Fiber Bead Charm Bracelet

I made this fiber bead bracelet today. First I made the beads out of blue/yellow batik fabric. To make the beads cut strips of fabric 1 inch wide by 6 inches long and wrap each strip around a bamboo skewer. Secure the end with gel medium. After the gel medium dries wrap a small piece of fibers (I use that crazy yarn they make scarves out of) and glue it around the fabric bead with the gel medium. Next mix the fiber beads with glass beads and colored shell beads on head pins to create charms. I used a patina copper bracelet and head pins for something a little different. I like the look and plan to make a necklace in the future using the patina copper findings.

Sweet Baby Boy..........

Oh yah! Who doesn't just love candy????? This is another pennant that I made for Halloween. I experimented with the metal plumbers tape and I have to tell you......I don't even like it.......I love it! You can easily emboss your own free form designs in it with just a pencil. You can find the foil tape at Home Depot or Lowe's but it's the cheapest at Home Depot ($3.00 a roll). The little boy is a copy of a vintage photo from around the 1930s. Isn't he sweet? Again, this pennant will be soldered b/twn 2 pieces of glass and chooched up with Halloween charms and such. It's been so stinking hot here in PA that I just can't bring myself to fire up the old soldering iron! Holy melting Hershey's chocolate!!!!! It's supposed to be 97 degrees today with high humidity! Not the best conditions to solder in.
If you've used foil tape on your collages I'd love to see pics of it!


Sweet Baby Boy close up.......... he's all glittered up!
This is the back of the pennant........
I used the foil tape at the top. I cut it with decorative scissors to get the scalloped edge then using a semi-dull pencil embossed the curly design and lastly wiped on black paint to go into the grooves and give it some dimension. I also used the foil behind the word love and punched out tiny circles and embossed them to look like screws.
I've been into the color combo of orange, blue and black..............
Melting chocolate smiles-
Tootie

Happy Henry in Paris

This pennant is entitled, "Happy Henry in Paris"......... doesn't he look like he's just full of joy? It will be soldered between 2 sheets of glass with a few charms attached. It's two sided so the birdies in the trees are on the back.

Percy and Percilla

I realize that it is the middle of summer but I got this urge to make a few Halloweenie things......

These pennants are 8 X 6 X 6 and will be soldered in between 2 sheets of glass. I'm going to patina the silver solder black and add a ribbon hanger with a few charms hanging off of it.

I've made 4 pennants over the past week and will share them over the next few days. The pennants are 2 sided. This is the first one I made, I call it "Percy and Percilla". The little boy is Percy the pumpkin on the back of the pennant is Percilla.

The little boy is a copy of a vintage photo. I cut a bat out of black card stock and painted on the eyes. The boy's wings and hat are wallpaper as well as the paisley on the left. Background paper is called "rustic ornate" from The Paper Studio company. I used paper punches (circles and flower) to chooch it up a bit. Don't you just love that intense/placid expression on the kid's face?!?!?!This is the back of the pennant. Everything is hand cut with scissors. I painted the eyes on and cut out tiny stars with the Sissix machine. I like the aqua and orange color combo. I'm thinking about using it in another collage pennant.

Back Porch + Summer = Love

About 5 years ago my husband and I decided to have a roof put on our back patio. It was probably the best decision we ever made. Both my husband and I are in the education field so we are so very fortunate to have the summers off, therefore, we spend a huge amount of time on the back porch. I "chooch" it up with pots of flowers and last year added a Clemitis vine which has climbed to the top of the roof this year on the one porch post. There is always a breeze and I have a great view of the garden! I get the morning sun and that's where I have my coffee in the AM. In the late afternoon it's a great place to escape the heat and have dinner. At night it's a magical place to watch the lightening bugs zoom about. Tell me about your porch!

Free Fonts

I blogged about this website in January but it's so good I thought I'd mention it again.
The website is http://www.dafont.com/ and has hundrends, perhaps thousands of free fonts you can download, unzip and put it in your font folder to use in your Word program. The fonts are amazing. My favorite is "mom's typewriter".
Smiles-
Tootie

Garden Renovation

These are pictures of our garden renovation. We had a raised garden with foundation stones around it and it was pretty big. We really didn't need a garden that big so we decided to down-size. Gary and I built 3 foot boxes out of black locust posts (they are not treated with any chemicals and will not rot for 70 to 80 years). They were really heavy to move.....very dense wood! With these boxes it will be much easier to harvest the veggies, easier to water, will retain the water better and we won't have to worry about rabbits eating the plant. What do you think of them? How about those tomatoes???? They were just planted a 2 weeks ago! They love this hot humid weather. We seeded with grass seed between the boxes so that it can be mowed.

Bunny Cake!

I made this for my Bunny Swap partner which is hosted by the uber-talented Deb from HopHopJingleBoo. I made it out of a paper mache box so the lid comes off. It's covered with Creative Paper Clay. The pink/yellow flowers around the outside of the cake are hand sculpted. The piping was made by shooting molding paste mixed with yellow paint through a cake decorating tip. The bunny was also made with paper clay and it has about 10 pounds of glitter on it which resembles sugar! The glitter is very hard to see in the photos. What do you think? Would you be happy to get "Flower" (that's what I named the bunny) in a swap?

Smiles-

Tootie

Hey! It's Pontoon Tootie or Tootie's Pontoonie!

My honey and me by our boat....... it's a Misty Harbor, 18 feet long (feels like a 40 foot yacht when docking it!)

Well, I've been out of touch from Blogland as of the past week. Last week my husband and I took possession of our new pontoon boat! Yeah!!!! We docked it on Saturday after working on it all afternoon long in the hot, hot sun. Contrary to what people think, even with a new boat there is a lot of prep work. So we got it docked last Saturday with many references to Jesus as it was probably the busiest time of the day to get it off of the trailer and dock it. I've quickly discovered there are two kinds of boating people.......pontoon people and speed boat people....need I say more....you can probably figure out the rest! Anywho, I've been down to the dock everyday since we put it in to pretty much check on it to see that it's still moored.....no, not really (well, kind of). Today my best friend and I went to the News Agency and bought 2 books, Chex Party Mix and bottles of Arizona Pomegranate Green Tea and went to the boat and just sat on it without even taking it out. It was very relaxing and we had a good time feeding the ducks, talking, reading and soaking up the rays.

These are the guys who sold us our boat from S & H Marine Sales in Younstown, Ohio. Thanks Bob and John! Great service and just really nice gentlemen!This is my best friend Danielle on the boat (of course you probably already figured that one out!) ......"on the boat"....duh! Sorry, I probably just got too much sun on my head today! Doesn't she look relaxed?!?!?! She looks like the poster-girl for Misty Harbor boats!

This might be where you will find me all summer as my first docking lesson last night was less than stellar. However, I have steadfast resolve and I WILL learn to dock it!!An interesting discovery of the day.......ducks like Chex Mix! Isn't that baby duckling cute???? He stuck very close to mama!

For Jacque......

This is the back of the penant....
I have a wonderful artist friend in California who does brilliant collages and ATCs. I created this penant which measures 8in X 6in X 6in. using her Flickr icon. She is "Partyhatgirl". Go to Flickr.com and check out her work! It is whimsical, funny and sweet.....just like Jacque! The penant was created with decorative papers, Sugarloaf stamps, markers, glitter (who could forget the glitter????) and flat backed marbles all sandwiched between 2 sheets of glass and soldered. The collage is 2 sided so really it's 2 pieces of art in one! These little buggers are time consuming from beginning to end! But I think they are worth it, I really like how this one turned out. What do you think?


If you would like a custom penant created for your studio, please give me an email at:
www.tootieu@yahoo.com


Smiles-
Tootie
Close-up of the back of the penant.....

Close-up of the flat back marbles........

One Eye Candy!

This morning I was in "paper heaven"! I went to Hobby Lobby which has a huge decorative paper selection and as my luck had it, all of the paper was 50% off today! Yippie! Four 12 X 12 sheets for one thin dollar. Then I cruised down the road just a short jaunt to Cord Camera and Scrapbooking and "oh my" talk about your "eye candy" paper! I bought 2 sheets of paper from the company called Basic Grey. They are simply lucious! One is from the Pheobe collection and the other is from the Gypsy collection. They are so pretty I don't want to cut into them!!!! If you visit the Basic Grey website check out the gallery there. The other sheet I got is the one that looks like a quilt with 1.5 inch squares (perfect for jewelry making). I have lots of ideas ruminating in my noggin' about what to whip up with these little pretties! Oh yah!

It's pretty appropriate that I titled this "one eye candy" because I'm typing it with just one good eye! I was out trimming back the English Daisy plants and they have turned to seed which are like fuzzy little devils that fly all around. Long story, longer.......I had an allergic reaction and it's so itchy I would like to take a Brillo pad to it!!!! Well, I have to go before the Benadryl kicks in and my head hits the keyboard and I'm out cold! he,he,he

Smiles-

Toots

And the winner is.......

I just drew the name for the penant collage and the winner is.........................

Melissa (good name, it's mine too!) I'll be giving her an email to get her address and send the penant out. Thanks to everybody for your kind words and for entering. Check back frequently because there will be another give away in a few weeks! (I'm thinking something made with paperclay this time!)

Smiles-

Tootie