Christmas Day at the Perry's

I usually spend Christmas Day with my best Friend and her family, which honestly I  consider them my family too.  Deb always says go big or go home and believe me she always goes big. Our Christmas dinner was Surf and Turf OMG it was unbelievably good. Anyway I want to share some pictures of another fabulous Christmas with the Perry's.

It's a 12 foot beautifully decorated tree.

    

 It's bigger than little Ava. And filled with so much candy and treats.        

Not quite the entire gang but heres Jerry and the grandchildren (Morgan, Connor, Mia and Ava) encluding Bella and Tyson the family pets.

 

Christmas

My livingroom

Tree in my art room 

As I sit here tonight thinking about the past few days I feel sort of sad that the holiday season is comming to a end, I love spending time with family and friends, the excitement leading up to  Christmas the decorations.  Once there down and put away everything feels so plain... Need to do something about that what to do... What to do....

Christmas cards all Finished and ready to mail

As some of us crafter's do back in the summer I was toying with ideas for my

 2013 Christmas Cards, I hadn't really decided on  anything until I saw

Tim Holtz's July early sneak peeks of his fall/winter collection for the Summer CHA Show.

 I was sold, had to have it,  I stalked the Internet sites until I found his new dies.

Yep pre-ordered the ones I wanted, knowing they would not be released until late September.

Patiently (well not quite that patiently) I waited for them to arrive.  Finally the day got

here and my waiting was over.

I used the new Carolers die from Tim Holtz

the sentiment  is from Stampendous (I believe) and stamped with Stazon Ink.

The background music paper is from Authinque's new Christmas Line

and the card stock is

from Stampin Up Raspberry Ripple, Whisper White and Black, I used

 .

 

Character Construction Paris Swap

                        My tags for the Paris Themed Swap

                                with

                                Character Construction Stamp

    

I used the number 8 tags from Ranger, some scraps of paper Graphic 45 Papers

I had from other projects, embossed them with a Tim Holtz

embossing Folders (a sewing themed one) and used antique linen distress ink

to highlight the embossing.  I then cut out the Eiffel Tower design using

Tim's Eiffel Tower Die.

 Next I stamped and fussy cut 2 different designs from Character Construction

MANNEQUIN CAFE Stamp set (designs 3 and 6).  Using ribbons, lace and fringe from

my stash I started to designs dresses for the mannequins by just layering the

ribbon and lace and trims.

      

For the dress below I used a light weight paper I had that has 2 different hues of silver glitter on it

cut it in strips 2" by 4" and rolled the strips on a angle I then glued and laid them to make the

skirt, I then glue some feathery trim to the waist and added some bling for buttons and a pop of red with a bow at the collar. 

 

I think this one is my favorite.

 

The ticket and other papers added to decorate the tags are from Graphic 45 

Le Cirque Collection.

Car and deer don't mix...

Last week (Nov. 5th) some of my friends already know that regrettably but thankfully in the 9 years

I have lived in Voorheesville, NY I hit my first deer, and hopefully my last.

 Fortunately  I was not hurt, my car is fixable and the deer is still alive,

 minus a patch of fur from his hind quarter.

The owner of the repair shop, that will be fixing my car, told me that there were four

 other car/deer accidents the same night in approximately the same area. He told me I was

his 4th call that morning to get a damage estimate.

Sadly from the looks of one of the other cars, I don't think the deer made it.

 

Joking with the owner of the repair shop, I told him I thought since there are deer crossing

signs up all around the Voorheesville area,  the deer should be considerate and learn to cross at the crossing signs....hey people have crosswalks to cross in why not deer.....just saying...lol

 

My Halloween tree

As everyone know I LOVE Halloween
and yes I decorate my home for this Holiday.

I have been asked to post a picture of my
Halloween Tree. 

                           

Although you can't really see, the tree is loaded with lots of special ornaments that have been

either given to me by friends or I purchased myself .

Below are a few of the special ones...

 along with some of my collection of Jim Shore's Witches which
are on display year round.
 

 

My very dear and best friend Debbie Perry gave me Sally and her son Jay gave me Jack two

of my favorite characters from Tim Burton's  Nightmare Before Christmas.

 

And this year my friend Carmen Ellis of  www.Spookyhollow.net made my Grimmy Family for me.

I love them so much, thank you Carmen.

 

I hope you enjoyed looking at my little Halloween display.

Artogloy Retreat with Cheryl Mezzetti weekend

 I just wanted to share some about the weekend I spent at Artology Retreat in Mystic Ct. featuring Cheryl Mezzetti and Sara Kristiansen of Sweet Jane Photography.

I can't believe that it's been two weeks already since Laura Casey and I travel to Mystic Ct. to join in the fun of creating with Cheryl in the world of mixed media.  Cheryl is one of the most inspiring artist I have met since I started doing mixed media art.  The first class I took with her was a 2 hr. class on Cape Cod she was teaching in Hyannis, I joked with my friend Sue Black who actually was the one responsible for getting me to go take her class, that we got up at 4am to drive 4hrs to Cape Cod to take a 2 hr. class.  I have to admit thought that is was so worth it, I learned so much from Cheryl about thinking out side the box and to just try it, if it works it works if not try again until you get the effect your are trying to achieve. 

Anyway back to Mystic we spent 3 1/2 days creating, playing, laughing and just having fun.  Cheryl showed us so many different techniques.  We used plaster tape (the stuff casts are made of), plaster for molds, beeswax to seal and preserve berries, flowers and leaves to name a few things.  We took fabric flowers and dipped them in plaster, painted them, coated them with beeswax giving them an  awesome finish. 

  

Cheryl Mezzetti above picture

and
 some of the fun product she had available

for us to play with below.

                                                                        


 

 

some samples of what we did and Cheryl has done

some of the results we created playing with all Cheryl's stuff.

Girls having Fun

 

 



This is my Journal cover, I used plaster tape, plaster to mode flower, beeswax to preserve the leaves, and berries and silk paints to give it color, then I coated the whole cover in beeswax to give it a awesome finish.  I love how it turned out.



 

Another fun project we did was to dirty up our aprons with
stamps, inks, sprays. Then we each signed each others as a reminder
of the fun weekend we spent together.
*****

This is the very talented Sarah

of Sweet Jane Photography



she talked to us about taking pictures with our camera, how to work with the

settings on them,  how to use the light to our advantage when taking

a picture inside and out. 

 And in this would of digital photography

just keep snapping away until you get the picture you want and delete what you don't.

She makes it sound so easy....lol.

 

                Laura Photo Shoot



I have to say even thought I hate
having my picture taken I do like this one
thanks Sarah.

Sarah took professional photo's of all of us at the Retreat
is was a surprise bonus for us.

                

 

                       

Site Seeing

 

Laura and I decided to spend some time exploring Mystic

one of the things we did was go to Mystic Pizza for Lunch

OMG the Pizza was the best seriously...



Just a couple sites of the day

Ok, so these are only a couple pictures Laura took of the trip, she took Jane literally

 and took over 300 pictures this weekend...lol...really no kidding.

 

Laura thanks for sharing your pictures with me...you did a awesome

job at capturing the trip.

Halloween project

Thought I would share some more photos of the project I have been working
on for Halloween, I am hoping to have it finished soon. Not to much more to
do just have to figure out how to do what I want to do to finish it.

I have pretty much figured out how I want to light
this display box up using fiber optics shooting out
of a caldron.

my not to scary cemetery

The Raven

Meet my friend Drack

Christmas Ornaments

Just a little behind in my posting, Here are the 3 of the 6 ornaments I made for

 Fran's Christmas Ornament Swap that was due in September.