Plan B

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in All Sparkled Up, crafts, Inspirational, Scripture, sparkling, Uncategorized

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All Sparkled Up, hope, inspiration, light, scripture, sequins, sparkling

I Figured out Plan B. Isn’t that the best feeling ever… When you come up with a plan B that will actually work? :)
Sometimes things are really mixed up and messed up. There’s no order. There is nothing to grasp. You watch Plan A fall away in little bits.

Plan A, scattered like sequins.

You go through the motions of trying to clean up. Again.

And then you think maybe there’s another way.

You start over.

You try again.

Don’t give up.

Plan B.

I call plan B ….

HOPE.

Plan B is Hope. It’s not perfect. It still has cracks around the edges. Sometimes it’s fragile and not very clear. But Plan B will work.

And Plan B is always crazy BRAVE!
Sometime Bravery is all you need to come up with Plan B.

Don’t give up! God knows exactly where you are. Ask Him to help you make it through.

Go for Brave.
Sara Bareilles sings Brave.

[A huge public Thank You to my son Ethan. Ever since I broke my back last year and had 17 vertebrae fused, I can't get down to ground level easily. As I shared my idea for this post, Ethan became my Hope. Sometimes Hope from God arrives in the form of a person. They bring light when everything seems fractured and dark. Ethan, you're the best!]

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11

Little Ribbon Totes and Miniature Purses

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in beading, crafts, miniature, sparkling

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Tags

bead crafts, crafts, mini, mini purse, miniature, miniature purse, miniature tote, purses, ribbon

Rainy day fun with ribbon and beads making tiny totes and miniature purses.
I started with the Klutz book Ribbon Purses (no longer in print) and made this tiny purse following their directions and using the kit materials.

A tiny ribbon purse made with Klutz book kit materials.

I really wanted to stick with just the kit items but then I thought of this one, using some of the kit supplies and adding my own seed beads and charms.

Tiny ribbon purse with charm dangle.

I didn’t follow the directions on this one but did use the kit supplies plus seed beads.

I used the purple beads from the kit to form the purse bottom.

Then I got a shiny new idea.

Tiny ribbon tote bag supplies: ribbon, chain, metallic trim, square beads, brass beads and eye pins.

Tiny ribbon tote bag supplies: I used the ribbon from the kit but the chain, metallic trim, square beads, brass beads and eye pins are my own.

Tiny ribbon tote bag. This was fun to design!

For the last one, I used the Klutz kit ribbon but added my own embellishment. I would love to make a full size clutch purse like this. The hardest component would be finding large, clear, flat-sided acrylic gems to form the sides of the clutch. I love how the light passes through this purse. I used a tiny turtle from a pierced earring for the decoration on the side.

The light passes through the gems in the sides of this tiny clutch purse.

I used a tiny turtle from a pierced earring to embellish this miniature clutch purse.

Miniature Perfume Bottles

09 Thursday May 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in beading, crafts, miniature, sparkling

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bead bottles, bead crafts, beads, crafts, miniature, miniatures

I was cleaning out old photo files and found these photos from way back in 2003.

All the perfume bottles are made of beads, earring backs and jewelry findings. They are tiny, some less than half an inch. To help the bead “bottles” stand up, I glued the bead on a pierced earring back. If you want to see the most detail in these photos, click on the photo to open a larger image. Then at the upper left of each photo will be a link that says “ORIGINAL SIZE AT (number) “. Click that link to see the largest image.

Miniature perfume bottles made from beads and jewelry findings. Please click on the photo to see a larger image.

A small plastic organizer with the lid removed made an elegant faux glass shelf unit for the miniature bead bottles.

A small plastic organizer with the lid removed served as an elegant “glass” shelf unit for the miniature bead bottles.

Miniature perfume bottles made from beads.

Miniature perfume bottles made from beads. This dresser tray is a mirror with trim glued around the edge.

To make the tray, I glued seed beads around the edge of a small mirror.

The first two photos were taken in my kitchen window… so many years ago, even before we planted the rose bush which has climbed all the way up to the kitchen window. I don’t remember where I put all the tiny bead bottles. When I find them, I think I’ll put the display case in the bedroom or bathroom window. I love tucking miniatures around the house. Most people never see them but I like knowing that my home has an even smaller story for those who have eyes to catch it.

Rainy May Day French Beading

06 Monday May 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in beading, crafts, flowers, nature, sparkling, sunlight

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

beads, crafts, french beaded flowers, French Beading, May, rainy day

It’s been mostly overcast and rainy for at least two weeks now.

A Rainy day in May.

I’m discovering that the weather greatly affects my pain level, ever since having my spine fused. Despite the pain, I shall redeem this time.

Rain in May, drip drip drip, fall the crystal drops …

Today when the sun peeked out briefly, I stood outside even while the rain was still falling, so desperate to feel sun on my face.

Even the trees are becoming mossy from all the dampness this spring.

Then the clouds moved in again and I tucked back in the darkness of my work space. But places don’t have to stay colorless and uncheered. I got out the beads.

Seed beads, mostly size 11, including Aiko and Delicas, fill a bin with color.

Pearl, crystal and glass beads.

They glistened and captured every speck of light. I didn’t want any light to get away.

Beads in a small condiment dish.

I made petals and leaves and flower centers.

Gold and bronze bead flower centers await petals and assembly.

I use children’s teacups and dishes to hold flower components while I work. Here a child’s teacup holds stamens.

A small child’s teacup holds white stamens.

I made a cardboard insert in a bin to hold my bead bottles upside down so I can see the color of the contents better.

These vintage flower centers belonged to my grandmother. I’m looking forward to using them. Thank you so much, dear sister Donna for sending them!

I will use these vintage flower beads in French Beaded flowers and jewelry.

Even though it is dark and rainy outside and there are no flowers blooming in the window, I have flowers blossoming on the table.

French Beaded flowers

French Beaded flowers in a shoebox await stems and leaves.

French Beaded flowers

The Cardboard Letter Art Books

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in altered books, art, crafts

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altered book, altered books, art, art books, artist books, crafts, paper arts, scrapbooking, scrapbooks

Years ago I made these art books from hollow 3-D cardboard letters which were readily available back then. I used an X-acto knife and butcher knife to cut the letters in half. Some had strong corrugated cardboard baffles inside to keep the box from collapsing, thus the need for the butcher knife.
The “AT Dot Com” book. Since taking this photo, I have since filled the book with favorite website and email addresses.

The “At Dot Com Book” is made from a cardboard 3-D @ symbol, cut in half, with an accordion page glued inside.

Inside the At Dot Com Book. The accordion page is made of separate sheets of cardstock, cut and glued together to represent elements of the earth – green leafy vegetation, pink floral and blue water. For the water page, I masked off continents (which I cut from paper and taped down) and sponged blue and aqua inks over the paper.

The “C Book” scrapbook was gifted to my daughter-in-law when my granddaughter was born.

The C Book. The colored bits around the edge of the book are actually Light-Brite pegs. I was hoping to add a battery operated light inside the cover but never found one the right size so the book was finished without lighting capability. The word inside says “smitten”, which I still am. -heart-

The C Book shown open.

The “D Book” was for my husband. He works in construction so I made this book with wood tones and brass nails and hinge. It only has two pages inside and will be used as a scrapbook.

The D Book is closed with a clasp and secured at the spine with two hinges. Although there is an accordion page inside, the book opens as a normal book and the accordion page does not fold out because of the hinges at the book’s spine.

To decorate the “J Book”, I covered the cardboard letter halves with green decorative tissue paper and then stitched the plastic flowers on with embroidery floss.

Artist Book – The J Book, made from a 3-D letter J.

The J Book was the most complicated book to create. The photos taken of flowers growing in our yard are all separate, attached together with string and suspended from the book with string. They fold into the book accordion-style. Because of the weight of the photos, I glued rocks into the base of the J book for stability. Some rocks were kept loose inside the J and are used for display when the book is opened. When the book is stored on my library shelf, I keep it wrapped with a green cord to keep it closed and to keep the loose rocks inside.

Thank You – The Graphics Fairy

08 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in art, crafts, mixed media, Uncategorized

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crafts, graphics fairy, old graphics, The Graphics Fairy, vintage clip art, vintage illustrations, vintage pictures

I’m finally getting around to posting Thank You’s to some wonderful people. This one is overdue by six months.

I love vintage graphics and have a collection of old books from the 1800′s and early 1900′s that I use for inspiration. So I was thrilled to stumble upon this awesome website: The Graphics Fairy, run by Karen, a lady of terrific style and creativity.

I’ve collected some of her free graphics over the past couple months with plans to use them in artwork. Karen’s collection is remarkable and vast, with hundreds of graphics of excellent quality to use in your crafts. There are convenient search tools on site so you can search by category or word for specific graphics. I’ve searched for vintage birds, bird cages and Paris drawings.

One graphic that means a lot to me is a gorgeous Eiffel Tower print. It is from an 1890′s advertising card. I included the image in a post last year. Alas, I just discovered that I forgot to credit Graphics Fairy with the image last year. Back when I did the post, I was totally strung out on pain meds and barely made it through typing that post. I edited the post today to include the image credit.

In addition to providing images, Karen also includes creative ways to use them. There are great tutorials and tips for printing and transfering images to make dozens of lovely, vintage-inspired items.

Thank you, Karen of Graphics Fairy fame, for providing such a fantastic resource so generously. You are appreciated so much!

Thank you, Karen. This image was created using Graphic Fairy’s pink heart – http://www.graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/2012/02/vintage-valentines-day-clip-art.html

French Beaded Flowers

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in beading, crafts, sparkling

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

beading, beads, crafts, french beaded flowers, French Beading, seed beads

All the activity of last week finally caught up with me so yesterday was a down day. Some days are just like that; I just have to hold very still all day and let my old bones repair. Fortunately, I had a new craft to work on – French Beaded Flowers.

I used this book, French-Beaded Flowers, and this terrific video by Lana to get started. The book is very good for beginners but it was the wonderful video by Lana that finally made sense. Thank you, Lana!

I don’t have a studio so I do all my crafting on the dining room table. I try to only take over half the dining room table so the family can use the other half for actual dining. ha ha. My end is called “the work table” and here is what it looked like last night.

My work table, covered with beading supplies for making French Beaded flowers.

My work table (half the dining room table) covered with beading supplies for making French Beaded flowers.

The bead spinner was essential! In the photo above, it’s the little round wood bowl with green beads in it on the left. I was going to skip purchasing one until I tried to hand string about… (getting calculator)… about 2730 tiny beads. I put about 10 seed beads on the wire by hand and looked at the clock and figured I didn’t have the luxury of eight more months to finish. To string the beads quickly, I used the mini bead spinner from Bead Wrangler. It works fantastic! It was fascinating watching the beads fill the wire as I spun the spinner like a spinning top.

The beading tools are from French General. They are very durable and are stored in a lovely roll. I’ve purchased many unique and gorgeous beads from French General over the years and hope to incorporate some of them in my flowers.

I didn’t take photos of the beading process because the day was all about holding as still as possible. These flowers were all made while watching two movies, so basically less than 4 hours.

French Beaded Flowers, made with size 11 seed beads and delicas.

The construction wires were wrapped with green floral tape to form the stems. Delicas are cylindrical beads, such as in the pink flower shown here, while seed beads are round, which is what I used to make the leaves. I made up the green loopy leaves because I didn’t want all the leaves to look alike.

I aspire to making stunning flowers like these, from the Bead Society of Greater New York. Until then, I’m really pleased with my first little arrangement.

My first French Beaded flowers.

The 1968 Easter Egg Tree

24 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in All Sparkled Up, crafts, Easter, family, home decor, miniature

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1960's, 1960's crafts, 1968, crafts, decorated eggs, DIY, Easter, Easter Egg Tree, egg tree, eggs

My mom was going to throw out the decorated Easter Eggs she made in 1968. They were dusty, damaged and bug-eaten. Then she considered giving them to someone to salvage any useable trims. Of course I wanted them, cracked shells and all! They cleaned up beautifully.

Egg tree eggs, made in 1968 by my mom. My sisters and I made some of these eggs, but not the prettiest.

At first glance, these seem like really simple eggs compared to the lavish rubber-stamped, lace-trimmed, glittered eggs made today. What makes these eggs so remarkable was the creativity with such limited supplies. My mom had very little to work with. She used poster paint, nail polish and a couple jars of my brother’s model car paints to paint the eggs. There was no shiny spray-on acrylic finish back then so she used clear nail polish to make them shiny. She purchased the gold paper trim from a mail order catalog from Lee Wards, a huge craft store in another state. There was no internet from which to buy craft supplies. There were no big Walmart craft aisles, Michael’s or craft stores. The only place for craft supplies was the local 5 & Dime store and even there, craft supplies were extremely limited.

Some of these eggs are missing pearls, some have bent trim, some have cracked shells. But when they are hung on the tree, they are all beautiful together.

1968 The Blue Egg with a tiny plastic dove inside.

1968 Decorated Egg – the Blue Egg with a tiny plastic dove inside.

1968 Decorate Egg – The Purple Egg.

1968 Decorated Egg – My mom painted this egg with a jar of my brother’s model car paint. The plastic hollow sequin “gems” on each side were precious and I was in awe of them.

1968 Decorated Egg – The Yellow Rose Egg. A tiny sequin butterfly flutters above the plastic rose.

1968 Decorated Egg – Painted with poster paint, covered with clear nail polish.

1968 Decorated Egg – I love the spring green color of this egg. I have a couple plastic flowers like those used on this egg so I will restore it before putting it away at the end of the season.

1968 Decorated Egg – A pink sequin butterfly flutters over a pink fabric rose. My mom didn’t have much gold paper trim so she cut it apart and used pieces sparingly.

1968 Decorated Egg. – The Hot Air Balloon egg.

1968 Decorated egg – The Lavender Spiral egg.

1968 Decorated Egg – The Purple Rickrack and Gold Trim egg.

1968 Decorated Egg – Painted with poster paint, brushed shiny with clear nail polish.

1968 Decorated Egg – Painted with pink nail polish.

1968 Decorate Egg – The Bunny Basket Egg. This was one of the few eggs I made for the tree. Even though the bright colors didn’t fit in with my mom’s elegant color scheme, she graciously added it to the family tree. That’s true Mother’s love.

1968 Decorated Egg – The back of the pink rose egg, with a very design of pink rick rack and gold paper trim.

1968 Decorated Egg – my favorite: The elegant M Egg. I don’t know where my mom got the embroidered M trim. M was for our last name – Musser.

1968 Decorated Egg – The Lily Egg. I love how this egg has one side white, the other green. This egg was so shattered on the top that I had to flip it over and reattach the wire on the bottom so it could hang. The little plastic lilies were just tucked inside so they were easy to turn right side up.

The only non-1968 eggs on the tree are the Peter Rabbit Eggs, purchased from Pottery Barn Kids several years ago. My mom used to read Peter Rabbit to my sisters, brother and I so I was thrilled to find eggs featuring illustrations from Peter Rabbit. Here Mrs Rabbit is fastening the brass buttons on Peter Rabbit’s blue jacket.

Even though these eggs have missing beads and cracked shells, they are still so precious. When I look at them, I am reminded of simpler times, days of ingenuity, days crafting with my sisters, days of being read to by a mother that loved us. This little egg tree serves to remind me that it doesn’t take a studio of amazing craft supplies to make something all sparkled up, it just takes an eye for beauty and a determination to make do with what you have.

The Dewing of the Hanging Plant Easter Egg Tree

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in All Sparkled Up, beading, crafts, Easter, flowers, gardening, home decor, miniature, sparkling, tutorial

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All Sparkled Up, crafts, Easter, Easter decoration, Easter Egg Tree, egg tree, miniature, miniature eggs, miniature flowers, miniature plants

Last year I posted about the Hanging Plant Easter Egg Tree I made. It’s time to get it out again. Adding the drops of dew was my favorite part.
After I finished each miniature plant, with it’s tiny leaves and petals, I hung it on the tree. Though pretty, the plant didn’t seem fully alive it was all sparkled up with spring rain or drops of dew.
For each drop, I used tweezers to dab a single crystal seed bead in tacky glue and attach it where it should go, hanging from the tip of a leaf or puddled in the folds of a petal.

The tree was from Pottery Barn a couple years ago. The hanging egg baskets are cut from small plastic eggs and filled with tiny plants

The tree was from Pottery Barn a couple years ago. The hanging egg baskets were cut from small plastic eggs. The miniature plants were made by cutting up full-size artificial flowers and leaves. Some of the hanging vines were made by gluing hand-cut leaves to artificial plant stems. Click on photos to see the full size images if you wish.

Miniature Daisies.

Miniature daisies.

Miniature Lily of the Valley.

Miniature ferns and moss.

Miniature Forget-me-not.

Miniature Burros Tail.

If you want to add realistic drops to an artificial plant, remember how real water acts. It flows down hill. So it will puddle at the bottom of a flower center, or hang from the lower tip of a petal or leaf.

Miniature Blue Flowers. The fluffy white balls were actually stamens cut from the center of a full-size artificial flower.

Miniature ferns and moss.

Miniature Tuberous Begonia, reminiscent of the colors of my mom’s beautiful begonia hanging plant.

Miniature Marigold.

Miniature Roses. To make a rose, I took one petal from a 1″ artificial rose, folded it in half and glued and rolled it up into a cone shape. The pointed tip of the cone was cut off and stuck down inside the top part of the cone to make center of the rose. Some cone tips are also used as the buds.

Placing the tiny bead droplets on the plants was a very contemplative task, like yoga or painting, with each moment crystallized and beautiful. No it was not tedious, it was restorative and full of light. All sparkled up.

“And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” Isaiah 58:11

Five Tiny Bunnies

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by juliamonroe in crafts, Easter, miniature

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Tags

bunnies, craft, crafts, Easter, miniature, paperclay, rabbit

About the size of a penny, they sprang from a package of Paperclay last year. I have no idea where they are now but fortunately I photographed them before they hopped away.

Five tiny bunnies, made of paperclay.

My plan was to paint them to look like miniature chocolate bunnies but I didn’t have time. They sat eyeless and white in front of my monitor for a month. Bunnies have a tendency to multiply anyway so I’ll just have to make more.

All Sparkled Up

~ Like dew hanging from the tip of a leaf, a single bead or word adds sparkle where there was none.

Category Archives: crafts

Plan B

Little Ribbon Totes and Miniature Purses

Miniature Perfume Bottles

Rainy May Day French Beading

The Cardboard Letter Art Books

Thank You – The Graphics Fairy

French Beaded Flowers

The 1968 Easter Egg Tree

The Dewing of the Hanging Plant Easter Egg Tree

Five Tiny Bunnies

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