Ty's Choo Choo

rainMy nephew Ty was about 18 months old at Christmas this year. Last year I made him his first ornament and I decided to continue to make one for him each year. Being a little boy, he probably wont ever care, but I hope his mommy and daddy enjoy them. This year he is very fond of choo choo's so that was the inspiration.

The funny back story to this, is that this ornament was my third attempt. The first one nearly burned the house down. I am not exaggerating... I made it from oven-hardening clay and the ornament burst into flames in the oven and plumes of thick black smoke filled the house. It was pretty scary. I thought it was my method for creating it- turns out, the oven was broken. It would only broil. After try one, I made another and moved it to the dedicated craft oven and sure enough, this one got roasted too. No fires this time, but it was a little worse for wear. I made it from colored clay and I tried to salvage it through sanding with no avail, so I ended up painting it. In the end, I think the result was pretty nice but it was a bit of a challenge getting there:

Where did the time go? (AKA Not my New Year's Resolution Post)

It is really amazing that before you have children, you feel like you have NO time. Between work, family, friends and home maintenance, there never seemed to be any "free" time. Well, after children, you realize how spoiled you were before. You could work long hours whenever you needed to. You could run errands after that long day at the office. On the weekends you could spend mornings doing yard work, afternoons were spent catching up on a book, lazing around a bit or catching up on what couldn't be done during the week. Evenings could be used for spending time with friends with some of that 'fun money' there seemed to be so little of even then. I've said farewell to all those precious minutes I didn't think I had before.

So what's the point? Well, I guess it is my way of explaining my embarrassing lack of postings for months on end. Bad, bad blogger.

The crafts have been few and far between, but I have managed to sneek a few minutes here and there. I will (try to) post some of the items I have worked on in the past few months soon and hopefully, as the little wonder boy becomes more independant, I will have a few more of my precious minutes back! I will never say any were wasted- they were certainly well spent on spoiling him, covering him with*MUAH* lots of mommy kisses and filling his belly with puffs and mushed up food. Now we are in the "I can move around and get into everything and put it all in my mouth" stage- so the crafts have been temporarily put away or given a new home in lesser used areas of the home.

I can't wait to get them all out again. I have a backlog of ideas and inspirations just waiting to come to life!

My Greatest Creation

My first child has entered my life in recent weeks. What a fulfilling creation indeed.

My Weekly Etsy Picks - Week of Feb. 14th

Spring, Spring... oh how I long for you to arrive soon! In Georgia this week, we have gone from 4 inches of snow to 60 degree days. What a swing! Hopefully this weekend was Mother Nature's last Winter blast and we are bound for more days like today!

This week, I am featuring Dreams of Spring

Fuzzy yellow chicks are certainly a sign that warmer days have arrived. Check out this sweet little guy created by seller birder1:


Mmm... green, cool grass. What a wonderful and unique lamp shade by tansyandco!



Seems seller jefffetty's philosophy is to go big, or go home. Look at these amazing sculptural Daffodils:

A Rainbow of Ear Candy

Silver shine and the colors of the rainbow!

I made several pairs of earrings for the store. The simple, single color and bead designs seem to be popular.