mountain magic arts

Meet my new traveling friends that have joined my husband and myself on this extended trip. From Left to Right they are Wim (Whistler Ivan Moose), Tip (Toronto International Panda), and Babs (Blackcomb Angelina Bear). They joined us in parts of Canada and decided to stay with me and help me out as my advisors on all things creative and fun. They claim that they are duel citizens now! We have started on a hand embroidery project. We are doing squares for a baby quilt. As I had none of my supplies along we have to find a JoAnns and do a little shopping, but that done we got started  We picked a size, taped the edges to keep it from unraveling and tried it in the hoop we got. Then it was time to put a design on. Our first square will be a baby giraffe Now we have got it hooped, hopefully I will get some time soon to actually start embroidering it. While we were in New York City we also found some fun cloth at the fabric district. so much stuff it was hard ...

I love crafts, most any kind of crafts, and there in is my problem some days. I am like a butterfly who flits from craft to craft and not specializing in any one craft or area of crafts. I love to  Cooking and Baking Sewing Embroidering Planning and have wonderful parties Ceramics (freeform and molded) Resin Jewelry making Quilting Paper crafts Sculpting  Stain Glass Painting and Drawing and on and on In most cases I am pretty good to very good at them as I have not specialized I am good at many things, but not know (except by a select few) for any. This sometimes causes a quite a problem for me. The below are a series of resin castings I have done and they will be the start of a new project set for me. I will show you all once I have them in the final stages and as I want them. Another flight of fancy. Yet as the butterfly that I am, I am flitting to another idea I have been mulling over for the past couple of month. ...

One of the many hobbies I have taken up is creating bath products. My first attempts are in the area of soap making. I love the idea of fun soaps and bath products. I was able to find some fun soap molds. My favorite among them are the celtic designs. I am not sure why, but they have always appealed to me. I made two types of soaps. Both were  glycerin based and the only real differences were the scents and the coloring.  I had both transparent and opaque colorings. I used essential oils for the scents. I did citrus for the yellow, lilac for the purple, evergreen for the green, and rose for the pink. I had some interesting effects on the transparent bars. Most of them got clouded and gave me a half and half type effect. This was not in my plan for them and I am still not sure why some of them did this. I am thinking it might have been a problem with some contaminates on the mold? I am not sure but will try again later to test this theory. They came out kind in...

As I am on the road this past week and will be for a while, I am going to work on designs and plans for my projects. I am still waiting to hear back on the bids from the places to decide where to hold the retreat next june in Park City. I am also working on getting my website going. With all the travel and design work I am doing I will not actually put anything up for sale until some time mid November. A review of idea for projects will be coming your way the next few weeks, hopefully some picture of layouts and set up for the Dickens festival. Also I had a problem with my photo editing program and have to bring everything up from the backup, edit it again, and sort them out, (as there are about 10,000 photos, it will be quite a project,so that is also keeping me busy. I will be able to let you know when the website goes live. Thanks for bearing with me.

I mean this in the best way. I am planning a retreat for June 19-22, 2014 in Park City, Ut. The theme of it is Summer Magic and I am in the process of lining up the place. I am hoping to get the bids back any day now, so I can decide and get thing officially started. The preplan for this retreat is that it will have at least 4-6 craft sessions (one jewelry, one leather working,  something with greeting cards, the rest are still in the finalization process). We retreat will include a welcome party and a little shopping experience from some of our teachers and others on thursday night with some edible treats! Classes friday and Saturday during the day time. Lunch will be provided on those days. Swaps are in the process of being planned for friday night as well as  make and take project(s). These are just some of the fun and exciting events that are planned for the retreat. Once plans and teachers are finalized up, I will let you know about registering and locking in ...

I have decided to do the Dickens Festival in Salt Lake City this December. I did it last year. It was eight day and that was just too long for me. This year they are only holding it for 4 days so I am going to be trying it again. Since the space prices for vendors has gone up about 30%, I have decided to try a cart space this year. I am in the process of designing it and figuring out my 6x8 space arrangement. I am also working on what kind of things I will have for sale there It will be held at the Southtown Expo Center on December 11-14 from 10am to 9pm. Here are a few shot from my "store" last year Will keep you updated on how things are going!

Another fun thing I have been doing is creating feather barrettes and hair pins. These are some of my first inspirations. Many of the bobby pins were feathers and feather flowers with small crystals  Others had cloth flowers at the end I used a lot of peacock feathers as the are colorful and look exotic I placed a small  antique gold finished rode on this pin This one is far more rounded in shape and has an accent piece of a stamped brass leaf Another rounded pin with a rose colored rose center I used some flower zippers in the above and below barrettes This one has a cluster of small metal balls with fluffy ostrich feathers and black and white turkey feathers  Guinea feathers and a tan silk flower make up this small hair piece This one is a much more two dimensional design with a tighter looks and less fluff This colorful one has dyed ostrich in bright colors to go with the peacock feather and zipper flowe...