The felt flower brooch I just showed you reminded me of this little felty fella.  Did I ever tell you I used to do art fairs before I started designing craft projects…before I moved to Ch!na, before before?  I did.  My booth was filled with mixed media jewelry and a lotta felty jewels towards the end.  It was right about the time I submitted my Felted Jewelry book proposal.  There are so many fun projects in my jewelry box stash from the past.  After looking through it this morning, it is evidence that you never know where your art will take you, so you have to just fly with it.

The birdie is made entirely of wool with a bit of metal and seed beads mixed in.  I started making these birds back in college, originally out of paper.  Someday I’ll show you.  I think I must have sold 100 of them.  Birds will always be loved by people—there’s just something about their vulnerable yet strong little selves that we connect to.

This scarf has been worn practically everyday since I got it in Kathmandu back in November.  I’ve worn a jean jacket ever since the second grade.  Denim jacket obsession runs in the family.  And I’ve opted to flip my collar up for the last couple of years.  It’s an 80’s thing, a Euro thing, and an it looks better on me like that thing.  Love Spring attire because you still have a reason to layer clothing!  Do you feel the same?  Grandpa, I know you put a lotta thought into layering your clothes 😉

In other news, I only had "yellow" options of things to eat for lunch today!

I know I just posted about lunch, but this was very strange and it happens from time to time with different colors.  Everything I thought about fixing for lunch was a shade of yellow.  Eggs and wheat toast. Leftover cornbread and cream of chicken soup.  Granola bars.  Honey. Banana. Cheese.  All yellow!  I took it as a sign and looked up some color symbolism and the brain: 

Yellow: energizes, relieves depression, improves memory, stimulates appetite

Well ok, then.  There you have it.  I know a lot of artists use colors for symbolism.  Colors that suit my mood on that particular day are more the route I take, but it’s something to consider in the future for sure.

Tonight is Girls Night Out and we are going to see Cats. I’ve never seen it, so looking forward to that.  Tomorrow Botch and I are going to Hong Kong for the day to hang out and mail some things.  I’ll probably see you Sunday with some Links and Tales.  😉 Until then, Have a Great Weekend!

Here are few more eggs I almost forgot to show you….again.  I had these ready for last year and forgot.  They are clippings from a retro magazine that my gram gave me about six or seven years ago I’d say.  I have plans to try out the ribbon ones below.  At this point, I’m not sure if I have enough patience to get a string of seed beads to stick to a round surface like the ones above.  Glue recommendations anyone?  May all your Easter baskets and eggs be filled with sweet crafty loot.  And have a lovely day wherever you are….

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Jennifer Jangles Blog
Jennifer’s designed a pollen free flower necklace for spring.

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PearlEsq.
Robin has added video editing to her repertoire…check out new Ranger licensed designer Claudine Hellmuth’s cool transfer technique that can work on lots of different surfaces and for jewlery or papercraft projects!

Savvy Crafter
Hop on down the bunny trail at Candie’s blog to see some Springy bunny bling!

Snap out of it, Jean! There’s beading to be done!
Jean wants to formally introduce you all to the super new members of this fun group!

The Impatient Beader (Goes Dutch!)
Madge is heading off to a book shoot and a trip to the city that shall not be named again, but before she left she wanted to share this sunny little jewelry set. Check out her newly translated first book in…Dutch!

Here are the eggs I mentioned a couple of days ago.  Throw some Styrofoam* egg forms, crepe paper, and glitter Mod Podge into the pot and you get….Eggalicious! 

I like my crafty eggs over "easy"—Simply shred, tear, or cut the crepe paper, add a thin layer of glitter Mod Podge to the egg and start stickin’!  Seal the crepe paper with Mod Podge as you go.  Once the eggs are dry, you can leave them as is or embellish with sequins and beads strung on straight pins.  The pink and orange egg has a cherry blossom paper cutting that I got here decoupaged on top.

And there you have it!  This chic is off to get some din-din!  Happy Easter everyone!   

It seems like a lot of peeps are traveling right now or getting ready to go somewhere—another sign of spring, no doubt.  In honor of your travels, I thought I’d share a fun luggage tag project that kids of all ages will enjoy making.  Super easy=buy some plain stock luggage tags, give them a light sanding and coat with acrylic paint=cut out magazine pictures or color copied photos and MOD PODGE them to the tag=finish them off with a clear acrylic varnish=tie them to your bag with a funky ribbon or two.  *Product testing has found that the monsters that live in the cargo hold of the plane love to chew and nibble handmade luggage tags.  Advised to tie this to your carry-on.

I’m giving away TWO of the base tags for painting.  Leave a comment and your email addy, so I can contact you if you win.  Comments accepted through Sunday @ noon EST.  Good Luck!

I was just going through some pictures…  This is from a trip to a cool water town up North a year or so ago.  This woman was cranking out some serious crocheted figures and kitsch.  I bought a neat little bird from her.  After looking at this picture again, I’m wondering why I didn’t buy the two pandas and the strawberries, and the, and the, and the!!!  I have to learn how to crochet so I can make some of the Amigurumi stuff.  And because I need to learn another crafting technique, right?

Last night we watched movies and I crafted by candle and Christmas tree light.  It was so enjoyable.  I was needle felting and I feel I should mention that if it’s your first time trying the sport I don’t recommend doing it in the dark especially while watching TV.  I stabbed myself about 10 times. Thank you Tetanus shot. 

We watched the first Harry Potter and Christmas in Connecticut.  Christmas in Connecticut is a sweet old movie my friend loaned me before she left starring Barbara Stanwyck.  This was the original released in 1945, but I saw on IMBD that there was a re-make directed by Arnie Schwarzenegger in 92.  I also saw where they are planning to release another re-make in 2009, but that was all the details.  If you like charming, black and white movies add it to your Netflix list.  Or if you live in the States, it’s probably been shown on the classic movie station six times by now.  For those of you who have seen it, I thought Uncle Felix was hilarious and I could only dream of putting that much tinsel on a tree. 

This night finds me with about 27 pieces of peanut brittle in my stomach.  I couldn’t help myself.  And it’s strange because I’ve never been drawn to peanut brittle before.  It was in a lovely box of goodies from Butchie’s parents.  Did I ever tell you my husband’s name is Butch?  It’s his real name, I’m pretty sure.  It suits him perfectly.  Butch, Butchy, Botch as my Italian neighbors used to call him and the folks here call him Bush….in case you were wondering.  Anyway, peanut brittle.  The name suits it well too as it is brittle.  We didn’t need to bust up the pieces one bit.  It must have been a bumpy ride to the other side of the world for that little package.  I’d also like to thank the postal workers who did their part to help with that.  Made eating it a lot easier and faster.  My teeth hate me right now.

Wrapping.  I’ve done a fair amount of wrapping this week.  Each year I try to come up with something fun, but practical.  This year was paper bags.  I bought some cute ones at Ikea.  They came in an assortment of sizes, but I needed more of the small size.  I found some brown paper food bags in Sham Shui Po over in Hong Kong that worked swell.  But compared to the Ikea ones they were bland like mashed potatoes without pepper or gravy.  I tried stamping them with a snowflake stamp.  Salt.  Then I got savvy and put them through the ink-jet printer.  I’m probably the last one to figure this one out. 

Jingle All the Way to Jean….my mom.

I used clip art from Dover Publications free sampler for the bag art.  I’m not so clever with graphics and stuff so I did all my image sizing in Word. It worked for the most part with a few experiments.  Zip it up by folding over the top edge and zig zag stitching it closed.  For some of the bags, I stitched snowflake sequins in at the same time.  Make a bow and hot glue it to the top.  Done.  Cute.