Crafty Christmas Project!

While in Vancouver for Thanksgiving, I got an opportunity to visit my FAVORITE STORE OF ALL TIME!  (ok - I begged Casey to take me AND I should clarify that it's my favorite craft store of all time - Anthropologie is my ultimate favorite....)  ;)
Anyhow, Casey took me to Craft Warehouse!  It's basically like Michael's BUT better!  There's fabric and decorating ideas and tons of scrapbooking and jewelry making supplies - unbelievable.  What I love best is they show so many examples of things to do!  For example, with the display of glass blocks they'll have 2-3 glass blocks that they've used stencils and twinkle lights to show you ideas of how to use them!  It's fantastic!  The only bad thing is trying to find time and money to do all of the ideas yourself!  I did treat myself to some things - one idea was to take cardboard cones and make Christmas trees using looped scrapbook paper - here's how the project turned out:

I painted the three 'trees' brown but the example at the store was painted green.  I picked brown because of the color scheme of the scrapbooking paper that I chose.  (My Mind's Eye - "Believe")

Some of the lovely scrapbooking paper... reds, muted greens, aqua, brown

Next, I cut the paper into strips about 1 inches wide, then cut them lengthwise about 4 inches long

then I folded those in half and stapled them - I used this size of 'bough' for 90% of the tree

then using my trusty glue gun, I glued each bough in rows - changing up colors and papers (each scrapbook page was double-sided with a different print)

adding more rows...

...and more

for the top of the tree I curled a strip of the cut paper to make a point - this part was tricky...

hard to see but the top few rows I cut each bough in half lengthwise to make them skinner - easier to glue around the top part of the tree as it got more narrow.  Then at the top I wrapped a strip or two more around to cover the top boughs.  (rather than stapling the more narrow boughs, I glued the loops together then glued them onto the tree)

The finished project!!!  I ended up with two on my mantle and one on a shelf in our dining room - they look fantastic!  I'm really happy with the colors - so festive in a different color scheme than traditional bright red and kelly green.

GORGEOUS diaper bag heading to San Diego!

Just finished this gorgeous diaper bag for a good friend in San Diego.  She's giving it to her friend who's pregnant and due in February.  I knew I wanted to get it all finished before Christmas - always that much more fun to get an unexpected gift for the holiday!  The friend picked out this fabric through Hawthorne Threads (www.hawthornethreads.com) which is the website that I direct most people to who are interested in picking out fabrics for a custom bag.  The site has great prices but it is also organized in such a way that it's fun and easy to find LOVELY fabrics that are perfect for whatever project you're working on!  This fabric is called "Dagmar Floral in Teal and Grey" and it is an Alexander Henry fabric.  I ordered it first and then took it to a local quilting shop to find the perfect coordinating fabric.  It was tougher than I thought to find the 'perfect' match... what I thought of as mustard yellow has some green in it and the rusty brown is just that - rusty!  I ended up with a charcoal grey subtle print as it matched perfectly with the grey accents in the floral.  I also purchased an awesome Joel Dewberry called "Acorn Chain in Pond" from the collection "Modern Meadow".  I used it in a subtle way - lining the pockets!  It's just like having a bright red satin lining to an overcoat - an unexpected punch of color!  What do you think?

Many More Owls!

I created a few more owls prior to last week's Holiday Bazaar - although a few were purchased there, I still have some left and am hoping to get them into my Etsy shop shortly!  Here's a preview: