Once Upon A Christmas

I had the pleasure of joining a fabulous art retreat called Once Upon A Christmas.  It was held at the historic Marion Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. 

November Art Class

This month I drew on a patriotic theme for my artist trading cards. I used one of my favorite graphics from The Graphics Fairy blog of this little patriotic girl, put a die cut star behind her and sponged the edges with blue ink.

Sewing Ashleigh's Wedding Dress

When Ashleigh asked me to sew her wedding dress, I experienced a mix of emotions. First of all, I felt honored that she trusted in me so much that I could do the job. Secondly, fearful in that I could potentially make her look bad on her wedding day. And lastly, overwhelmed imagining the steps it would take to make her dream a reality. 

The Bridal Shop

The first thing we did was to visit a bridal shop. We wanted the experience of her trying on bridal gowns to see if the style she liked looked good on her. (I also wanted to make sure that she wanted me to sew the dress - wouldn't it be easier to purchase one?) She immediately gravitated to this dress. This is what she wanted, a simple A line dress. Well, it looked simple enough, right?! No frilly lace to work around. "Why can't we purchase this one?" I asked. She said that she wanted the skirt to be another color, like beige or blush. "No store will have what I want," she said. "So you need to sew it for me." Well, ok then.

October Art Class

My October art class was kind of a blur because it took place just a few days before our daughter's wedding. Each month I share with you our artist trading cards, our circle journals and our monthly project.

I didn't get my artist trading cards completed to share this time, but these lovely trading cards were generously given to me.

September Art Class

Gosh, September is almost over and I am just getting this month's art class blog post published! I have been very busy getting ready for our daughter's upcoming wedding. I missed posting last month because we were out of town. Well, here is what I have...artist trading cards from my pals for July's lesson which was on watercolor.

Dan's Trip to Xi'An, Suzhou, and Shanghai, China

I always enjoy the photos my husband, Dan, brings back from his trips to China. This time there were three categories of photos I would like to share with you: the city, the decor and the food.

The City

A model of the ancient city of Xi'An at the entrance to a restaurant in the hotel where Dan stayed.

July Art Class

July's art class was enjoyable as always. For the first hour or so, the eight of us sat around the tables and talked about all kinds of interesting things. 

Here are the artist trading cards I made to share with the group. Since the topic from last month was Graphic45 "fussy cut", we were to practice more of that through our trading cards. We used cardstock produced by the Graphic45 company and cut with a small scissors at least two layers of the same image to give dimension. The layers were held together with foam adhesive. 

Ashleigh's Bridal Shower with a Vintage Twist

Last Sunday we held our daughter Ashleigh's bridal shower. She and Kyle will be getting married in the Fall. It was a beautiful day to celebrate our bride-to-be. Since we catered the food, I was able to focus on making projects and cleaning our home.

I was thrilled that Ashleigh requested to have a vintage-themed bridal shower. Here I will share with you the projects I made, many of them with my Silhouette Cameo electronic cutting machine (I will refer to it as "Cameo"). As you will see, the Cameo is a machine that has amazing capabilities.

June Art Class

We started off our June art class by going around the room and sharing what we did in the last month. First of all, we shared our artist trading cards that we made with the theme "Prima" art products. Here are some of the beautiful cards that I received.

Girls' Week in Indiana

In mid May, my Southern friends Becky and Missy came to visit me. We had such a great time - it flew by so quickly. Since we met at an art retreat a couple of years ago, our main focus is always to create some things. We found that we enjoy doing so many other things, we didn't get around to doing much crafting. 

Getting ready for their visit was so exciting. One of the things I did was to bring out my vintage doll house. We are like little girls when we are together.

May Art Class

This month our instructor taught us about Prima art products. We applied metal objects, lace, sewing pattern pieces, gesso, texture paste and paint to a small canvas. When I saw the model piece, I immediately thought "wedding"! This is how mine turned out! I love how the sewing pattern piece created a nice textured background.

April Art Class

April's art class was enjoyable as always. This time we practiced layering with stamps. Here are the pieces I made that day.

Baby Shower Decor: Banners, Toppers & Confetti

I was recently asked to make decorations for two baby showers. The interesting thing was that their themes were quite similar. One had an Alice in Wonderland theme, and the other theme was a children's storybook. The three items I made for each party were a banner, cupcake toppers and confetti for the table.

For the Alice in Wonderland banner, I cut pieces from a children's book

photos from this baby shower compliments of Ashleigh Antle

March Art Class at Palette & Paper

This month we met at one of my very favorite inspirational creative spaces called Palette & Paper. We worked with colored pencils this time. But before we did that, we visited for awhile and then partook in our monthly Artist Trading Cards (ATC) swap.

With our swaps, we practice what we learned from our previous class. So since last month we dabbled in stencils, die cuts and stamps, that's what we did. Here's my creation. After cutting lilies with my Cameo, I decided they would be the perfect size for my ATCs. The lilies have a green base, and a second piece (the flower I cut from white cardstock) adhered to it with glue dots. The flower was sponged with ink.

February Art Class

I enjoyed February's art class with the Not Your Ordinary Art Class group.

13th Annual Indiana Art Fair

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post on behalf of the Indiana State Museum. I received a complimentary ticket to attend this event. All opinions are 100% my own.

I'm excited to tell you about a local art event that is going on at the Indiana State Museum right now. The 13th annual Indiana Art Fair started this evening, February 12th, and will continue through tomorrow, from 10 a.m. until 5 p. m. This annual event features some of Indiana's best artisans showcasing and selling their work. Guests are able to enjoy the museum experience, while browsing the works of more than 60 artists representing 22 counties on all three levels of the museum. 

A special preview titled Galentine's Art Night was held tonight. "Gal's night out" featured an evening of art, food, drink and music. I attended a private reception with the artists and painted my own masterpiece. (I also received a cute little package of fun Valentine's Day cards when I checked in to the event - see * at the end of this post.)

Wedding Wonderland

It's my time to enjoy the experience of planning a wedding with my daughter, Ashleigh.

Photo taken at the Indiana Fairgrounds Bridal Show

Not Your Ordinary Art Class

I have finally found an art group that meets monthly in my part of town. It is called Not Your Ordinary Art Class. I have been searching for this type of group for several years! What a great way to start the new year! The ladies are all so sweet and welcoming. The group started 15 years ago so that tells me it's a good one!

Each month I will learn a new skill, have lunch, and swap artist trading cards (ATC) with the group. ATCs are miniature pieces of art that are traded in swap groups. The only official rule is that they are 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size. Our ATCs will have a theme, usually drawing on the skill of what we learned the previous month. This month, though, we started with our "word of the year". Through the holidays, I had been searching for my word of the year when I noticed a Facebook challenge showed up in my feed that offered to help me find my word of the year. I took FB up on their offer and my word became "wisdom!"