Paper Cow Girl's: A Wicked Tea
October is just around the corner and so is Paper Cow Girl's: A Wicked Tea! Come learn from teachers: Ann-Denise Anderson, Lisa McIlvain, Cindy Mayfield and Lesley Venable in the quaint town of Waxahachie, Texas.

Spend a wickedly sweet day with Paper Cowgirl, as they dine on wickedly, delicious goodies, and collaborate creatively with delightfully, haunting classes.

This will be an intense, one day workshop, with the cost of the workshop including all four great classes presented by Ann-Denise Anderson, Lisa McIlvain, Cindy Mayfield and Lesley Venable. The price of the workshop is $220 which also includes:

-breakfast nibbles, coffee, lunch (see menu below), a decadent goodie bar, four great classes, fabulous goodie bags and more.

The class location for the event is the charming, pink Cottage (on Water Street) in Waxahachie, Texas. This delightful, pink "doll-house for big girls" will be bedecked and bedazzled with spooky splendor to get us all in the "spirit", visit the Paper Cow Girl Blog/site for more spooky details and to sign up:
http://www.papercowgirlregistration.blogspot.com/

Here is a sneak peak at AnnDenise's fabulous workshop:




Visit AnnDenise's Blog for more pictures and info:
http://whimandfancydesigns.blogspot.com/2010/08/wicked-tea-registration-is-now-open.html

Lesley's Workshop Sneak Peak:

Four Days of Christmas, Post 7!


On the 4th Day of Christmas....

Today I'd like to showcase some favorite Christmas ornaments/decorations for you to make or to just enjoy!

This following piece was made from a broken 3d star ornament that I up-cycled and added a vintage cake ballerina, tulle, pearls, ribbon, Dresden Wings, millinery, stickles and glitter!

Here are some examples of the Dresden Boat ornaments, project supplies, instructions, video and details of this on Spellbinders Curiosities Blog and at Victorian Scrap Works Site!
Here are some chenille chubby stem doll ornaments I made last year, the possibilities are endless!

Here are some kitchy faux felted/spun cotton style ornaments, fast and easy, low maintenance, using recycled Christmas Tree batting skirt/snow blanket & crepe paper!

Here are some of last years Papier Puppen Dolls/Ornaments made from crepe paper, images, chenille, etc., Instructions a few post back and on Spellbinders Curiosities Blog!


Here is a version of my circus toys from my book: Altered Art Circus, which I turned into an ornament:

Here are some variations of the bulb wand from my book: Altered Art Circus, turned into bulb and cage ornaments instead:


More Christmas Magic to follow!
Happy Holidays!
Lisa!

Six Days of Christmas, Post Five!

On the 6th day of Christmas......

The 6th day of Christmas was spent celebrating the essence of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the North Pole, Bake Shoppe Tradition and Artsing w/Friends.

As Christmas approaches, I still haven't felt like its truly Christmas Time, yes I have the house decorated with Holiday Cheer, Hosted a Holiday Workshop and Did the Holiday Shopping...But I was missing some of the spirit and it came to me full force when Diana and My Mom came over to bring it.
We decided on a Christmas Cookie and Art Party at my house, starting at Noon and going til 10pm. We ordered lunch, baked cookies, sang to the holiday tunes and made a holiday doll/ornament dedicated to Rudolph or Mrs. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeerette...
To start we made several batches of Sugar Cookies w/my homemade icing, sugary spinkles w/colors straight from a 1950's Bake Shoppe, not to mention cinnamon hearts, and pearls. I couldn't resist, I had to bring out the Crown cookie cutter for a few crown cookie shapes. While they were baking we started our doll project.
I pre-sewed the doll dresses in advance to save on time and took step by step photos so that you too could make them at anytime. They are very simple to make and are an updated version of my popular papier puppen dolls from a few years ago, this time they are more poofy and have rounded dresses. Diana's DollDiana's Doll 2
In between doll making, I mixed up a batch of my chocolate chip cookies, made some with almonds, pecans, toffee and coconut too, they came out soooo good. I am a coconut lover and anything with fresh coconut in it, makes me happy. The whole house smelled like a bakery, lol. Joan's DollJoan's DollJoan's DollFinally we all began to fade and start to retire for sleep, after Diana and my mom left, Glenny and I poured a glass of wine and had a quick snack, then it was off to bed, while I do think I dreamt of sugar plums dancing around my sleepy head.

xoxo!
Lisa!

Visit Diana's Blog:

http://vintagebluestudio.typepad.com

Joan's Blog:

http://www.auroratique.blogspot.com/

Nine Days of Christmas, Post Two!

"Enchanted Woodland Christmas"

Miss Flora Van Huysen, Little Bo Peep's cousin from Switzerland's Sugar Mountain!

For decades decorating with pine cones has been a design treat, using them in home decor, as a vase filler, turned into a wreath, a swag, used in floral arrangements, glittered, turned into dolls, ornaments, holiday decorations, trees and in partyware.

During my move a few years ago, I came upon several boxes of vintage ornaments and holiday decor, inside were some pinecone ornaments, some were pinecone elves, birds, angels, santa's, and a wreath doll ornament. They were glittered, some had knitted hats and gloves, felt clothes, clay, spun cotton heads, wings, a halo and pastel paint.

After studying their homemade presentation, I decided to create a few myself, a carnival of pinecone dollies. If you love to recycle, then this is a great eco friendly/green project by simply recycling pinecones from outside or pinecones from older Christmas/Fall projects. Then glitter them, or turn into dolls and ornaments.

Miss Plume Sugarite, Miss Webb and Miss Flora's Fairy-ology classmate, all are from Switzerland's Sugar Mountain!

Miss Plum signed up for sugar plum magic at the Luppin Stahl School of Magic, just outside Sugar Mountain.

In class she met Flora and Adeline. Miss Plume Sugarite, is learning sugar plum magic, so she can one day open her own sugar plum farm on her vast estate. She already knows how to make magic sugar in 12 colors. She is waiting for the Nutcracker Music Studies Corse, which starts next week.

Miss Adeline Webb, Miss Flora Van Huysen Fairy-ology and Flowers classmate, both are from Switzerland's Sugar Mountain!

Adeline decided she wanted to study Fairy-ology and Winter Magic, so she signed up at the Luppin Stahl School of Magic, just outside Sugar Mountain.

In class she met Flora, both became instant friends. Flora also met Miss Plume Sugarite, who is learning sugar plum magic, so she can one day open her own sugar plum farm on her vast estate.

I have created a project for this which can be found on the Art Glitter Blog:
http://artglitterblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/pine-cone-tinsel-ballerinas-by-lisa.html

and at the Spellbinders Curiosities Project Blog:
http://spellbinderscuriosities.blogspot.com/2009/12/tinsel-pine-cone-dolls.html


Hope you enjoyed all the Enchanted Woodland Creations I have made, my take on a vintage Christmas w/Cupcake Chic Colors!

"Ten Days of Christmas, Post One"

Theme Today: "Cupcake Chic"
From now until Christmas I will be blogging about holiday Crafts/Projects, Handmade Wares, Christmas Trees, Events, Parties and Recipes. To find extra inspiration, search for new and archived projects, see guest designer works visit: http://spellbinderscuriosities.blogspot.com/

This new blog is dedicated to all projects, published/printed projects from me and Moonfaires World Guest Designers.
I'd like to start the ten days of Christmas with a theme I have labeled: "Cupcake Chic" which is a color palette I use to categorize creamy cupcake icing colors, pastels, new brights, wrapped in a 1940's to 1960's color scheme and style, set in a storybook sweet shoppe setting. There is room for fairytale style from the 1920s and 30's, and the Rainbow bright era of the early 80's which can be classified in this category as well. So can distressed whites, pinks and neutrals which when combined with a cupcake color, some peppermint stripes and cherry red, boom instant cupcake chic. Candyland stripes, sweet sprinkles, painted pastel metals, color aluminum, spun cotton, plastic foam, forget me knots, 1940-50's corsages, party wares from the 40s-60s, Kewpies, Celluloid Carnival, Fair and Send Away Dolls, Penny Dolls, Bisques, Cutesy Tasty Cake Dolls, Nancy Ann's, Campbell Kids, Revlon Dolls, Tin Toys, 50s Space Toys, vintage and frou frou prom gowns, feather trees, tulle trees, mercury glass, plastic charms, charm bracelets, rhinestones, honey comb paper and decorations, tinsel, tinsel/foil decorations, kitchy deers and stuffed animals, ice cream fountain sodas and shoppes, 5 and 10 stores, all these categorize inside "Cupcake Chic". I've been working back into this color palette and theme for quite some time, originally I was grungy in colors, moved to bolds, back to grunge, then to bolds, finally finding my home within this theme, my favorite color combos right now are aqua and pink, lemonade and violet, blueberry and violet, a pastel rainbow mix wth creams.


For Christmas this year I started in September, re-dying and painting my display trees a cupcake robins egg blue/aqua color, bringing them to Silver Bella, mixing them with all cupcake chic colors. For Tinsel Wonderland I mixed these same trees with tinsel colors, silvers and creams.At my house I opted for shine brite trees in the sitting room, one is tinsel silver, the other tinsel pink, keeping only vintage and vintage handmade ornaments on these two trees with aluminum foil rolled vintage garland and tree toppers.For ornaments I re-visted the bottle brush material for trees and wreaths which were transformed into ornaments and dolls, By simply bleaching and dying either vintage or new bottle brush trees you can really create some fabulous things which don't have to be reserved for just the holidays. For the project on bottle brush tree dying and the Storybook Toys visit the Art Glitter Blog here:

http://artglitterblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/glittered-toy-blocks-storybook-toy.html

or visit the Spellbinders Blog here:

http://spellbinderscuriosities.blogspot.com/2009/02/dresden-trim-ornament-project.html

Tommorrow I will have before and after photos of the bleaching process of the trees on the Spellbinders site.
I upgraded the tear drop boat ornaments by replacing vintage images with my handmade dolls, decorating with Dresden, bouillion and more. You can see some of them on the Victorian Scrapworks Site

http://www.victorianscrapworks.com/

You can purchase many of the supplies to make these ornaments there. Once you finish shopping visit
http://spellbinderscuriosities.blogspot.com/2009/02/dresden-trim-ornament-project.html

this is the place for the project instructions and video on how to make them.

Stay tuned for the 9th day of Christmas post tommorrow on the Pine Cone Carnival of Ornaments: Fairies, Sugar Plums, Little Bo Peep and Wizard Pine Cones and visit Spellbinders blog for the project instructions!

To purchase any of the finished pieces visit my etsy store at:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/moonfaires

To see more of my holiday trees and pictures visit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonfaires16/sets/72157622892468832/

Magic and Happy Holidays!
Lisa!