Thanksgiving Favors

We went on a wonderful trip to Half Moon Bay for Thanksgiving at my cousin Susy's house. We all had such a great time. I created these cones for favors and filled them with dark chocolate covered shortbread stars, yummy! The rosette is created from my favorite new Sizzix die by Tim Holtz. It sure beats creating the folds by hand.

Now....on to Christmas creating!

Teacups

Little Queen Teacup

Let Them Eat Cake Teacup

Butterfly Girl Teacup

I Love Paris Teacup

Here are some teacup cards that I made as part of a template challenge. I had originally made something similar using a different template as ivitations to the ATC club members for a Mad Hatter Tea Party that we had this year. I gave my friend Lorraine a cup and then took it back at the end of the meeting because I didn't have a sample for myself and I knew I wanted to create these again. I'm lucky she's a good friend and doesn't take offense to these things!

For these teacups I started by embossing cardstock in the cuttlebug, then added inks and glimmer mist. My favorite is the Marie Antoinette cup. I rolled balls of music paper to create her dimensional hair and added pearls. I love to make paper hairdos, almost as much as I love making paper shoes!

And lucky for Lorraine, this time I am true to my word and actually finally returned her original teacup.

I also owe Cassidy's boyfriend Matteo a big thank you for all his help in teaching me Adobe Photoshop. With my newfound knowlege I was able to use a very bad photo that I had taken a spruce it up. Thanks Matteo!

My Shoes in Stamplers Sampler

My friend Lorraine and I were lucky enough to get a double page spread of our faerie shoes published in Stamplers Sampler! We also started and etsy store and are selling our little cobbled wares. Our etsy store is called Paper Confections Two, and I am so excited that I have finally moved forward with starting an etsy shop. Reaching this goal I owe all to Lorraine, who did most of the worked and pushed me to do my share. I'm so lucky to have a muse like Lorraine! I hope you will visit our little shop.

Unfortunately when we submitted the shoes for publication they missed that some were mine and some were Lorraine's. They are going to print a correction in the next issue, which I thought was very generous.

Still on A Halloween Creating Binge!

Every day I leave work and can't wait to come home to create more Halloween Decorations out of Vintage papers and images. This was a lady that I started in Portland before I got bitten by the spooky bug. When I took her out of my suitcase she was just begging to become a witch!

Spook town

Four Lovely Witches Have New Homes

I have had a very short new career as a home builder for witches. I have been addicted to creating little houses for a few days and here are the results:

Please meet Arielle. She has a closet inside her house of over forty fashionable with hats.

Brighid here, she is still in school and is studying for her Spell 101 exam. Her crow Julius watches over the house.

Madame Lucinda is under the spell of the quarter moon.

This young lady is Tatiana. She is contemplating where her broom will take her tonight.

Halloween Banner

Even thought the weather has been very crazy for all in San Diego, I've been working on creating Halloween Decorations. This past weeek we had one day that hit over 100 in my neighborhood. It hasn't been that hot here since we purchased the house 1 1/2 years ago. Then a few days later I thought I was back in Ohio. It was warm all day with rain and thunder and lightning that lasted all day long! It was so much fun!

I got a head start with this banner by purchasing a banner at Michaels and recreating it. This hangs over my fireplace in the family room.

Daytripping in San Diego With Lorraine

Aren't we crazy? Lorraine and I had a great visit to Cedros Avenue on last Sunday. We went to the Mermaid Mercantile at the shell shop, had a tasty vegetarian lunch at the Zinc Cafe and then headed down the street to the Leaping Lotus, one of our favorite haunts. As you can see, Halloween was in the air and we caught the bug.

Mary's Fairytale House

My girlfriend Mary has a fabulous house in the Lake Oswego area of Portland. Isn't it sweet! She has a green thumb and her garden is beautiful. And the inside of the house is just as wonderful as the outside.

I LOVE PORTLAND!

Well this post is a few days late, given that I arrived in Portland almost a month ago, but I had such a great time I had to post a few pics. Portland is such a crazy place and I feel so at home there! Cars like this are perfectly normal in Portland, and I want one!

Ballerina Cupcake

Yesterday Lorraine came over for the start of what we hope will be many days of our "Cupcake Factory". We created the first group of cupcakes to list in our etsy shop (still have to create the shop - more news to come on that). I think we made about ten little mixed media confections to sell. This one is my personal favorite!

How About This Cake Sylvia Made!

This beautiful Crepe Paper Cake was created by Sylvia and part of the my Summer Swap Gift Package. It is decorated with music paper, lace, ribbon, flowers, shells, birds and more. And the Cake Topper is a Clear Cinderella Shoe! I love this cake.

Vintage Summer Swap

Swapping can be so much fun! I have started to enter swaps where you exchange handmade goods and gift items with a theme, and they are one-on-one swaps where I get to prepare a wonderful package for my swap partner. For the Vintage Summer Swap I was paired up with a lovely lady from Texas, Sylvia Smith. You can visit her blog at apinkheaven.blogspot.com. If you visit it you will see the goodies that I sent to her!

They say it's better to given than receive, and I admit, I really had a blast creating items for Sylvia, but how much fun is it when a HUGE box of fabulous items is delivered to your door! I LOVE the items Sylvia made and purchased for me. Below you can see a sample. But what you won't be seeing are the yummy edible treats because I ate them before I could even take a photo!

Paper Whimsy Itty Bitty Book Swap

When Paper Whimsy announced an Itty Bitty Book swap with a Garden Girl theme I am all in. Here is my Garden Girl with her flower "headdress" and her pet butterfly. I believe the books have been created and are in the mail. It is so fun to get a package delivered with wonderful little pieces of art from a number of artists from around the Country. I can't wait to receive mine!

Cupcakes, Cupcakes, Cupcakes

I discovered the fun of creating faux cupcakes and can't stop! Here is my first tray full. The "cake" is made of plaster and the "icing" is made with molding clay. Add a little paint and alot of glitter (everything's better with glitter!), and voila, you have beautiful little cupcakes that look too good to eat and definitely shouldn't be consumed!

Marie Antoinette

I had a blast creating this paper doll. My degree in fashion merchandising comes into play with paper! The dress is creating by layering many types of paper. The hair, my favorite part, is made with small wads of music paper.

Girl with the Bird

Growing up in Monterey, I loved spending hours and hours at my neighbor Julie's House drawing ladies. We called them wine glass ladies because we started with a head and neck shape that resembled a wine glass. We would then add facial expressions, a great hairstyle and some fabulous clothes. We could work on these for days on end, forgetting everything else we were supposed to be doing like chores and homework. This year I've decided to go for it and start creating ladies again. I started with a circle face this time, inspired by the face shapes of the very talented artist Danita. Here is one of my "girls" with a bird perched on her arm. I've discovered that once again I can get lost in creating the process of creating, and I could spend an entire day workingon my ladies. So much fun!

New Fairy Shoe Design

Oh how I love to create fairy shoes! At any given time there are shoes all over my studio in various states of completion. This is the first shoe I've created with a heel. I'm not sure if the fairies can make their way through the garden in heels, but won't they look great? I think even for fairies vanity wins over comfort. (And I say this after a long day at the office in a fabulous pair of heels, and boy do my feet hurt!)

Mad Hatter Party!!

What a wonderful time we had at our May ATC Mad Hatter Party. We traded hat ATCs, feasted on Tea Tasties and created these wonderful, whimsical hats.

Lucky, Lucky Me!

In entered an on-line basket swap with an art group that I belong to and boy did I get lucky with such a wonderful swap partner who spoiled me rotten! Catherine Aguilera sent me this fabulous basket filled with all sorts of goodies - a hand-made May Cone, a covered MatchBox with a little birdie on top, a piece of her art featuring Marie Antoinette, and much, much more. Thank you so much Catherine, you have really made my day!

Day at the Docks

Isn't San Diego wonderful! Today we went to Day at the Docks in Point Loma. For only two dollars you can take a ride on a fishing boat in the bay. This handsome devil is sitting on the bait barge hoping for some freebies.

A Day In The Mountains

Yesterday my entire family enjoyed a beautiful day in the mountains. It snowed in the morning, but by the time we got there it was almost gone. Nonetheless, the kids still sledded in the little snow and mud at Mount Laguna. We ate lunch and apple pie in Julian, and even stopped at Green Valley Falls on the way home. The falls were the largest we have ever seen them. And we saw so many wild turkeys in the Green Valley Falls campground. It was such a wonderful day!

Spring Gifts

I found these beautiful file folders and pens at Michaels and couldn't resist buying a few to package up for my coworkers. I made a black Easter egg with white embossed swirls and added some bright colored flowers and rinestones to match the folders. I love to give little gifts!

ATC Group Easter Banner

ATC Club Easter Banner

Oh how I love my ATC ladies! We meet once a month and trade miniature treasures of art. This month we created triangular banner pieces made from a 3x5 card. This is my contribution, and the first photo is a sample of 5 of our pieces strung together. I feel so lucky to be a part of this group. Stay tuned for next month's photos - we are making Fairy Slippers!

Buttonmania!

This weekend I discovered how fun it was to work with buttons! I am in a May basket swap and my trading partner likes buttons, so after some internet searching I sat down to create a button bouquet and some button flower embellishments, shown here. It was great fun, and I'm looking forward to putting these in Catherine's basket.

"Whatever a man's age, he can reduce it several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his button hole." -Mark Twain

Here is the wonderful Triptych that Leslie Anderson created for me. I am amazed by the creative talent of the ladies at Paper Whimsy!

I find the Paper Whimsy artist group a great place to find inspiration. This is the piece I made for the Triptych swap. I sent this piece to Sally Rodman. You can find Gale's collage sheets at www.paperwhimsy.com.

I had so much fun making this butterfly banner. It is made with chipboard, the Cuttlebug and glimmer mists.

My Very First Blog Post!

I'm so excited to enter the journey of blogging! I hope this blog will be a record of my creative journey, sharing my latest projects.

I love being a member of the ATC club at Stamping Details. Every month I look forward to getting together with some wonderfully creative women. Last night we worked on Fairy Shoes, which will be the swap for April. Here are two of my Fairy Shoes.