Published in Jewelry Affaire

Making jewelry is probably my favorite thing to make and I'm so thrilled that this piece was published in the Spring 2013 issue of Jewelry Affaire.

I took apart white vintage flower brooches, earrings and necklaces to put this piece together.

If you want to create a piece similar to this, check your local thrift stores and flea markets for pieces with the same theme, de-construct and re-assemble!

I made this piece back in July and it was posted here if you want to see more details.

I'm currently working on some holiday theme projects - will hopefully share with you soon!

Vintage Text Collages - Mini Book

I love collecting old books for their text - I look for different fonts & colored pages. I decided to take these books and use them as my primary paper for making the collages in this mini book.

Here's how it progressed. Below are the steps to making the cover.

I added several coats of beeswax to the cover. I like the opaque look it gives.

Below are the inside pages...

I love vintage girl images with their dolls...I've collected these over time and print them out when needed.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! My 14 year old daughter loves to bake mini desserts. I just had to share her recent creations.

She made this 5 layer cake entirely in an easy bake oven! It's about 3" in diameter.

She also made Girl Scout Thin Mint Brownies...

They were delicious!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Fun Altered Art Tags

Making tags are my go-to project when I want something quick and easy to make. Long ago I purchased some vintage sale tags, providing great inspiration for the tags I made this weekend.

After: embellished tags

Before: plain tags

Okay, so only two of the tags are actually sale tags, another one is a packing label (blue and white) and the last one is a gift tag I bought at Target (black and white striped) But they're all tags though, so why not? :-)
Below are some close up shots of each one:

The man is a stamp from Catherine Moore and the girl is an image from an old  book.

The girl is an image from an old book

The girl is from a sticker from Carta Bella

The girl is a sticker from "Old Fashion Children Stickers & Seals" from Dover

I hope I've inspired you to embellish any kind of tags!

Have a great week!

Love My New Printer

This past week, my HP Photo Smart ink jet printer finally died - after about 8 years. I was very disappointed since I couldn't work on much without a printer for images. It wasn't worth it to try to repair it, so I did some on-line research for another printer (http://reviews.cnet.com/best-printers/). I considered buying a laser jet this time, but after reading the reviews, there were several complaints about the printer that I was worried about - the most important one being the color quality not as good as ink jet. To cut to the chase, I ended up buying the HP Officejet Pro 8600 (from Costco for $175).

Now, I couldn't be happier that my old printer died, because this one is so much better! :-) The color quality is far superior and it's so much faster! From the time I clicked print and walked over to the printer it's already done.

Below are some examples of the color copies. The left side are the originals and the right side are the copies. I reduced the size because I'll be using them to make a small book.

I was really impressed by the copies of the vintage pages. The faded color of the vintage text pages reproduced very true to color.

This is the paper I like to use:

HP Premium Choice Laser paper. 32lbs and 98 brightness. It's a bit heavier weight than normal copier paper, but still lighter than card stock.

 

Then, I just have to share the cake pops my daughter made today...emoticons. Aren't they adorable?

Have a great week ;-)

Frozen Charlotte Necklace & Ski Trip

This week my kids were off from school and we all went up to Tahoe for some skiing & R&R. As with all my vacations, I always have to take some projects to work on so this time I made castings with Sculpey clay into my molds. I made a variety of frozen charlotte dolls, and also some mini frames. I ended up making a new necklace with a couple of the clay pieces.

Below are the castings I made with the Sculpey clay. I actually bake the clay directly in the molds at 275 for only 15 minutes.

Next, I made a three-sided mini shadow box and lined it with vintage text.

I made the box the size of my mini frames. Then I punched a hole at the top and inserted a bead cap - turned upside down to look like a crown and a pearl. This was how I attached the chain to the box.

 Afterwards, I gathered tulle around the doll waist to make a full skirt.

I made the chain out of various beads and rhinestones, and added a dyed seam binding bow on top.

Now to share some of my skiing pictures. We had one day of snow and the rest of the days were nice and sunny.

Below are pictures of the snow day...

Northstar Ice Skating Rink

We had to bundle up with face masks

My son Chris waiting for us to get going

Then we had beautiful weather the rest of the days....

It was a fun week for some much needed R&R! :-)

Matchbox & Paper Doll Projects

I love Pinterest and I am always inspired by so many ideas. There were a couple of matchbox projects that I couldn't wait to make on my own.  The first one is a soldered matchbox. I made the necklace below:

 It started like this...

I used an ordinary matchbox

Then I lined the inside with vintage text paper.

Afterwards I cut out an image and embellished it.

I placed some heavy plastic over the top and covered the edges with scalloped soldering tape. Then I soldered with lead free iron and aged the silver edge with black patina. I soldered a flourish to the top and some jump rings to the top and bottom. I put together a chain made from a variety of elements and voila, I have another new necklace!

This project was inspired by Marie from Lost Bird Studio.

The next project I made is a matchbox doll. Below is a picture of the matchbox when it's closed.

Closed

When you start to open it, you can begin to see her matchstick legs.

...pull down the drawer and her legs get longer - haha, if only it was that easy

This was inspired by this: Pinterest pin.

The last item to share with you is a paper doll. My dear friend Laura Haviland sent me one of her fun hangers and I used some stamps from Catherine Moore (bodice and skirt) & Levenworth Jackson (face). 

Happy Friday - have a great weekend!