Sunday, January 29, 2017

Egg gathering apron!

I have a friend who is kind of a "princess" and he's having a birthday.  He has chickens and he loves loves loves his chickens.  He loves collecting their eggs.  So why not make him a egg collection apron!
I searched Pinterest and Etsy to get some ideas on how to sew one up.  Here's the Youtube video I watched to get idea how to make the apron https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCOEYO8ZchE.  I bought some white aprons awhile ago and dug them out.  White simple full size apron = perfect!

I headed to the fabric store and was disappointed to find only ONE  fabric with a rooster on it, no chickens anywhere!  Didn't expect that.  Now since it's going to be a "princess egg collection" apron I needed some glitter and embellishments. I found this great perfect shade of pink glittery fabric the perfect "princess" iron-on.

Lucky I had some T-shirt transfer paper!


I searched the Internet for a chicken image to iron-on the apron.  (Original image is "Madonna and Egg - Ursnlav/Divantart)  I deleted  the background and enhanced the colors.  Printed it up on the transfer paper and cut the image out.  Ironed it on the apron.


The strips are 72 cm x 12 cm to make the pockets, cut 2 strips for 10 pockets total.  


I cut the glitter fabric into 6 cm strips to use as the trim on the top of the pockets.



I pinned the pockets at the pencil marks to make the pleats.  I pressed them to make it easier to baste in place.

I pressed all the edges to make it easier to sew in place on the apron.  The tutorial actually make a half apron and the pockets were measured to fit the width of the apron so I ended with the edges just being tiny slot pockets...maybe for a pencil or snacks for the chickens?


So here's how the iron-on image and princess embellishment turned out.  I say the perfect "chicken princess egg collector" apron!


Final product!!!  OMG I love how it turned out!


Princess loved his new egg collecting apron!  He really did even though he's not smiling.




Thursday, January 26, 2017

Gingerbread houses

The past several years I have decorated sugar cookies with some of my favorite little friends.  It's always way fun.  This year I decided to make mini graham cracker gingerbread houses to decorate.  I added another set of kids to the mix this year, too.  Overall, the decorating turned out to be just as much fun as cookie decorating.

I didn't have the patience to use royal frosting to "glue" the houses together, so I used a glue gun!  It worked perfectly and was so quick.


Cutting rectangles into triangles isn't so easy.  Lots of broken pieces!
My first completed house.  I thought it was kinda boring so mixed up the roofs

Addison is busy decorating her house.  The icing in a capped bottle wasn't working to well so we used a skewer to put the icing on the candy pieces...worked perfectly.
Addison & Olivia, Kailey and Avery showing off their masterpieces!  

They did a great job on their houses.  I had so much fun and we'll be doing this again.


I set up another gingerbread house decorating party.  I learned from the first party smaller pieces of candy and mini size cookies worked so much better and I bought icing in tubes and that worked even better.  Made my prep time less time consuming and easier for the kids to use.

This is Kail, Kalon and Reagan working on their houses!

Kalon was very determine to get his skittles to stick!
They did a wonderful job on their houses!





Wednesday, January 25, 2017

First Fridays

I hadn't been to a First Friday in a long time.  One First Friday was in the Phoenix Roosevelt area and the other was in the Grand Avenue area.  The Roosevelt area was a little disappointing from what I remember.  The whole area has changed, lots of buildings and traffic flow has changed.  Last time I was in the Roosevelt district the road was closed off so foot traffic was down the center of the street.  This time Roosevelt street was so busy with cars and kept the foot traffic on the sidewalks...way busy and crowded.  Not as many galleries as I remember.    The Grand Avenue area was fun but galleries were far apart.  Ended up at Third Space for drinks!  There was so much art, jewelry, exhibits, mixed media pieces, and painted art I wish I could of photographed it all.  I always love seeing such creative souls and definitely get inspiration and motivation to keep creating!
 I put a hummingbird feeder outside my office window and I have two beautiful tiny hummingbirds visit me all day long.  Finding this art piece was so perfect.

I like this way to display photos and art pieces.

Crochet covered tree, how cool is this.  A number of trees along Grand Avenue were covered in crocheted yarn.

Love the frog and owl print.  Artist unknown

Art exhibit along Roosevelt - Artist unknown




These are pieces were so neat and large.  I didn't find out who the artist was.  This was in a hair salon along Grand Avenue.

This of the bean in Chicago.  This piece is so neat, it's using pieces of paper to make the image.  Way cool in person to be able to see the details.


Details of the tags.  Amazing work

So creative!  This are large to small metal trays!  I'm in love with this shade of blue.

Random heart on the sidewalk to end the evening.

Monday, January 23, 2017

Monday thoughts...

My thoughts..... Woman's March on January 20th, a Saturday.  It was chilly and windy.  They expected a crowd of 5000, but they got much more than that....20,000+   
Before that day I was feeling frustrated and worried about so many issues.  Don't get me wrong I'm still concerned about those issues.

I was so inspired by all the people involved in the Woman's March.  Men, Women, Kids, Grandma's, Millenniums, Latinas, African-Americans, Native-Americans, all ethnicities, all religions, it included everyone!  When I looked into the crowd no one was excluded.  So different from what I have seen in in the new White House and his cabinet nominees.

I'm not mad he's president.  I'm mad at his policies, I'm mad at his cabinet selections, I'm mad at  his policy for Dreamers, I'm mad at his denial of global warming, I'm mad at his view on woman's wage equality,  I'm mad at his push on changing reproductive rights, I'm mad he's lacking diversity on his selections, No Latinos at all.  I understand why some people are not concerned...they don't feel left out .... white men and women are surely represented in the new White House.  Personally, I don't feel represented in the new White House.

The best thing about the march on Saturday was it gave me back my HOPE.  When this many people came out all over the country and in the world in support of all the issues I'm concerned about, it overwhelmed me with HOPE and LOVE TRUMPS HATE.  I was completely represented on Saturday, January 20, 2017... Thank you, I know I am not alone and I will not be silent alone.

Love, Love Love!
Exactly my thoughts
Pink hats!



Marching!
It was reported 3.3 million marched in 500 cities across America.  I love America!

Monday, January 16, 2017

Monday thoughts....

Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day

I don't think he would be happy about the current situation in the United States. 
I also don't think he would quit and be silent.  Gotta believe in a dream.


Sunday, January 15, 2017

2016 Christmas card.

This year's card started off with an idea to use my dogs in a mixed media collage thing.  I knew I wanted to include my dogs on the card.  I went out and took their photos.  My dogs are pretty used to having their photos taken.  My fat dog, Winston doesn't like posing for me, so his photo is always so serious looking.  I removed the background so I could place them on any background.  Instead I printed and cut them out and decided to make a canvas art piece.  
Bella girl 

Maximus

Winston "fat boy"

Started with a canvas I bought at thrift store.  I covered it with plaster a few months ago so it was the perfect surface to use.  I got out some paint and just splashed it on randomly.




You can see the texture the plaster gave the surface.



I wanted to embellish the dogs with hats and Winston got antlers and red nose.



I found some paper trees in my stash box from last year's christmas crafts.  Just played with placement.


Added more texture...snowflakes punched from different papers...  I found a vintage christmas postcard, too.  I rubbed some burnt umber to the edges giving it a aged look.


As you can see the dogs got hats, Winston go antlers, the paper trees got glittery stars, at a glass charm and few more paper items.


This is the final art piece.  I added a banner I cut with my new Cricut and added handwritten Merry Christmas.  I added a New Year's banner and it was missing something so I added a metal heart and the wings from my "brokenwing" logo.


I took a photo of the canvas and printed photo of it.  I mounted the photo on brown paper and added twine to the final card.
 The nice thing about this year's card is I have a fabulous art piece to hang on the wall!