Please Pray ...

 My dear friends,

... please pray for all that have been affected by the most horrible happenings in Connecticut!

  

much love

 

Karen B.

A Change Of Heart ..

Hello my dear friends,

I am really liking the waste not idea of mine and over the weekend I made two more of them. I swear I am addicted to making pin cushions and a tiny part of me would like to even have a little shop just with pincushions for sale. Addicted ? ... YES!!!

 But ... I had a change of heart about these. My daughter Ashleigh told me that these little felted hearts are too beautiful to be pincushions and that I should give them a different purpose and then I remembered ... some time ago she had a very neat idea that she told me about and she told me that these hearts are exactly what she meant. She came up with this idea when I made one of my felted nests and there were leftover little pieces of the felted sweaters and why not make small hearts out of the felted wool fabric.

The thought was and is to gift a loved one or somebody that just needs to know that you care one of these hearts so they know that they are not alone and loved and someone is thinking of them.
 So ... my 'Waste~Nots' are no longer just something made up from leftovers but each one now have a new very special purpose and meaning as a  'Heart~Felt'.

This is my Violet 'Heart~Felt'.
 

   

 

...and I know there will be more of these pretties in the future.

 

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day,

 

 

Karen B. 

 

All It Takes ... Part 2

Hello my dear friends,

I am so happy that you decided to visit me again!

 

This is the 'part 2 'of my 'All It Takes' creations and it is like a sister piece to the first one.  In this one too I have used little bleached bottle brush trees and a little critter made of pewter but I have used a different tarnished piece as the stand. The snow was a must again too. I used to use this type of snow when I used to tole paint many years ago and just thought it would be something really neat to try and bring into my creations these days. All in all it has turned out to be just right in every way.

My second 'All it takes' creation ...

 

 

 

 

I hope you have enjoyed my latest creation.

 

 Why not try and make your own 'All It Takes' ~ find a piece that normally wouldn't really appeal to you and think out side of the box. You will be amazed at what you might think of and what a beautiful creation you might make.

 

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day,

 

 

Karen B. 

 

All It Takes .. Part 1

Hello my dear friends,

all it takes some times to come up with an idea to create something neat is just one very plain piece ... in this case two simple plain brown paper mache stars which were the last ones in our Michaels. They were the last ones because they are slightly warped and do not lay flat. I actually just 'refound' the two of these again in one of my drawers whilst I was tidying up my studio and thought that I could make something very neat out of either one or even both of them for Christmas.

Normally I would decorate the star and use it as a tree ornament or something to be placed in a bowl with some pine cones and fir tree branches but this time I decided to think outside of the box for the first star.

 

After gathering all the bits and pieces I thought I could use for this creation it was hard to continue with my house chores so when ever I finished a chore I took a few minutes and worked on the star and once my chores were done ... so was my little creation too!

 

 

And this is what I came up with ... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course I didn't stop there creating with only one of the stars, no ... the second one wasn't allowed to stay plain and brown either and that's why this post has 'part 1', because tomorrow I will share 'part 2'  of  'All it takes' with you and I am excited to do so.

 

So ... don't forget ~ see you here at Todolwen tomorrow.

 

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

 

Have a peaceful and creative day,

 

 

Karen B.

Far Behind ...

Hello my dear friends,

oh dear ... I look at all your lovely blogs and see all your beautiful Christmas creations and decorations in your homes, studios and shops and then I look at my house and apart from a layer of super fine white dust ... nothing!(sigh)

Work is still going on in my basement and they were meant to be done today but again we had a few mishaps and I know mistakes are human but I was starting to get a little flustered. (Our doorbell cable was accidentally cut through whilst the new phone cables were put it and the ceiling was open and nobody noticed it so the new ceiling went up. But it got fixed and it took almost 4 hours but it was done and without reopening my new ceiling too!!) And if that wasn't enough then I had one of the doors put in the wrong way so that the light switch was on the wrong side and ... right about then I was so stressed I was ready to walk away from this renovation. On one good note ... our basement powder room floor was tiled and it looks great and I am hoping, hoping, hoping that we will finally be done next week!!

I must say, one good side of being at home a lot is that I have been able to do a bit of creating and in the next few days I will share one of my newest makings with you.

And last but not least ...

I wanted to share some photos I took 10 year or so ago in Alberta where we were stationed with the military for 2 years. We lived in a small village in the prairies where it would get quite cold in the winter and when the big frost over nightwould come it would look like a dream the next day.

 

 

The trees in my garden would look so stunning. You can just see the corner of my house on the right and our Christmas tree made of strings of lights might not look like much in the daytime but at night it was wonderful!

 

 

 

Doesn't it just look beautiful!

(I hope the photos aren't too bad. Since my scanner isn't set up I had to take photos of my photos.)

 

So far here is south-western Ontario still haven't had a lot of snow yet ~ a dusting here and a few flakes there until now, but I am hoping for more before Christmas.

Please do visit me here at Todolwen soon again ~ it is so nice when you stop by and I have new making to share with you.

I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

Have a peaceful and creative day,


Karen B.
 

A Little Setback? ..

Hello my dear friends,

we all have these I am sure when we are creating ... little setbacks!

Right now I am having one of those with the large bottle brush trees I bought last week. I used one of my afternoons to bleach some more little bottle brush trees and thought I might as well start with the large ones too and to my dismay ... they won't bleach!!!! I had one tree sitting in my bleach solution for almost an hour and ... nothing happened whilst all my other trees now are a lovely cream color! It didn't even go a tiny shade lighter in color. So now I am thinking what I could do to give the tree a different look. I am not sure if I should spray paint it off-white or maybe just cover it in lots and lots of glitter ... I really don't know right now. I am just wondering ... is it a setback or just a new little challenge for me to figure out? Right now I am still working on the answer to that but I will let you know once I have found out.

 

To give you a little update on our basement project ... we are hoping that everything that our contractor will be finished on Dec 6th ~ fingers crossed! (to tell you the truth I can't see it happening as of right now)

 

Otherwise I am very busy. I seem to have several ideas that are floating around in my head and I am actualy taking the time to create them! I will be sharing them with you very soon.

 

 

 

  Just a little photo to share with you that I took a few days ago.

A few tiny pine cones, a bit of fir tree and a vintage old tart tin ~ a little Christmas delight.

 

And finally ... 

 

 

I am still working on my Christmas cards for the swap with Jillayne and I am very close to completing them now so I thought I would share a little part of them with you today again.

I have been busy in my studio and already have a few new creations lined up to share with you so why not stop by and take a look again soon.


I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

Have a peaceful and creative day,


Karen B. 

 

A Tiny Tree ...

Hello my dear friends,

My newest creation that I am sharing with you today is another matchbox creation and because of the approaching most beautiful time of the year of course the theme is Christmas.

 

 I wanted this creation to be very special so I decided to decorate a tiny Christmas tree with Swarowski Crystals that are set in little silver stars ~ not too many only a few and with it glistening glitter just as if it was kissed by the little frost fairies.

The match box is covered with a piece of a lovely old German book page and embellished with little pine cones,  tiny jingle bells and another little silver star ~ the twin of the tree topper and this too ever so slightly dusted with glistening glitter.

And here it is my magical little matchbox creation.

I hope it will bring a little bit of joy to you...


 'A Tiny Tree'
 

 

'A tiny tree all sparkling and bright with stars from heaven glistening with light'.
~Karen Bailey~

 

I hope you have enjoyed my 'tiny' creation as much as I have enjoyed making it.

Visit me sometime here at Todolwen again ~ it would be so nice to see you.


I hope you are well and life is treating you kind my dear friends.

Have a peaceful and creative day,


Karen B.