Christmas Q

We will be decorating our tree tomorrow so I made this little ornament for my little grandbaby's first Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving!

There are so many things I am thankful for ... family, friends and that we finally found that dang turkey!

I believe :))

And the winner is Mavis!

A Christmas ornament, the rectangle part measures 2 inches by 1 ½ inches. I made several of these for an ornament swap I am in.

Gettin Junkie

 

Now that I have my soldering iron and a few tools, I wanted to try something more artsy fartsy … lol I want it to be something weathered and rusty … something that is totally outside my comfort zone. But where do you find the junk! I tried the local building salvage and everything I found there was too big. The antique stores want to much so I turned to the thrift stores. The problem with them is that anything junky they throw out because they don’t think it will sell. So as I was digging through the good stuff and I came across this little candle holder …. and it hit me… I could take it apart and rust those leaves. Then I found one of those cheep vanity mirrors with the lacy metal edge. Well I am gonna take that apart and rust it too. I guess this is a good first step … to start looking at things just a little different.

Wrapped up

Just some little gold wire wrapped earrings I made and gave away for blog candy. 

Christmas Eve House

Ok … the little house … or church you all have been waiting for…this is my first attempt at soldering something dimensional…it was a learning experience for sure! But for my first one, I am pleased. I put a little battery powered tea light inside it and it looked great but it did not picture well. The battery tea light is smokeless so you don’t have to worry about having a way for the smoke to escape or it getting to hot, yet you still have the ambiance. I will have the kits for this and for one that doesn’t have such a steep roof available soon. I will also have the house shapes to sandwich images between. Smaller houses for charms will come with the small circles when the thinner glass arrives. They have to be made from the thinner glass.

I am calling it my Christmas eve house as that is the big day in our family. That is the day we have a huge party, open our gifts and Santa comes :)) By Christmas day it is all over with but the eating … lol

Most of these are made by sandwiching your images between two sheets of glass and then soldering it like you would a charm. This one is made of a single panel of glass. I don't have a lot of storage space so I wanted to be able to change the images for the season. I used "Tack-it-over-and-over" glue just on the edges of each collaged image so it only hits the soldered area. This way it can be removed and saved for next Christmas. The Number also has the "Tack-it-over-and-over" glue. Then I have saved the backing paper after I used my xyron so that I can store the images sandwiched between when the time comes. I have already started the "Valentines" images and eventually I will have a set for the entire year.

:o Total Bummer

While on a hunting trip my son totaled our Jeep today. The doctor says he will be fine, just sore for a while. He also has hearing loss in his ear from his head hitting the side window when it rolled. The doctor says it will come back and that it is like he had his ears boxed but the eardrum is ok.

Fairy House Charm

I love this little fairy house charm but decided to part with it for blog candy:) This one is done with mica instead of glass.

House of Q

You all are probably getting pretty tired of my photo houses but I am hooked on these … lol. Here is the latest addition to my block party. It was really hard to get a good scan of it as the chain did not want to hang right on the scanner. It features no other than the mighty Quinton himself.

Well you know me … I kept walking past the house of Q in the hallway and I just felt it was not finished so I pulled it down for a “redo” … lol I added the rusted curlies and another rusted snap and it made all the difference.

These can be made any size but the measuring tape on mine are accurate.

Swap Charms

I have recently been in several charm swaps. So I thought I would share my ideas.

 

 These I made for a couple of scrabble tile swaps but I did both sets the same or just about. I glued clip art inchies on the tiles (available in the free printable section of my website) then I printed the sayings on velum cut them out and glued them on and stamped them with some swirls Once that was done I covered the entire face of the charm with diamond glaze. When dry I wire wrapped them.

 

 

These were for a shrink plastic swap. I made a wire wrapped spiral and then sewed on shrink plastic buttons with metallic tread. Then I glued coins on the opposite side.

This picture is of page pebble charms. I made these last month for the monthly project on my website but as I always do, I made two of each so I would have a set for a swap too. Unfortunately they went missing in the mail. Although I missed the deadline for the intended swap, I still hold hope of getting them back as it has only been two weeks. There is a fee online workshop for the pebble charms ... just click on the link on the right hand sidebar

Halloween Reflections

Halloween has come and gone and in all it was a nice day but I am glad to have it over. I was carving the pumpkin for the evening when my son arrived. I had the face drawn on and the eyes were finished. I was cutting out the mouth and was getting ready to carve the teeth when my son informed me I was doing it all wrong. He felt he should finish the job and since I wanted to cuddle the little sleepy ghost he brought, I quickly relented!