Winter wonderland...

"Winter came down to our home one night...



Quietly pirouetting in

on silvery-toed slippers of snow,

And we, were children once again." Bill Morgan Jr.

{ Giving kisses to the snowman who came to visit on our welcome mat. :o) }

Hope your days are filled with warm memories.

Handmade Book and Playing Card Valentines

I learned how to make Coptic stitching books in December. This is a picture of the second one I've made. The first one went to my mom as a christmas present. I am going to put the title "my book of curiosities" on the cover in old book text and use it as a sketch book.



The cover is made from hardboard (you can get that at the scrapbooking store) and then I covered it in Japanese paper. The drawing on the front is a print of alice in wonderland I found somewhere a while ago.

This weekend I got to spend an entire friday night and all day saturday scrapbooking at a crop. My plans were to do a couple of these valentines I had floating around in my head, then do some pages of the kids, but I had so much fun doing these I spent the whole day making them. I found some cute playing cards with hearts on the backs at Micheals, then I started sewing old book pages and lace and paper to them in little pleats. I used vintage buttons, and ribbon and paper, doodles, stamps, stickles and brads to decorate them. I really love how they turned out...but now I'm not sure I can give them away because I like them so much! LOL!

Here are some group shots of them all...

Maybe I`ll have time to get some more done before Valentine`s gets here.

And the silver and gold....

Yes....my Christmas decorations are still up. Partly because I love Christmas, and partly because I just don't feel like all the work of taking them down. I'm sure it's mostly the first reason though!



A snowflake from my snowflake tree...

Some antique silver forks from my studio, I love the patina they have.

A close up of a piece of jewelry I'm making.

Some seriously cool little silver bells. I don't know why, but I just love bells.

Some silver German glass glitter in an antique crystal salt shaker. I have quite a collection of these, in all different shapes and sizes holding many colors of glass glitter in my studio. I am a terrible magpie. If it sparkles, I usually have to bring it home to my "nest"!

The week of winter color is done now. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I'm going scrapbooking for the weekend, and if I make anything show worthy I'll post it soon.

A winter week of color!

This week I went to play over at poppytalk blog for her winter color week 2011! It was so much fun going through my house everyday looking for new things to photograph that applied to that days color. There are literally thousands of incredible photos over at the flickr group site now to drool over and enjoy. Poppytalk actually picked 3 of my photos to add into her favorites that she showcased on her blog!! Too exciting! I am hoping they do a spring week of color too! Here's a few of the photo's I put up from each days color. Today's color was green...

yesterday was blue....

Tuesday was white....

and Monday was red!!

We got over 3 feet of snow on Saturday and Sunday....so all I can see outside is white. Nice to have a little color thrown in this time of year. Tomorrows colors are silver and gold. Post more tomorrow. Hope you all have a colorful day!

My new word for 2011...EMBRACE

Quite a few years ago I was inspired by Ali Edwards blog to pick a word for the year. The word is supposed to bring you back when you stray during the year. Remind you again and again what your dreams and goals and wishes are for that year. I started the year the kids were diagnosed with autism. The word I picked for that year was BELIEVE. It was special on so many levels for me. I painted 8 inch scrapbook letters in sparkly white, stamped them with orange swirls and put them above the window in my studio so everyday I would be reminded to believe...in good, in miracles, in silver linings and in hope.

This year took me a while, there are just so many amazing words that speak to me, but I finally decided on embrace. When I was pregnant with our first baby, we went to the recommended birthing classes. I don't remember much from them except the word "breathe", and a little lesson the teacher gave on pain. She gave each of us women an ice cube and told us to place it in our palms. Then she told us to squeeze it as hard as we could. After a short time the pain and cold were so intense we all had to stop. Then she told us to place it in our other hand, and just let it rest there gently..."see she said, when you don't fight against it the pain its much less". That one sentence has stuck with me for almost 9 years. How much less pain might I have endured if I had embraced that wisdom more fully. That's my goal this year, to accept that pain is part of life, and love and growth, and to embrace it instead of fighting so hard against it. Not as an excuse to lay down and take it like a victim, but to be gentle on myself and to pursue the lesson behind it. I really want to embrace my children fully. Who they are at this moment, and to be at peace with where we are at right now. Embrace the time I have been given, and the talents as well. I guess I could make myself a t-shirt that says "2011, year of the HUG" as a reminder. LOL!

Bits of the holidays and thoughts on the New year

My hope for the New year....

"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart untill it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit." Dawna Markova

A New Year...fresh starts and clean slates. I truly want this year to open me more. I want to really loosen my heart untill it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. For the last few years I've held tightly to my heart. Having children with special needs makes your heart so much more tender, the isolation and rejection are sometimes so powerful the gut reaction is to pull in closer to yourself, and risk less. But in the risking less, there is also the living less, the feeling less. I think my greatest wish is to be fully grateful and fully present in this life I have been gifted with.

I love my christmas tree. It is entirely covered in snowflakes that I have been collecting over the last 15 years. It's all shimmery and silver. Of course this year my daughter was obsessed with putting her toys on the tree so it was also covered in a toy doctors kit set and stuffed animals. Haha! I also made a few crafty things that I really liked. The first was a cookie sheet advent calendar. I got an inexpensive cookie sheet from the dollar store, put scrapbook papers on the back and then some paint. Drew a grid for the days and then had a blast making all the numbers up to 25 for the countdown. Then you adhere magnets to the backs of your various numbers and they can be stored on the other side of the cookie sheet untill their day arrives. Then drill holes at the top and hang with a pretty ribbon. I also made one in red and green for a friend. I love the way it turned out. I saw the idea a few years ago on another blog.

A close up of the Month banner at the top.

Some detail shots of the various ideas I used for the magnetic numbers.Buttons, bottlecaps, mini cards, vintage dominoes,scrapbooking charms and even an antique brass three.

Detail of the bottom corner, I used paper scraps, and stamped snowflakes with watered down paint.

A shot of the whole thing.

The next project was in Amy Powers "Inspiried Ideas" online e-magazine which was so amazing! It was so much fun to make this yarn ball wreath and super easy too!