Party Favors

I had a great time putting together the party favors for my big 4-0.

Above is a photo of goodies that were included in each little box: stickers, temporary tattoos, a few plastic beads, a mango scented candle, plastic drink critters (for use at parties - each person gets a different critter to help remember who's glass is who's), a God's eye, a mini loaf of lemon poppy seed bread, a beaded bracelet (swarovski bicone crystals beaded on elastic thread), an assortment of 2"x2" washi chiyogami papers, a paper crane and a two sided pendant. Not pictured: a glow in the dark skeleton key ring and a dark chocolate truffle ... that I really should have known better than to send - I received word that at least three melted somewhere in transit ... ick. Hopefully they didn't cause toooooo much of a gooey mess!

Not too long ago I made a beaded God's eye that wasn't quite so simple and was more time consuming than I had anticipated. For the party favors, I decided to get back to basics. I used little skewers and 100% cotton embroidery thread. Making them brought back a lot of good memories and were quite relaxing to do. Here's the complete set that I made (only 5 were actually shipped out; I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to embellish the remaining five ... time will tell).

I also wanted to make name tags for my guests, so wrote their blog names (with the exception of e.beck's - couldn't resist gettin "groovy" on hers) on a 4x4 piece of Bristol Board and doodled all around their names with my handy dandy fine point Sharpie (a favorite past time, dontcha know). Once the doodles were done, I decided that it would be cool to add a lil sumpin, sumpin ... I stitched over their names with embroidery thread. I think it added a cool little element:

Finally, I had so much fun making my first set of charms for the Black and White Charm swap that I wanted to try my hand at another charm type thing. I decided that a pendant would be good. Each pendant is two sided. The image on one side is a Sharpie sketch that I had done of Audrey Hepburn's eyes and the other side is the first Mandala I painted:

If you are interested in the steps, it was pretty simple. The squares are pieces of craft wood that I cut to size and sanded the edges smooth (slightly rounding the corners). Next I painted both sides with Mars Black acrylic paint. I attached my miniature artwork (just printed on 60 lb high gloss paper) with Modge Podge (believe it or not) and then applied about three coats of high gloss varnish. Once the varnish dried, I poked holes through the wood (with a needle), added the jump ring and strung it on the black cord. Viola! Simple and yet effective. :)

Whoa!

Oh my GOODNESS!!

When Carmen (our dear sweet mermaid of Writing From Life) told me that she wanted to send me a little treat to celebrate my 40th birthday I never would have guessed that I would be receiving such wonderful surprise! I can't resist ... I just HAVE to share:

Make a wish?!? My wishes have been MORE than granted!!

I adore this "Discover" collage that she made & have it sitting right next to me here at the computer desk. I love to surround my space with things that inspire me ... this inspires me.

And check out this tasty treat! I have been wearing this bracelet since I received it (well, I did take it off to snap this photo & I do take it off at night before I go to sleep ... but that's it!).

... but WAIT! There is one more little treasure:

Isn't it the BEST?!? Carmen made me this most precious mermaid in the prettiest pinks and with glorious butterfly wings ... she's dreamy and most special to me ... I am truly honored to have one of Carmen's mermaids and will treasure her forever and for always.

My heart is full of love & thanks.

***** MAD TEA PARTY *****

PARTY, PARTY, PARTY!!!

Vanessa from A Fanciful Twist is nearing her 200th blog post and is throwing a Mad Tea Party to celebrate ... if you're like me, just the air blowing in the right direction is cause enough to celebrate, but a good reason?!? Couldn't pass it up if I tried!

To add to the fun-filled-festivities, I'm going to toss in my own little party give-a-way (yet to be created) ... to be included, just leave a comment here (between now & Saturday, June 28th).

I guess this means I need to hit the drawing board!

how does he do it?!?

I hit a bit of creative overload, so have been a bit of a slug for the past two days. In that same time (actually, since about 10pm last night) uber-spouse has painted five ... FIVE ... watercolors - including a riot of a kung-fu cat. He makes it look so easy. Makes me want to flick him. ok, not really, but I imagine some of you know what I mean.

I want, want, want to post pictures of what I ended up making as party favors for my birthday give-a-way. Unfortunately, I also want the treats to be surprises, so I have to wait. pisser. am hoping for some feedback on a couple ...

In the meantime, I found a really old "idea book". Seriously old ... it was from one of the very few art classes that I took back in the early 90's. I think it was a two-d class, so nothing earth shattering. A funny thing ... I pasted older sketchy type things in the book ... some from as far back as '87. EEK ... that's over 20 years ago! cuhrazy. I had forgotten about some of those old pictures ... like ornate, but cracked mirrors with odd reflections & those jagged cliff type sketches with a sigle flower or blade of grass growing up out of the desolate scene ... a few attempts at realism that aren't exquisite studies of perfection, but they aren't half bad (there's a rose that was done with a ball point pen that's actually fairly good) ... and letters/words - man, I must have done hundreds of thousand of letters/words throughout the years. It was nice to revisit the book.

OK, last night of sluggishness ... tomorrow I need to get started working on a few drawings for the 2009 Diary Project ... what I am thinking is that I'll pick my three favorite designs and then I'll let you lovely blogger buddies pick the one I submit. Yep. That's the ticket.

Karla & Beth's Vintage Workshop Birds & Bonnets Exchange

When I decided to take part in Karla & Beth's Vintage Workshop Birds & Bonnets Swap, I really had no idea what I was signing up for. This was the very first time I tried my hand at working with vintage papers and collage type things are definitely not my forte - I am a true novice in this arena ... I was pleased with myself that I even finished (chech here to see what I did). What I didn't expect was to be so blown away by the creativity and talent that soooo many people put into their gorgeous creations.

Take a look at the gems I received:

Above you'll find the front and back of one panel done by the incredible artist, Kathy L. Kathy has definitely inspired me to try my hand at using some different textures and layering with a little more height ... so lovely! You can find Kathy at her blog: Country Chintz.

This panel (front and back) was created by the very talented Nancy R from My Crafty Little Page. I really love how she used the fabric trim (so sweet!) and that feather is brilliant! I don't think the photo's do justice to the fine details Nancy made.

Above it the two-sided panel created by the amazing Brenda S. at Dragon Lady. I'll be honest - I don't know how she accomplished the one on the left. It looks like a collage and has a ghosted quality to it, but other than the ribbon at top and bottom, the piece is completely flush ... seamless. It's really lovely. I really like the gorgeous details that went into the side on the right.

The above panel is by the gifted Heidi N. from Liquorish. The two flower buttons are most impressive - the papers are really pretty and I especially love the sparkly centers.

These two (above and below) show the complete piece with all four panels attached. Feel free to click on any of the photo's to take a closer look.

Many, many thanks to both Karla and Beth for hosting such a wonderful event. They made this such a great experience; I would not hesitate to participate in another event like this ... and after all the amazing pieces I've seen, I have soooo many new things that I just HAVE to try my hand at.

A Little of This and a Little of That

Amber Dawn is hosting another charm exchange, but this one is has an added bonus ... make 12 charms and get 10 back ... the remaining 2 will be part of charm bracelets that are being donated to the Pink Artists Drawing ... how cool is that?!? For more details click the button below:

And just in case you haven't yet heard about the Pink Artists Drawing, go here:

I imagine you just might be delighted.

(if you are interested in seeing the squares that I made, click HERE)

two more things ...

• As I type this, dates are still available for the 2009 Diary Project ... go check it out (artwork isn't due until 7/1/08).

AND

• to the lovlies that won my birthday give-a-way ... I am getting really, really close and am pretty confident that I'll be able to ship them by Monday. :)

Phish and a little "Show and Tell"

I feel a bit of a ramble coming on ...

... first, Phish is currently playing (Billy Breathes). It's D's CD. This is so goofy ... D and I have been together for over 10 years and every time he plays this one (seriously, EVERY time) I ask him who it is - I REALLY like it a lot and I forget until the next time he pops it (I have a handful of CD's that I play and play and play simply because I like to sing-a-long and love who I love). Back to Phish ... so, D plays this CD earlier this weekend. I got smart this time - I added it to the 5 disc player and plan on listening to it for at least this next week ... I figure if I can get to the point that I can anticipate the next song then I'll remember who I'm listening to. I just visted their website (to get the links for all you loverlies) and saw that they are more prolific than rabbits. *giggles*

Speaking of websites ... a friend of mine has decided to sell some of her personal care products that are simply ... indulgent. :) I took a look at her site earlier and asked if she'd mind if I went in and switched things around a little. With her blessing, I have made some changes ... AND ... all of the photo's that are now on her website (with the exception of her adorable niece on the home page) are my photograhs. How cool is that?!?

Which leads me to the photo's that I used on her website:

Feel free to click on any of the above images to view them larger.

Go visit deirdre's INDULGENCE to check out her site and her stuff, too.

OK, so I have a question ... is there a market out their for photo's like these? I have been playing around with the idea that I would like to open my own ETSY store and ideally I'd like to sell other creations, but these are my photo's, so I think they's count ... let me know what you think.

Thanks! ~M~