for a necklace. It turned out precious !
I received an email recently that the Etsy shop members are now 30 million in number, a global community of entrepreneurs. Kind of exciting being a part of an artist community.
So after year one of my shop opening I am ever improving on the things that make a shop successful.
Improved photos of the jewelry pieces and think out of the box techniques as inspired by my daughter.
Here is our shop address if you would like see what we love to do. www.studiointhepines.etsy.com
Monday, August 12, 2013
So much time has past since my first post. Promise to myself that I will find and make time to share projects that I have been working on.
Since the last post I have gotten interested in using an embroidery machine. My inspiration for the embroidery came from my sister Shirley who had been making a few really cute things with her machine. She loved it so much that she was able to upgrade her 12 year old machine to a newer one and passed her old one, a Brother PE-150 to my sister Kaye and myself to see if we would have any interest. At first the machine was housed at Kaye's home (we live in the same neighborhood). A
fter purchasing a longarm quilting machine that took up quite a bit of space in her sewing studio she decided that the old embroidery machine could stay at my house for a while. After all she was not using it and that would give me a chance to play around with it since finding time to get together to sew was limited. Oh my, I did get a chance to play around with it and I fell in love with a new sewing medium. "MACHINE EMBROIDERY". Oh the artful possibility of making cute outfits for the grandkids and using it to put redwork blocks into a quilt. After making a few samples and getting use to the process of the embroidery machine I decided that maybe I would like to upgrade to a new machine. After doing some research on what I wanted and pricing I decided on a Brother PE-770.
I love Sunbonnet Sue and found her in Christmas redwork on one of the many online embroidery pattern sites. Pictured below was my first big project. The pattern selections on the embroidery sites are so inspiring and I already have many future projects lined up in my head that I can't wait to get started on.
Since the last post I have gotten interested in using an embroidery machine. My inspiration for the embroidery came from my sister Shirley who had been making a few really cute things with her machine. She loved it so much that she was able to upgrade her 12 year old machine to a newer one and passed her old one, a Brother PE-150 to my sister Kaye and myself to see if we would have any interest. At first the machine was housed at Kaye's home (we live in the same neighborhood). A
I love Sunbonnet Sue and found her in Christmas redwork on one of the many online embroidery pattern sites. Pictured below was my first big project. The pattern selections on the embroidery sites are so inspiring and I already have many future projects lined up in my head that I can't wait to get started on.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Themed Table Decoration
In this post I want to show you an idea I had for table decorations for a Ladies meeting at church. I was asked by a friend to decorate one of the 12 tables for the dinner. The theme was "Where do I fit in"?
The dinner is an annual event to encourage women members to sign up and participate in a list of multiple activities that minister to others in the church. Each table was a puzzle theme. A lot of creative things you can do with puzzles.
Getting my imagination clicking I came up with the idea of making the first letter of women's names using 4 inch precut unfinished alpha letters from local craft store. Continuing the name theme I cut out the shape of the letter from a 8 1/2 inch by 5 inch card. On the cards I hand wrote women's names beginning with the cut out letter. The letters were made by gluing colorful prints from a scrap booking paper pack. The glue used that worked really well with the wood letters and paper was "Crafter's Pick" "The Ultimate La Colle Parfaite". To add more color to the table I made a floral arrangement using the same colors as the letters. The illustrations below will give you an idea of the finished project and how I went about it. My table decor seemed to attract the younger ladies due to the mod paper I used. At the end of the dinner I let them take home as many of the letters as they wanted.
My next planned future post will show you how I organized my sewing room. I am getting close to a finished view and will share with you on the next post. Happy Crafting !!
The dinner is an annual event to encourage women members to sign up and participate in a list of multiple activities that minister to others in the church. Each table was a puzzle theme. A lot of creative things you can do with puzzles.
Getting my imagination clicking I came up with the idea of making the first letter of women's names using 4 inch precut unfinished alpha letters from local craft store. Continuing the name theme I cut out the shape of the letter from a 8 1/2 inch by 5 inch card. On the cards I hand wrote women's names beginning with the cut out letter. The letters were made by gluing colorful prints from a scrap booking paper pack. The glue used that worked really well with the wood letters and paper was "Crafter's Pick" "The Ultimate La Colle Parfaite". To add more color to the table I made a floral arrangement using the same colors as the letters. The illustrations below will give you an idea of the finished project and how I went about it. My table decor seemed to attract the younger ladies due to the mod paper I used. At the end of the dinner I let them take home as many of the letters as they wanted.
My next planned future post will show you how I organized my sewing room. I am getting close to a finished view and will share with you on the next post. Happy Crafting !!
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