a little Xmas recap

did you all have a good christmas?

if you don't celebrate christmas, did you have a good every-damn-store-except-the-asian-market-is-closed day?


mine was pretty lowkey, just my immediate family. we ate good food, had naps, ate more food, and so on. i did get a couple of fun quilty gifts - two books from my sister and cash from my parents to buy the Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets fq bundle. i ordered that last night, since it was sold out almost everywhere already!


(excuse the slightly blurry instagram picture, i'm still figuring this phone out. but hey!! i'm finally on instagram!!
)

both of the books are super inspiring - Modern Designs for Classic Quilts: 12 Traditionally Inspired Patterns Made New by Kelly Biscopink and Andrea Johnson totally makes me want to dig out my favourite bright prints and get started, and Quilting Line and Color: Techniques and Designs for Abstract Quilts by Yoshiko Jinzenji is giving me a million ideas for directions to take my art quilts.


but i won't! cause i am MASSIVELY behind on everything. the next few weeks will be all about bee blocks and an upcoming swap package.



speaking of swaps, i made this little ornament for the FVMQG december meeting. i had plans to make a bunch, and maybe even do a tutorial, but that obviously didn't happen. maybe next year.



everyone who wanted to participate brought a handmade ornament, and we hung them on this fabulous fabric tree panel that Lysa brought. there were so many awesome ornaments! i hope someone got a shot of the tree once they were all hung, i was so impressed by the variety.



isn't it cute? i love the chevron it makes!



did you have a good holiday? did you get any quilty goodies? have you entered my birthday giveaway? there's still time!

halloween trees - spooky and sparkly

first off, this weekend was AMAZING. i'll post more about it once i have time to edit photos and write everything up, but Trish was a wonderful teacher, and there are so many incredible things that you can do with encaustics. i have a million ideas running around in my head, of course, the day before i go to pick up my new embroidery machine and software! too much inspiration at the same time. it's too bad it can't be bottled and kept in reserve.

in the meantime, halloween is getting closer and closer, so i thought i'd post another halloween project.

trees!

i saw a variation on these in a christmas magazine, and immediately thought "white?! they'd look even better in black!"




i did mine a little bit differently. i used 3/4" dowels, because that's what i had, and i painted them after i drilled them. i can't imagine painting them first, as they chipped/splintered a bit when they were drilled, and i had to sand them smooth. you'd just have to repaint them anyway. i also didn't make my trees as tall, i cut the dowels at random lengths.





and instead of the foam in an urn base, i used blocks and triangles that were leftovers from a recent project. i drilled a hole in each block with a 3/4" drill bit, and the dowels fit in nicely. after i painted them, i used white glue to coat each edge lightly, and pressed them into black glitter.



i used a spray adhesive to apply the glitter, and that made them look a little more matte than i'd like. i think i'm going to spray them again with a gloss, to bring out the glitter, and to help it stay on. but i like them.



and i can't wait to make a tall silver one for xmas!

christmas part 2 - the big tree!

i've been collecting vintage glass ornaments for years and years now. even the years that i didn't put my tree up, i still collected the ornaments. i went through them about 5 years ago, weeding out the generic plain ones, because i was approaching multiple rubbermaid bins full of them!

this year was the first year that i've been able to do a tree with JUST the vintage ornaments, and i love how it worked out! (the garland wasn't vintage, but it WAS thrifted - the boxes it came in shows that it was from costco. i paid $1.50 each for two boxes)



this is actually a new tree, because mine was somehow lost after i moved back in with my parents. dad borrowed it for work, and nobody knows where it went after that!

i decided to get one with the lights on it, just cause it would be less work, but i didn't realize that they weren't LED until later. i should've known, it was too cheap for LED, but it was still very pretty all lit up.






i have that tree one in multiple colours. they must have been really common, because i didn't buy them all together.


i love the blue star one, i have 4 of those.


the one on the bottom left is definitely the biggest on the tree!


i love the pear shaped one on the top left.




this tree topper is actually plastic. i was so sure that i used to have several glass toppers, but maybe i gave them away when i pared down the collection.


the long blue one was a splurge at a vintage store in november. i had a crappy day, and saw it in the window. i have plenty of long ones, but this is the first i've seen shaped like this, with ridges.


the pear shaped one again, though slightly washed out.

i managed to score a white tree on boxing day this year, so i'm thinking that next year the vintage ornaments will all go on a white tree with white led lights. won't they pop wonderfully?

christmas, part 1 - the bathroom!

i loooove christmas. i hate the crowds, the shopping malls, the stress, the rampant christianity, etc, but i love the glitter and glam, the memories and traditions, and spending time with loved ones. and turkey and stuffing, of course!

i haven't been able to decorate much the last few years because i didn't have the space, so i decorated A LOT this year.

since i went just a teensy bit overboard with xmas decorating, i'm going to split the pics up into a few posts.

the first place i decorated was my bedroom, and i posted pics of that tree back in december.

next up was my bathroom, all in shades of purple

i found some ribbon at the $ store and used it as garlands over my jewelery storage.


i used tinsel garland on the mirror, the only place where it wouldn't touch the painted walls - i learned the hard way years ago that garlands sometimes bleed when exposed to the steamy heat of a bathroom!


i used the same ribbon again over the toilet, with a glittery lavender bow in the centre.


the frame is a vintage one that i painted with krylon (the purple frames were what inspired the bathroom colour scheme in the first place), and the mirrored purple candleholders are from the $store.


across from the toilet wall, i hung a lavender glittered snowflake, and a small lavender crocheted snowflake, on the medicine cabinet. i dyed bottlebrush trees to sit beside a small purple chest that holds q-tips.


close up of the trees


and below the medicine cabinet, there was the tree


the pink tree came from daiso, it was $5.50 (i <3 daiso!) i searched for a purple tree for a while before finding this pink one. i did find a purple tinsel tree later for $15.00, but it was too bright anyway....



i used some of the same ribbon as garland again, and added a few glittery purple balls that my ex left behind, a few regular sized purple glass balls, and then a package of matte and shiny little lavender balls that i bought at zellers (kinda like a cross between target and kmart). they're "alfred sung", ohh la la!


and of course, a tree topper. a fabulous glittery be-feathered bird clip.


i added a bit of glittery goodness to the closet as well -


the glittery picks came from micheals, and matched perfectly!

and the finishing touch was the doily wreath i made. i dyed the doilies using the same dye as the bottle brush trees, and then molded them into a wreath shape.


i took pictures as i went along, so i'll post them soon!


and that was the bathroom!