Tales of Time Off!

It always seems like the long hot days of summer start to run together and I get that same horrible feeling a hamster on a tread mill must have, going in circles and never really getting anywhere. That is my signal for a change in my crafting routine.


The temps in Houston this last week have been over 100 degrees and the heat index is around 105, so working in the garage on Santa's and Snowmen can be hazardous to your health! I usually try to start early in the morning so that I can be finished by the hot part of the day, but that doesn't always work out. My husband, John, works with me and by the time you have cut out and sanded 6 complete sets of wooden Snowmen you feel like you are made of paper mache'. Between the sweat and the saw dust you have a pretty good mixture of muck covering your face, arms and legs. So until there is a break in this heat we are going to work on new things, items that can be worked on inside, where the air conditioning is working and ceiling fans are running.



We have been working on our Craft Show items for almost 4 months now and a change is long overdue. This heat gives me the opportunity to finish up all the little odds and ends that have been piling up. Things that were waiting to be tagged or needed some small finishing touch in order to be ready for our first show in October. It always amazes me the amount of merchandise we can come up with. All of our items are original and handmade so they can take some time to finish. Here is a peek at my game room where we store all the finished items.

I know that summer will be over before we realize it and the craft show season will be upon us. I had better appreciate this week of time off and use it wisely, to bad I got a jury summons for Thursday! You know what they say, best laid plans! I will report next month on how this Time Off went and show you some of the new Santa's we will have at our shows this fall.

Talk to you next month,

Just Had To Brag

My niece Aubrie Thompson made these wonderful Gluten-free "Corn on the Cob" cupcakes for me. She covered the cupcakes with jelly beans to make the kernels and made the "pads of butter" out of Starburst candies. She even sprinkled chocolate shavings "pepper" over her creations and served them in Corn on the Cob dishes. Not only did they look great they tasted even better!


UPDATE - SHE DID IT AGAIN!




Take a look at these great Spaghetti and Meatball cupcakes she just made for her mother-in-law! The girl is too clever, she must take after me! Keep up the good work Aubrie, I think I will put you in charge of dessert for Christmas.

Tales of Rejection

Well it came today, that dreaded thing no professional crafter likes to see, the REJECTION LETTER! I think I have a pretty thick skin and plenty of confidence about my work, but no one likes to get turned down, it's like being picked last on the playground. To be honest this is the only Craft Show that has ever turned me down and it makes me crazy. Hearts and Hands is a large craft show in Houston, Texas. I have applied as a vendor for the last four years and two of those years I was accepted and the other two I was turned down. The two years that I was accepted I sold out during the three day show and I was told I was one of the top performing vendors at the show both years.

So what changed the next year? Why was I turned away? These are questions you can go crazy trying to answer. I was told they like to mix up the vendors and keep their show fresh, but to be honest I have seen a lot of the same vendors there from year to year and I can not for the life of me figure it out. But to tell you the truth I don't have the time to squander on such things, I'm too busy crafting.

I am the kind of person that thinks everything happens for a reason and this turn of events will eventually work out in my favor. I had just been contacted by another show a few days ahead of the dreaded rejection letter. They had seen my things at Hearts and Hands and were willing to bend over backwards to get me to participate in their show, well nothing is more flattering than people begging, well almost begging! I was not thinking seriously about that show because I thought I would be too busy to have enough product to make another show. Well low and behold now I have plenty of product! I told you things would work out in the long run.

No matter how long you have been a crafter it still stings your pride a little when you get those nasty form letters. I have a little pity party for a day or two and then I gather my self-esteem and move on.

Now don't get me wrong, I didn't think this could never happen to me. All of us have been rejected and I try to look at this as a learning experience. So come October I will be busy at all my craft shows and Hearts and Hands will miss me!

Here are some of the the things they will be missing.

Tales of Experimentation

Do you ever feel like stepping out of your comfort zone, trying something outside your regular crafting? Well I have done just that!

I love the look of altered art and have made some jewelry using graphics and words to make necklaces and things, but I wanted to try something larger. I had seen "inchies", 1x1 inch canvases, on Squidoo and Etsy but thought that was way to small for my taste. Then I heard about "twinchies", 2x2 canvas and thought that might be for me. Well I am way to instant gratification for that, so I went up to 3x3 watercolor paper and made this.

This canvas is a surprise gift for my niece, Afton. She has a darling little house that she has decorated in Aqua, Cocoa Brown and Silver. Her place is full of vintage silver tea pots and old chandeliers. My sister, Nanette, is very talented in interior decorating and she has helped Afton pull her vision together. This 12x12 Cocoa Brown canvas is adorned with 16 3x3 watercolor paper canvases painted Tiffany Blue and Aqua. Each canvas has pieces of an old book and distressing ink pounced over the top. Then I applied the black and white graphics of 16 different women, including her mom, grandmother and greatgrandmother, and sayings to fit each one. Afton has such a dry sense of humor that this will be right down her alley, at least I hope so!

This canvas was a lot of fun and something I had never done, I usually stick with the things I like and do best.

I have been very busy trying to finish up a lot of small projects that I want to have at my craft shows this fall. I found this great wooden tray and painted letters to Santa on it. I love making "Trash into Treasure". People just eat this stuff up at my shows. Because of the weak economy I have decided to do many more small things to fit into every budget. I have finished Santa cake plates, wooden Santa candle lamps, Snowmen heads and this cute wooden Snowman bowl.
I find many of these "Treasures" at Goodwill or thrift stores. Now that the weather has turned warm, Garage Sales will be full of useful items. My girlfriends have my phone number on speed dial on cell phones so that when they are out for their early morning walks,they alert me to stuff left for the garbage man. If you call in a siting you get right of first refusal to what ever I make from it. It's a win - win situation for everyone!

As you can tell from the photos the Altered Art Canvas was a true Experiment for me and one I am glad was a success. I will let you know what my neice thought of it!



***Just an update, my neice got the collage and loved it. Now her sister wants one! I guess I was right to try something different!

See ya!

Tales of Creativity

Well it is April 1st and I swore that I would have a big chunk of my craft show items finished by Easter. Now mind you I wanted to have all my big wooden snowmen ready to go by this date, but as usual I always think I will get more done than I can possibly finish in a set amount of time. I have been working on prepping items for painting and coming up with new ideas, but I am a long way from hitting my goal for Easter.

I guess I could blame this on rain and unseasonably cold weather. Who wants to get out and work when it is cold and rainy? I could blame it on family commitments like going to Oklahoma for a surprise 30th wedding anniversary for my sister and her husband. That did take a full weekend, but it was worth every minute spent on that trip. What I really need to blame is myself. I think I work better under pressure and I have a habit of coming up with a million ideas and thinking I can get half of them done in a long weekend!


My real problem has been I have been on a creative roller coaster ride lately. I seem to find too many things I want to try. I took a coarse in jewelry soldering and loved the necklaces I made out of microscope slides.

I have become fascinated by vintage scrabble tiles and have spent way too much time on www.Squidoo.com and www.Etsy.com! There is a whole new world of creativity out there and I feel like Dorothy in the land of Oz. I know there is "No Place Like Home" but the journey is half the fun. You know that Dorothy looked at Kansas a little differently after her wild ride, so sometimes these creative tangents make me take a new and fresh look at my own creations.

Another wild thought I had was I wanted to expand my website, www.MySpareTimeDesigns.com, so I bought a digital tablet and have been taking a course in transforming my sketches into digital patterns. Like I needed something more to fill my spare time. So as you can see my snowmen have been pushed to the back burner right now and I have been busy dabbling in many different art forms.

Creativity comes in many forms. One time someone said I had so many creative ideas and asked what it was like to be in my head. I told her it was like cable TV, a bunch of channels, but all of mine played at the same time! So this is my tale of Creativity and my lack of self-discipline. Check back next month to find out how close I came to my goal!

Tales of A New Direction

Have you ever longed for your crafting to move in a new direction? For the most part I am a very focused person. I keep on top of things, finish projects and work well with deadlines, but lately I have felt the need for a change, a new direction!

This past weekend my husband and I thoroughly cleaned out my studio. WHAT A MESS! Bits and pieces of things long finished and forgotten, but the most fascinating find was a stack of old (and I mean old) craft books. It was a journey down memory lane to see the counted cross stitch books and funny to remember really wearing those painted sweat shirts. I found a bolt of old paper twist and could hardly believe the hours spent untwisting that stuff. Looking at all that junk gave me a sense of pride in how far my craft skills have come.

This crafting purge was one in a series of steps that I have made to change my crafting direction. Now don't get me wrong, I love my Folk Art. It has taken me many years to get to this point, but I am ready for a few changes in my business. You know, to mix things up. I would like to retire some things I have been doing and explore others. I would like to expand my creativity in new areas. You just have to look at Etsy to see the possiblities are endless!

One way to do this is by learning new things, so I enrolled in two college classes for Graphic Design. Who would believe that I would take a class about computers and meet two great quilters! Four hours a night, two nights a week learning a new computer skill and talking about crafting! The first class only invigorated my thoughts of change. Seeing how these other crafters were using their new found knowledge only fueled my want for revamping.

When I started these classes, changing my website and business was only a far off thought. I knew I wanted change but really didn't have a definite plan. Now I do and have put that plan into action. I want to focus on what I love and follow the road that leads me in a new direction!

Found this old photo of my first craft show! I think some of those painted sweat shirts are in that stuff. That is my little sister and best friend, Nanette, there with me. She is the person who got me into crafting as a business.
Oh how things have changed!

Tales of a New Beginning

Do you ever really think about New Beginnings? January is the beginning of a new year, this year we have a new President and that is a new beginning, everyday we wake up and start over. Sometimes life feels like that movie "Groundhog Day", where you keep doing the exact same thing over and over and over again, but when you really think about it each day has the hidden potential to be new and fresh and wonderful.

With the end of the holidays I am always ready to put away the decorations and get my house back in order. Nothing feels cleaner than your house after all the festive garb is packed away. My husband thinks it is a sad time, but I feel energized and ready to think about things to come. In the past week we have had unseasonably warm weather and it makes me think of Spring. My Saucer Magnolia is full of huge hot pink buds and it too, has been fooled into thinking that it won't be long until Spring. This winter has been cold and dreary for some and hard economically for many, so I think we should all be thinking about new beginnings.

As a crafter, sometimes it feels like you just get your Fall shows finished and it is already time to start thinking about new designs. I try to take the weeks after the shows to really scrutinize my work, what was popular, what was a stinker, what can I change to make my shows even more successful. I get it all worked out in my head and then I put it away for a while. I usually take the month of December off from crafting and try to enjoy the holidays like regular people. When the weather is cold and rainy what better way to spend the day than losing yourself on Etsy or Blog hopping. I find so much inspiration from seeing all the wonderful things that others create. Who knew you could do so much with duct tape, or microscope slides! After I see all the new and fasinating crafts that people make, I have to ask myself do I really have time for all that? Can I squeeze one more project into my already hectic schedule? But what the heck, I'll give it a try!

February is here and it is time to start working again, I have many new ideas about things to create. Take advantage of this time, become energized, full of anticipation and fun, make some plans and embrace your new beginning!