A gift for you dear friends!!!

Memory Organizer (contents not included but to show how it's used)

Altered Composition Notebook Tutorial

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend!

Ours was WONDERFUL!!!

We had my family's Thanksgiving dinner Saturday evening

at our sons David and Chase's home and it was so, so nice.

My mom and dad had prepared a feast earlier in the week

(all but the turkey) and all we had to do was warm up

the sides to go with the freshly roasted turkey for our meal!

The boys had worked so hard to make the house beautiful ~

Brad helped them by sprucing up a bit and Brent brought over

freshly cleaned tables to add to our seating.

We all had plenty of room to sit, eat and visit with one another.

I'm afraid I asked them to do it again for Christmas!!!!

They happily agreed (I think ;)

The farmhouse here is just so very small and choppy,

plus the dining room is now our soap shop and has no dining table!

I hope your holiday weekend was wonderful as well....

Angel Wings Tutorial

MY GIFT???

I'm having a 24 HOUR SALE!

This one's a BIGGIE too :)

I'm offering

50% OFF

My ENTIRE Etsy shop

for 24 hours!!!!

Sale ends Tuesday night, Dec 3rd at Midnight

Simply type in CYBERMONDAY2 in the coupon code box

when checking out and it will deduct HALF!!!

CLICK HERE to visit my etsy shop :)

My Elf Shoe Ornament Tutorial ~ shoes created by Beth Leintz of Gathering Dust

Christmas Treasures Tutorial ~ includes TONS of gorgeous Christmas images!

This is just a sampling of my tutorials...I have NINETEEN now!!!

Happy December sweet angel friends!!

hugs and love,

Dawn

Don't forget about my free tutorials! Plus my little WIP...

If you visit my blog regularly, you know I have my little tutorial shop

Lessons from The Nest...

but you may not have noticed in my left side bar

I have a few free tutorials I've offered in the years past ~

They're easy and FUN!!

You can find my rag ball ornament tutorial HERE ~

And my mitten ornament tutorial HERE ~

OK. Seems I'm always trying to figure out

what Blogger is up to with our images....

I like clicking on images and saving them at their "real" size...

and sometimes it's much larger that what you see!

Here's what I've figured out now:

click on an image ~

you will be taken to a "slide show" type of window.

Then RIGHT click on the image and select "VIEW IMAGE" with a left click.

A new window will open.

You may even be able the left click the image again

and it will appear even larger!

THEN you can RIGHT click it and select SAVE IMAGE

and save it to your own computer.....

give it a try ~ I hope it works for you :)

I played with my bottle brush trees again!

I'm not quite finished with them...but I had to show you what

I've finished so far ~ this one is teeny tiny and will be

housed inside a vintage baby food jar!

The tree itself stands only about two inches tall ~

I don't even have the top screwed on all the way but you get

the idea of how it will look under glass. I still want to

add a few pieces of seam binding garland that has been split

and ringlet curled....

What do you think about these blue trees?

They are really beautiful in person!

My decorations?

Broken strands of vintage pearls...I just love them!

Thank you always for stopping by to see me!!

I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday dear friends,

hugs and love,

Dawn

Buy one....get one FREE!!!

It's that time sweet friends....

time for a buy one, get another tutorial FREE SALE!!!

Just for my blog buddies too :)

For only for two days, Thursday and Friday....

visit my Lessons from The Nest shop and pick a couple!!!

When you pay for the first one...you will be asked which one, right?

Well type in TWO!

~ UPDATE: Sale is now closed ~

Now's the time of year to think about these things ~

I know it's only October but you can make so many of your gifts for Christmas

and I offer step-by-step PHOTOGRAPHED instructions with each of the tutorials....

A sampling of what's offered in my little tutorial shop:

Don't worry one minute about trying to create your own artwork or gifts for others....

you will be AMAZED at what you can do!!!!

Have a wonderful fall Thursday dear friends,

hugs and love,

Dawn

I got to thinking.....

Which is a little dangerous, right? :)

I thought, could my little doll shoe tutorial be transformed

into a sweet ELF shoe???

I just had to find out!

I printed out the pattern again,

yes, I'm a goob and had to print out my own tutorial!

Then I altered the pattern so it would have a pointed toe

rather than a rounded one. Plus I made the sole of the shoe

pointed as well. I thought one of these would make a precious

Christmas tree ornament!!

Here's what happened :)

I just love it!!!

I used a beautiful upholstery damask for the fabric,

and had purchased some trim with teeny, tiny bells...

I knew one would be perfect on the toe!

My precious friend Deborah at Confessions of a Junkyard Cat

sent me this wonderful trim a while ago

I glued it around the top for the cuff ~

I love to buy scraps of suede at Hobby Lobby and the thinness of the suede

makes it perfect to use as a sole for the elf shoe.

A length of seam binding glued to the heel and

of course I had to dampen it and scrunch!

Perfect to use to hang on the tree....

OH, the sweet adornment in the front of the elf shoe?

Believe it or not, it's an upholstery tack with the back

cut off with a wire cutter!!! I just glued it on with Fabri-tac ~

I really should be their spokesperson you know,

I'm in love with the stuff!!

I sliced about ten thin strips of sheet music
with my paper slicer thing and then accordian folded it ~
perfect stuffing to go inside the elf shoe.

 

What a sweet adornment on a gift then the recipient

can hang it on their tree!

It feels so good to make something....

I believe we as human beings crave creating....don't you?

Just as our own Creator has.

Have a beautiful Tuesday my sweet friends,

hugs and love,

Dawn

Great tutorials from last Christmas' posts!

I hope you don't mind a few reruns today....the kids are due to arrive any minute!! Poor things are exhausted as it's about 12:30 a.m. Thursday morn. and they've been battling the rain all the way from Savannah with Brent driving a packed 24-foot moving truck with a boat attached and a packed little car following with Emily driving!! Enjoy the tutorials, maybe you haven't read these :)

Easy Gift Bag Tutorial ~

This is so easy because you can really use supplies that you have on hand. I happen to have vintage sheet music but you could use a ripped piece of wallpaper, unused giftwrap, a page from an old dilapidated book, I could go on and on. Here's what you need:

First, I purchased a pack of small brown kraft gift bags at Target.

I used spray on glue but if you don't have any, just use a glue stick.

A fast drying glue (fabri-tac, I use it for more that fabric!) or a hot glue gun.

Some string - a thin hemp is pictured.

Sprigs of greenery from your yard or in this case, my Christmas tree!

A ruler to help you tear straight.

Have you seen this cool ruler that Stampin' Up sells? It was kind of pricey, I think 19.99 but I have to say I love it! You just have to pay attention to which way you are tearing your paper or you will have more of a scalloped edge rather that the "torn" look that I love.

Here I've used just an old ruler to tear the music in a size to go on the front of the bag with several inches all around. I don't measure but just lay it on top of the bag and eyeball where to tear the next side.


Tear all sides and make sure it looks good laying on top of the bag and is square.


Here's where I take the piece of paper outside and spray the back with the adhesive but you could also use a glue stick here and there, too.


Place the paper on the bag and press. Next cut a decent length of string to wrap around your greenery.

Simply tie around the greenery and tie again to form a knot. I do it pretty tightly.



Turn your bundle over and add a drop or so of glue.

Turn it over and press into the area where you think it looks best and voila! You have a simple, elegant gift bag that would have cost tons at the store. When the greenery dies you can just rip it off and add new!

You can keep embellishing the bag if you choose. Add a vintage button to each corner of the paper and possibly to the center of the greenery. Or instead of string, tie the bundle up with some old lace.

I love the natural look of these and the simplicity. You could sit down for about 30 minutes and make up a bunch to use for your gifts. Some raffia would be beautiful tied around the handles too to keep the surprise a secret from those sneaky peekers! Let me know if you try these or if you have any questions!

Wish Bottle Ornament ~

I made a Christmas tree ornament out of another repurposed little item. Do you know when you go to the thrift store and see those spice racks for sale, some of the bottles are missing, they need a good bath and probably will end up in the garbage?

Well this is one of those little spice bottles, all dressed up, dolled up and transformed into a Wish Bottle! Decorated with sheet music, an image of vintage holly, an old button and ending with slight dusting of ultra fine glitter.

You hang your little Wish Bottle on your Christmas tree. Inside, rolled up, is a small piece of paper that you can jot down your wishes for Christmas just for that special someone to walk by and see! They can pull your wish list out, tuck it in their pocket and then leave theirs for you!

Easy Tag Tutorial ~

I'd like to share with you another one of my projects ~ these are so very simple but they really are beautiful, my decorated tags. These tags are the large size manilla price tags that you can buy at Staples, Office Max or Office Depot. They are a creamy yellow color to start off with but I dip each one in a bowl of instant coffee to age them! So here we go with the steps:

1) Heat a bowl filled with only an inch or so of water in your microwave, about as long as you'd heat it to boil it. Remove and spoon in a couple of tablespoons of instant coffee, stir to dissolve. I've featured the brand that I use but you can even buy the no-name brand and use it. I leave them in a couple of minutes and lay them out on an old hand towel. At this point if you'd like "age" spots, using a dry hand, pinch a little of the coffee between your fingers and "grind" it into a fine powder as you are sprinkling it over the tags. I place them on a microwave safe plate with the strings on the outside and then microwave them for a minute or so to dry them fast! But please be careful, paper can catch fire if you don't watch it.

2) This is how your tag will end up looking after the coffee aging process:

3) This step is optional if you don't have a background stamp but I love the effect that it gives. I just use a gold ink because it's not really dark and press on my background.






3) Next I use images that I've printed out from my computer or you could use the images cut from old Christmas cards ~ what a great recycling idea! You can use decorative edge scissors here. Then I use a glue stick on the back of the image and place it on the tag.

4) Then I use my finger to spread a little glue around the edges of the image, Elmers is fine here or even use the glue stick again, then sprinkle some fine clear glitter onto the tag and shake off the remaining glitter into something that you can pour what's left over back into your glitter container. I let them dry and voila! You have custom handmade tags for your gifts that have a beautiful aged look and you made them yourself!!

PS.....They look beautiful tied on the Christmas tree as ornaments!

Enjoy creating sweet friends!!!! Love and hugs,

xxoo, Dawn