Twelve Days of Christmas - Day Four

Another truly amazing day of gifts for me! Today I opened such a beautiful little treasure:

This beautiful pin features Marie Antoinette as the "Queen of Hearts".  My photo doesn't do her justice. She is protected by a layer of  epoxy and mounted on a metal heart. Kimberly, she is so amazing!

And here is what I created for Kimberly today:

This little Eiffel Tower ornament is embellished with a wreath created with vintage glass glitter and pearls.

Joyeux Noel!

• Marti

Twelve Days of Christmas -Day Three

My lucky Twelve Days are continuing as my wonderful partner is absolutely spoiling me with some of the most fabulous little gifts! Here is the treasure of day three:

Aren't these little clothespins just so creative! I love them!

And here is what Kimberly should open on her day three:

Isn't it funny that my gift for her is also made out of a clothespin? 

I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful partner. I am so delighted each day! I hope your holiday season is as magical is mine is turning out to be!

Marti

Twelve days of Christmas Day Two

It has been such a holiday treat to open a sweet little gift every day between now and Christmas! Today my surprise was a set of adorable little burlap tags with lovely little images sewn on them. Thank you so much Kimberly! You are so creative! I hope you like my little gift of a miniature couple figurine. I just thought they were so cute.

Twelve Days of Christmas Swap Day One

The season of Christmas is upon us and what a wonderful way to enjoy it than to celebrate for twelve days with little gifts each day! I hosted this swap in my Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, and my "Les Douze Jours de Noel" swap partner, Kimberly, has rewarded me with such a beautiful group of packages. I opened the first one and was so delighted with a beautiful little bottle.

And here are the twelve little packages that I sent to Kimberly. I hope she has opened her first gift so I am not ruining the surprise, but it is a little Marie Antionette shoe ornament that I created.

My Sweet Little Captured Fairy

Fairies, fairies, fairies, who isn't entranced by their spells? This little cutie, a Paper Whimsy image, was designed for my French Club swap. I have to admit, I had a hard time giving this little sweet girl away! But Bonnie drew my name for the month, and she loves little triangle banners so I knew she was going to a good home. Plus Bonnie's little granddaughters would get to share her too! 

Participating in theses swaps has really helped me try out different types of designs and push myself a little out of my comfort zone. And I just adore the ladies in this local group. Everyone is so supportive and encouraging!

Welcome Pink Saturday visitors!

Pretty Packaging

Wow, can you believe I am working on Christmas packaging? It seems so early but I am hosting a Twelve Days of Christmas swap in my Marie Antoinette Mail Art group. All twelve gifts should look similar, so my go to is always vintage music paper. I just love the nostalgic look of it, and it goes with any color scheme. Because it is for MAMA the accent colors I have chosen were Marie's favorites, pink and blue. The burlap adds some texture and I really enjoy creating roses out of it as well as other fabrics. Ooh la la, I think it's going to be a fun holiday season!

Advent Calendar Class at Paper Tales

Halloween is over, let the holiday crafting begin! I will be teaching how to create this Christmas advent calendar at Paper Tales in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego on Sunday, November 17th and would love it for you to join me! You will learn how to create these adorable boxes with drawers that hold little treats for the 25 days of Christmas.

I just love advent calendars. When I was a little girl my mom would present us with one of the flat pictures calendars with doors that held chocolate and  my siblings and I would look forward to that chocolate each day! A few years back I created a calendar for my girlfriend  Lorraine and filled it with little vintage and new Christmas crafting supplies. Unbeknownst to me, she sent it in to Somerset Magazine and they wrote a feature article on it. It was such a highlight in my artistic career, and I'm forever grateful to Lorraine for submitting it. So this wonderful tradition is near and dear to my heart, and I would love to share it with you! You can find out more information on my class on the Paper Tales website.

I wish you all a wonderful start to the holiday creative season. May you find many an inspiration and may you not get carpal tunnel syndrome from all of your pinning!

Happy Pink Saturday to  you wonderful blog party visitors who are visiting here!

Three Wicked Witches

Or, maybe they are sweet witches................these three spooky ladies are sitting in a paper tea cup filled with "brew" bubbles. My girlfriend Lorraine and I started these a few weeks ago and I was adamant that I would actually see it through to completion.

I am still trying to finish up a few Halloween projects while I am starting on my Christmas projects. My studio looks like a pumpkin threw up all over winter wonderland! This will probably be the last of Halloween, I am really ready to move on! 

Welcome Pink Saturday visitors!

Let It Snow!

Once again, Christmas is in the air at my house, even though it is in the 80s here in San Diego this week.  But I am preparing for the November meeting of my French Art Group and we are swapping altered tea tins.  My friend Debbie must drink a ton of tea because when we meet for breakfast she hands me a bag of tins each time. I decided I must have enough to use for our group and came up with the idea to create a Christmas themed tin to hold tags that we will make at our meeting, shown in the post below.

I covered my tin in gift wrap and placed a little snowman on a glittered pedestal. I bleached a green bottlebrush Christmas tree that I bought at Michaels and added some glitter snow and snowflakes. A few more embellishments and voila! a perfect little decorative tag tin which I will proudly display and my tags will be easy to find this year!

Designing for Christmas Already!

I am already in the Christmas mood! After hours and hours of searching for my Christmas supplies I finally came up with a couple of boxes so I could start working on the make and take for our November French Art group at Paper Tales.

This little tag is made for the Tim Holtz Carved Ornaments Sizzix die. Of course I don't own it, I have borrowed it from my girlfriend Lorraine and now I must find it for myself! Isn't it a cute shape for Christmas gift tags? The darling little angel sits on a silver snowflake also cut from a Tim Holtz die (thank goodness I at least own his one) and it is layered on the Tim Holtz mini snowflake rosette. This die is new and creates two gorgeous different three dimensional snowflake rosettes. I also borrowed this from Lorraine but have already found it online and it is on its way to me now.  It's funny how my post today sounds like anTim Holtz ad, doesn't it! But I really am excited to use all of these dies throughout the Christmas season.

I have embellished the little tag with a crepe paper rosette, a scalloped circle, a punched snowflake, some seam binding and a miniature aqua blue jingle bell.

I can't believe it isn't even November yet and I am already planning all of my Christmas wrap. Now all I have to do is buy the presents!

Spooky Swaps and Such

 I've been having a wonderful time getting into the Halloween Spirit! And those of you who know me understand how much I love Marie Antoinette, so what better a way to marry Halloween and France with a Marie Antoinette skeleton! This one went to one of my favorite members of her Marie Antoinette Mail Art group, Debi Huntsman. She was my swap partner for a Halloween embellishment swap. All of my embellishments are shown below. It was so much fun to create different packages of little treats for Debbie:  buttons, clay fleur-de-lis, glittered swirls, cupcake toppers, altered Marie witch cards and more!  And the bottom photo is a spoolie Halloween fairy for another swap that I joined. 

I Won a Contest!!!

I was the very lucky winner of the Webster's Pages LSS (Local Scrapbook Store) contest! I entered this photo that was taken at my very favorite scrapbook store, Paper Tales.  This lovely group of ladies are the members of the French Art Club that meets monthly at the store. We are all holding parts of a Webster's Pages collection that I LOVE, mostly because it has Franchise items in the collection.

You can view Webster's Pages post on the contest on the Webster's Pages blog.  What a nice group of people they are at Webster's Pages and how lucky am I to receive some of their new collection!!!!

Wow has it Been A Long Time!!

I am so ashamed that I haven't posted on my blog in over six months!  Wow, the time flies....what have I been doing all this time?  For one, I fell when I was out jogging and broke my hand.  That set me back awhile in creating art and in working on the computer. But a few months ago I started slowly using my hand again and I have been continuing on with my artful endeavors, just not recording it very well.  I am so thankful for the few art groups that I am in, a local French Art group and the international swap group MAMA (Marie Antoinette Mail Art). The ladies are so supportive in both groups and the projects are challenging and that is what has kept me engaged and active on my artistic journey.

Here is my latest project for the French Art group. The challenge was to alter a mason jar into a sewing themed piece of art, and to fill it with vintage looking seamstress goodies.  I am NOT much of a seamstress myself, but found the project to be so much fun because there is a plethora of sewing and needlework themed inspirations on Pinterest. Thanks Lorraine for planning such an inspiring project.  And after we trade these I will have a beautiful little jar that I will be able to easily find a needle when I am looking for one, without tearing up the house!