How to airbrush solar lights

Over at Craft Gossip I have posted a fun and easy tutorial on how to airbrush plastic cups in a rainbow and add die cut words to make a colorful solar light sign.

How to make red, white and blue 4th of July pom poms to top of a bottle of party wine

I love pompoms and dressing up a bottle of wine with a big one when when heading out to a party makes a fun decoration to give to a hostess. This red, white and blue giant pom pom will be fun to bring to a 4th of July picnic.

Gather up red, white and blue yarn along with your pompom maker and a sharp pair of scissors and plate.

This pom pom will consist of 2 pompoms sewn together.  For the first side of the pom pom wrap with red primarily and then a bunch more white. As much as you can get on your pompom maker.

Trim off the pompom maker and set aside.

Make the second one with a base of blue and again cover it with white wraps.

 Stitch the two pom pom halves together with the white section together.

Hold the pom pom over the plate and trim the pom pom round.

Tie the pom pom on a bottle of wine.

50 Small Paintings-Done!

My New Year's resolution for 2015 was to do the 50 small paintings in the book Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings. It took me a bit longer to finish them all and even a bit longer to photograph them and write this post. But I should also add I built the shelves along the way to display them too!

 And me being me I did them all on recycled plywood I had leftover from a construction project.

I cut and sanded the plywood down to 5 inch squares.

Then I primed all the wood squares to get them ready to do each painting.

This was the first painting. Boy, that seems like forever-ago!

I can't tell you how fun this was to do! The directions are excellent and each painting is such a pleasure to paint.

I would end up working on several at a time as you need to allow the paint to dry in some cases so it's fun to start the next and jump back and forth. I highly recommend this book and this process. As you can see the collection looks great and you learn so much. I have already started to use the techniques I learned by painting these pieces in new original paintings.

3 crewel embroidery motifs used on a check table cloth

I started this project a long, long time ago and finally put the finishing touches on it and now I can share my crewel embroidery done on this check fabric using the patterns form the book The New Crewel Embroidery.

How to make pom pom carrot Easter decorations

No matter what new materials come out I still seem to think of ideas to make with pm poms. Today's fun little pom pom creations are carrots that my amineko thinks are just too fun not to snuggle, I know she doesn't look happy but she is :)

All that you need for these little creations are a variety of sizes of orange pom poms, a bit of green yarn and a hot glue gun.  Simply glue the pom poms together from smallest to largest.

To make the carrot top I looped a few wraps of yarn around 3 fingers and tied a knot around them with another piece of yarn. Then I tied a piece of yarn around all the loops. Then I cut the loops open and glued the tied end into the large pom. I made a bunch because quite frankly they were so easy and cute.