Winter Lady Crazy Quilt Purse Continued

Other than going into town for groceries and doing some laundry, I spent most of yesterday stitching on my Winter Lady Crazy Quilt Purse:

I'll be sitting here and doing some more beadwork on this before I head over to mom's for the day.

Also, I've decided to add a new feature to my blog.  As I stitch on my Crazy Quilt projects, I'll take close up photos of some of my seam treatments and post them on the page titled, "Crazy Quilt Seam Treatment Inspirations".  You can find it at the top of my blog.

Since I use my Waste Canvas technique for the majority of my embroidery on crazy quilts, I thought this would be a nice way to give my readers some ideas for seam embroidery and how to embellish them.  I'll start doing this when I complete this purse.

Finally for today, we're having a nice Christmas Sale at our Boutique:

Christmas Village Houses and Bottlebrush Trees are on sale.  We won't be doing anymore of these of so please, get them while you can!  The sale is only available at our Boutique.

New Boutique Arrivals

I worked like a crazy person (emphasis the word "crazy") yesterday getting our newest boutique items listed.  It's very time consuming to take photos, edit photos, write descriptions and list things in 2 shops!  But I met my goal and am finally caught up!  At least for now!  Here's what's new:

Christmas Bottlebrush Trees:

I don't know why I enjoy decorating these so much.  I think it's because I can use a lot of glitter on them.  And ya'll know how much I love my glitter!  These are so pretty with little Christmas Villages!

Next, my Victorian Peacock Ornament:

I had 2 of these but 1 is already gone so I only have 1 left in stock.

Then I added mom's latest Victorian Tussy Mussy's:

Are these precious or what?  They're mini Tussy Mussy Ornaments for Christmas and Mini Tussy Mussy Ornaments for Thanksgiving!  They're just too cute!  I can see them on a vintage Feather Tree!

I also added a ton of our new Glittered Blank Notecards but I'll save those photos for tomorrow.

I guess that's it for today.  Enjoy the photos!  For anyone who prefers shopping at Etsy, our Boutique Items are also available there.

Handmade Boutique - St Patricks Day Tussy Mussys and Easter Village Houses

I've added a few new things to our Cottage Boutique!  First, my mom's beautiful little mini St. Patrick's Day Tussy Mussy's:

These Tussy Mussies are little ones! They're so cute!

Next, I made a few little Easter Village Glitterhouses:

Each house comes with a little Spring bottlebrush tree!  Pastel and glittered, like old fashioned Putz Houses.

Busy Day!

Whew!  Never thought I'd get to just sit and blog today.  I went grocery shopping, stopped at the Dollar Tree, went to the Post Office, came home, put everything away.  Cooked up some Italian Sausage for low carb mini pizza's (I'll show you how soon), shredded a Zucchini, made a double batch of Zucchini muffins, a double batch of Banana Chocolate Chip muffins, decorated them, did laundry, did dishes, added a bunch of new stuff to the shop.....are you worn out yet?  LOL!!!  There are days when my ADD just keeps my butt moving right along.  Much better than when the depression has me dragging myself from project to project!

Anyway, thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my little Kitty & Me commercial.  It's not Spielberg by any means but it was fun.  I think I'll do an Autumn themed commercial over the weekend. 

Thank you to everyone who left a comment on my latest Give Away Drawing.  All names are in a basket and waiting for the winner to be picked by Bubba.  If you didn't see my post on the Drawing, click here.

Ok, so on to some pictures!  These are the latest additions to Kitty & Me Designs.  First, I've been making Glittered Bottlebrush trees like crazy!  I just love them!!

I have a few more at mom's that I'm working on.  I hope to finish them up tomorrow.

These are mom's latest creastions:

And here are Kathi's newest additions to our Autumn collection:

Like I said, very busy here!

I'm finishing up on a crazy quilt project and I'll have photos of that to share with you soon.  I pulled out the first block on my Marie Antoinette quilt so I'll be starting on that in the not too distant future as well.

For my newbie crazy quilters, I'm going to show you how to do your piecing on a muslin foundation.  I just need a little time to get that written up and be sure that I have photos to include. 

Finally for today, be sure to stop by tomorrow to meet my next Guest Blogger.  She's a lovely lady who makes that most gorgeous things! 

Spring Projects

Well, I have loads to share here today!  I haven't felt well the past few days.  I'm suddenly starting to think that my medication dosage might be too high now.  It's just this underlying feeling that things are better but perhaps the Zoloft, being at 100 mg is too much and perpetuating the screwy way I feel.  I called my Dr. and am waiting for him to call me back.  I'm going to ask if we can drop it to 75 mg now.  I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I started stitching on the 9th and final block of my Crazy Garden Quilt:

The vine is supposed to look like Morning Glories but they didn't quite work.  We'll see what I can do with them when I add a few beads.

I also started another project.  I mentioned the other day that I was wanting to make a Marie Antoinette Art Quilt for a friend of mine.  This is what I have so far:

I'm really struggling with my perfectionism on this.  I have to keep telling myself that mixed media art quilts are not about skill or perfection.  They are purely for visual beauty, trying new techniques and new combinations  and creating something for the sake of creating.  Would have at least been nice had I gotten the foreground items on straight!  Oh well, we'll see where this goes.  BTW - it will have glitter on it!

In the last week, mom and I have finished up a bunch of Spring projects so I thought I'd share those photos with you next.  First are a couple of new Blanket Baby Bunny Ornaments by mom:

And I did some new WISH tags with Pansies:

And now for my trees.  As ya'll know, I love pink!  I had this idea for pink Easter Egg Trees made with pink pom pom's and tiny little Easter Eggs:

Each tree has 100 pom pom's on it!  They're dusted with super fine glitter.  So soft and petty!

Last but not least, is my Easter Egg Bottle Brush Tree:

I only made one of these.  I'm so pleased with how it came out!  Doesn't it just scream Spring?

And here are mom's newest Easter Tussy Mussy's:

Well, those are our newest projects.  All are available here .

I was going to go put my CQ Cherub box together but I'm kind of tired now.  I'll just bet the Zoloft is causing that.  I have a loaf of Cheese Bread on it's first rise in the Kitchenaid.  We'll be having that with Homemade Beef soup tonight.  I think I'll take it easy the rest of the day now and just stitch.

I'm still waiting to see a Robin here in McHenry, Illinois.  I know they're here because I can hear them singing outside.  I just haven't seen one yet.  I saw Red Wing Blackbirds this morning on my way back from WalMart.  That was a nice site but there's something about seeing the first Robin of Spring!

BTW - if you enjoy reading my blog, please click on the Follow button to the right!

Glitter Houses

Grab a cup of tea and a Christmas cookie and sit back for a bit. I have quite a few nice things to share with you today!

Ya'll know I love old things. Anything with that 30's/40's feel to it is my style. Shabby Chic Cottage is so soft looking and soothing on my nerves! And of course, I love my glitter!!!

I decided a few months back, that because of what happened last year on Christmas Eve (my birthday), if I was going to put out any Christmas decorations at all, they had to be new and they had to be pink. I told my husband that I can't deal with a real tree this year. I can't tolerate the smell. Anything that smells like a pine tree takes me right back to last Christmas Eve when I had lightening bolts & fireworks shooting off in my brain and that is an absolutely horrible memory for me. He agreed that we would not do a tree this year.

So instead of my normal Christmas decorations that I usually put out, I made some new things for this year. I'll start with my pink pinecones:



I bought a bag of cinnamon scented pinecones at WalMart and a can of pink spray paint. I took them over to my mom's house and told dad that I'm spray paint challenged! Ha, ha, ha! I'm just not good with it! So dad sprayed my pinecones pink. When they were dry, I sponge painted them (by hand) and piled on the glitter! The little angel was made by my mom quite a few years ago. I always put her on the top of my tree. I decided she would look cute with the pink pinecones. The tablecloth on my coffee table was another of my mom's projects. Mom made this about 3 or 4 years ago. She also made the pink crocheted doily.

The pink pinecones were fun and are very pretty but my absolute treasures are my little Glitter Houses and Bottlebrush trees:



I have always loved little Christmas Houses. My grandmother had a set when I was little but after my grandfather passed away, they seemed to disappear. I would have loved to have them.
I found some at flea markets over the Summer but the colors were very bright. I remember my grandma's house were soft and pastel. So guess what? I decided to make my own!

The original vintage houses were called Putz Houses. Named for the company in Japan that made them. They were quite inexpensive, found mostly in dime stores from what my parents tell me.

Anyway, I gathered up some little bits & pieces from my craft supply stash, got out my cardstock and my glitter and had myself a good time with these!

Here's more:







Yes, my snow is pink! I put some quilt batting down and then I covered that with some pink tulle. I arranged my houses and the trees and then sprinkled some chunky glitter around them.

I made the trees too. Well, sort of. I decorated them. I bought the white ones and piled the glitter on those. Then I glued the tiny shiny glass balls on them. The green ones were in with my Christmas decorations so I pulled those out and did the same.

My mom made several houses too. I have mom's in my garden window. Mom's theme was "candy-land". You can kind of see them all in this photo but my favorite is the gingerbread man house:



Isn't that sweet? I have some pink trees with the candy houses. I found those at Hobby Lobby. I didn't decorate them. They already had pink glitter on them so I let them be. Kind of surprising for me, huh?

Anyway, that's my pink Christmas. I did hang my vintage Christmas towels on the doors of my Hoosier cabinet and I have another embroidered tablecloth that mom made on my kitchen table. But this is all I can handle for this year.

I must say, I loved making these houses more than I enjoy making cards! The wheels are turning!!!

There are more photos over on my Flickr site. Just click on one of the images to head over there and see them all.

In other news, the drawing for my Mason Jar filled with Christmas Tea Cookies will take place tonight when my husband gets home from work. If you haven't entered yet, there's still time. See this post for more details.

Here is the Mason Jar filled with my homemade cookies:



And here it is decorated with one of my handmade, glittery labels:



I will announce the winner in tomorrow's post.

I thought you would enjoy seeing this lovely angel ornament that Mary Anne sent to me:



Isn't she sweet and beautiful? I have her hanging on the mirror of my antique dresser. You know, I have met so many lovely and talented ladies in blog-land, gifted people that I never would have had the chance to meet had it not been for my computer and my blog.

Which reminds me, I'd like to ask the following ladies to drop me an email:

Sheila
Sandy G
Ann F
Cheryl
Jan

You have all left multiple comments for me but I have no way of reaching you other here. Please email me so I have your addresses for replies.

Finally for today, and ya'll know how much I love this (not) it's snowing outside:



This is view of my backyard from my deck. I will spare you all my complaints.

Well, I'm off to stitch on my Garden Quilt. Updates coming tomorrow.