Holiday Elf Invasion

Well, it seems that holiday elves have invaded our house...and my art studio, so holiday fun and creativity is bursting out all over...

with  a little help from my friends (er..I mean the elves..)....I have created these Brooches...now for sale at my Etsy store here! Brooches make great holiday gifts for that special person in your life...

Each one is unique and all handsewn---with beadwork and embroidery.

 quite bit of variety since I just start with a vintage button or postage stamp and let that lead me...I sure had a good time creating these. Of course I have a few more at my shop that I am not showing here--so do go and check them all out!

Owls for the Holidays!

 I have  a thing for owls; not sure why. Owls are also very trendy right now, go figure. Here are some I created recently. These are all for sale at my Etsy shop Borealis Beads so if you like them, do check out my shop! The one above is a brooch or pin. Created with felt, vintage mother-of-pearl button eyes, and bead embroidery.

These two are embroidered with cotton floss on white cotton --- in wooden embroidery hoop frames. These would be cute in a child's room!

Of flowers and frogs

Lately I have been real busy with designing for my classes at the California School of Professional Fabric Design where I am "master" student---in my last class, and hopefully close to finishing.

Consequently, I haven't been doing much sewing or beading---only knitting--since it is easily transportable. At least that is what I have been telling myself---but when I got busy and really cleaned and organized my crafting studio space---suddenly I found myself sewing up a little project I had been wanting to try for months! So here is to organized studio space (!) and spring flowers....

a spring flower ! created from some ribbons, vintage button, beads....


and this flower using a vintage hanky and vintage button

these are a (surprise!) gift for one of the faithful attenders of my monthly Needlework Salon---she makes fabulous knit & felted hats---which these will trim nicely. She made the soon-to-be grandbaby these fun froggy felted booties--sized to fit a new born, aren't they fun?

the PEACE SIGN turns 50!

CREATIVE EVERY DAY!

Last week the venerable PEACE SIGN turned 50. "First displayed on home-made banners and badges in London on February 21, 1958, to mark the launching of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the Peace Sign turns 50." Too find out more about who designed the PEACE SIGN and learn about the 50 year history of the PEACE SIGN---I direct you to the excellent website HAPPY BIRTHDAY PEACE.COM.

I stumbled across this site early last week, and ended up using it in our Quaker Meeting's First Day School primary class--we all created our own PEACE SIGNS. We started with a paper plate, and colored or painted or embellished the PEACE SIGN any way we wanted. The children mostly painted or drew on their PEACE SIGNS. I decided to sew buttons on mine--soon the kids were helping to pick out the buttons from the 2 boxes of buttons I had brought, and sewing some buttons on their own PEACE SIGNS. This is a great fun project with primary age kids---little ones can help choose the buttons to use, while older ones can sew them onto the the paper plate template. I cut the PEACE SIGN out of the paper plate before I started sewing the buttons on. We all learned about who designed the first PEACE SIGN, and talked about what Peace meant to each of us.

Tutorial conglomeration!

For months I have been bookmarking online tutorials of wonderful creative crafty projects I want to make...some day....
so here is a short list of a few crafts to make in the New Year:


1) Very Easy Pincushions here from the Purl Bee---the Purl Bee is the online journal of PURL, a shop devoted to beautiful materials and tools for knitting, sewing, quilting and other crafts located in New York. They have a whole lot more great tutorials on their blog---but this one first caught my interest.


2) tiny happy's shoulder bag tutorial---I make my own bags--but I have wanted to try this style for awhile.

3) A pretty crochet flower tutorial from the blog Echoes of a Dream---I can think of many uses for these !





Rick Rack Roses from the blog Nostalgic Needle Art. Wouldn't these make cool additions to a hat?










4) A great tutorial for a button bracelet at the blog Creative Kismet. I love vintage buttons---and have made some bracelets and necklaces with them, but this is a great tutorial---with good illustrations---for a pretty bracelet of buttons which lies flat around your wrist.












5) A luggage tag tutorial from My Longest Year---just a decorative tag to help identify your luggage as it passes by on the conveyor belt....


I guess 5 projects should start the year of 2008 off just fine...more to follow soon!

The Elves are sewing !

The elves created this holiday ornament---yes, a small button wreath.










And I have been sewing and created few fun aprons for special gifts. I was much inspired by this book---which is a real treasure!


So here is a Holiday apron! with rickrack trim....



and here is a bib apron--with vintage hankies for the pockets....for this bib apron I just copied an old one I had that my dear departed mother-in-law made years ago......


I used a vintage button for trimming the neck strap---isn't this fun a retro fabric print? and brown is such a practical color for an apron...

and a brown vintage hankie for the pockets...