Nor'Easter Day....and the Day After

We had a pretty big wind and rain storm...a Nor'easter....a few days ago.  As long as the power stays on, I'm a happy camper, and it did.  I was up super early and was on the fence about doing my errands or sitting home.  At 7:30 I decided to just rip the band aid off and get my groceries and fuel up the car.  It was so stormy that no one was out so I was home by 8:30.  

The whole day was stretched before me and it was just howling out.  I drifted into the craft room and worked on this 3D papercut tree project.  I forgot I bought it last year.  The kit is on white paper so I photocopied it onto green cardstock and went to work.  It was a fairly quick workup.

That's what it looks like from above.

Then I moved onto my next 'gotta do this someday' project, which was a small altered box, using a pretty lighthouse card with beach glass, tiny bottle brush tree and silver pipe cleaner trim.

This is a small 3" x 3" tray from a beaded box I bought years and years ago.  It's been floating around in my craft supplies since at least 2000.  Never knew what to do with it, but I knew I didn't want to throw it out either.  This just totally came together in minutes!

 Then I made another one of these 3D paper snowflakes.

Since I had the step ladder out, I took my life in my hands and managed to get the ball chandelier hung.  I can only hope that the hook....and the knot....stay put or else the carnage is going to be pretty bad.

It's so pretty I'd like to leave it up year round.

By that point I was exhausted and called it quits for the night, after making myself some delish dijon chicken for diner!

The next day, I got back to work.  This is the frame that my friend Robin painted and sold at her craft fair in November.  I knew I was going to make a scene in it but originally I thought I was going to do something beach related.  Then I had the brainstorm to put a white bottle brush tree in it, embellished with silver & light blue pearl beads. 

And another tiny, velvet box I couldn't bear to throw away.  No idea where I got it, but it's so cute.  Added some silver stars to the outside.

And a little scene inside.  I kinda wish that I'd painted under the lid dark blue but I was afraid I would totally ruin it so I left it white.  

While the glue was drying, I also whipped up a half batch of soft glazed pumpkin cookies which are quite yummy. 

The other day I mentioned that I was going to be stepping way out of my artistic comfort zone.  Well, that night I met up with my friend Mary for a painting class.  The latest rage here are one-night painting classes held at bars, wine bars and pubs.  Some of my friends have done them and I am always astonished at how well everyone's paintings come out.  When my mom took us to lunch at Bobby Byrne's in Sandwich, there was an ad for a class being held on December 10th.  Close to my house and on a night when I was alone! Perfect!  I couldn't stop thinking about the picture they were going to teach people to paint.  A snowy night scene with the Northern Lights.  So I signed up and got Mary to sign up too.  We met up at 7:00 and the place was sold out.  The instruction was great and after a little over two hours, we were done with our paintings.  I'm not crazy about my hills but the rest of it came out pretty good!

I'm definitely going to do this again!!!

More Holiday Crafting

I really cranked it to get these last 2 Craft Kit of the Month Club cross stitch ornaments done. 

I made one of these out in Washington but it was much smaller than this.  I realized I bit off more than I could chew after I made 5 points and realized I needed more.  I had to back the design paper with plain coloured paper because the backs are all white and I wanted colour to show.  This is way, way bigger than I expected it to be but it looks pretty good.

This one surfaced when I was looking for something else.  I started it last year but only got as far as gluing the outside gold edging and the silver star.  I forgot all about it till it fell out of a stack of paper and I exclaimed, 'OH YEAH!'  So I dug into the goodie bag that Monica gave me and used some of those beads for this, then after all the large beads/ornaments were glued in place, I sprinkled all the background with multicoloured seed beads.  It's wicked a little bit 'busy', but kinda cool to look at too.