Blog Hop: Surprise Happy Birthday Blog Hop, Kimi!

09 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Blog Hop, Cardmaking, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Glitter, Lovebug Creations, Mixed Media, Papercrafting, Sewing

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

acrylic paint, beautiful blooms, birthday card, birthday greetings, caulk, diy card, embossing, fake cupcakes, fake frosting, faux cupcakes, faux frosting, glass glitter, handmade card, kimi cremar, love, LOveBug Creations, Mama's Mesh, mica, mica glitter, pink glitter, plaster, plaster cupcakes, seam binding, simply sheer ribbon, tim holtz

Welcome to

KIMI’S SURPRISE BIRTHDAY BLOG HOP!

Have you been seeing the cutest birthday projects ever? If you arrived at my blog and would like to start at the beginning, which is also the birthday girl’s blog, please hop on over to Lovebug Creations . If you arrived at my blog from Dawn Mercedes, then you’re in the right place!

Here’s my birthday card for Kimi:

Kimi’s favorite colors are pink and green so I created a card and sweet faux cupcake photo holders using those colors. I hope she likes them!

My card features several Lovebug Creations products:

Rumple Ribbon in Purpledise

Simply Sheer Ribbon in White

Mama’s Mesh in White

Beautiful Blooms in White

Doesn’t the Mama’s Mesh look so nice behind all of those crazy colors? The embossed pattern you see on the hot pink is from Tim Holtz.

I created some faux cupcakes using directions I found online and this was a MESSY project. There was plaster, caulk, and paint everywhere! I had to experiment with the frosting and ended up using caulk mixed with a little bit of plaster and some acrylic paint. The plaster gave the caulk the sturdiness it needed to hold up until it dried.

These pretty ribbons are Rumple Ribbon from Lovebug Creations in Purpledise. Each cupcake has a different sprinkle. The first one has mica, the second has glass glitter and the third has pink glitter.

Kimi, Happy Birthday to one of my favorite people in the whole world. I wish that Ohio was closer to California so that we could get together and craft and I could give you a Happy Birthday Hug in person!

And to everyone who stopped by, Thank You for hopping! Please leave a happy comment for Kimi before you go! Your next destination is over to Kristi to see her pretty project.

xo,

Christine Barker

If you get lost along the way, here is the complete line up.

Pam
Tanya
Stacey
Tanya Hahn
Connie
Stephanie
Katie
Kathy
Dawn
Christine – You’re here now!
Kristi – Go here next!

Home Decor: Tea Cup and Lavender Sachet Tea Bag

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Lovebug Creations, Paper Sculpture, Papercrafting, Rubber Stamp

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

birthday gift, free printable, free tea cup pattern, free tea cup printable, LOveBug Creations, mother's day gift, organic lavender, Rumple Ribbon, stay calm and drink tea, tea cup, tea cup pattern, tea cup printable, tea cup template, wedding shower favor

Women are like tea bags.

We don’t know our true strength

til we’re in hot water!

-Eleanor Roosevelt

And how true is that? We’re going along through life and we get slammed from the side from some unforeseen challenge and we rise up to meet it. It’s not until later that we realize exactly what we’ve just accomplished and give ourselves a pat on the back for meeting the challenge head on and not running from it.

For this week’s project, I’m inspired by all things tea related so I’ve created a tea cup from scratch. My challenge, thankfully a small one this time, is that I want a certain tea cup shaped die and it’s sold out everywhere. If only I’d bought it when it was first released! (Foiled again!) So, I created my own template and I’m sharing it with you in case you’d like to make your own cup of tea!

This tea cup features some beautiful Lovebug Creations Rumple Ribbon in “Crushed” from the Loves Me, Loves Me Knot Collection and a little bit of “Buttercream” from the I Do Collection.

The flower is from the Love in Bloom Collection in “Crushed“. Beautiful Blooms are made of clay, hand dyed and have a glossy finish to the top side of them. The bottom is not glossy to make it easy to adhere these embellishments to your projects.

I filled the tea bag with some organic lavender and it smells so good! Wouldn’t this make a great gift for Mother’s Day, a birthday or even as a favor for a wedding shower?

Here’s the free printable, ready for you to glue to chipboard and cut out or use as a template with your own card stock glued to chipboard. To create my cup I glued card stock to both sides of a piece of 8.5″ x 11″ chipboard and set it aside to dry. Once dry, I cut out my shapes. The base of the cup can also be punched out using a 1.5″ circle punch, just use two pieces of card stock and glue them back to back. You’ll want to use a really strong adhesive tape, like Sookwang, or even a low temp glue gun to ensure the cup doesn’t come apart. I used regular paper glue to attach the cup base and let it dry upside down overnight. To create the handles, I wrapped the chipboard around a pencil to get the curlicue effect and then used adhesive tape to attach it to the cup. To shape the saucer, I just gently pulled up the edges and worked my way around the shape to get the edges to come up.

Thanks for stopping by to see my project. Remember, stay calm and drink tea. Have a great week!

xo,

Christine Barker

Blog Hop: Spring Celebrations with Lovebug Creations

29 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Blog Hop, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Lovebug Creations, Mixed Media, Papercrafting

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

baby mushroom, blog hop, bunny box, bunny craft, easter craft, Happy Spring, LOveBug Creations, Mama's Mesh, Mama's Roses, Rumple Ribbon, seam binding, seam binding ribbon, Spring Celebration craft, Spring craft, spun cotton mushroom

Welcome to LoveBug Creations Spring Celebrations

New Release and Blog Hop!

If you’ve floated over from Kristi, then you are on the right path. But, if you stumbled upon our hop and want to start with our blog hostesses, then click over to LOVEBUG CREATIONS.

Spring is a time for Easter and Mother’s Day events but it also heralds weddings, graduations, family reunions, and more. Today LoveBug Creations has some awesome new products to unveil for your spring celebrations.

Want to add something special to your handmade projects?? Check out these new springtime collections for your garden of Rumple Ribbon delights:

New Rumple Ribbon Colors: Peach Blossom, Dahlia and Buttercup

More new Rumple Ribbon colors! Garden Green, Blue Bells, & Spring Lilac

Mama’s Roses

And, we are releasing the beautiful Mama’s Roses. Each rose is hand-formed and hand-dyed. Each Mama’s Rose has dimensions of 2″x 2″ and can be used as-is or inked, painted, stickled, and more. The only limit for these beauties is your imagination. Plus, they’re feather-light so you can create lots of projects from layouts to cards to tags to mixed media creations to 3-D creations and more and not weigh down your project!

And, as if that isn’t enough, we’ve got 4 NEW Mama’s Mesh Colors: Kraft, Ivory, Light Blue & Light Pink! And, BIG NEWS! You can now purchase Mama’s Mesh by the yard instead of in collections!

So, settle back as we take you on a tour of spring celebrations and don’t forget to visit the LoveBug Creations ONLINE STORE.

My favorite spring celebration is Easter because I just adore bunnies, pretty pastel colors and especially Easter candy. Who can resist?

Pretty pink “Dahlia” Rumple Ribbon from Lovebug Creations tops off this decoration with a beautiful flourish. I started with a plain chipboard box, painted it, layered on some sheet music and gave it some cute pink stripes. Bunnie’s basket is made from chipboard as well that I formed into a basket shape.

Isn’t this pastel ribbon color dreamy? This lil bird thinks so!

Baby mushrooms are one of my weaknesses! Eek! They started out red but I gave them the pink treatment. Vintage flowers are from Michelle Hurtt.

And, just in case you missed the Mama’s Rose that I snuck onto my Fleurette Bloom/Lovebug Creations Hop project yesterday, here it is again:

This Mama’s Rose started out white but I painted it gold to match the rest of my project. I love how this elegant rose gives my project elegant dimension.

So, how about some Lovebug Creations Blog Candy!

LoveBug Creations is offering a $10 gift certificate to their online store and several other items as well.

AND

I’m offering a $5 Giftcard to the Lovebug Creations Shop!

What do you have to do to be a possible winner? It’s easy!

1. Become a follower of each crafter (if you’re not already)

2. Leave a sweet lil love note in the comments at each blog with your email contact info

3. For one extra chance to win “Like” the Lovebug Creations Facebook Page and leave a comment

4. Check back on Wednesday for the announcement of the winners

The full spring line up is:

1. Kimi & Pamela
2. Stephanie
3. Dawn Mercedes
4. Connie
5. Katie
6. Tanya
7. Kristi
8. Christine
9. Kathy
10. Stacey

We hope you enjoyed your visit and wish you happy spring celebrations!

The next blog spot on this spring tour is Kathy. Check out her project and don’t forget to leave a comment and follow my blog before you go!

xo,

Christine Barker

Sewing: St Patrick’s Day Pin Cushion

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Sewing, Textiles, Vintage

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Bunny Boudoir Lamp, charms, Colleen Moody, corsage pins, hand embroidered, LOveBug Creations, millinery flowers, mother of pearl, Otis and Lola, pin cushion, rhinestone button, Rumple Ribbon, sewing, st patricks day craft, vintage, vintage millinery, wool felt

I spent the weekend creating in a class with artist extraordinaire, Colleen Moody. I took her Bunny Boudoir Lamp class and was so entranced with her dolls, her home, her studio and her beautiful bulldogs, Otis and Lola. Colleen is known for her paper clay dolls, but excels at all sorts of other artistic endeavors. One of her creations, a gorgeous pink and white pin cushion, came home with me and inspired me to create one of my own.

I used Lovebug Creations Simply White to create a delicate, vintage-style focal point.

I added a vintage mother of pearl button to the Lovebug Creations Rumple Ribbon bow.

The four leaf clover on the top of the pin cushion is created from green wool felt, with hand embroidered details, vintage mother of pearl buttons and a vintage rhinestone button in the center.

I added some antique millinery flowers and a piece of tulle.

Next, some beautiful corsage pins.

And a top hat charm and a horse shoe charm for good luck!

Thank you for stopping by to see my project! Have a wonderful week!

xo,

Christine Barker

PS: Stop by later this week to learn more about my class with Colleen Moody and to hear about my adventures in antique stores and the Alameda Flea Market with my friends Kim, Terry, Mariasela, Sylvia and her mom!

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

Swap: Vintage Inspired Valentine Charms Revealed!

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Mixed Media, Rubber Stamp, Rubber Stamp, Swap, Vintage

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Ann Hammes, Carol Lucero, Carrie Harney, charm swap, Debbi Wilcock, friendship, hearts, Hope Ellington, Jeanine Stowe, Julie Weller, Linda Vinson, Lonnie Jenck, lori dams, love, metal bezel, michelle duke, michelle hurtt, mixed media art, mixed-media, Nicole Goodwin, Pam Munns, Rochelle Gaukel, soldered, swans, valentine, valentine swan, valentine swap, Vintage Charms, wire wrapped

The wait is over, you can finally see all of the Valentine Charms! And what a collection they are!

How amazing are these charms? I love all of them and especially because they were made by ladies who are near and dear to my heart and they put so much love into each one that they made.

Here’s the ladies who created this miniature works of art:

1. Michelle Duke
2. Carrie Reid Harney
3. Lonnie Jenck
4. Hope Habbe Ellington
5. Jeanine Stowe Weiss
6. Linda Vinson
7. Nicole Goodwin
8. Lori Stewart Dams
9. Pam Munns
10. Michelle Hurtt
11. Debbi Udall Wilcock
12. Carol Lucero
13. Ann Hammes
14. Rochelle Kretz Gaukel
15. Julie Gordon Weller
16. Christine Barker

Thanks so much ladies for joining the swap and making my Valentine’s Day holiday so pretty!

And, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’ve created a crest for myself to use as the watermark on my pictures. I just couldn’t help but alter the antique crest file that I had from The Graphics Fairy to remove the lion and add a jackalope. He’s part lion and part Jackalope, so I guess he’s a Jackalion.

Thank you, dear, sweet blog readers, for joining me again and for all of your sweet comments. They really make it worth the effort that I put into creating these posts!

xo,

Christine Barker

PS: Want to see my other Valentine Posts?

Swap: Vintage Inspired Valentine Charms

Swap: Precious Hearts Swap

Swap: Queen of Hearts Valentine Swap

Sweet: Pretty Jelly Jar with Lovebug Creations Ribbon

Blog Hop: Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Swap: Vintage Inspired Valentine Charms

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Jewelry, Lovebug Creations, Soldering, Swap, Vintage

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Ann Hammes, Carol Lucero, Carrie Harney, charm swap, Debbi Wilcock, FIMO clay, friendship, hearts, Hope Ellington, Jeanine Stowe, Julie Weller, Linda Vinson, Lonnie Jenck, lori dams, love, LOveBug Creations, metal bezel, michelle duke, michelle hurtt, mixed media art, mixed-media, modeling clay, Nicole Goodwin, Pam Munns, polymer clay, Rochelle Gaukel, Rumple Ribbon, seam binding, soldered, swans, swap packaging, valentine, valentine swan, valentine swap, Vintage Charms, wire wrapped

For the third Valentine swap that I joined, I hosted a charm swap with sixteen participants.

With thoughts of love, friendship, and heart shaped everything in our minds, the girls in my mixed-media swap ended up with a beautiful collection of 16 charms to adorn them or their homes. Since there are so many girls with so many talents in this group I left the materials open to interpretation. The only firm rule is that each charm had to contain metal as a design element, either soldered, or metal bezel, or wire wrapped or something to give a cohesive look with soldered charms.

The main colors were pinks, white, silver, creams, and hints of muted Valentine colors. The size could range from 1″ all the way up to 3″ and this collection gave us all a nice combination of sizes to be used as a garland, charm bracelet, necklace pendants or as ornaments for a Valentine tree.

Pretty packaging was optional but these girls came through with some gorgeous and daintily wrapped presents!

I went for a new technique using FIMO polymer clay and I’m so happy with the way they turned out. This was my first time using it this way and I’m going to be using this technique again in the future.

Creating your own embellishments gives the artist so many different options than just purchasing store bought embellishments!

Here are all of mine all lined up with different ribbons on them. I just loved looking at all of them together! And don’t they look gorgeous with all of the different colors of Lovebug Creations Rumple Ribbon? You can find this beautiful and versatile ribbon in the Lovebug Creations online shop!

Here’s a detail shot so you can see the pretty swans. You probably know by now that swans are my latest infatuation. I found some adorable sterling silver heart head pins and added ballet pink pearls and a pink crystal onto them. I added some glass beads that reminded me of petite chandelier crystals and some tiny pearls.

Participants:

Thank you so much for stopping by! I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing all of the Valentine inspiration that I’ve been steeped in. It’s been really wonderful. Tomorrow I’ll show you what all of the charms look like and you can adore them just like I have been!

xo,

Christine Barker

Want to see my other Valentine Posts?

Blog Hop: Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Sweet: Pretty Jelly Jar with Lovebug Creations Ribbon

Swap: Queen of Hearts Valentine Swap

Swap: Precious Hearts Swap

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Sewing, Swap, Textiles

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

arts and crafts, craft swap, crazy quilt, fabric, flower, Happy Valentines Day, hears, hearts, material, pearls, precious hearts swap, sewing, swap, valentine craft, valentines day, Valentines Day Craft

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you have something special planned for today. I don’t know if it’s the colors, the sentiments, the hearts or all of it together but Valentine’s Day is my absolute favorite holiday!

Today I’m going to show you the beautiful hearts I received in the “Precious Hearts Swap” hosted by my friend, Andrea Villarreal. For this swap we made 13 hearts that were approximately 5″ and we took 12 to Andrea’s house to swap with the other talented ladies. The color palette was to include light/pale pinks, creams, whites and burgundy. The choice of fabrics was up to us and we could include whatever kinds of trims we wanted. As a finishing touch we each put our initials on our hearts so that everyone would know who made which one.

Isn’t this packaging pretty and creative? I love it!

Here they are all together and what a perfect collection they are! All of the colors blend together so beautifully. I can’t decide if I want to make them into a garland or as a wall hanging/art quilt. Decisions, decisions!

Update! I made a garland. Here’s how it looks!

These are the talented girls who were part of this swap:

Andrea Villarreal (Hostess with the Most-ess)

Cheryl Stoneham

Cynthia Flores

Erin Barraza

Julie Weller

Mariasela Vallejo

Sylvia Estrada

Terry Frias

Here are some close ups of my heart. I researched and learned a new technique to make flowers after receiving some gorgeous blooms as a hostess prezzie from Lonnie Jenck. After I told a friend about this technique, she told me about an easier technique to do the same thing. I’ll give it a try and let you know how it works out.

I am completely smitten with these ballet-slipper-pink pearls lately. I find i’ve been using them on all kinds of projects.

I used my fancy embroidery machine to stitch silver thread onto the seams like a crazy quilt, plus I embroidered my initial. So easy!

I’m really happy with the way my hearts turned out. But, next time I’m going to get brave and put more embellishments on them!

Thanks for stopping by! I’ll be sharing one more Valentine project tomorrow so drop by to take a look. Enjoy your Valentine festivities!

xo,

Christine Barker

Swap: Queen of Hearts Valentine Swap

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Lovebug Creations, Mixed Media, Sewing, Soft Sculpture, Swap, Textiles, Vintage

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

candice carpenter, heart, Jeanine Stowe Weiss, Julie Weller, kathie lepage, lori dams, LOveBug Creations, margie rowles, Mary Hansen, michelle duke, mixed medium, mixed-media, mr darcy, Panther Pink, practice art, pride and prejudice, queen of hearts swap, Rumple Ribbon, swap packaging, Tanya Peacock, tashia jacques, teah barrow, teresa cook, valentine, valentine craft, valentine swap

“Ars longa, vita brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.” -Hippocrates

This can be translated into: “Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgement difficult.”

I’m further going to translate this into my new personal motto of: “Life is short, practice art.”

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while you know how much i love to join swaps and practice making art. This Valentine’s season was no different. I joined 3 different swaps. One, hosted by my friend, Julie Weller, one was hosted by me, and the third was hosted by my friend, Andrea Villareal. I’ll be posting pics of my swap and Andrea’s swap later this week.

Today I want to show you the beautiful Valentine’s I received from Julie’s “Queen of Hearts Swap”. The rules were to create thirteen 4″ hearts out of any medium and we could pick the colors. We then mailed them to Julie and she then mailed them back out. For some of us, we are lucky to live near each other so we took a field trip to Downtown Fullerton, CA to spend a day shopping together and exchange our hearts with each other.

I experimented with some new techniques, second, third and fourth guessed myself and came up with this heart and I’m so happy with the way it turned out. I’m not giving away any secrets about how I created this but I will say that I experimented quite a bit before I was excited with the end result.

The beautiful ribbon is from Lovebug Creations. The color used on this heart is “Panther Pink“.

The quote “You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you”, was said by Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and is from one of my favorite romantic scenes ever!

Packaging up our swaps is always part of the fun and this is the lovely variety of homemade packaging that I received. I love all of it so much that I’m going to be putting it into an art journal.

The key to swap packaging is to make it pretty but to also keep in mind that it needs to be small since it’s going to be put into a box and shipped to the girls who live far away. I always struggle with this, since I want to make a big, grandiose presentation!

Here’s how the Valentine’s all look together. The ones near the top are from this year and the ones near the bottom are from the swap that Julie hosted last year. I love how they are all so different but really show the heart and soul of each artist who made them.

These are the sweet girls who made these beautiful hearts:

Julie Weller (Hostess with the Mostess)

Jeanine Stowe Weiss

Tanya Peacock

Lori Dams

Michelle Duke

Tashia Jacques

Teah Barrow

Candice Carpenter

Mary Hansen

Teresa Cook

Kathie LePage

Margie Rowles

Taffi Graham

Thank you, ladies, from the bottom of my heart for these beautiful Valentines. I adore each and every one of these and appreciate the time you took to create these gorgeous little works of art!

Thank you so much for stopping by! I’ll be posting pictures from my “Soldered Vintage Valentine Swap” and Andrea’s “Precious Heart Swap” later this week.

xo,

Christine Barker

Blog Hop: Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

24 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Blog Hop, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Glitter, Lovebug Creations, Mixed Media, Papercrafting

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

beautiful blooms, LOveBug Creations, Lovebug Creations Blog Hop, nosegay, paper cone, posy, ribbon, seam binding, tussie-mussie, tussy mussy, valentine, valentine ribbon, valentine tussy mussie, valentines day, valentines day crafts, Vintage valentine

Hello! Welcome to LoveBug Creations’ “Love’s Me, Love’s Me Knot” Blog Hop and New Release Event!

How much did you love Katie’s amazing Valentine project? If you got here from her blog, you’re in the right place. But, if you haven’t seen the other projects you may want to follow Cupid back to the beginning and go to the Lovebug Creations page.

Have you started working on your Valentine’s Day projects yet? Does the thought of Valentine’s tie you up in knots? Do you desire to create some beautiful Valentine cards and gifts? Don’t stress! You’re sure to get some inspiration from these projects and you can put your passion to work!

As you may have heard, Lovebug Creations has some gorgeous new ribbons and some Beautiful Blooms that match the ribbon so perfectly. And, did you see the “It’s a Bundle, Baby”? What a fabulous collection of products and they’re just perfect for your Valentine’s Day crafts, like cards, scrapbook pages, and mixed media art!

The New Love Products

1. Rumple Ribbon- The Loves Me…Love Me Knot Collection:

2. I Love Grunge

3. Simply Sheer

4. Beautiful Blooms

5. It’s a Bundle, Baby!!!

Lovebug Creations Mamas Mesh on wood background

This weekend ONLY Lovebug Creations is offering

“It’s a Bundle, Baby”
for just $35!

Here’s what’s included:

Everything you see above, which includes 45 Yards of Ribbon + 18 Blooms

1 yard of Mesh. Choose from: White, Pinkish/Purple, Red or Black

Free Shipping!

It’s a Bundle, Baby!

Now that you know all about the new products, I want to show you what I made with some of them!

I created a vintage-inspired Valentine Mussie-Tussie featuring some gorgeous Lovebug Creations Rumple Ribbon in “Kisses”, with a Beautiful Bloom, also in the color “Kisses”, adorning the center of the ribbon.

I gave this project a lot of sparkle with some clear glitter.

A little bit of vintage lace trim peeking out, plus vintage lace around the top of the cone.

Thank you so much for stopping by! And now you’ll be visiting Kathy to see what kind of adorable Valentine’s Day project she’s created!

With fondness,

Christine Barker

Kimi & Pamela- http://lovebugcreations3.blogspot.com

Stacey- http://staceyscreativecorner.blogspot.com

Dorcas- http://www.craftycardangel.com

Zeni- http://www.scrappyzeni.com

Stephanie- http://stephanie-eaken.blogspot.com

Tanya- http://www.scrappinkymomma.blogspot.com/

Kristi- http://littlepapersprinkles.blogspot.com

Connie- http://conniecancrop.blogspot.com

Dawn Mercedes- http://dawnmercedes.blogspot.com

Katie- http://www.craftykhandy.blogspot.com

Christine- https://scarletcalliope.wordpress.com

Kathy- http://kathyand3kids.blogspot.com

Dawn Rene- http://designsbydawnrene.com

Love begins at home, and it is not how much we do… but how much love we put in that action.
– Mother Teresa

Weathered Wood free image courtesy of http://texturepup.com

Swap: Winter Wonderland Soldered Ornament Swap

26 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by kryztyne2012 in Art and Crafting, Christmas and Holidays, DIY & Crafting, Mixed Media, Swap

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Alanna George, Ann Hammes, Carol Lucero, Carrie Harney, christmas swap, Debbi Wilcock, Hope Ellington, hosting a swap, jack a lope, jackalope, Jeanine Stowe Weiss, Julie Weller, Kadee Metzger, Linda Vinson, Lonnie Jenck, lori dams, Maija Lepore, michelle hurtt, Nicole Goodwin, Pam Munns, reindeer, Rochelle Gaukel, solder, soldered, soldering, Susan Bates-Bezek, vintage, Winter Wonderland Ornament Swap

After signing up for a couple Christmas ornament swaps this year, I wanted to add just one more! My friend, Pam Munns, and I worked out some plans for a soldered Christmas ornament swap. At first we were wondering if we could get 10 ladies to sign up, and imagine our surprise when we got 19 participants!

These are the guidelines we set up. “Winter Wonderland Swap: these soldered ornaments will be celebrating the beauty of winter in all of its gorgeousness! From icicles on trees, to snowflakes falling, to sweet little woodland creatures, this theme gives lots of room to create your favorite winter fantasy. Style can range from Antique Chic to Vintage Grandeur with the primary colors being white, silver, creams, and a hint of a muted winter color.”

Because we had such a great response to the swap sign ups, the ladies were split up into two groups so that we would each make 10 ornaments. I didn’t let any of the girls know which group they were in so there would be more of a surprise for them when they opened their boxes. But, the surprise was on me on sorting and packing day when I realized that I didn’t have ornaments from someone I thought was participating. After all of my careful planning and even working out the details on a spreadsheet, I overlooked a very important detail! At first I freaked out, thinking that I had misplaced her box of ornaments but after a phone call I realized that I had messed up and she never committed to joining the swap. How ridiculous am I? But, it all worked out in the end since I had already made an ornament for each lady, and I ended up as the lucky girl who got one of each ornament!

My ornament started out as an image of a vintage deer, but once my daughter, Savannah, saw it she said “what about a Jack-a-lope?” So I got to work in Photoshop, turning this vintage deer picture into a jack-a-lope, hanging above the fireplace.

Hanging on the mantel is an antique lace up boot stocking that I made for a Christmas stocking swap 2 years ago. There’s a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a swan planter next to the fireplace. I included some of my favorite things in my make-believe mansion living room, like a deer topiary, turquoise damask wall paper, a roaring fire, a Turkish rug and a cloche on the mantle.

For the other ornament, I created a smaller image featuring the Jack-a-lope picture.

I’m so happy to share these ornaments with you! From fancy to vintage, to all kinds of Winter themes and even an ornament that had special lighting effects, these ornaments are over the top gorgeous! From smooth solder to textured solder, and everything in between, I can’t believe the amazing range of styles and the incredible and overwhelming amount of talent we have in this swap. I’m so glad that Pam Munns talked me into hosting it and I’m so thankful to Julie Weller for hosting very successful swaps in the past that gave me a clue about how to host a swap.

Here are the names of the very talented soldering artisans:

Susan Bates-Bezek
Lori Dams
Hope Ellington
Rochelle Gaukel
Alanna George
Nicole Goodwin
Ann Hammes
Carrie Harney
Michelle Hurtt
Lonnie Jenck
Maija Lepore
Carol Lucero
Kadee Metzger
Pam Munns
Linda Vinson
Jeanine Stowe Weiss
Julie Weller
Debbi Wilcock

This ornament, made by Pam Munns, has a votive inside that lights up!

This was Julie’s first time, EVER, soldering. Awesome job!

Thank you, Ann, for this gorgeous hostess gift! I love it!

Carol, thank you so much for this gorgeous ornament prezzie!

ScarletCalliope Christine Barker Soldered

ScarletCalliope Christine Barker 2 Soldered

ScarletCalliope Hope Ellington 1 Soldered

Hope, this snowflake ornament prezzie is gorgeous and fits in perfectly with my snowflake theme this year!

This was also Jeanine’s first time soldering! Beautiful!

This image is of Linda’s actual cross stitch needlepoint ornament that she designs and sells patterns for. Amazing!

ScarletCalliope Rochelle Gaukel Soldered

ScarletCalliope Susan Bates Bezek Soldered

From the bottom of my heart, thank you, ladies, for joining in this swap and I look forward to hosting another soldered swap for you! (Waiting until next Christmas is way too long!)

xo,

Christine Barker