Some New Etsy Items

Still waiting on this little mouse to make her appearance! Can't wait to meet her and end the anticipation. Meanwhile I have been furiously making new pieces in anticipation of being creatively brain dead for a while. Here are some of the new pieces!

Pink and clear. Love this one!

A new bezel that allows the paper to show what is behind the pendant. These will show the color of your clothing or your skin. I've been having fun with some summer colors!

Copper and bronze teardrop.

Another lime and icy white. The white is hard to see, but is really pretty and shimmery.



Antique Album

I came across these albums at the last Renningers and knew I had to have them. I love old photos and since they are so treasured to me I cannot comprehend someone getting rid of old family albums! Not to mention the inherent beauty that comes from the graphics on these pages. I mean, do you ever see anything like this anymore? Oh well, I guess one mans trash...

Gold edged pages make my heart beat faster...

The leather covers!

Did I mention the covers?

What a beautiful way to start a family album!

Who are you? What is your story?

I promise to respect these people and their lives.

Wordless Wednesday

Sophie's Nursery Part 2

Here are the remaining pictures of Sophie's room!

An old ammo crate that my father made into shelves for me when I was in college. It has been with me in every house since! The "love" is painted driftwood.

I painted these bottles aqua, white and gold and a dear friend made me these crepe flowers that sit inside. 

A little mushroom pincushion from Foxtail Creek Studio, she does amazing work!

A little vintage basket with paper mushrooms.

Vintage thread.

I made the "S" and purchased the print from The Wheatfield.

Well I think that does it! I hope you enjoyed my tour. We can't wait to meet our little sweet girl. We are almost ready for her!

Sophie's Nursery Part 1

Not that pictures of my daughter's nursery really needs two posts, but I guess I went a little picture crazy. Plus I made a couple things for her room that take some extra explaining. The natural light is not great in her room, but hope you enjoy!

Sophie's crib has been in my family for over 60 years. It was given to my father's parents as a gift for their new baby, my Uncle Al and since then, 18 of our babies have had sweet dreams in here including my father, myself and Elise. I love the history and the beautiful hand painted graphics on the side. It has the wear of a treasured heirloom and I feel lucky Sophie will also sleep in it.  

Above her bed is a collaged picture that I made and her mobile is paper mache boats.

The boats were made from this pattern and beautiful inspiration. They hang from driftwood picked up in Costa Rica. They were so fun to make!

An antique mirror picked up at Renningers Antique Fair with a feather garland with a pattern from 100 Layer Cake. I decided to dye the tips of the feathers to make kind of an ombre effect, but it is difficult to see from the pictures. They turned out pretty nice though.

Handpainted sweet babies...

 

More tomorrow!

Instagram Fun!

Earlier in the week I Pinned this article and it inspired me to create a couple of pictures in instagram that have two filters. Here is what I came up with:

I first took a picture with my camera and then uploaded it to instagram in airplane mode. I filtered with rise first, saved that pic and then uploaded it again and re-filtered with amaro. I like the way they turned out and am excited to experiment with this a little more!

Playing With Photoshop

I purchased photoshop elements a couple of months ago to  help improve my post processing of my photos. I have only barely scratched the surface, but am loving a couple of new techniques I have recently learned. Digital brushes are my new obsession! Here are two (of the same) pics that blew my mind. I had so much fun deciding what colors/textures I wanted the writing to be. 

We took these at Weeki Wachee as a last semi-big family outing before Sophie, plus the crystal clear 72 degree water was quite possibly heaven on earth for a seriously pregnant woman. I purchased the digital brush from Studio Calico and used color burn on the writing. I had no idea it could do these types of photo alterations and I can't wait to play some more. I just want to print them an see how they turn out!

Anyway, thanks for humoring me!

Wordless Wednesday

I love this when others do it, so I thought I would give it a shot. Without further words:

Some New Etsy Items

This may be the last batch of items that come before our new bundle of joy. I have a couple more in the works, but we will have to see when this little one makes an arrival! Last week I felt great but if you asked me today I would tell you she could come any minute. I feel tired yet I can't sleep, bloated and have an upset stomach. I am 37 weeks and all my "projects" have been completed for Sophie's nursery so I guess you could say we are ready for this little one to make an arrival. Although I don't think you can ever be ready for a newborn. It's kind of like hold on for the ride. If you don't hear from me for a while, you'll know why.

Anyway, here goes:

Each piece is made of resin cast from actual gemstones. I color and resin them like a cabochon into a brass bezel. Some get vintage paper behind them, others get metallic thread and other items. These are so much fun! Hope you like them.

etsy about page

I have been working on updating my about page on esty and I took some pictures of my favorite items. After some trial and error, here is what I came up with:

Vintage thread, brooch, resin gemstone (my work), token & coin slot.

Plastic horses, more resin gemstones & a token.

Druzy & quartz.

Religious medal, tin box & brass case.

These are some of my favorite items! I collect everything from vintage papers, brass boxes, buttons, metallic thread and just about anything with a patina!

New Business Cards

I purchased some items from this seller on etsy and this is the design she came up with. I love it and my cards finally came the other day so I had to snap a couple pics of my snazzy new cards.

The Doll House Before

So, I was inspired on pinterest by this blog post on decorating your own doll house. Since I saw it a while ago I have been scouring antique and thrift stores for a good house. It had to be substantial since both Elise and Sophie will be playing with it, yet not huge because well, who wants a monster dollhouse in their living room? I finally found this at an antique store in Tarpon Springs a couple of weeks ago and I have been working on it furiously ever since. Please forgive the lighting and terrible quality in this picture, I cannot move it by myself and I couldnt wait for my husband to get home to help me. Plus if I told him I needed better lighting for a picture he would have killed me. I made him move it 3 times already...

It was made by a father for his daughter and it is now a bright white with blue trim and roof. It will need a base on wheels (thanks hubby) and lots of colorful wallpaper. I have been working on it furiously because I know that if I wait until Sophie is born I will never finish by Christmas. I have been walking around with white paint in my hair for days- do you have any idea how hard it is to paint the inside of a tiny house when you are almost 9 months pregnant? (for any of you wondering- I was using a non toxic paint)

More pictures to come soon!

Mother's Day Roses

I just wanted to share with you some pictures I recently took of my Mother's Day flowers. My sweet husband got me a beautiful rose bush and citrus tree for my second Mother's Day and when we had tropical storm Debby come through it was blooming like crazy. I brought some in to enjoy and couldn't help snapping some pictures of the stems.

These vintage flutes were purchased as centerpieces in our wedding. We bought tons of them at thrift shops and these were a couple that we decided to keep. I love them, they are a perfect tarnished silver and the glasses has the most  beautiful etchings on them. 

Sunlit rose...sigh.

French Vintage Metallic Thread

I mentioned in a previous post that I was slightly obsessed with this French metallic thread I recently found through Tinsel Trading. Well I ordered some more and ended up with 12 new spools! The spools are smaller than I anticipated but I will have more than I know what to do with! Here is a little eye candy of what I ended up with.

Bright colors...

dreamy silvers...

and golds mixed with multis. Oh, I can't wait to use them all. They are delicate and oh so perfect.