At Long Last!

My Etsy shop will officially be opening its doors in June!  I was going to wait until then to say something, but I'm just too excited.  Be on the lookout for my grand-opening give-away!!  I'll post the details here, once the shop is up and running.  :)

Kaylie's Name Plaque & Veronica's Box

I dragged out my paints and brushes last week to make Kaylie's name plaque (I did Elora's last spring) and I ended up painting a box for my niece as well.  These pictures aren't the best, maybe I'll try to get better ones later.

Digi scrapping is fun, and has been keeping me sane, but sometimes I need to do something hands-on, with tangible results.  I was waaaaaay overdue for some hands-on crafting.  It was worth it to have my dining table look like this for 2 or 3 days.

I ran to the store by myself on Sunday, and this is what I came home to.

And this is from this morning.

My Kaylie girl loves to smile, but it's hard to catch her smiling with the camera.  As soon as I bring it out, she stops smiling to stare at it curiously.

Eternal Calendar, September-December

It's done!

Eternal Calendar, May-August

Kelly said "yea" to the vellum, and "nay" to the lines, which is cool because I liked it better with the vellum, too, and I didn't feel like making the lines.  Here are the next 4 pages.

Eternal Calendar

A friend of mine has been looking for an eternal calendar to keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, so I offered to make one for her.  I'd already made the keepsake calendars for Merryn and Peguy, so I knew I could just adapt them to this new calendar.  This is what I have done so far.

 I put a "vellum" mat on the February page, just to show what it would look like.  I was also thinking of adding lines for writing in each of the date blocks, and in the "notes" spot.  What do you think?

Hearts for Japan

My friend Jenny over at Pearlswirl Journals has has a big heart. She's designed these sweet little Hearts for Japan necklaces

and all proceeds from the sale of these necklaces in her Etsy shop will be donated to aid in the relief efforts.  Even better, all proceeds from all sales made in her shop during the next month will be donated as well.  You can check out the details on her blog or at her Etsy site.

Creative Decorating

I know I've promised Christmas pictures, and that will still happen.  Eventually.  I'm just overwhelmed by the volume of pictures that I need to sift through.  So, I'm sharing this with you instead.

I'm decorating our guest bedroom in burgundy, gold and ivory.  I have a comforter set (thanks again, Rebekah!!), and I have quite a bit of smaller decor items to go with it, but not much of anything for the walls.  But, I also had this poster that my sister gave me for my birthday (or Christmas, or something) years ago, probably before I even moved out of my mom's house.  I've always loved the pictures in this poster; they appeal to my sense of fantasy and romance.  I've just never had a good place to put it.  Then I realized that the colors go really well with the other things I have going in the guest room, so I decided to finally do something with it. 

I pulled out my paper rotary cutter (I have a separate one for fabric) and mat, ripped the shrink wrap off of the poster, and cut out each of the 3 pictures.  Then I went looking for frames.  The pictures are a weird size, so I knew that while I might be able to use a standard frame size, I'd have to do the matting myself.  I managed to find three matching 11" x 14" frames on clearance at Garden Ridge, and I snatched them up.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make use of the matting that came with the frames (I tried and failed) so I had to do something else.  I ended up using art paper from Michael's, cut to 11" x 14".  I didn't even need to cut windows in my "mats"; each picture has a very narrow dark gray border, and I left a 1/4" white margin around that, so it looks like an inner mat.  I just taped my prints down on the art paper and threw them in the frames.  All totaled, I spent only about $25 and I now have a series of three framed pictures to hang above the bed in my guest room. 

Similiarly, I have an old 2007 fairy art wall calendar that Staria gave me while we were down in Florida.  She saved it for me so I could take it apart for the pictures, and that's exactly what I did.  So far, I've only used one of the pictures. 

My bathroom is done in mostly deep brown and ivory, and I switch between using a set of blue and a set of green towels. This particular picture was perfect, because it brought in all of those colors, and will look good regardless of which towels we happen to be using.  I found the frame for this one at Garden Ridge at the same time I found the others, and just like the others, it ended up being perfect.  It almost looks as if it were designed to go with my shower curtain.  I was able to modify the mat that came with the frame for this one, though it is more narrow than it should be.  (Yes, I do know that the mat should be at least as wide as the molding, but I was making do.)  I think it looks good anyway, and it looks fantastic in my bathroom.  The empty place above my towel rack is empty no more.

I have another couple of the pictures from that calendar flagged, but I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll do with them.  One of them might just end up on another wall of the guest room.  :)