"Art is my vehicle through life; may we share the ride together." Ron Wickersham

Monday, March 26, 2012

Announcing...

 Our very first grandchild, a boy, arrived yesterday at 9:00 pm.  Carl William weighed in at 8 lbs 1 oz and is 19.5 inches long.



Mom, Dad and baby doing fine.


 
Having his first shampoo and bath. He has so much hair they needed to use a brush!


 A few hours later we finally got the chance to hold him.  We are absolutely thrilled to welcome this little guy into our family!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

I Won!

I love to enter blog giveaways and I seem to be a bit lucky in winning some of them too! Just found out from Lorraine on Creative Daily that I won her gorgeous fabric collage on giveaway #4 (see it here).  I recently discovered her blog and her work is beautiful, so take a visit and check it out for yourself! Can't wait to get my beautiful piece.

Ready for Spring


This is what I was up to today. Took some time to finally get a much-needed pedicure so I'll be ready for flip-flop season.  It felt so good to be pampered.  Note to self: do more often!

Happy Spring!

Monday, March 19, 2012

Inspired by Hero Arts

This card created by Tami Harley was featured on the Hero Arts blog today. You can check out the post here.

I was instantly inspired to make something similar, but instead of a card I did a page in my art journal.  I already had a page gessoed and had decoupaged wrinkly tissue on it so my background was ready to go.



I don't have any of the stamps that were used, so I substituted what I did have.  The background was painted with blue and green acrylic paints and overstamped randomly with a text stamp.  I loosely painted a flower with white and red paints and then stamped a Claudine Hellmuth flower over the paints.  I stamped the leaves from the same set onto dark green cardstock, cut them out and glued them to the background, drawing in a stem.  I punched a yellow circle from cardstock and glued it to the center of the flower and added a button.  The sentiment is an old clear stamp that I stamped on white cardstock, inked and glued to background.

This was a quick and fun project for a very rainy, stormy day. Brightened my spirits!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

New Classes for Spring

Last weekend we released our new LBH classes for spring. To see the entire lineup, go to the LBH blog and click on the Buffet Class tab at the top. There are still openings in all classes, so reserve your seat now.

Here's a spring canvas I created  (which is similar to the one I created for the Front Porch Kit projects last week) using a burlap canvas and lots of natural elements.  It showcases one of my favorite photos of my youngest daughter.




And I created this double-page baby layout from the new Graphic 45 baby papers (Little Darlings).  I borrowed photos of a friend's baby for this but am looking forward to replacing them with my own grandson's photos (two weeks to go!).

Used a G45 metal butterfly embellishment

Love these tiny onesies with Ideology metal hangers

Tiny baby buttons and an embossed butterfly
Hope you're starting to enjoy spring weather wherever you are. It's been in the high 70's here all week and everything is blooming!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Welcome to the new Front Porch Design Team



We've just added eight new designers to our Front Porch Design Team! They all bring unique talents and styles to the team and I'm looking forward to getting to know them and create art with them. They will be creating projects for the very next Front Porch Kit due to be released in about six weeks.

Check out the announcement of the new team on The Little Blue House Blog today and be sure to visit their personal blogs to get to know them better.

WELCOME GIRLS!


Sunday, March 11, 2012

LBH Open House

It's been a very busy week, finishing up all the design projects for spring classes and then hosting our Open House on Friday and Saturday. The Open House was a blast - it's always fun to see all our customers/friends, and we always have great refreshments to eat and a fun make-and-take too.

Our friend, Lynette, took charge of decorating the kitchen and making all the goodies - she did an awesome job on both! Take a look for yourself.

Cute little "Quakers" - darling vintage decor

Yummies - can you say sugar heaven? White chocolate coated oreo pops and peeps dipped in almond bark!

These were our sweet make-and-take Easter tags featuring Honey Pop honeycomb paper and the new Stampendous Color Fragments and Halo Glitters.  I think Elaine and I taught over 100 of these tags!




And here's Kristen with the fabulous prizes we gave away.  


And now begins the prepping for all the classes sold...

Friday, March 9, 2012

LBH Spring Open House and "Nature's Charm" Cards

Come join us at The Little Blue House for our Spring Open House today and tomorrow from 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM and see all our new spring class projects.  We have a super cute free make-and-take for you and some yummy refreshments.  Hope to see you there!

Here are more fun projects I created from the Nature's Charm FPK (which is still available by ordering online or directly from the LBH).  One of the best parts of our kits is the inclusion of BluePrints which are complete instructions with full-color photos of SIX projects made with the kit.  Both of these cards are included in the BluePrints with this release.

This card was inspired by the current chevron trend.  We saw many renditions of the chevron pattern at CHA.  
Chevron Card

This card is a double-slider card. When you pull the top "tag" out the bottom one emerges at the same time. 

Friendship Double Slider Card

Closeup showing the extended card

Hope to see you this weekend!

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

More FPK Projects

I'm in LOVE with this Nature's Charm kit. The colors are springy and beautiful without being the expected pastel palette.  I made lots of projects for the online inspiration gallery on the NEW website


Here's a layout featuring a favorite photo of my four daughters, taken in East Texas at Thanksgiving this year. I used the looped wire piece as a mask for the background, misting with several colors of ink sprays.  A piece of the wire is also layered behind the pocket in the lower right corner. The dovetailed paper strips are all from the kit.



Here's a closeup of the background where you can see a hint of the mask.




Here's a closeup of the cute kraft pocket embossed and inked. I used one of the journaling cards inside the pocket instead of the library card that originally came in it.


 I also did a two-page spread in my art journal.  With all the many layers, it's hard to see the papers I started with, but they were from the kit as well. I used lots of inks, paints, charcoal pencil and India inks on these pages.



Can you see the smoke coming from the chimneys in these photos?  They are pieces cut from that same bright green looped wire piece, but painted white.




This Front Porch Kit is still available for purchase either at the LBH or online. Get yours now!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Front Porch Kit Canvas

Yesterday I showed you the contents of the new Front Porch Kit, Nature's Charm, which included a burlap-covered canvas.  His name is "Mr. Burl Ap" and he's 10" x 10" ( I mistakenly said he was 8x8 - those are the inside dimensions.)

Everyone on the design team had to create something with Mr. Burl Ap (yes, we name our surfaces) and it's interesting to see all the different and very unique creations.  So many creative ideas! (Take a look for yourself on our new website and the FPK gallery: www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com)


I turned my canvas so the recessed side (usually the back) is the front, much like a shadowbox.  I used the gorgeous papers from Authentique in the background and added a sweet baby photo that I borrowed from a friend's gallery.  Of course, once our little grandson arrives at the end of this month (!) I will be able to change it out with his photo. Instead of adding a cardstock mat around the photo, I swiped ivory paint around the edges to make it stand out.


The products I used were all from the kit.

I made the bird nest by folding and coiling the burlap ribbon into a circle, leaving a space in the center.  The eggs were made from the cotton balls - I mixed white glue and liquid Distress Stain (from Ranger) together to make a light blue. I then soaked pieces of cotton in the mixture and rolled and rolled them into little egg shapes.  This took a long time to dry.  Once dry, though, I coated them lightly with a bit of iridescent Stickles. These are my favorite part of the entire project.


I diecut the bird (see below) from a scalloped blue tag included in the kit. I even used the narrow white satin ribbon from the tag, but colored it with blue Distress Stain and tied it around the kraft pocket. The bird's wing is one of the paisley shapes cut from a strip of paper.  The branch is a piece of paper-covered wire embellished with leaves and floral sprigs.


I used a technique for the "wood" frame surrounding the canvas which I learned at the CHA Tim Holtz class I attended.  First I cut the wool plank patterned paper into strips to fit all four sides and then sprayed each strip with Ranger Ink Refresher.  (This is a product which has been around a long time but is normally used for refreshing your ink pads to keep them juicy a bit longer before re-inking. However, Tim came up with using it to dampen paper and create a unique textured surface that feels like suede or leather.)  I massaged the Refresher into the papers until mostly absorbed and then crumpled them. After drying them with a heat tool, I flattened them with my fingers and swiped lightly with a brown ink pad. When I adhered the strips to the sides of the canvas, I overlapped them and left a bit of overhang to look like the old frames for samplers.

I hope you're enjoying seeing this kit and the projects. If you are interested in getting your own kit, please contact the LBH by phone or you can now order online : www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com

Come by tomorrow for more projects!


Monday, March 5, 2012

Today's the Day!





Today we are revealing the Nature's Charm Front Porch Kit! I am so excited for you to see this kit - it's fantastic and just wait til the inspiration gallery goes live so you can see all the amazing projects the design team made with the products in the kit.

Here's the design board for the kit showing everything that's included. Awesome!



There are lots of ribbons, yarns, twine and a wide burlap ribbon; two cotton fabrics; a funky wire mesh; handmade buttons; several tags, pockets and journaling cards; an entire chipboard alphabet with multiples of each letter; moss, leaves, paper-wrapped wire, floral sprigs and, yes, cotton balls; 5 pieces of solid cardstock; 9-10 patterned papers (I can't remember exactly!); and a burlap-wrapped 8" square canvas. Also included in the kit are printed directions (BluePrints) for SIX projects that were made from ONE kit.

You can still order your kit by calling The Little Blue House at 817-431-7930 or stopping by the house starting on Tuesday.  They are $38.95.  Pre-orders will be ready to pick up on Tuesday at the LBH and kits going out-of-town will start shipping then also.

BREAKING NEWS - The new LBH website is now LIVE! Check it out here: www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com
Nature's Charm can now be ordered online!

Be sure to check out the galleries of all the beautiful projects made by the design team members. Gorgeous stuff!

And, lastly, have you been going to the LBH blog and leaving comments? Miss Tracy will be picking a winner from all the comments for a free Nature's Charm kit on Tuesday.

Tomorrow I will start sharing the projects I created with this kit.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Front Porch Kit Sneaks Day 3


Welcome back. Ready for more sneak peeks? This new kit has so many wonderful elements:

Handmade buttons, ribbons and ?


Beautiful papers, fabrics and trims

What will the surface be this time?  You never know with us - we've included a wooden plank, a small clock, and a metal wall pocket in past kits - what have we come up with for this one?

Here are more peeks of some of my projects.




I can't wait for you to see this amazing kit and all the fabulous projects the design team has made! Be sure to visit the other design team members' blogs (listed on my side bar to the right) to see their sneak peeks!  And for a chance to win your own FREE kit, visit The Little Blue House blog and leave a comment.


Call the LBH at 817-431-7930 to pre-order your kit.  Tomorrow is the full reveal - we'll be showing the entire kit! And beginning Tuesday you will able to pick up your kit at the LBH.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Nature's Charm Front Porch Kit Sneak Peek #2

Do you like texture and natural items? If  so, you will LOVE this new Front Porch Kit.  It is packed with gorgeous products and was such fun to create with.

Here's a sneak peek at one of the projects I made. Remember, the full reveal will be on Monday, March 5!


You can pre-order your kit by calling the Little Blue House at 817-431-7930 or coming into the store.   A new website (www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com) is currently under construction and will be live by Monday. At that time, kits can be purchased online as well.  Kits will be available for pickup on Tuesday!

Visit the LBH blog at www.thelittlebluehouseblog.blogspot.com for more information and be sure to leave a comment each day for a chance to win a free kit!

Friday, March 2, 2012

Front Porch Kits Coming Soon!



It's been a few months since The Little Blue House released a Front Porch Kit - the holidays ate up all our free time - but we are now ready to reveal yet another fabulous kit, "Nature's Charm."  I think this one may be my favorite yet and I can't wait to share it with you!

Pre-orders are now being taken (call the LBH at 817-431-7930) - be sure to reserve yours as this is a limited release. We have a new website (www.thelittlebluehouseonline.com) which is now up and running but still in a state of construction - soon you will be able to order online as well as visit a gallery of inspiration projects designed by the amazing design team.

I'm showing a sneak peek of some of the kit contents today and will have more in the next few days.  Monday is the full reveal and kits will be available for shipping or in-store pickup starting Tuesday.  Hmm, what could this be?