December 18, 2009

That’s my birthday.  I took a total break from all the have-to-do things of the holidays and celebrated the day to my choosing.  I have pictures to share of what I managed to accomplish!

First is my left hand warm up drawing from the morning…

Then because I was searching for something, that ended up with hours of cleaning in my sewing room…not that it needed it or something. lol!  I soon gave my attention to a piece of “paper cloth” I had made some time ago.  I found it in the piles I was looking through.  It’s called paper cloth because you  make it by adhering papers to cloth.  This particular piece I adhered papers to a product called do-sew (I think that’s what it’s called).  It’s used to cut dress patterns from.  It’s a thin woven product.  Because it was thin is why I wanted to use it as the base to make the paper cloth rather than muslin. My paper cloth actually ended up being quite sturdy.  I cut it in a 5 inch strip and layered it with batting and started stitching vines on it; when I got tired of that I threw some hearts in…then with a fabric marker, I “painted” the leaves and the hearts…

This folds in thirds and, after adding a felt strip on the inside, is now a needle holder.  Keeping track of needles can be daunting, but now with this very cute case, I think I can manage it.

There was enough paper cloth to make a…you guessed it…a cell phone pouch to hang from your neck!

The more I feel this “paper cloth” the more I am impressed with the sturdiness and feel of it.  I think there’s enough left that I could make a wallet if I wanted…yes, it’s that sturdy…almost feels like leather…

Even though I didn’t get any world-altering artwork done, I am pleased with the experiment with paper cloth…now I want to create more of it!

…And I did have shrimp and wine…

Let The Little Children Come…

I had a birthday Friday.  Yep, a week before Christmas…my birthday has always been on that day of the year.  I got a lot of interesting birthday cards, but I have to say I think this one took the cake.  This is the first time I ever got a hand made card from my nieces.  I was pretty impressed and touched. The envelope was addressed to “Aunt Kathy” (no last name)…good thing my address was on there. Take a look…one is a budding artist…she is always drawing and doodling something…and she’s pretty good at it too…”Happy Birthday Aunt Kathy and Merry Christmas”

I know those are presents on the left side and I’m not really sure what the drawing is on the right side of the page…

But it was the last page that really got me…

Cookies And Candy

I’ve been working on cookies and candy today.  Cut the fudge and package it, bake the sugar cookies and get ready to decorate them, dip the peanut butter balls in chocolate, dip pretzels, vanilla and chocolate, and bake the pan of brownies for the mint brownie.  So now I’m ready to decorate the sugar cookies…but…my decorating leaves something to be desired…this is supposed to be fun..but instead I’m frustrated…

Ugh…these don’t look so great…I need a cookie decorating lesson!  And I found one on the internet….I’m going to share it here because I thought you might like a cookie decorating lesson too!

So what do you think of my cookies cut like scissors and thimbles and spools of thread and a sewing machine? I could not find my holiday cutters anywhere in the house. Of course that might be because I stashed them in the sewing room to use for quilting designs since I never made cut cookies…til now.  I have two sets of these cutters left for sale if anyone is interested in a set…contact me.