Button Obsessed

I haven't collected too many things in my life. I did collect Barbies for a long time... vintage, 1959-64 and yes I do have the #1 Barbie. I studied the different types of Barbies and I knew how much each piece of clothing was worth and what hat went with what outfit. My mom and I would travel hours to doll shows. I also collected anything with a hedgehog on it for a while. During that time I went to England and I'm here to tell you that if you collect hedgehogs England is the place to go. Right now I have a small collection of pictures of girls holding cats, some modern, some antique. I also might have a small collection of fabric, paint, paint brushes, beads, etc. (but I don't consider these collections really).

My newest obsession is buttons. I love buttons. But I don't collect them for their market value. I collect them for 1.) their uniqueness and beauty and 2.) because their creative possibilities are endless. I started painting on buttons a few months ago. The blue ones at the top of my blog are my favorite painted ones. But then after I painted about 100 I really wasn't sure what to do with them. I have since started to make magnets out of them. I have also glued them onto picture frames, mirrors and clocks... oh the possibilities. I'm also partial to old fabric covered buttons...

And here's a photo of my red, orange and yellow buttons (just a few of them)...


I also make stacked button pendants. I absolutely love making these because I get to use various colors and sizes. Because my first creation was a painted button I sometimes paint my stacked button pendants with various designs and colors.


So there it is, my current obsession: buttons.

Advertising for myself

For as long as I can remember I've been doing photography. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I started selling my photography, primarily on note cards. The first art show I was in was called Art On The Halfshell right here in Urbanna, VA. From there I started doing the local farmer's market. Then I took 2 years off to have kids. It was during this time that I feel like I had a creative explosion. Plus I started listening to crafty podcasts. I am one of these people that likes to try a lot of different techniques in all sorts of mediums. From quilting and cake decorating to painting and soldering, I'll try anything that interests me.

About a month ago I unveiled more of my projects in the Urbanna Oyster Festival. Where our little town of 400 people gets bombarded by 50,000 people (no joke, really!) The response was great and I have now decided to do the Urbanna Farmer's Market again in 2010.




All of this to say that I am also selling my stuff online, hooray! I joined Etsy (an online handmade crafting community) a few months ago and am still working on getting my pictures up. Right now there are fabric hair clips, stacked button pendants and tote bags for sale. So please stop by and take a look around.
http://www.kimagination.etsy.com

On Thanksgiving Day a New Year's Resolution

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My family and I went down to my parents house and my husband and mom cooked up a delicious lunch! Before lunch my three year old helped my dad sweep leaves off the deck and my one year old showed off his "new walking" abilities.

I realize it is way too early to be thinking about New Year's resolutions but on this Thanksgiving day I had a thought. And, by the way, I've NEVER done a New Year's resolution before.

On this Thanksgiving Day I'm thankful for my friend Mary. We used to work together about 5 years ago until I got married and had to move. I'm a little over an hour away and we still occasionally keep in contact but you know... life happens! But no matter how long it's been since we talked last I ALWAYS get a birthday card from her. She has had a very rough year and through the passing of her daughter she still sent me a birthday card. I never realized how much that card meant to me until this year. For her to stop her life, and mind you we haven't talked in a year, and for her to remember me was so incredibly heartwarming.

So my New Year's resolution is to collect birthday's from now to December 31st and starting January 1st, 2010 I will send birthday cards to everyone I possibly can. Ok mom you're first! And for anyone else reading this and you want to see if I can keep my New Year's resolution, send me your address, birth date and your "likes". In my mind I'm thinking I might make these cards but I'm not sure about that yet. I already have my first 3 days filled. My mom's birthday is January 1st; my best friends is January 2nd; and my brother's is January 3rd.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy New Year everyone!

Warning: Journal entry about two Christmas gifts

It has been raining for four days straight here in VA and I really don't mind the rain at all but I had to take my one year old out in it today. But it's for a good cause. I have in my head that I want to make my niece Lainey, who's 3 1/2, and my nephew Jack, who's almost 5, both quilts for Christmas. Ambitious I know. I didn't want to use panels because somehow that doesn't seem like a proper quilt but I found the perfect panels for both children. So today I took Jacob out in the cold rain to get boarders, backs, batting and binding for these 2 panels. Lainey's is Care Bears and Jack's is Batman so I wanted to find another Care Bear or Batman fabric for the back. I have checked two big box craft stores and the third one I went to today was a last resort mainly because I'm running out of time. Here it is the night before Thanksgiving and because they live in WI I'll have to get their packages in the mail in about two weeks, YIKES! I found two fabrics that I guess will work but I'm not too happy about them. See my brother told me that Lainey is now getting into the Disney Princesses so I was actually going to do one side Care Bears and the other side the princesses... no luck. And can you believe this huge box store didn't have ANY Batman fabric?! So for right now it's going to be navy blue.

Now I'm going to go finish painting the two trays for two members of the church, one of which is retiring and the other will be moving out of state soon.

What's happening in my crafty world

I am now giving soldering a second try. After my first attempt a few months ago I put it away for another time because I couldn't figure out why the solder wouldn't stick to the glass. Then I discovered another great podcast called Crafted By Us. It is a video podcast by Michelle and she is an amateur at crafty stuff just like me. I guess that's why I like her so much because she will make the mistakes on the video so when I'm doing my project I won't screw up. Her fourth episode (dated 12/11/06) is on soldering. Now I know what I'm doing wrong... copper foil is the key! I knew I had to use flux but I was trying to use flux paste. The second key to my soldering endeavor is liquid flux. So my second attempt last night went much smoother. I don't have all of the kinks worked out yet but yeah I can solder!

The organist at our church is retiring and a member of the choir has asked me to paint a tray for her. She envisioned a tree with the names of all the choir members written on the branches. Ok that sounds easy enough. So I worked on that last night too. I haven't printed the names on the branches yet because I'm still waiting for the paint to dry. A long standing member of the choir, and a very active lady in the church and community, is moving. Pat wondered if I could possibly paint two trays. SURE! I've never been "commissioned" to paint something so this was fun. When I showed my husband last night he said "You're really starting to develop your own style of work". That made me feel so good, thanks hubby. He is so supportive in everything that I do... he just never knows what I'm going to want to try next.

Hello Blog world!

Well I said I would never do a blog and here I am. I wanted to do this to mainly talk about arts and crafts with a little bit of my family life mixed in.

My husband got me an ipod for Christmas last year and it has changed my life. Let me explain. I had just had my second child in November (2008) and to get back into shape I thought music on an ipod would inspire me. It did... but then... I was introduced to the world of podcasts...WOW!! This is all I listen to now. There are some FANTASTIC crafty podcasts out there! I will definitely be putting links on my blog to the people I listen to and reviewing some of their work. My favorite one is Craftypod with Sister Diane. I have listened and relistened to ALL of her podcasts. She is amazing and truely inspiring.

A little bit of background on me. My mom is an artist so I grew up around art but I thought every one's mom did this. I didn't realize how talented my mom was until I went off to college and people were asking me where I got my cat footstool or my blue quilt... well my mom made them of course! I majored in Psychology and minored in Sociology, I wasn't into the whole "art thing" yet. I dabbled in it here and there but nothing too serious. I've always been an avid photographer. I found that even though I admired my mom's work I tended to do things that she didn't do, like photography. I am now passionate about all kinds of art. I love seeing what other people are crafting and I love to be inspired by something then try to put my spin on it.

Things I am interested in are: quilting, knitting, jewelry making, photography, painting, print making, soldering and I'm sure I'll think of more things after I post this.

So here I am world!