Black Friday Giveaway

LEFT OVERS!!!!!

Well I survived Thanksgiving! All of that food! Now I want you to be very impressed so I'm going to tell you this........I went to the gym last night and I rode the bike....on the hill program.....for 30 minutes.....at a very brisk pace........and only burned 220 calories! What! What's that?!?!?! Only about 2 bites of stuffing! Oh well, at least I tried.

I don't shop on Black Friday so I stayed at home and worked in the studio on my Christmas cards. I'm doing a series of 4 and finished the last 2 today.

.If you'd like to be entered into a drawing to win a set of them just leave a comment about what you did today on Black Friday or what you're doing with all of those turkey leftovers! (I might just give out 2 sets if someone comes up with some really original way of using the leftover turkey!) I'f you'd like to purchase a set go to Jingle All The Way Home.

The Winners & I'm Full!!!!

They say (whoever "they" are) that you are suppose to eat until you feel 80% full, well right about now I'm feeling 128% full! The turkey turned out great, the gravy was the best I ever made, the stuffing was delish and the coconut cream pie was delightful! Oh my, did I mention that I'm full??!?!?!?!?........now let me see, where did I put those elastic waist pants.......
I hope all my friends in blogland had a great Thanksgiving Day too!

So onto the winners...........
The winner of the collage sheet is Marlene from "Q Bee C".
The winner of the Candy Cane Excursion CD is Terri from "Pringle Hill Studio".
Thanks to everyone who entered and I'll be posting another giveaway on Saturday so come back soon!

Thankful

It's that time of the year to reflect upon what we're thankful for.
Here are the top 6 things I'm thankful for:
1. My wonderful husband. He's a great guy and my best friend. We laugh a lot together.
2. My parents. The best that any gal could ask for.
3. My friends (both in person and in blogland).
4. My college degree. Without it I wouldn't have a job that I enjoy.
5. My gift of creativity. It's brought great joy to my life.

Now onward to some silly things that I'm thankful for in no particular order:
Elves..........
Flowers............. Coffee...........

Olive oil...................garlic...................Italy..................freedom................dental floss..........

pomegranates................cinnamon...................gelato....................Christmas decorations...........

chocolate.....................crushed ice....................conservationists..............rain.............polar fleece.....

lemon cookies.............lightening..........bugs..........bicycles..........funny people...................wool socks...................olives.......

gypsy jazz............traditional jazz................chiropracters...............good books..............magazines......

Adirondack chairs....................brownies...............gel medium....................sunshine.........................

the color green.............museums............artists....................fresh air........................dogs............

What are you thankful for? I hope all of my friends in blogland have a very Happy Thanksgiving and that you eat way too much pie and turkey!

Christmas Cards......

I've been working on my Christmas cards to send out this year. I want to make a series of 4, so far I have 3 done and here you see two of them. They're going to the printer tomorrow. I love the colors of aqua, light blue, cream, red and white together. Those colors remind me of the 1950s and 60s Christmas color combos. I love the image of this little girl. It's from the 1950s and I've named her MaryBelle. I bought a CD with vintage images on it many years ago and she's my favorite as I've used her a lot in my art. I added the red rubber boots. Just look at her sweet little face.....it shouts "JOY"! I bet she grew up to be a very happy adult!

The little gal on this image reminds me of a friend of mine in Clarion. It's it funny how some vintage photos of children from the past remind you of adults you presently know?

I added the boots, tie and hat.
There's fine glitter throughout this card. I'm not sure how that will translate in the printing process.

Is anybody out there in blogland making Christmas cards this year?

The Candy Cane Excursion 2009 Tour & Give Away

Read all the way to the bottom for the giveaway!

Today my friends Donna, Rita (from left to right) and I went on our Candy Cane Excursion. We started out with breakfast at a little diner. Then on to the Hummel Shop in New Springfield, Ohio. It's more like a Christmas Shop with Hummel figurines in one room of it. Aren't these trees beautiful!?!?!?!

No Rita! NO! You can't buy the $1495 Hummel figurine on the top shelf! That's really how much the ones on the top shelf are! I'm thinking Rita's just happy she doesn't have to dust all these babies!
How about this cute display! It's the Department 56 North Pole Elf Land Series. I collect these house but only the ones that have to do with food, like the Donut Shop, the Hard Rock Candy Shop, etc...

I love the way they have these houses displayed on the glass blocks. It gives me a great idea about how to do my display. I see a trip to Lowe's in my very near future for glass blocks. This is the Candy Cane Factory.....too cute!
Let's talk ornaments. A whole wall of ornament after ornament after ornament.....and some very odd ones too. Rita and Donna and I amused ourselves for a good 15 minutes putting the words "Christmas" in front of each ornament. For example "oh, look at the Christmas Asparagus" or "the Christmas Dragon" or "the Christmas Weinie Dog"....you get the picture. We chucked like idiots after we said each one. I think the lady next to use was getting annoyed, but it WAS funny. How would the Christmas Asparagus look adorning your tree? LOL
We all agreed that this one was the winner for the most bizarre ornament......"The Christmas Banana Santa". Really what the heck is up with that and it was $33!

Woodland Santa tree......very decorated...........

I'm not sure how this tree is going to translate in a picture but in real life it was simply gorgeous. It's almost a neon green color and with the sparkly red ornaments and glittery green holly it really popped.From the Hummel Shop we went to the little village of Columbiana, Ohio as the town was having their open house. I bought this cabinet card in a little antique shop there. Please feel free to use him in your art. After we left there we went to an art show then to a junk shop then to lunch! Whew, I'm tired!

While in the candy cane mode I created this collage sheet. Leave a comment and you'll be in a drawing for one printed on cardstock or you can copy it and use it in your art.

And if you leave a comment you will also be in the drawing for the Candy Cane Excursion 2009 Christmas CD. Artists on it are Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, Shirley Horn, Diana Krall, Lou Rauls, John Coletrane, The Clarks, Kay Star, Straight No Chaser, Vincent Guiraldi and a few others. I'll draw on Tuesday!

The Winner Is..........

Hey, hey, hey! Happy Friday! I wrote the names down, threw them in a bowl and drew the winner.........and the winner of the fabric cuff bracelet is (insert drumroll here)....

Christina from icandy! Christina, email me your address. My email address is on the left.

Smiles-
Melissa

Headache, My Magazine and Jr. Mints

Whew! Had a bad headache today! Migraine actually. Feeling better now just tired. Wiped out! I love magazines and I've often said if I was rich I'd have a lot of subscriptions. Some of them would be to: Somerset Studio, Better Homes and Gardens, The Smithsonian, National Geographic, Juxtapose, American Art Review, Digital Photography, Bead and Button, Just Beads, Belle Amour Jewelry, Digital Photography, Cooks Illustrated, Wine Spectator and many more.

But wouldn't it cool to have your own magazine? Oh how'd I'd love that. My magazine would be put out quarterly. It would have articles on how to make things with step by step photos that really explained how to do it! Have you ever read a "how to" article and felt that vital information was left out? Now that's frustrating! Here's what the cover would look like:

I created the cover with the Big Huge Labs over at Flickr. It allows you to import your own picture onto the cover. It looks like a real cover, eh? he,he,he

I'm leaving you with a yummy discovery...... Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints. Pop a box of these babies into the fridge for about an hour then take them out and enjoy!

The Candy Cane Fairy

The Candy Cane Fairy zooms in on delicate green and red wings and gently drops candy canes in stockings all over the world. She looks really serious because let's face it, delivering candy canes can be stressful.....you know with all the breakage and such.......

Actually I created this collage for a CD cover of Christmas songs. I found a group on I-Tunes the other night called "Straight No Chaser" and their Christmas CD is really really good so I included some of their songs on it. You can find and listen to them on my music player on the left, it's toward the end.

The banner on the side says "Candy Cane Excursion" because that's what my friends and I are going on, on Saturday. We're starting out with breakfast at a diner then onto a Christmas store (where they have beautiful vintage style German style ornaments), next stop is an art show then Star Supply (junk shop) then lunch at Jimmy's Italian Store (marinated eggplant and aged sharp Provolone cheese sandwich). Oh I wish you could come along! There will be a lot of laughing, talking, and eating.

Pie Crust

It's that time of year when thoughts turn to pie crust. Life is way too short to eat bad pie crust, don't you agree? This is my mom's pie crust recipe and it's pretty darn good. It's flaky, light and tender.

Now I'm not going to tell you it's a no fail recipe because let's face it there's always the potential for disaster when dealing with baking and especially pie crust! You could drop it on the floor after you got it rolled out (been there, done that!), burn it (did that once too), handle it too much and make it tough(mmmm, you guessed it) or forget to put an ingredient in it.....oh believe me, the potential for disaster is great!

So here it is if you'd like to flirt with disaster:

1 and 1/2 cups of Crisco

4 cups of flour

1 egg

1/4 cup COLD water

1 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

1 T. of sugar

vinegar (use the lid of the bottle to measure out 2 capfulls)

Mix together flour, baking soda, salt and sugar in a bowl. In a different bowl beat egg, COLD water and 2 caps full of vinegar together. Mix the flour mixture and Crisco until you have pea size pieces. Next pour the liquid mixture into the flour and Crisco mixture and combine it. Roll out on a well floured surface and stick it in a pie dish. Fill with whatever you want. Good Luck!

Check out the previous post to enter into the bracelet giveaway!

Fabric, Fibers, Lace and Bead Cuff Bracelet Tutorial and Give Away!

I'm giving away this 8 inch cuff bracelet that I just completed. It's entitled "Winter Solstice". I created it from two kinds of vintage lace, denim, fibers, blue wool felt leaves, vintage shell button and glass beads. A snap closes it. I'll draw the winner Thursday night. Just leave a comment to be in the drawing! How cool would this bracelet look with a cream colored cable knit fisherman's sweater and a pair of jeans.....ohhhhhh, you'd be stylin' in a Winter Wonderland kind of way!
Scroll on down to learn how to make one yourself.

Cuff bracelet tutorial

First you need to go to Joanne Fabrics and get a yard of this cream colored, 1 and a half inch wide cotton webbing. The trickiest part of making this bracelet is locating the webbing in the store. You'll find a spool of it below the sewing notions (like snaps and hooks and eyes). It's $2.49 a yard. Cut about 9.25 inches of it. Turn the ends under about 1/4 of an inch and stitch with a sewing machine. I use the heavy all cotton quilting thread.

Next sew on your lace and any other pieces of material you'd like. I used a straight stitch to sew on the denim and a zig-zag stitch to sew on the lace. You can sew the lace on flat or to give it more texture crumple it up when sewing it on to the webbing.
Here I sewed it on flat. Next set a snap in each end of the bracelet. I bought the $2.99 snap setter (don't waste your money on the $23 snap setter) kit. Just follow the directions on the back of the package, keep your fingers out of the way and you'll be fine.

Now comes the hand sewing! I use the heavy cotton Americana cream colored sewing thread and I double it on the needle. Sew on fibers ( I use the crazing shaggy yarn that knitters use to make scarves) here and there. Again pile them up to create interesting textured "nests". Sew on beads and buttons with the doubled thread wherever you'd like them. I try to make little groupings.After I get the lace sewn on with the machine it takes me about an hour to sew on the fibers and beads for each bracelet. It's not a fast thing to do but the result is that you'll have a bracelet that no other person has!

Good luck! Can't wait to see what you say about this bracelet! If you make one I'd love to see it!

Wishing Upon a Retro Star.........

How would you like to sit on a star...........

If I could wish on a star and have it come true, I'd wish for a tiny studio like this one. Isn't it cute? I think my head would just clear the top of this door (I'm 5'8"), it's that tiny!
This is my newest creation.......a cuff bracelet made of material with a snap closure embellished with lace, fibers, glass beads, and antique buttons. I really like the unusual shape of the shell button.


How about that antique button that looks like a diamond? I got it with 6 others at an antique show.
More pendants in the Jingle All the Way Home Shop..................These ones have a retro feel. There's just something about those 50s and 60s Christmas illustrations that I love. You just don't get the same look in present day Christmas illustration.

Little flat backed glass marbles embellished with glitter! Are you an elf lover?

Have a happy Thursday!