ChristmasTime Treasures!!!

This will be the very first year we are not at home for Christmas! We are off to celebrate Christmas with our daughters in Whistler, British Columbia where our youngest daughter is working at The Four Season Resort Whistler.

After much debate inside my head and insider my heart, I've decided not to decorate and I LOVE decorating for the holidays!!! So, each and every day of the month of December, I am going to feature a ChristmasTime Treasure! Now, these treasures might be a DIY, a decorated room, a Christmas centerpiece, tips for surviving Christmas, recipes, traditions, guest bloggers and so much more....so stay tuned as I invite you into my 'cyber' ChristmasTime!

Let me know what you think....

Heather

Blog Crush Wednesday - Janet Hill Studio

For those of you who are not familiar with Janet of Janet Hill Studio then I'm glad you are stopping by today.  The best description of Janet can be found at her 'about' section on Janet Hill Studio along with the beautiful Fairy Godmother portrait.....

Fairy Godmother

"Janet’s work is both elegant, yet whimsical, often with an underlying narrative that instantly captures the imagination.  Her painting style evokes a sense of nostalgia,  timeless beauty, mystery, humour, and comfort.  Her work is displayed in private collections throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Some of Janet’s corporate clients include Tiffany & Co., Hallmark UK, and Harper Collins.  Her work has also been featured in Matchbook Magazine, Design Sponge, This Is Glamorous, The Neo-Traditionalist, and Oh Joy!  Janet lives in the beautiful city of Stratford, Ontario, Canada.  She paints in a small in-house studio where she lives with her husband John, and their cat and dog."

I love, love, love, love, love her artwork!!!!  The Janet Hill Studio on Etsy is filled with creative,vintage inspired works all printed in glicee style on exquisite paper and each and every one of them tells a story.  Here are a few of my favorites....

Starlight

Country Squire

The Go-Getter

French Lilac

In The Jungle

Janet utilizes the blog platform to introduce us to her works, her muses, her frustrations and her successes.  Recently, Monica Lee of Smart Creative Women interviewed Janet and you will learn early in this interview why I respect her courage, determination and CAN-DO attitude.  She is a wonderful role model for anyone wishing to pursue a career in the arts.

Let me know what you think.....I'd love to hear about your Janet Hill favorites too!

Heather

Camouflage Giveaway

I recently created a Lions, Tigers & Bears wreath and over this Thanksgiving weekend,  I was inspired to create a military 'camouflage' wreath as a 'thank you' to our military and military families.  This wreath is meant solely to acknowledge and thank our military and their families for their service and sacrifice.

Military camouflage was first practiced in the mid 18th century and to this day, "Camouflage is used to protect military equipment such as vehicles, guns, ships,^[55] aircraft and buildings^[75] as well as individual soldiers and their positions." 

Like my first DIY wreath, Lions, Tigers & Bears, I decided to use a grapevine wreath as my base. The other items needed for my project were spray paint for the wreath base color and  two acrylic paints in camouflage colors.  I also found plastic military combat figures like my brothers played with when they were little.

My first step was to spray paint the wreath and then add the camouflage paint to create a realistic camouflage effect.

Next I got out my trusty glue gun and begun attaching my military figures in random fashion over the entire wreath.

And finally, I fashioned a burlap bow to complete my "Thanksgiving" wreath for all the men and women serving in the military and their families.

If you know a military family who you would like to receive this "Thanksgiving" Camouflage wreath, please leave a comment and I will be selecting a winner from your comments. 

Let me know what you think....I'd love for you to become a follower!

Heather

 

    

   

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

As we all prepare for Thanksgiving, I thought I'd share this unbelievable DIY Thanksgiving Art Project by Roeschel at DIY ShowOff!!! I'll be looking at thrift store art from a different perspective now.

Thx Roeschel for opening up my eyes to a new decorating recycling idea!

On Thanksgiving Day, all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment - halftime!!!  Author Unknown

From our home to yours, Happy Thanksgiving....

Heather

Proud Auntie!

So, I just received a post on Facebook from my sister-in-law sharing a link to our niece, Louisa's feature in the online magazine, Sweet Lemon Magazine.  You can find her article on Pages 122-124.  After seeing the fabulous photos and reading the recipes, I now have to have a "Girls Night In For The Holidays"!!!

Now, Louisa is 19 years old and she is the creator of Living Lou.  She is passionate about healthy eating and  encouraging others to follow suit.  "Living Lou was born in May 2010. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing at first, all I knew was that I loved getting recipes from all over the blogosphere and I thought it would be a fun and creative outlet for my then, barely 17 year old self. As a strictly recipe following girl I wanted to try my hand at creating recipes and food photography – which is an art form in itself! Living Lou is a journey and has presented me with many opportunities I wouldn’t have had"

And Louisa has literally created art with food.  She is a wonderful food stylist and photographer along with being a fantastic cook.  She has recently been recognized as one of the Top 100 Food Blogs by The Psychology Of Eating. She writes weekly for Sweet Potato Chronicles. She has been chosen as the winner of Blogs of The Month by Jamie Oliver Food Blog Revolution and the list of awards goes on.  

Her blog is full of recipes ranging from appetizers, to gluten free, to Meatless Mondays, to chocolate, to Vegan and so much more.   Below are just a few of my favorite photos of her delectable delights!

She's also absolutely beautiful, both inside and out...

So, head on over to see why Sweet Lemon Magazine chose Louisa of Living Lou to create the fantastic feature, "A Girls' Night In For The Holidays"!

Let me know what you think...

Heather

Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

Years and years ago, an old friend of my mother's gave our daughters a darling little wreath that she had made.  I had never seen anything like it before or since.

SO, I thought I'd attempt to create one myself and share it with you.

The list of supplies includes a grapevine wreath, bags of miniature plastic animals, spray paint, hot glue gun and finally, ribbon.

This is literally one of the easiest craft projects!!!  So, here it goes.....

I was surprised how tough it was to find affordable plastic animals but Target to the rescue!!!  I scored a 45 piece set on clearance and then a few additional sets in their Dollar section.  A variety of animal shapes and sizes make the final project more interesting.

Once the animals were out of the 'pen' and ready to go, I used my 'new' glue gun (one of the best Christmas gifts ever!!!) and started gluing the larger animals. You can glue them on however you choose....

 

I then randomly glued the smaller animals until I literally ran out of glue....

I chose Krylon Brushed Metallic Satin Champagne Nouveau Paint and spray painted the entire plastic animal wreath.  The choice of paint color is a personal one and I just like a subtle touch of glitz!!!

Add your glittery ribbon and voila.....

Let me know what you think....

Heather