Christmas Gifts

For the first time, I made soap and bath salts.  

These are Christmas gifts I made for my sewing group "Kneedlers".  

The group meets once a month to quilt ... by hand.  I guess you could say it is an old fashion Sewing Bee. Some of the ladies have finished two quilts already.  I am still working on mine. 

At the end of the year we have a potluck.  We all bring homemade goodies to share, plus our Christmas Gifts. The gifts do not have to be expensive or homemade.  It's just a way of sharing with each other and saying how much we appreciate one another.  

I decided on homemade Lavender soap and homemade Bath Salts.

Lavender Soap

Lavender Bath Salts

I had so much fun making these, that I'd like to try different fragrances and different types of soaps.  The soaps were made with an Aloe Vera Soap base.  

To finish off, I wrapped the gifts in paper bags and decorated them with a lace doily.  I added a Lavender Flower Pot cut-out with Lavender seed packets tuck inside.  I attached everything to the bags with a Lavender ribbon.

Altoid Tin

Can you guess what is inside?

I will not take credit for this because it was not my idea, but I thought it was a great one.  The sincerest form of flattery is to be inspire by someone.  I saw this on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's blog.  She shared how she made "her" little take along art kit.

Here's mine.

In my kit, I have watercolor paper, scissors, a water brush, pencil, eraser and watercolor paints.  I made mine to suit what I wanted.  You can made yours up any way that is best suited for you.

Here is a picture with everything tuck nicely inside.

Fold up my watercolor paper, put it in my purse or pocket and I am ready to go

Beads, Beads, Beads

Yesterday I took a paper bead class with Dee Rick. 

It was the last class in a series of three.  I learned to make beads starting from basis beginner to advance and then some.  

I have made beads in the past, but they were always your simple basic beads that we have seen a million times.  In these three classes, I learned a variety of different beads, from small to LARGE.  I learned to make tear drops, barrel, tube and double rolled beads.

I learn that your everyday paper is not the only thing you can use to mak beads, you can also use napkins, calendars, magazines, mailers and on and on and on.

Dee has a creative talent for making and designing paper beads.  If at all possible you should take a class from her.  She has so much to share.  She has some tutorials on her Facebook page, and you can buy beautiful paper she designs from her Etsy Shop.  She also has lots of pre-made beads to choose from too.

Blue Twig Studio

I am one of the Design Team Members for Blue Twig Studios.  Deb Prewitt, CZT, is owner of Blue Twig Studio, located in the beautiful state of Colorado.   As a Design Team Member, I was sent a goodie bag of Faber-Castell products.  I was to come up with a tutorial using these products.

Here is the end product from by goodie bag:

You can see the tutorial on how to make this here, and there is a list of all the products used.  You can also purchase any of the products used at Blue Twig Studio.  Other tutorials to watch?  "Skeleton Leaves", by Joy Hellman.

ZIA

Designing  this card was not only fun, but easy.  I used the Zentangle Pattern, "Nzepple" to get it started.  I wanted to do something with this, but was not quite sure what to do.  We create our Zentangle tiles and sometimes wonder, "Now what?"  

I have a friend who does party themes and creates digital images which she sells on her Etsy Shop.  I sent this over to her to have her do something with this:

And this is what she came up with:

She not only made a card for me, but a seal for the envelope too.  See the comparison?

 But wait!  There's more!  

She also made me some party favors to go with my invitations.

Cupcake Toppers

Bottle Wraps

I just love how she kept the Party theme a Zentangle theme, using black and white.  Did you notice how she changed the designs, every so slightly, by adding dots to some and not to others?

ZenDoodle: Oodles of Doodles

A new book from Northlight Books is coming out next month titled, "ZenDoodles:  Oodles of Doodles", which I am one of the spotlight artist.  Some of my ZIAs (Zentangle Inspired Art) is on the front cover.  I can hardly wait.  I have not yet seen the book, so I am looking forward to receiving a copy.

You can purchase and read more about the book here.  To get a sneak preview you can take a look see here, and also purchase the book here as well.  There are lots of ZenDoodles to see and try.  There are Oodles of Doodles ;-)

Crochet Rock

Crochet Rock?

I don't know if it's a new craze or if it had been around for awhile, but I just recently found out about these crochet rocks.  There really isn't a crochet pattern for these, because each one is different.  It took me two days to finally figure what to do.  Whew!

Top side

Basically, you start off with a simple pattern, crocheting in the round.  As your pattern grows, you start to shape it to the rock until you form the crochet pattern around the rock.

Underneath side

When you are on the underneath side of the rock, you then have to continue to crochet with the rock inside, to keep it from slipping out.  Not an easy thing to do.  But, in the end, I think it turned out quite well.  I will be doing more of these, now that I have gotten the hang of it. 

Possibly Christmas gifts?

Fall Leaft

Having fun with fall leaves yesterday at the ARTbar.  We took some leaves and traced around them on watercolor paper.  We then water colored within the line with Twinkling H20s and used the different colors as our strings.  Now comes the fun part.  What to tangle?  

TANGLED FALL LEAF

Using the color as our strings was so much fun.  Picking and choosing what tangles to use within each color inspired the creativity inside.  I love how my fall leaf looks.  I love the uniqueness of it too.  I can do this 100 times and each time it will be different.

Since my leaf was done on a folded piece of watercolor paper, I think I might turn this into a cover for a journal and journal all my Autumn thoughts.  Although here in California it is still in the 80s, I can image, can't I?