Knowing when to stop is a good thing ~

I finished the banner up ~ all except for feeding the ribbon through the top of it!! I added a few ribbons and buttons but I think it looks finished now! Thank you for all the kind compliments about it, I've loved making it for the shower, Emily and baby Clara!

Friday I found this treasure at the book store....yaaaay!! I just love peeking into artist's studios. I hope to study it this weekend ~

A few treats to use in your Valentine's cards ~

Wishing you a wonderful weekend dear friends ~

xxoo, Dawn

I'm making progress in spite of myself!

I thought I'd show you my progress on the banner(s) for the baby shower ~ I know I should have finished it days ago but I've never made one before plus I just hit the wall with it creatively!! Do you do that?
And being the perfectionist nut that I am I just stall out and walk by my art room and stare at it!

I think it's going to be way too long but I wanted to try it....I will string the three words with ribbon as three separate banners "Welcome Baby Clara". I reinforced the scrapbooking paper with posterboard (a cheap alternative to cardstock!) Boy, that was a TON of cutting! Then I needed something to back each of the letters as there was so much pattern going on. I wanted something to break that up and thought paper doilies would work. Well they looked too dinky so I hand pleated white crepe paper around each one....sixteen of them!!
Why do I make a simple little project so difficult ~ ugh!

I do like how it's turning out finally and of course now I don't have enough eyelets so I'm heading to the store to get those today. Next will be a little embellishing and then I've got to move on to a few other smaller things!!!

A few image gifts for you!

Thank you all so very much for such sweet comments on the magazine articles!! I truly believe in my heart that it's because of each of you and your encouragement that I've had the confidence to create and even write an article. And just remember....you can do this too!! Create your beautiful work, send it in to the magazine if you'd love to be published, if I can do this I know that you can!

I hope you have a terrific Friday dear friends ~

xxoo, Dawn

ps. this is my 800th post!!! I promise I'm going to have a wonderful giveaway the week of Feb. 11th ~ my two year bloggiversary!!!

And what have I been up to?

I started working on a sweet banner to use for the baby shower!! I bought these big ol' letters at Hobby Lobby and ended up buying two sets because I was using too many duplicate letters (and still ended up making another A out of a V and a piece of another letter!)

It may end up being too much but I wanted to pick and choose what words to have hanging and I also wanted to include Clara's name so Emily could keep it for the her room, too.

First, I painted all of the edges white as I didn't want to see the gray cardboard color ~ then I went ahead an painted the fronts too....I figured it would make the scrapbooking paper look prettier.

I placed them each in an old cardboard box and sprayed with Elmer's spray glue (w-mart) and pressed sticky face down to the back of the scrapbooking paper ~

Trimmed each letter with a very sharp Exacto blade and then used an old emery board to smooth out any rough spots ~

OK, now what do I do?!! I want to make some pennants now to stick the letters to. (And they already have an adhesive back, you just have to peel and stick!)

I ended up getting rid of all of my cake decorating supplies awhile ago but did find a neat kit just for cupcakes that I'm going to use. I love those Michael's coupons!!

I am in love with these hanging pom poms below!! The instructions are HERE and I want to make some!! Don't you think they'd look precious at the baby shower in pastels?





I've been worried that the images that I'm giving you are not scanned correctly and that the resolution is not good at all ~ I'm checking into it to try to improve the quality that I'm offering you for your art!

Oh, and what can you do with these images? Use them on the front of a handmade cards, in collages and assemblages, to make tags, in journals, you could even frame them! Any other ideas?? Your printer is a great tool to use in your artwork ~

Wishing you a wonderful Friday sweet friends,

xxoo, Dawn