I've Been Playing

Two weeks ago I posted how to make the paper blossoms, and since then I've been playing. My idea is to take this blossom and create a complete line of products from this one "creation". So far these are what I've come up with.

                                                          
                                                                   The gift bag...

                                                                   The gift tag...

                                                                 The blank card...

                                                                Thank you note...
I've also been playing with the color. Using the computer to do this is so much more fun and so much easier than doing each individual blossom and stem by hand. Not as original, but makes for better cost management.
 

I want to try a tee shirt and a tote, but don't have them ready to post today.  Does anyone have other ideas? I'd love to see just how many products can be made from this one little blossom.

Pepper/Helmet Head

December 1st at our Home....

During the holiday season most people have special items they pull out of boxes in the closet to display in their home for the holiday they celebrate...

At our home it is Christmas :)  and these are a few of the things that help bring the Christmas spirit to our home....

On the first day of December I find the big box that I store my Christmas quilt in..take it out of the box, shake it out.and hang it up on our wall....

I made this quilt many years ago and every year since then it has hung on a wall in our family room during the Christmas season.

Then about 5 years ago I saw some beautiful wreaths made out of vintage ornaments...well I had boxes of vintage ornaments, the kind you find at most garage sales each year....so out came the hot glue gun and after a few hours I had my own ornament wreath....

It hangs from a Victorian wall piece which is on the brick above our fireplace.....
The hot glue gun was not the best tool for the job as the glue dries out, so every year I lose a couple of ornaments that drop and break before I can reglue them to the wreath...but I still love it!

About 2 years ago we went to a fabulous Christmas sale in a small Antique Shop in an even smaller town in Nebraska...and bought a felt runner, this is a reproduction of one from the early 1900's...it isn't old and I did not create it...but it has found the perfect spot on the entry table in our home...

The next item to come out for display will be our old Nativity Set...much loved and much worn...but the most important item of all!

I don't have a photo yet to share with you but the set will be out and set up on an old pie safe in our family room by tomorrow...

Hope you have some wonderful items of  your own that you display each year at this time, and that they bring you as  much joy and comfort as ours do us...

Now it is time to put a Christmas CD on, light the fire in the fireplace, heat up a cup of hot chocolate and curl up on the couch....Getting Cozy we call it!

VE

The Wooden Santa Egg

Okay, I have a thing for Santas….and over the years I have come up with different ways for making them.

Several years ago I started decorating and painting wooden eggs.  I started with the largest one which is about 2” tall down to the smallest which is about 1” tall.

 I use dimensional fabric paint for the texture of the beards and for some of the other embellishments. The designs and patterns on their coats are all painted on. For the fur I used snow paint.  

Once again I get ideas and colors from old vintage postcards and illustrations of all different kinds of Santas.

I don’t remember how I started painting on the eggs, it was just one of those things I picked up and started doing. From there I started painting on all kinds of small wooden shapes.  I have painted small boxes, sleds, little wooden spoons, and even clothespins. Some of these have more detail, some have less. I tried some wood burning and liked the results of that with a little bit of color added.

One day I got my hands on some unpainted nesting dolls and tried them out.  They took a while to do, as they were bigger than the eggs, but I had just as much fun creating them as the eggs. They would never compete with the Russian nesting dolls, but they were my own style and I was happy enough with them.

I haven’t painted any of these eggs or nesting dolls in a few years, as I moved on to other projects. But, I am thinking it may be time to go back…if my reading glasses will let me see to paint so tiny these days.

(jj)
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