Tuesday, December 9, 2014

New DIY Kit: Hanging Chalkcloth Banner Kit

Perfect for the holiday chalk art, dinner party menus, or an everyday to do list! Use this kit to make your very own Hanging Chalkcloth Banner. Click here to see the tutorial! 

Kit Includes:
- 18" x 47" of chalk cloth
- 24" dowel rod
- 1 yard of mini pom-pom trim
- 1 yard of ribbon
- 1 yard of bias trim
- 3 yards of 3 different rick racks
- 1 piece of chalk
- 1 permanent chalk marker
- Instruction sheet

Kit Price: $20.00

Choose from 3 colors, green, aqua and red!

 My Thanksgiving banner!!

Friday, December 5, 2014

Ooh, Dream Chicken...


[Chorus]
Ooh dream chicken
I believe you can get me through the night.
Ooh dream chicken
I believe we can reach the morning light.

Yep, I went there!! I am as cheesy as I am kitschy, and proud of it.

So, let me tell you a little something about myself: I have freaky dreams all the time. Bizarre dreams that are fragmented and combine different aspects of my past and current life. The dream I had this morning before I woke was hysterical, but only since it wasn't real.

In this dream, one of my crafty friends does another crafty friends job poorly.

Meet Deana, she owns and operates the cutest little shop here in Richmond, Strawberry Fields Flowers and Finds. She's been selling my wares at her shop for over 7 years. And over the years I've seen her working on wedding after wedding. If you walked in on any given Friday the work tables and fridges will be filled with centerpieces and other weddingy things. Naturally, she is the person that I went to, in my dream, to make me a last minute wedding bouquet.

Yep, I was dreaming I a 20-something Kelly, that was getting married on a whim. (Thank goodness none of my boyfriends back then would have done that with me, I would have been divorced 3 times before I met Don). It was a Friday afternoon, right before happy hour (Well, that sounds about right!) and I needed a wedding bouquet for the next day. So, I headed over to Strawberry Fields, taking my own flowers for her to arrange for me (Who even does that?). Even stranger, I found the flowers in a grimy neighborhood market that never has flowers. The flowers were bright yellow lilies, and I loved them!! (Keep in mind I would never buy yellow lilies, ever!)

So I get there and Deana's no where to be found, but one of her best buddies is... Meet our friend Karyn Shonk, a fabulous gal that makes AMAZING jewelery. Now... in my dream I ask Karyn to take my bright yellow lilies and make them pretty for me (Keep in mind Karyn doesn't work with flowers, she works with wire and gems!). She proceeds to take off a few the petals from the lilies. (As I've seen Deana do many times.) But, Karyn doesn't stop with less attractive the outer petals, and she ends up taking the flowers down to stalk and stamen. I was mortified, but I trust her when she says that she can fix it for me.

So I leave and come back, to find that she's taken some kind of magic clay that proofs like a yeasty bread dough and she's used it to sculpt a bright yellow chicken for me. At that time, the yellow chicken was flat, and about the size of a dinner plate. I was not amused. But wait, it got so much weirder as a few minutes later the chick has enlarged to the size of a really fluffy bed pillow (I kinda want clay like this!).

Karyn then proceeds to get ready for her own wedding, with to die for flowers, and leaves me on my own. I start filling a box with my yellow chicken and my flower petals and go off to forage for flowers in the forest that's magically appeared outside (You know the one that's never been in this very populated and historic neighborhood since the early 1800's).

So, that is why I got out of bed and painted this chicken!! Aren't you glad you know all that now? LOL!! Have a bright sunshiny day!