Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas all!  What a blessing this Christmas has been.  My head is still buzzing with all the excitement of the day so I can't even express the reasons why but this Christmas has been among my very favorites and its still not over!  A relaxing day tomorrow with my sweetheart, a few days of creating and trading with my friends at AFA and then, finally, a trip to see Mom and Dad and the rest of the family.  I cant wait.  Its been way too long.

The holidays are usually, thankfully, a busy time for me creative-wise.  I am blessed to be able to be a part of the Christmas Eve service at our church by making 300-400 ornaments each year that are given out at the services.  This year, I was blessed to have a wonderful group of ladies who volunteered their time and talents to help me get them done.  What a blessing to get to know these wonderful ladies.  We laughed so much and I feel so blessed to be able to get to know them.  As they say, "many hands make light work" which in this case meant less stress for me this season.  What a gift!

I was also blessed to have some special orders for things this season.  Always a God thing as these are the things that make it possible for my kids to have a Christmas.

(I'm sensing a theme here...can you tell I feel very blessed this year?)

Here are a couple of things that I made..

As always, I am happy to take special orders and actually love the challenge of taking someone's ideas or wishes and finding a way to create them.

I've just opened my shop at Etsy.com to sell some of my art.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/theweavershand  I hope to add more things to my gallery in the next few weeks.  Stop by, take a look, buy something if you like.

Merry Christmas to all and many, many blessings throughout the New Year!

Experimenting with some new things

Here are some things I made recently.  Experiments really.  The button fairies are nothing new but I thought I'd put my own twist on them by drawing my faces for them.  The Altered Angel I just love.  I love the idea of bits and pieces of found objects being put together to make something new.  I hope to explore this more and perhaps try some larger pieces and see how they are received.

Open House

Some friends and I hosted an Open House the other day to welcome friends in to look at our creations and buy items for Christmas.  I wish I'd taken pictures.  Everyone's creations were so beautiful and the displays were so artfully done.  The turn out was disappointing.  Christmas time is so tough.  We did make some sales.  I was able to get a few special orders too.  We had a great time getting to know some new friends and for me, connecting with an old friend.  Next year we are hoping to put together our own craft fair.  Look for more details on that in the coming months.

Art-a-thons

Another of my favorite things to do with my friends at AFA are Art-a-thons.  These are usually over a weekend, starting at 12:01am Friday and ending at 11:59pm on Sunday in whatever time zone you are in.  The theme is usually set and the idea is to create items in that theme, post them to the thread and trade like crazy.  Its so much fun and the trading gets fast and furious.  The best part though is all the fabulous mail that trickles in over the couple of weeks after...from all over the world!  Its like Christmas in the mailbox everyday!

I participated in 2 recently.  The first was a Chunky-a-thon.  Chunky pages are 4in X 4in squares that are mounted on rigid cardboard usually (i cut up old cereal boxes for my bases).  They also are usually adorned with dangly things and chunkier decorations than ATCs.  People usually collect them in themes and connect them in some way to make a fat book that can stand on a table or shelf.  I was limited in the amount of time I was able to play that weekend but I was able to make and trade 7 chunky pages.

I dont add the danglies until after I've scanned them but you get the idea anyway.

Thanksgiving weekend was an extended a-thon from 12:01am Thanksgiving Day all the way through to 11:59pm on Sunday.  Except for cooking Thanksgiving Dinner and enjoying it with the family, I was able to spend the rest of the weekend on this a-thon.  The theme for the weekend was Birds.  I created 32 cards...most of them APCs (altered playing cards) and 19 chunky pages.  I traded all but 2 of the cards and quite a few of the chunkies.  I'm still getting returns in the mail.  Its awesome!  I was able to add quite a few cards to the Bird themed APC deck that I am collecting!  Here is just a sampling...

I was also able to try out a technique that I absolutely love the look of but had been too intimidated to try.  It involves layering decorative napkins with beeswax and creates a wonderfully transparent layered look.  I love the way my first attempts turned out and really hope to do more of this technique in the future.

So much art...where to even start...

Well, its been quite a while since I posted.  Sorry about that.  I've been working on all kinds of things.  I havent completed the Art and Healing Course yet.  I had to take time off from that to meet deadlines on other things.  I'm hoping to finish it up after Christmas.  I worked really hard to finish up all of the swaps that I had committed to for the rest of the year.  Those included several photo ATC swaps...

Churches

Hutto, TX

Hutto, TX

Pflugerville, TX

Taylor, TX

Shadows

 

 

Mix and Match

 

 

Doors

 
 
 
 












(have i mentioned how much i hate trying to load pictures on here.  please excuse how haphazardly they appear.  they dont make it easy at all to line things up the way you want.)

There were some art themed swaps as well...

Cats on What?

 

 One Eyed Wonders

Space Octopus

Seasonal Pick A Theme

Fall Collage

Seasonal Pick A Theme

Winter Collage

Let's Get Messy

Fingerpainting only.  No tools or brushes...just hands.

Whew!  9 swaps finished in one week!  That gets me caught up on that for the year and I've sworn to myself I will not sign up for anymore this year.