Maybe A Little Early

How many of you have seen this pin?

 (Source)

DO NOT pin this image from my blog - See BELOW for images that you can pin

It's like all over Pinterest for holidays and snowmen crafts. Pretty darn cute, eh? I thought so too....enough to make some myself! I couldn't resist. C'mon....you know you can't blame me.

Here are the two that I made. They are two different shades of red on two slightly different pans.  I didn't know which color I'd like best.  Sorry about the poor picture quality.

I thought I wanted the pan like the one in the original because I thought the circle indentations added a little extra something extra to the look, but when it came time to put the letters on the pan, I realized that the smooth one makes it a little bit easier

Since I didn't have a working white paint pen on hand and the local Walmart didn't have any on hand either, unless I wanted to spend $10 for a multi-pack of colors I didn't want, then I had to think of another solution. I've been a scrapbooker for over 15 years, so SURELY I have something I can use as a substitute. One night, as I was drifting off to sleep (typical), I remembered that I bought some tiny snowflake rubber stamps at a garage sale for 25 cents this past summer. YES! I also had some opaque white stamp ink that I hadn't had a chance to try out yet. It's not as bright as I would like and I'm thinking maybe it would have looked better if I had embossed them, but it is what it is. I also have a Cricut machine, so I cut out the words in white vinyl. I really liked how that looks! I also cut the noses out of chipboard with the Cricut. I sealed these with a Matte Finish Sealer and now I just need to add some rag ribbon to hang from the holes. My step-mom thought they were adorable, so maybe one may end up under her tree this Christmas?  -from Santa, of course ;)

What about you? Are any of you working on any Christmas projects already? Tell me about them & post a link to them in the messages below so I can come see and leave y'all some love!

  
I'm linking up to the following parties:

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....

...Christmas? 

(sound of a record coming to a screeching halt) 

Well, it sure isn't looking like Christmas around here with the temperatures in the 90-100+F degrees and dying grass! That is unless you look in my house and see some of the projects I'm working on while trying to prepare for my mid-Fall craft show. You could even get a little confused when you step through my door with all the candy canes, sleds, mistletoe & Christmas trees. Why, even the furniture is getting in the spirit! hee hee How about a little Christmas in July?

If any of you are a fan of Pinterest, and I don't see how you can follow crafting blogs and NOT know about Pinterest, but I've known a few "under a rock" dwellers, so I won't judge those that have better things to do with their time than how I'm wasting mine. 

I will say that the original inspiration for this next piece did not come from Pinterest, but from a magazine. I keep a journal full of ideas that I've come across in magazines, or where ever, and tuck them away in different categories. This little journal is nothing fancy at all, but it suits my barest of organization needs.

The idea came from the Create & Decorate crafting magazine. It fits more of the primitive and rustic category. But I know I've seen this image plastered across Pinterest many a time, as well.

Look familiar?

I've held onto this ripped-out page for well over a year I think, trying to find just the right chair and to muster up enough ambition to paint it when I do. 

I did not find the chair that resembled this one, nor did I find one that was hacked up & cracked from good ol' fashioned weathered use & abuse. However, I did find a suitable imposter. Again, like so many other times before, I forget to take a Before shot, so you'll have to envision this cutie looking like the pristine pure white dining chair with barely a knick or a scratch on it. Got it at a garage sale for a good price!

But here is MY interpretation of the Snowman Chair

   My snowman is slightly different than the original, but I think it's 
   just as cute. 

I might still try to add the blush to it's cheek, but I like the carrot nose on mine better, doesn't it look a little more realistic? The lettering was done with my Cricut using Nursery Rhymes & Botanicals cartridge. The stars are from George cart.

I may have gotten a little carried away with the stars, but the original had quite a few too. It kind of adds to the whimsy, don't you think?

I sanded the edges and sorta beat it up just a little on some corners & edges. You can't have it looking too new!

I'm thinking I might make some more, but I don't have anymore chairs like this one, but they might be even more interesting.


 
Parties I'm linking to:

One craft show item I'm willing to share

This is my version of a picture I purchased at a flea market many years ago. I sold that picture at one of my craft shows that year. I'll tell ya, first of all, I wish I would have taken a picture of it so I could recall what it looked like exactly & secondly, I wish I would have made a dozen of them that year because I could have sold each one.

Sorry that I didn't take a Before shot of this. The base of the picture is actually an old, faded to blue cardboard picture of a farm field scene that I found at a flea market. Initially, I had other intentions for this old picture, but then I remembered that I had bought everything to make the snowman picture way back when & this picture was the perfect size to make it!! It's made all from felt & I cut everything & stitched the snowman by hand. How cute are those rusty snowflakes? Everything was going "close enough to perfect", until it came time to put the felt on the board. Being totally oblivious of where my fingers were during the gluing process, I managed to get a good sized glob of glue on one of my fingers & of course, managed to get it on the front just below the top right large snowflake. If I would have just thought it through before trying to take a pair of scissors to cut the glue off, I could have just dissolved the permanent fabric glue with some nail polish remover. Now I have this small defect on the picture. I tried to camouflage it by rubbing the felt in other different spots, but it just makes them look like grease spots, which there is not. LOL! The splotch is not really the only defect, but the other one isn't that bad, but when I was ironing the nose on, the iron smeared a little of the orange paint onto his face. I did take a little bleach and water to help remove that, but there's still a tinge of orange left. I guess I'm selling this one at a discounted price because even though it's handmade with imperfection, these are not the imperfections that I can live with.




Now I'll be changing gears from being crafty to outdoorsy by sharing some of my flowers/gardens that are blooming right now. I've thrown in a cute little critter pic at the end to hopefully brighten your day and bring a little smile to your face, in spite of the squelching heat.


I love African Daisies and this is one of my favorite colors. I planted the seeds in my garden a couple of years ago & they have just reseeded themselves every year since. I haven't seen any of the orange ones yet, but there is a gold one that is blooming now too. Not so much my favorite. Goldish yellow flowers are not really my favorite, but they do brighten up where ever they are.

Aren't these blue Bachelor Buttons gorgeous?!!! I direct sowed them from seed and they're just now starting to come into bloom. They sure are pretty, but not enough of them are blooming to give me the impact I'm looking for right now. They're not too picky, considering we have such barren dry sand for "soil" here. They do get really weepy looking in the heat of the mid-day sun, but they do OK in spite of it.

Even though this photo isn't of the peach daylilies and Hosta in full bloom, it's a little past that, but I still love the look, even though the dry, humid weather has taken it's toll on the daylilies, the flowers are still going.

Check out this pretty butterfly that was feeding from my Bee Balm patch today. You can't tell it in the photo, but it was HUGE!! Sorry about the picture quality....by the time I ran back to the house & ran back out to the flowers, it was such a temperature change with high humidity that my camera lens was trying to fog over. I actually think it makes for a cool looking photo.

This is my patch of Bee Balm this year that grows along the back & side of one of the garden sheds. I need to get the seeds moved closer to the side of the shed instead letting them take over more of the backside. DH is complaining that he has nowhere to hide is scrap metal junk without trashing my flowers. OK, nuf said.

One of the things about living where we live is there is a ton of different creatures to be found everyday. Some years we are literally over run with frogs and toads. You'd walk through the yard and there'd be a literal wave of frogs hopping ahead of you!! Oddly, with all the rain we had this spring, this year wasn't really one of them but we still have tons of them. Check out this cute little tree frog shading himself from the late afternoon sun in one of my daylilies. You will find them tucked into the flowers all the time! Isn't he so cute tucked in there? ;^)

 

I know, I don't post for a week at a time & then this week it's twice & I've gone into pic overload! tee hee!


God Bless and have a great day!


I am linked up to A Little Knick Knack Blog's Everything but the Kitchen Sink link party.