Writing practice

Not mine, the little girl's.

She brought this to me yesterday and proudly told me that she wanted to practice writing so she copied some words out of her Garfield comic book.

I'm keeping this forever.

On a totally unrelated topic, I was finally able to pitch these shoes into the trash this morning.

What's wrong with them, you ask? Well, let's just turn them over and have a look-see at their soles.

Umm.... yeah, those are HOLES in the bottom of the shoes. I now have a new pair that looks suspiciously the same from the top, but no worn out holey soles. And some pretty dressy shoes, and some very warm brown suede numbers that are super warm, super comfy, have a full heel, and - get this - FUR LINED even. Yay!

Toodles,

Emoticon in the sky

This is so totally not craft-related, but sweet husband just sent me a link to this news article about the smiling face that will be in the night sky over Australia. Their diagram is so cute - it's like an emoticon in the sky!

Toodles,

Thankful

If the only prayer you ever said was, "Thank you," that would suffice.
--Meister Eckhart

Looking at my blog history I'm seeing that it's been 10 DAYS since my last post... OUCH.

Here's a little peek at what we've been working on the last few days. I think this is one of my favorite projects I've ever done with Olivia. It's a garland of things that little girl is thankful for.

She put so much of herself into this project. We spent one afternoon to cut the leaves, one night to paint them, one morning to write the words and create the garland. She's really getting into writing letters now, so I let her write the words herself.

And close-ups of each of the leaves showing what she's thankful for:

Paper and hearts

Dad and mom


Cat

Yellow (her fave color)

Friends (note the upside down F)

Colors

a close-up of the smaller leaves

Ever thankful for all the gifts in my life,

casserole

I knew it'd happen sooner or later....

...I was just hoping it wouldn't be this weekend.

Liv had just "rediscovered" one of her stuffed kitties, the one she had gotten for her birthday two years ago. She stroked its soft lavender fur and hugged its neck. Then she starts inspecting, as kids often do - looking first at the ears, then the big stuffed bow around its neck. Then she sees the tag.

Liv: Why is my name on this tag?
Me: Because you took it to school last year for nap time and we had to label it.

Liv looks closer at the tag and then her face lights up.

Liv: Oh, look at this! (pointing to the label) It's a DISNEY kitty!

Yes, little girl has learned to recognize the ubiquitous Disney logo, stamped on everything from stuffed animals to lunchboxes to bandaids. And apparently this little Disney logo makes the items more valuable.

We had the little "do you think this makes this a better kitty?" followed with "it's just a word they put on the tag" talk, but it was all lost on her. The logo-twinkle never left her eyes.

Yay.

Bah....

Inspiration: Paper Box Tutorial

Take a look at this paper box tutorial by Sweet Miss Dasiy at Sassy & Sweet! I know, there's lots of tutorials out there for making any number of sizes and shapes of paper boxes. But I liked this one for how easy it will be to customize and how perfect it will be for holiday giftiness. She shows it with fancy tea packets, but it could also totally rock with hot chocolate, cookies, soaps, craft supplies, anything.

I also like the thriftiness of this. The base is plain cardstock and the fanciness is one strip of patterned paper. If you used 12x12 cardstock for the base, you could get this box out of one piece and still have some scraps left over.

Toodles,

Shadowboxing

I'm still knee-deep grading papers, but the good side of that is my avoidance of said papers has resulted in a cleaned studio. Semi-cleaned I guess. Okay, so my mother would refer to it as "a good start," but for me it's clean enough to work in. Funny how a clean work table and the absence of clutter on at least 1/2 of the floorspace results in a flurry of creativity. It's like viagara for impotent crafters.

It was on the heels of my cleaned studio high that I went into the local Target store. There, in the dollar spot, they had a bin full of these wooden games. You know, the ones where there's a little picture on the back, and you have to roll some little ball bearings into holes spaced around the picture? Anyways, they looked like collage fodder to me, so I bought one and took it home. What can I say, I'm a big gambler - the whole $1 and all.

Guess what, folks? With a little bit of prying, you can take these suckers completely apart! Dissassemble, paint, collage, bead, and then reassemble them into little shadowboxes. Like this one:

I went back that night and bought a dozen more little games - I mean, shadowboxes. I would have gotten more, but I don't have room to store them in my semi-neat studio.

Viva viagra!

Grinning in my crafting afterglow,

PS - Did you notice those little smears around the top edge of the glass? Apparently E6000 has some sort of paint thinner as an ingredient. I also noticed that it was crazing the silvering on the backs of my little acrylic gems. I love me some E6000, but this paint thinning thing is causing me to rethink it as my stand-by. Anyone know a better all-purpose super strong adhesive?

I won, I won!!!!

Hey, check it out! I'm one of the winners of the cupcake contest over at Marisa's blog. Woohoo!!!!!!

Her illustrations are simply divine, and now there's one heading my way. I am so totally excited!! If you want some of her artwork for your own house, check out her Etsy shops, Elegant Snobbery and Tootsie and Grace.


Truly a lucky girl I am,