Photo fun at Lucy Sparrow's Sparrow Mart in Los Angeles

I had a great time at Sparrow Mart and even got to take a pict with the artist Lucy Sparrow!

I even had to continue with a bit of photo fun based on the Absolut Vodka advertising- Absolut Sparrow.

And my favorite snack food- Goldfish!

Movable modern minimalist art

I love to rearrange things. That includes my art. This piece is made of lathing strips (thin strips of wood used when you plaster walls.

Here are a bunch of arrangements:

I like looking at an arrangement for awhile and then I move the painted strips around.

I plan on painting some more strips of wood. It really can be endless.

To make the base I simply made a base with the strips and put tiny nails on the vertical pieces of wood.
I did this a bit loose so the strips could move.

The bottom piece is glued in place.

Movable Blocks -Embroidered Quotes Art Installation - By Stefanie Girard

 Today I want to share with you an art installation piece that I recently exhibited. It's made up of over 150 fabric covered (recycled) wood blocks.

About half of them have embroidered quotes and words on them. They are mounted on coated galvanized metal and I move them around to create different arrangements. Here are 5 arrangements and some close-ups of a few of the blocks. If you want to see all the embroidery you can pop over to the hashtag #stefanieembroiders on my Instagram @stefanielgirard. I am constantly making more and creating new arrangements so feel free to follow them!

In each photo I held my fingers indicating what number the arrangement was.

Let me know which one is your favorite!

Or if you have a good quote or word you think deserves to be embroidered.

Close-ups:

More embroidered quote block close-ups:

Lots of colors:

Groups of colors:

Greys:

Medium shot:

I even made the Glendale News Press and Burbank Leader!

Embellish bird shower curtain rings with washi tape

I scored these bird shower curtain rings some time ago and had planned to dress them up with washi tape. I ran across them when I was cleaning up the house prepping for Christmas decorating and thought why not finally get to this project and use Christmas washi tape.

I have to admit it took me about 15 minutes to cover the birds with a strip of washi tape. Oh and then anothe r10 minutes to swap them out. Not bad, hu?

I think after Christmas I will peal the Christmas washi tape off and replace it with something "spring" themed.

How to make a Christmas tree shaker card with heart dies

It can be fun to take basic shapes like a heart and transform it into something like this Christmas tree. The heart dies from Crafter's Companion are mixed-media dies and they cut through cardstock and Fun Foam at the same time which is how you make this shaker card.

First up I die cut the 3 hearts at the same time layering the silver cardstock and Fun Foam.

Then I glued a piece of recycled plastic container between the silver cardstock and Fun Foam. I played around with different sequins and embellishments from Buttons Galore on the top of the card until I liked the look.
I trimmed the black Fun Foam down to about a 1/4 inch.

 I then filled the three upside down hearts that formed the Christmas tree with gold sequin mix and glued the green glitter cardstock together.

Then I glued on the half pearls and buttons to the top layer of the card.

This technique for cutting the cardstock and fun foam makes creating shaker cards so easy!