Joyce's Ephemera

I was delighted to have lunch with my friend Joyce the other day. I hadn't seen her in such a long time. We met when Linda still had Las Vegas Art Stamps in a Julianna Coles class. Imagine my surprise when we found out we both were from within miles of each other in small town Illinois. She even lived in my little hometown for a awhile. At lunch she brought me this bag of ephemera for altered art making. It was filled with such fun, cool stuff. Thanks, Joyce!

Angela's Valentine

A big thank you to my crafty friend Angela, who mailed me this cute as a button Valentine canister for Valentine's Day (just behind on posting). It was wonderfully decorated and contained many, many Valentine Day themed things to use in altered art. Hooray for Valentine's!

Valentine Charm Exchange

Yesterday, I spent some time putting together my charm bracelet from our group's most recent exchange. I had a blast really looking at what everyone had put together with each and every charm. I put the bracelet on some of the cards that people had their charms on to give you some idea as to how cool these really all were. Thank you fellow charmers!

Valentine Charm Exchange

Tonight is the valentine charm exchange with the jewelry group. I'm very excited to see what everyone has created. I was inspired by the conversation hearts that have been around for years in the candy isle come Valentine season. I had the "regular" conversation hearts then Mandy brought me some from Fredrick's of Hollywood so I couldn't resist making a few with those as well. This charm is from that collection and was dropped in ice resin. The red heart necklace is made with ice resin as well but I just added a little bit of red colorant to it.

A Prompt a Day - Hero

Last month I joined a prompt a day led by Kelly Kilmer and I didn't complete a single prompt. I printed them all out for what it's worth. So this month I decided to try again and am really making an effort to try to do some of the prompts. This is the journal prompt for February 1st.

Christmas in Illinois

Here are some pictures taken over Christmastime in Illinois. I couldn't resist posting them and showing off my little nieces and nephew!

Me and my mom and dad on Christmas.

My brother, Chris a.k.a proud dad, with Ethan 8 months old.

The girls Clara (3) Bailey (7) trying to look mean with their new pink cap guns.

Nothing compares to growing up on a farm!

My sister-in-law Amanda with my brother and Ethan

Felting Fun

This weekend I went to Maurine's house for the first time to learn how to felt. I had a great time meeting Maurine and enjoyed all of her wonderful hospitality. She also has some amazing looms one of which is computer manipulated. This is a felt bead that I made that day that I glued onto a ring base. I haven't strung the necklace or bracelet yet but isn't this ring too cute! What was so funny about this whole process was that Maurine had cards to use on the wool for another project. They looked just like the cards that you use on actual sheep. For those of you who don't know I showed sheep from age 8-18 in 4-H. Then we washed the wool in Ivory soap which is exactly what you wash sheep in to make them really white and pretty for the fair. It really made me chuckle.