Friday, December 23, 2011

Cupcakes!

When we were in Illinois for Thanksgiving I went to my favorite craft store and bought this cupcake ribbon.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it but that became my inspiration.

When I think of cupcakes I think of pink.  Why? I don't know, it's fun, it's girly, it's a happy color for me.  What color goes with pink... brown... and the inspiration started to take shape.
Since I like texture and mixed media I decided to quilt the bottom part of the cupcakes.  But first I needed to pick out six different fabrics that would go well with pink and brown.  I have a huge stash of fabric so it wasn't hard to find fabric, it was just hard to narrow it down to only six pieces!  For the back of the cupcakes I just used muslin because no one was going to see it anyway.

I free form quilted each square before I cut out the cupcake design.  I decided to quilt with the muslin facing up so I could see what areas I had already done, on busy fabric this is hard to see.
After quilting:

I still hadn't decided where I was going to use the cupcake ribbon but I continued on.

Now for the fun part: creating the icing!  I created chocolate, strawberry and vanilla icing using a texture medium and iced my cupcakes.  I also knew I was going to use glitter because glitter will make anything look girly.  Glitter and pink, you can't get much more girly than that.  After that was done I held the cupcake ribbon in my hand and it hit me... put it right in the middle! So that's what I did.  Plus I had brown and pink ribbon in my ribbon stash that I could use going vertically.
Here is a close up of two of them:
Who Wants a Cupcake?  is now for sale at Olde Towne Art in Portsmouth, VA.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Photography and flowers

I love taking all kinds of pictures but I always come back to my flowers.  Flowers are so beautiful and from different angles they take on different looks.  God created this whole earth and I believe He gave us flowers to show his extreme love for us.  I like getting as close as I can for a flower shot and it's a bonus for me if it has a bumble bee or a butterfly on it. 

In my photo folders I used to have my flowers labeled according to location but, being the organized person I am, I decided to create folders of flowers according to their color which is working out a lot better for me.  Here is just a small sampling of some of my flower pictures created in mosaic form:

Monday, December 12, 2011

Faith, Hope and Love are living - Christmas, Christmas, everywhere

For Christmas I have asked to turn this blog into a book (super easy at blog2print.com) so I need to stop posting for a while so the manufacturer doesn't get confused!  But I did want to do one more post.

*** Update:  I've figured out how to turn my blog into a book without needing to stop posting for a while, YIPPEE!!  So on with the posts!! ***

I have mentioned Ideals Magazine before and how much I love to read the poems and short stories contained in them.  While I was organizing my books last night I came across this poem taken from Christmas Ideas 1951 entitled Hello, Again by Nina Gertrude Smith:

Hello, again, it's Christmas!  in the postman's ring,
In a little child's face, on the snowbird's wing:

In the "sh-sh-sh" of secrets; colors, sounds, and smells-
In a stranger's warm, sweet laughter hear the golden bells!

Christmas in the sacred story of a Yuletide's song,
In a new re-captured glory righting every wrong.

In the joy of giving, giving... Christmas in the air; Faith and hope and love are living-
Christmas, Christmas, everywhere!