Mess on my Desk

No elf on the shelf for me - only a mess on my desk. I am trying to get some Christmas houses done. I am also trying to be more colorful. Halloween houses are a little easier for me because the color palette is pretty limited - gray, black, some purple, a little orange and if your house isn't straight you can just pretend it's decrepit and falling down and supposed to be that way.

Here is a little progress note.

Below is the blue "printie" house. It is based on illustrations in a children's book. Anyway, that is what it is supposed to look like.  "Printie" cardboard houses were primarily made in the late 1920s to 1930 in Japan. They are so named because the of the lithographed brick sides or lithographed stone masonry doors and windows. I based these on some houses I found in Pete Oehmen's book on Putz Christmas House Collector's Guides. (His guide is actually many guides describing these vintage glitter putz houses from Japan.)

I'm planning a red fence for this house.

The green house below is similar but I decided a clock would be good. And I tried to be even more bold with my colors. The roof is magenta - a color that I am not really familiar with (an extra-spectral color, meaning it is not naturally occurring on the light spectrum; a color made of mostly red pigment with a little blue in it). It looks better in person, but it mostly looked better before I glittered it. The glitter makes it look a little muddy. I guess I am going to have it SNOW heavily on this little house. I'm thinking a pink fence with a white glittered path to the door.

I'll post more photos when I get more done.

Thank you for stopping by.

Happy Birthday card for a 10 year old boy

One of my friends asked me to send a birthday postcard to a 10 year old boy who's having his birthday on Thanksgiving and hates turkey and is having some rough times. She was trying to organize a card from all 50 states. Well, I'm pretty far from Montana so I got drafted for South Carolina. The only problem is that I don't have any postcards. I guess I could find a Furman one or a Clemson one, but I really didn't feel like doing that.

So I decided to make a card. It's a little hard for me to know what boys like so it took a little while for inspiration to take hold. I have a Tim Holtz die of the United States so I decided to make it about birthday greetings from South Carolina to Montana. I used some of my keys left over from the Steampunk Key house and some brads to keep it kind of masculine. I am pleased with the design. I will mail it tomorrow; it will get there probably a day or two late, but that's ok.

I designed it so he can hang it up if he wants. Also he can take the brads off and add his own stuff if he wants to. 

Four Little Houses all in a Row - Village Dwellings

I made four little cardboard houses for a friend of mine who recently had triplets. She also has a 3-year-old older daughter. I used the Tim Holtz Village Dwelling die from Sizzix to try to speed up the process of making these houses. It helped some, but I still take forever to get these houses done.

I've got to put some glitter on the front stoop and add a little something to the trees. I bought some beads today at Jo Ann's so I'll see how that looks glued on the trees. I made all the trees myself. I was going to do a purple tree for the purple house (for my friend's oldest daughter), but it was seriously too much purple.

That's what I've been doing lately. I really need to get going on some Christmas houses. Where does time go?

Thank you for stopping by.

Quilt Retreat October 2015

Last year in October I met my sister and my best friend from Montana and one of her friends in Houston to go to the International Quilt festival. We had a blast. This year we decided to go on a quilt retreat where we actually sew rather than just add fabric to our stash. Well, that's what I did last year - add fabric to my stash. The other 3 people do actually make quilts.

I was working on an alphabet quilt for a baby who is now over one year old. It consists of pieced squares for the alphabet. Despite pretty diligent sewing I only got to the letter "P". I was kind of frustrated the last day so everyone else helped me by cutting out the last few letters. I don't think putting it together will be nearly as difficult. No photos of my progress yet. Everybody else got at least one quilt put together, plus bags and aprons and other cool stuff done.

We all bought some Halloween fabric to make tiny twister quilts but since I was on a first grade level where everyone else was in grad school level in terms of sewing skills, I didn't get to make my tiny twister quilt so my friend Lynn came to the rescue.

See the words " Trick or Treat" and "Boo" quilted on the border. I love that.

Close-up of the little twister quilt

Isn't it cute?

I will get the other quilt retreaters to send me some photos from the retreat so you can see the other stuff we (meaning "they") made. And eventually I will post my alphabet quilt in progress.

Thank you for looking at my blog. Lucy