Birthday Class for My Sister

Last week was my sister Pat's birthday. As with all sister birthdays, it's been our tradition for us to get together and do a craft class at one of our houses. Pat requested a class from Diana Giambrone, a wonderful artist from Folsom, to teach us her Marie Antoinette crown. Here's our finished projects - they're all so beautiful!

Diana is a great teacher, everything was so organized and prepped for us to get started right away.

I hosted the b-day party at my house. Below are pictures of the work table..

Here's Ruby, our honorary sister

Thanks to Lana and Maryl for helping me with the decorations!

Here's the Birthday Girl, my sister Pat

Me and Diana G. (the teacher of the day)

Here's the kit and how we started...

Diana made the base crown from chicken wire and pre-cut many of our embellishments.

My sisters Pat, Maryl and Diana

Pictured from left to right: my sisters Diana & Pat, teacher Diana, sister Frances and close friend Ruby

Pictured from left to right:  Diana, Ruby and Lana

Here's the crown that Diana G. made for us to use as a sample - beautiful of course!

Below is a picture of my crown in progress - I chose to do a black theme.

We all had a great time! Diana is a wonderful teacher, so talented, organized and entertaining.

My sister Pat asked for two things for her birthday: 1) a paper doll and 2) a sister related Haiku poem. Here's a picture of the paper dolls she received, all so cute!

Haiku poems have a 5-7-5 syllable line. We all attempted to created these poems for her, however not everyone understood the Haiku structure. But, it's the thought that counts and the words were all so great and original!

Another fun day with my sisters. Thanks Diana for a wonderful class, we all had such a fabulous time and we LOVE our finished projects! Happy Birthday Pat!

Birthday Paper Doll

I made this paper doll for my sister's bday, but shhhh - she doesn't know yet. I used stamps from Catherine Moore's collection. I love the wedding cake turned upside down for her torso.

We're celebrating her bday this Thursday at my house with a class taught by Diana Giambrone -  a Marie Antoinette Crown Class...I can't wait! I'll post pictures of our celebration on my blog later in the week. A quick trip to Tahoe this weekend is also on our agenda - I definitely need a vacation!

p.s. I know I just used this background paper in a earlier post...but I just love it, it's from Mustard Moon :-)

Love This Necklace Kit

Last week I purchased a beautiful necklace kit and a precious miniature handmade chair from my friend Connie Freedman. Below, is the finished piece.

The kit was packaged so creatively...

And I love how she hand wrote the instructions & diagram.

Connie included some great elements. I love the velvet pouch. This item is featured in Stampington's "Jewelry Affair" for July 2012.

Below is the chair that I also purchased from Connie...

The chair is adorable, another great piece to add to my altered art collection! :-) You'll want to visit Connie's blog here: http://www.conniefreedman.com/, she's a frequent contributor in the Stampington magazines.

My New Rubber Stamps

Last weekend when I was at "A Work Of Heart" studio in San Jose I picked up these face stamps from Invoke Arts (http://invokearts.com/). Lisa Guerin had recommended this set for the images. I also love the faces on them and I created these pieces tonight.

The stamps came unmounted and I thought I'd quickly show you the process for mounting them on cling foam.

When you purchase rubber stamps that are only a rubber sheet, such as these (no wooden block or foam attached)...

You need to purchase cling foam (you can purchase on-line from sites such as: http://store.scrapbook.com/gb-suscmf811.html).

Place the rubber stamp on the super sticky side. You need to have special rubber cutting scissors, such as Kai scissors (http://store.scrapbook.com/gb-k6260.html?utm_source=google-shopping-feed&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=google-free-shopping-feed&utm_content=gb-k6260&kw=gb-k6260&cmp=GSHOP&gclid=CKXWxfb-rrECFQhahwodY3AAjA). With the Kai scissors you can easily cut out your stamp shapes (other scissors won't work as well). If the stamp shapes are large or don't have straight edges, a heated exacto knife also works great (http://www.amazon.com/Xacto-X73780-Precision-Soldering-Knife/dp/B000BRBZUG).

Now you can use your rubber stamps with your acrylic blocks.

I stamped each image on a manila folder for future use. I cut three of them out and created these tags (embellished with black and gold dresden, printed numbers and black and white stripped paper)...

 

Don't be intimidated to buy rubber stamps unmounted, they're very easy to mount on cling foam and will cost much less.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

New Necklace

This weekend I bought a faux denim shirt from Old Navy - love the gray color and white stitching. I knew it needed a white necklace, kinda like the ones currently selling at JCrew, so I made this necklace to go with my new shirt.

Here's how I started...I glued three large filigree pieces in a triangle shape.

Then I collected a bunch of my white vintage flower pieces and arranged them in a triangle shape.

Afterwards I added some filler rhinestone pieces and the chain.

These are the JCrew photos that I was inspired from.

Also, today I took two wonderful Photoshop classes from Patti from Lisa's Altered Art. Lisa is Patti's daughter, who she named the business after. The class was held at A Work Of Heart in San Jose. In the past, I've purchased many collage images from this site and to be able to take a class from the owner was really an honor. I learned so much from Patti, and I can't wait to start playing with digital images. Make sure to check out Patti's web site http://www.lisasalteredart.com/. Thanks to Andrea for holding this class on a weekend.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Let's Make Necklaces...

I have several items to share, all centered around necklaces. First off, I took Diane Cook's Heart Strings on-line class a couple weeks ago. Diane does wonderful work and I was thrilled to be able to make one of her Heart String necklaces. This is the one I made...

The ribbons on the necklace are Sari silk, remnants from making Indian Sari's...my new love. You can find many variations on etsy by searching "sari ribbon." The necklace is a potpourri of small treasures.

This weekend, I had a play date with my sisters, Maryl and Diana. We made necklaces inspired by Lisa Guerin's work with shrink plastic.

Maryl made the two necklaces on the left and I made the one on the right...so adorable, I love them all!

Diana made the necklace below...

Diana wore it out shopping and received many compliments - nice work Dee, it looked great on you!

Later that day, we went to Garden Seed in Danville and I saw some jewelry designed by Beth Hess. I was so inspired by her work, that I went home and made the two necklaces below. The center piece is a buckle, transformed into a vintage jewelry collage.

The size of the buckle is 2.75" x 1.75"...it makes for a great frame to collage your pieces in.

This one is pretty small, the center piece is 1.5" x 1".

These were all so fun to make, I can't wait to make more.

I love the rectangular shape of the center piece...you can see the difference in the sizes, one is about half the size of the other.

HaPpY 4Th!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday today. My sister Lana came over tonight and we made a couple of celebratory paper dolls to commemorate this day.

I hope you all had a great day. Love summer time and the long days!