Air Dry Clay Success With Some Machine Embroidery Done

   A couple of years ago I bought some white air dry clay so dear daughter and I could make ornaments for her Christmas tree.  We used cookie cutters to cut out gingerbread men and stars.  We didn't get real crazy with it.  We left all the ornaments unpainted. 

   Dear daughter wants to make some of those big cement mushrooms for the garden and I have to say I want some in my garden as well.  They look easy to make.  While I wait for dear daughter to get in the mood to make the big ones, I crafted some small mushrooms from air dry clay.  These are easy to make and fun to mold.  I got the basics of working with air dry clay from several different Youtube videos, there are tons of air dry clay tutorials.  I love that organic shapes doesn't have to be perfect and my mushrooms are not perfect.  I made 5 of the mushrooms but only had room for 3 on my little tray I made. I let all my pieces dry for at least 72 hours before painting.  

   I'll be making more of these for my fairy garden that I want to construct in the future.

   I also took out my embroidery machines to finish up making some embroidered quotes for small decorative pillows for fall.  All I have to do is make up the little pillow forms, put a cute border on the quotes and put them together.  

If you got it, haunt it.

I'd turn back if I were you!

Home sweet haunted home

Let's boo this!  (for our fall Disney trip).

Happy Fall-i-days

   I've got about 12 of these little quotes/sayings to make for Christmas and I'll start those a little later in the year.

Fun With Beads And Wire

   I found a tutorial on how to make a wire wrap dragonfly sun catcher on Youtube on Jesse James Beads channel.  Link is here.  I haven't done a lot of beading except to make simple bead necklaces with multi colored seed beads.  My favorite.  This looked like it was too much fun not to try.  I bought beads (on sale at Joann's) and 20 gauge and 26 gauge silver wire.  The instructions call for a jig to shape the wings, but I shaped my wings without a jig and didn't have any trouble making them.  This sun catcher took me about 4 hours make.

   I bought clear beads, silver glitter beads and some larger white shaded beads to use for the head/tail.  I changed my mind about the large white beads for the head/tail and wanted a green bead instead. I was thinking about buying more beads when coloring the white bead was all I could think about.  Instead of painting the bead (so messy), I pulled out my Sharpie magic markers and found a greenish blue that wasn't dried up and just colored the white bead with it.  Love the look of the custom bead.  I did add a hanging wire to this after I too this picture that I attached to the top of the left and right wing.  You can always hang it directly from a wing for a wonky look.

   Here is the suncatcher I made for dear daughter.

Christmas Gingerbread Ornaments

   I just got back from a week in South Carolina spending time with my daughter, her doggie and her friends.  We made our home base in Greer, SC and were close enough to make a couple of day trips to North Carolina to visit the Arboretum and Biltmore Gardens since they are doggie friendly.  Anything not doggie friendly and I was there to stay at the VRBO rental to be stay with the doggie.  While dogsitting I would work on these little guys.

  These were easy and fun to make.  I made 6 of these but you can easily make enough for a gingerbread man army.  I used brown craft felt, tiny rick rack, ribbon for hanging, brown and white embroidery floss, black beads for eyes, tiny white buttons, fiberfill, and Alene's glue to attach the rick rack, and a little hot glue to attach the buttons.  You can also sew the buttons on.  Here is the link to the instructions I used:  link here.