Handmade Playfulness

My friends, this week I'm taking you to four artists' shops where you can let loose and let your playfulness out. All of today's shops are fun and very unique. That's the beauty of Etsy!

First I want you to meet Cindy Doty of Cinful Designs. She lives in beautiful Brookings on the Oregon coast where she makes jewelry and wonderful art dolls. Both jewelry and art dolls are unique, and for me it's the art dolls that always bring a big happy smile on my face. Have you ever thought of dress miniatures as ornaments? Well, how do you like this?

April Luna from Los Angeles, CA is owner of Moon Of Light Talismans. She creates raw crystal and electroformed jewelry and each piece is very unique. If you are looking for some one-of-a-kind jewelry you should definitely pay a visit and browse April's shop. I very much like this beautiful necklace:

With Catherine's shop Tribal Handmade we enter the fairy and fantasy world. Be prepared for cuteness overload. She lives in Lviv in Ukraine where she also makes jewelry besides little fairy houses. It was hard to decide which one to showcase here because all of them are so pretty. This Adriatic coast fairy house is the "winner":

Luna Essence in South Cairo, NY is a shop full of gorgeous handmade jewelry and small handbags. The jewelry is inspiring - you can find Aztec earrings, handcrafted brooches among others, and this fantastic boho style filigree cuff. I love the colors!!

I hope you enjoyed our little "shopping spree"!!!

A Trio of Wooden Snowmen

Remember when we built a picket fence around the front and side of our house in the spring? Quite some wood was left over that I had piled in our shed. First I had no idea what to do with it, I only knew that I didn't want to throw away all these pieces of perfectly fine wood.

Then it came to me - ornaments. Of course!!! And since I like snowmen, it was pretty obvious that I would make snowmen ornaments.

Snowman with blue-green hat and scarf

I first put down a layer of gesso, adhered some torn pieces of scrapbook paper and then covered the background with light blue paint. The snowmen were painted after that and further embellished with glitter glue that shall represent the falling snow. A screw eye drilled on top for the hanger and I also added a sparkling ribbon.

The first "batch" is done and available in my Etsy shop. I think I will do some more with different colored backgrounds.

Snowman with red hat

It was so much fun creating these little guys. Of course as true Northern Californian snowmen they are made of untreated redwood.

Snowman with black hat

Are you making some ornaments for this year's holidays?

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, joining some wonderful and talented artists.

A Happy Snowmen Parade

A few weeks ago I started to paint little canvases (3x3) with snowmen, put a screw eye in the top so that they can be used as holiday ornaments. I sold some of them at the crafts fair and came back with only two of them. So I decided to paint more for my shop.

However, when I went to Michaels to get more of the little canvases, they were sold out and only had an even smaller size (2x2). I wasn't sure whether I could work on such a small space but thought that I could at least try it. They came in a pack of six - and I ended up painting all six of them because it was so much fun.

By now I sold a few of them (which I am very happy about) and simply enjoy the ones I still have. I like snowmen, perhaps also because we don't have them here (lack of snow).

I'm linking to Paint Party Friday - happy to be back!

A Snowman Full of Cheer

A couple weeks ago I decided to paint a ball ornament. Mindy Lacefield inspired me to try this when she showed how to paint a ball ornament with one of her cute little girls in  Christy Tomlinson's last year's Christmas workshop. Of course I knew there was no way I could paint a girl on a round object, but a snowman, I thought, should be easier.

Besides, I really like snowmen. For me they make the cutest Christmas ornaments, cards, decorations. Whenever we hit the snow in the mountains you can be sure that we are building some kind of snowman.

I painted a layer of gesso first and then a light blue background. My snowman, of course, ended up being pretty round as well. Since I like bright light green he got a bright green and red hat and scarf. Do snowmen have rosy cheeks? Well, mine does...

This little guy is available in my Etsy shop.

I'm sharing this with Paint Party Friday where you can find so many talented artists. Why not visit some of them? The list is here.

Babushka-Inspired Brontë Dolls

In my last post I promised to tell you why I disappeared from my blog for a bit more than a week. The reason is pretty simple - I had signed up to participate in an arts and crafts fair. It was a rather spontaneous decision after an opportunity came up and I just couldn't pass it. I had two weeks to prepare, and I got extremely busy. I created like a mad woman and was more than grateful that my creativity was strong and present during those two weeks. I already had a rather good inventory, but I felt that I could do with a few more Christmas items. Of course I also practiced setting up my table several times with the result that setting up at the fair took us just an hour. I said "us" because Kaefer was my helper. She had created some polymer clay ornaments the evening before the fair and she actually sold some of them and made a bit of extra money.

Kaefer took a picture of me behind our table.

Sorry for the bad quality - it was an indoor show and I only had my small camera with me.

The show went pretty well for us which was nice. However, I almost enjoyed more talking to the other vendors and the interactions with the customers. All in all it was a great experience.

One thing I did for the show was creating these babushka-inspired dolls.

This yellow one was the first one that sold.

The inspiration for them I found in one of the classes by Christy Tomlinson. Guess what the inside of each doll is? An old lightbulb - those that we don't use anymore because they are not energy-efficient. The lightbulb is wrapped with air-drying clay and then further decorated.

Here you can see them in various stages of progress:

After the clay had dried overnight, I painted the dolls with a layer of cream acrylic paint. After that was done I changed my mind again and decoupaged them with torn book pages. These pieces came from a cheap edition (thrift store find) of "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë. That's the reason I also call these dolls "Brontë dolls". The decoupaging of course was the stickiest part of the entire project. When the dolls were completely covered in the torn book pages, I painted them with acrylic colors and then embellished them with stamps, rub-ons, small rhinestones and a white marker (Sharpie's mean streak). I had attached a screw-eye to the top when I had wrapped the clay around the lightbulb, and now I knotted a piece of lace ribbon around it as a final touch.

Brontë doll in red and green

I am very happy how the dolls turned out and really like them. I am glad that I decided to paint tiny faces on them - I looked at real babushka dolls and loved the simplicity of their faces, so I adopted that idea and applied it to my dolls. I think they're quite cute.

Brontë doll in red and blue

This doll will end up in our Christmas tree

(it was the first and only one that is not decoupaged)

I am linking up to Paint Party Friday. I have no idea when I did so the last time - probably several months ago. It feels good to be a part of that talented group again.

More Ornaments

Last week I told you that I was working on circle ornaments, and I actually finished them this week. Different from the painted angels, but they were fun to make as well.

Winter scene

For this year I am done with Christmas ornaments. I'm currently working on journals and hope I can list a few in my Etsy store soon. I also hope to continue my big painting and get back to my art journal.

Snowman

This is for Paint Party Friday - short and sweet today. Happy PPF everyone!!!

Painted Angels

After I had nothing to show for either Paint Party Friday nor Studio JRU last week, I am glad that I worked on some angel ornaments this week.

Blue angel

They're paper mache stars that you can get in almost every craft supply store like Michaels. There are also other shapes available like circles and hearts. I simply gessoed them, attached some sheet music or book pages, painted them with acrylic paints and then painted the angels, also with acrylic paints. I did something similar last year, and when I compare those ornaments with these I can see big differences. It's nice to see how my paintings developed, but that I also have my own style, or at least a style I feel comfortable with.

Light blue angel

Since I had so much fun with my angels I created three of them. I had made a rough template of an angel which I used in each of these and then did all the individual detail work like faces and hair. They're available in my Etsy store.

Dark blue angel

I'm currently working on circle ornaments, and I hope I can show them to you next week.

Are you working on Christmas "stuff"?

Christmas in July

Rosehips in winter Christmas card set

It's only July, the middle of the year, but at Etsy we're already thinking of Christmas and therefore have a Christmas in July sale. My shop is participating and I want to show you a few of the items I'm offering in this sale. About half of my items are 15% off through July 31, 2012.

There are handmade Christmas cards, of course, both made of paper (below) and photo cards like the one on top.

Glitter trees Christmas card set

I love to make journals from regular composition books that you can buy in the office supply stores or at Target. They're fun to alter and make something "new" out of them. A journal always makes a good gift for people who enjoy writing.

Sanddollar journal

My mixed media paintings are also included in the sale. This one, "The Mermaid's Dream" is on a 8x10 canvas and one of my earlier works.

The Mermaid's Dream

Handmade all occasion cards always come in handy, and it's good to have some cards on hand when you need them. This is a all year round set that includes birthday cards, thank you cards and greetings for Mother's Day and much much more. This is a set of ten handmade cards.

All occasion cards

Last but not least, ornaments - for your Christmas tree or to decorate the house.  Angels and birds are available right now. They come in sets of three or six and are all paper made. The little angel below is like the angels I made for my daughter throughout the years - she got a new one every advent season and could hang them in her window. She has quite a collection by now.

Angel Christmas ornament

I'm listing new items all the time - I am really busy at the moment making Halloween and Christmas items, mainly cards and tags. Quite glad that the creative juices are flowing!

I'd be happy if you stopped by my store and checked it out. Perhaps you can let me know what you think. And tell your friends!!

.