French Beaded Flowers

03 Wednesday Apr 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in beading, crafts, sparkling

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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 Julia Monroe 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 Julia Monroe 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 Julia Monroe in crafts, Easter, miniature

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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.

Crafting with Grandma

15 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in art, crafts, family, painting

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crafting with kids, crafts, grandchildren, painting, wood blocks

We’ve been a busy lot. I planned on making individual posts to share our crafting fun but I can’t keep up with such a flurry of crafting events! So here are some fun times with my granddchildren.

Building with the big blocks. The kids love the cake blocks I painted last year. So we made them some big blocks to play with. Eventually we’ll paint these.

Having fun building with the Big Blocks. We made them by cutting up 4 by 4’s and 6 x 6’s.

Sorting the Colored Pencils. It was almost as much fun sorting the pencils as it was drawing with them!

Sorting the colored pencils.

And then there was the Beading-on-a-Wire. It was actually a frantic effort to defuse a melt down. It worked for at least thirty minutes.

Two year old Grandson concentrates hard to get the pony bead on the wire.

We cut dolls out of plywood. She didn’t want to wait until the doll was dressed. It sprang to life immediately!

Dolls don’t need faces or clothes to be alive. They just need a friend.

We were both laughing so much that she nearly fell off her chair! LOVE. <3

And last night we painted some plastic Easter Eggs. This took much concentration because the eggs were slippery.

Four year old granddaughter paints a plastic egg.

Two year old Grandson paints an egg.

It was very messy, of course. Paint is supposed to be messy!

Two year old Grandson concentrates to keep the egg from sliding off the table, which it did.

So we gave him a heavy wood block to paint.

It was much easier painting a wood block because it didn’t slide off the table.

Grandson vigorously plunges the brush into the almost empty acrylic paint. "This is sticky! This is sticky!"

Grandson repeatedly and vigorously plunges the brush into the almost empty acrylic paint. “This is sticky! This is sticky!” It was important to him to get enough paint on the brush.

Painting the block.

But then he finally noticed the paint on his hand. And on the brush. And on the table. And when he tried to wipe everything it rapidly got worse. So that was the end of painting for the day.

But we have lots of eggs so we’ll be painting again.

Painting the plastic Easter Eggs.

Spoonflower!

10 Sunday Mar 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in community, crafts, fabric, home decor, projects, sewing, Spoonflower

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crafts, custom fabric, fabric, print your own fabric, printing on fabric, sewing, Spoonflower

Last year I had the wonderful opportunity of touring the Spoonflower facility, located in Durham, North Carolina during their Open House. I love that place! The minute you walk in there is a rush of “Eau de Cotton”. For anyone who loves to sew, there is nothing more inspiring than the smell of cotton. Mmmm…

Spoonflower is a small company that prints fabric on demand from your very own designs, by the yard. Such an awesome idea. I discovered them online while doing a search for “print your own fabric.” I’d been trying unsuccessfully to print my own designs on fabric with my home printer. I managed to print on muslin taped to cardstock with masking tape but that nearly ruined my printer, the sheets were just 6″ x 8″ and the colors were washed out so I gave up. What I wanted was yardage so I was thrilled when I stumbled upon Spoonflower.

The process is simple. You set up an account and upload your own design file to Spoonflower. There are ten different beautiful fabrics from which to choose, from silk to organic cotton to upholstery weight linen blends. Spoonflower prints your design on the fabric of your choice and mails it to you. It’s that simple. If you don’t want to design your own fabric, you can purchase fabric from thousands of other designers. They also print Wallpaper and Wall Decals so you can paper your whole house with your own design if you want.

I snapped some quick photos during the tour through the facility but would love to go back to get more. Seriously. I didn’t get a fraction of all the beautiful scenes. I’m sorry I didn’t take any photos looking up – even the ceiling was dangling with fabric delights. That place is filled with creative people and every part of the “factory” is a visual feast.

The first item I saw was this terrific Giant Stuffed Unicorn, made by some of the staff members of Spoonflower for a staff competition. You can read more about it here.

Spoonflower - Giant Stuffed Unicorn

Another staff-created project is the terrific Chevron slipcover for their office sofa, which you can read about here.

Spoonflower - Chevron Revolution Sofa

One area of the office featured projects using Spoonflower fabrics.

Spoonflower - Items using Spoonflower fabrics

Old spools were wrapped with strips of fabric printed by Spoonflower.

Another staff-created project was this reupholstered chair. What a terrific idea to update a piece of furniture. The pillow, the picture against the window, the giant “S” … all done with fabrics from Spoonflower designers.

Spoonflower - Reupholstered Heirloom Chair

Reupholstered chair pads, each a different pattern and color. I would love to do something like this for our occasional chairs, perhaps using fabric featuring my own children’s drawings, or fabric designed from one of my mom’s floral paintings!

Spoonflower - Guest Seating

I realize that this item doesn’t feature fabric, but it DOES have to do with Spoonflower… they fashioned a sofa from the leftover tubes that their rolls of fabric come on. That is SO ingenious!

Spoonflower - Recycled Cardboard Tube Sofa

Spoonflower - Recycled Cardboard Tube Sofa detail

I was quite fascinated with the actual printing room. Mist was piped down over the machines as the print heads zipped back and forth printing fabric.

Spoonflower - Fabric printer in action

In another area of the facility was the steam setting machines. Fabric was slowly spooled through the machine as the fresh ink was set with steam.

Spoonflower - Steam setting machine

Once a roll of fabric was printed and set, it was then moved to the cutting tables. Each order was cut from the roll and folded and placed in cubbies. The fabric was then carefully packaged for shipping. There are several large shelving units of cubbies filled with hundreds of folded pieces of fabrics waiting to be sent out to designers from all over the world.

Spoonflower - A glimpse of the cutting tables through the cubbies

I love this design printed on wallpaper on one of the walls.

Spoonflower - Wall covering

Fabric panels are stretched over canvas on an art wall

The tour was wonderful and inspiring and I went away with new ideas to use my own Spoonflower fabric designs. Best, I got to meet the great creators of the company and staff.

As I was leaving, I noticed a pillow on a sofa in the guest area. It was made with Granny Square Fabric. I was thrilled to see the pillow because, unbeknownst to my tour guide, I was the original creator of the Granny Square fabric! Someone from Spoonflower had purchased the yardage and made a pillow of it. What an honor to see the end result of my fabric.

Pillow made with Granny Square Fabric

If you want a custom fabric that is truly original, consider having your own designs printed by Spoonflower. Most of the fabric I designed has deep personal meaning to me, such as Granny Square fabric, Julie 1971 fabric, Vintage Snowflake Wallpaper and more. Having your own designs printed on fabric is a terrific way to create a unique heirloom.

And Thank You Spoonflower and Stephen! I loved the tour, you have a terrific company and I hope to stop in again this year.

Little Wood Houses

23 Saturday Feb 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in crafts, jewelry making, miniature, mixed media, projects

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Blue Moon Scrapbooking, craft supplies, crafts, scrapbooking embellishments, wood houses

I got a new craft supply in the mail today –Prima WOOD EMBELLISHMENTS House And Building Icons, from Blue Moon Scrapbooking.
As soon as I saw them, I thought of several uses for them. Tied onto gifts as tags, glued into scrapbooks, perched in indoor planters, glued around a picture frame… I’m sure I’ll figure out more.

Tiny laser-cut wood houses. These are about 1 1/8″ in height.

…placed in the corner of a window, glued on a mixed media canvas, used as a cover for a tiny accordion fold book, painted and dangled from a chain for a necklace…

Little wood houses, all in a row.

But before they become a project, I’ll let my granddaughter mix and sort them and play a while. That will probably be my favorite use of them.

Little Wood Houses.

Mirror Gem Notebook

30 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in All Sparkled Up, crafts, sparkling, tutorial

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crafts, decorated notebook, gems, mirrors, mirrror, notebook, plastic gems, tutorial

Today I reached for a notebook I haven’t used in years. I decorated this notebook in my hotel room during some free time during a writer’s convention. (Doesn’t everyone take glue, gems and tin foil to conventions for emergency crafting sessions?)

Mirror Gem Notebook

First I wrapped and glued a piece of tin foil over the front cover of a small memo pad.

Tin foil is glued on the cover of a memo pad.

The gems and small craft mirrors were glued on with tacky glue and then secured around all the edges with silver glitter glue. I’m surprised that everything is still holding together over 8 years later.

Plastic gems and glass mirrors are glued on the notebook cover.

I love the gems on the cover of the notebook but there’s more to it than meets the eye. You just have to focus on something deeper than the glitzy cover.

Mirror Gem Notebook

Look past the outside.

Mirror Gem Notebook

Don’t get distracted by the gems.

Mirror Gem Notebook

Find the real sparkle.

Mirror Gem Notebook

Appreciate what’s on the outside…

…just as much as what’s on the inside.

Now the dining room light is visible in the mirrors on the notebook cover.

Enjoy the bigger picture – Trees in the cover of the Mirror Gem Notebook.

Enjoying the Oven Fireplace

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Julia Monroe in crafts, family, funny, home, home decor, painting, tea time

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crafts, fake fireplace, fireplace, funny, oven fireplace

We never got around to getting the chimney swept this year. Plus, the wood stove is in the basement. Not to miss out on the fireplace experience this cold icy night, we made it happen.
As the water warmed for tea, we turned on the oven and enjoyed the nice ambient glow.

Oven Fireplace. Actually, we taped plastic wrap to the oven with electrician’s tape and then painted the logs and flames with acrylic paint. We also dragged two big chairs from the living room out to the kitchen. Oh yeah!

There must have been something magical about the glow because the guys stayed a while.

Such Pretty Things!

07 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by Julia Monroe in crafts, projects, Uncategorized

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craft supplies, crafts, Jessica Enig, Such Pretty Things, vintage millinery flowers

Such Pretty Things is one of my favorite websites because it has such pretty things! Jessica Enig truly does find the coolest stuff in luscious shades of aqua and pink.

According to her bio on her website:
“Hello and welcome to Such Pretty Things! My name is Jessica Enig and this is my blog. I am a designer, wife, and mother of two beautiful daughters. I truly love all things vintage, floral, pastel and pretty. And I am just crazy for almost every aspect of design – from interior design, styling, and photography to party-planning, floral arranging and baking. I am also a major collector (hoarder?) of vintage textiles, wallpapers from the 1930’s and 1940’s, millinery flowers, vintage ribbon, and Toleware. You should also probably know that I am “slightly” obsessed with Shabby Chic, Target, HomeGoods and Anthropologie. :-)”

Jessica has a shop, Such Pretty Things filled with a splendid array of vintage and new craft supplies, home decor, party goods, cookie sprinkles and more. I just love the sugary goodness of it all.

Not too long ago, I entered a drawing Jessica sponsored and won a box of such pretty things. What a surprise! The vintage millinery flowers are just gorgeous and the pale pink sequins, ribbons, flower brooch and sparkly butterfly inspire me to make something pretty.

A beautiful package from Such Pretty Things arrived the other day.

What a sweet note tucked into the package!

A delightful assortment of vintage millinery flowers, velvet, satin and sheer ribbon, pale pink sequins and gems and a glittery butterfly from Such Pretty Things.

A Big thank you to Jessica for sharing her love of pretty things through her blog.
Jessica, you’re the sweetest!