Holiday Decorating...The Essentials

Holiday decorating fever is upon most of us...and why not? Break out those pretties and deck those halls!

I love decorating around our house and, over the years, I've come to rely on a few essentials when I get ready to trim the tree....and anything else I can get away with trimming.

Green craft wire or floral wire is one of my top essentials. Yes it's a must for those wreaths and garlands, but it also comes in handy for attaching ornaments to the tree...to keep little hands and feet safe from broken ornaments. Instead of just using a hook to hang my glass ornaments, I loop a piece of floral wire through the ornament's hoop and wrap the ends around a branch. When it's time to take everything down, I leave the wire on the ornament for the next year.

Ribbon and lots of it! It's reusable year after year and can be used in so many ways. Wreath hanger, gift wrap, tree garland, the usual bows........I've even hung a length of ribbon and paper clipped my Christmas cards to it for a card display on the cheap.

I looove these things! I use them to hang stockings, wreaths, seasonal art, garland, etc. I grab a few throughout the year whenever they're on sale and stock up for the holiday season. They're especially great when you're trying to keep your decor up and out of the way of little hands.

Then there's the less practical, but no less neccessary, item to add to my list of decorating essentials. Fireside coffee. Yum!

Mom found this part coffee, part hot cocoa recipe a few years ago and shared it with me. It's become a winter time staple in our house and it goes wonderfully with holiday bedecking.

There you have it, a few of my must haves for decking our halls. Do you have any?

More artful ventures...and a kitchen tease

I haven't drawn or painted faces in so long that I was nervy about how to do this piece.

While she isn't perfect, I like her quirkiness....and her paper flower barret.

Um, forgive the mess in the background.

This piece has become one of my faves and was inspired by....well, by Family. I've had this floating around in my noggin for a while and I finally figured out a way to to it. Pressed, dried leaves from our yard were used to get those leaf shapes in the background. By painting around the edges, the shape of the leaf came to life on the canvas.

I know. I used nature to cheat......but it was sooo much fun!

And now a little Kitchen Remodel Tease~

I took that mantle that my In-Laws so graciously helped me save from the side of the road and used a pickling technique on it. The pickling lightened it up while letting the wood show through. Hubs had the brilliant idea of using it in the dining area of our kitchen like a shelf since there'll be no room for a buffet, etc.

This is the light fixture that will hang over the table. It took me a while to find a fixture that wouldn't break the bank but didn't look "chinchy"....well, I don't think it looks cheap, anyway.

Chinchy? Another way of saying cheap.

Southerners and their funny ways of talkin'.

Our Thanksgiving in pictures~

There they are, the twins....

....just separated by 6 years.

E-man with his "ba-ba".

That boy is serious about his bottle time!

The Bubs asked to play a game of Scrabble. He did pretty well and the Hubs coached him on how to play the board to get the most points possible.

That may come back to bite him in the tushy.

Because I just couldn't resist....

Happy Thanksgiving!

Gratitude and apologies~

I am both giddy and humbled by all of the encouraging feedback I received about my art. Many, many thanks to you all! You've inspired me to create even more and I hope to have more ready to show y'all soon.

One minute I'm doing my happy dance and in the next, I'm biting my nails or pulling my hair. It's delightful!

I think I may have inadvertantly insulted the Hubs, though. Unintentional though it may have been, it was done and I want to come clean.

The Hubs has always supported me in all my artistic ventures. He gets me supplies, offers encouragement, a listening ear when I need to "talk out" my ideas, a gentle (but firm) shove when I need some get up and go.....and love. Unconditional, precious and uplifting love. So when I started sharing with him some of the wonderful comments you all sent, he was just as thrilled as I was. However, he couldn't understand why I didn't truly believe him when he said much the same things as y'all did.

Oh.

I realized that I had, in my insecurity, done something to hurt him. My biggest fan.

Hubby, I hear you first and I hear you the loudest. I'm sorry for letting my insecurity get in the way of accepting your honest support.

I'll make it up to you later...........

I'm taking the plunge....

I've decided to take a leap of faith and share some of my art experiments with you. Art, as with many things is a journey and I feel that part of that journey (for me) should include being brave enough to share my pieces.

So, I'm sharing with y'all. Be kind and remember I'm still learning....

All of these pieces were made on old hard back book covers, an idea I gleaned from Kelly Rae Roberts (thank you, ma'am). I used a white gel pen for the curlies around the edges and the bird is drawn on a piece of notecard paper that was sandpapered and then adhered with acrylic medium.

One of my first experiments and one of my more personal. I cut out the phrase, "I want to share my heart and see joy bloom" from an old book.

The woman's skirt is a collage of papers that I painted and aged. Phrases like, "blessed journey", "beautiful courage", "passionate spirit" and "warm laugh" surround the word Mom on the woman's skirts....that's how I remember my Mom and I wanted to include her in my art.

This one says, "Even with imperfect wings~ We Fly." The Hubs likes this one.
That glare you see is from the pearlizing mist that I sprayed on it. I like the glow it gives off.




I believe that this one is one of Dad's favorites as he loves butterflies! (That strip of blue at the top of the picture is part of another painting that this one was leaning against...Oops!)

An artist who gives flying lessons...

I recently made a discovery. It wasn't earth shattering and won't be in any history books, but it was a momentous occasion for me. I, in one of my web surfing sessions, stumbled across the artist, Kelly Rae Roberts. She does whimsical and encouraging mixed-media works of art like this:

When I found out that she had a book published, I was so excited that I gushed about it to the Hubs. I thought he was listening with half an ear at the time, but he must've been paying more attention than I realized because he turned right around and ordered it for me from Amazon. It's titled Taking Flight~ Inspiration + Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings. In it she tells her story about being almost thirty and knowing that she wanted to do more with herself (um, I can identify). She talks about being nervous about experimenting with her art again after having set it to the side for so many years. She's not formally trained, but she created because it gave her joy (um, again, I can identify).

I may never sell a single piece that I create, but I'm already having so much fun creating and painting again. Even the Bubs has noticed how much fun I have when I'm painting/drawing and now he's excited about expressing himself on paper. We ooh and ahh over one another's creations and those moments are so very precious to me!

I don't have any pics of my "creations" to share with you, as yet, since the workmen are laying tile in the kitchen today and I can't get to my little studio. I'm working on finding my own aesthetic and experimenting with different techniques. The best fun, though, is when my guys just hang out in the studio with me and watch what I'm doing or ask me questions. I like that they feel included in what I'm doing....they should since they are at the heart of almost everything I do!