My latest project, a special gift and fun news!

Hello Ladies!

Where have I been hiding? No where really, just enjoying the great weather and summer outings! Fourth of July was wonderful, we had a bon fire on the beach and watched fireworks over the water for about an hour, it was great!! As the summer winds down I will be designing more patterns I promise! We all have times that we need to step away from what we're doing and enjoy something different.

I am not sure how the blogging will work out now that we no longer have google reader.... but I will post here anyway and hope it reaches some at least. I was gone and did not get around to transferring all my blogs from google reader to my Blog Lovin so I guess I will have to do them by hand!

Okay first up is my latest project.... Her name is Little Boo....Here she is....

She will be my next pattern and the actual doll will be for sale this month on PFATT Marketplace on July 10th.

She is 18" tall, made of muslin and then painted. Her body is made to look like a candy corn. She has a paper cone hat and wired arms.

Here is a close up of her ghost candle. This is a battery operated taper candle that I painted a ghost face on!

Here is a better view of her funny feet and clay candy buttons. She will be available soon in pattern, I am about 3/4 done and should be finished the first of next week sometime.

In other news!!! I got the greatest surprise I just have to share with you all.... LeeAnn Kress of Charmed Confections made me some fun things and sent them to me as a surprise and boy was I!! Okay, let me back up and tell you the stories behind the goodies I am about to show you. LeeAnn is one of those friends we can all only hope to have, she is talented, funny and the best cheer leader when I am feeling down or not so sure of myself. A true friend is always encouraging and loves to help celebrate and share in her friends accomplishments, this describes LeeAnn!! I actually have several online friends like that (you know who you are) .....we all love to share our latest projects, critique if needed and just be there for each other's creative process.

Well.....LeeAnn has been so supportive of me, my work and has shared in my excitement over being in Prim's Publication. As if this was not enough, she made two special gifts for me to celebrate this event as well as a funny I will tell you about in a minute but first let me share my cupcake!

 

One of LeeAnn's specialties making these fabulous cupcakes, she does them in all sizes and decorates them with so much detail! Some of her cupcakes have spooky characters sitting in them. My cupcake although is hard to see here, is huge! She added some wires to hold tags with mini pictures of the three pages that my bunny had in Prim's magazine. These are exactly the pages, she shrunk them down to fit the tags, now isn't that clever! I was thrilled to receive this to say the least. I display this proudly. The little tags are works of art all on their own! LeeAnn amazes me with her eye for detail. Her blog is www.charmedconfections.blogspot.com if you want to go learn more about her and her work.

 

Here is the store behind my (Friends-N-Beans) clothespin dolls in a bowl of beans! I am assuming most of you are creative so you will relate to this.... there are times when even the most creative minds will just simply go blank, no inspiration or ideas filling that noggin! Well LeeAnn and I joke during those times that we may as well just make clothes pin dolls in a bowl of beans! LOL Or we have said this when we may have something that is just not selling.... we say well gee.... we may as well have made some clothes pin dolls in beans, they may have been the hot seller! My brilliant friend took our joke and actually made them! The thing is.... they are no joke, I have never seen CUTER clothespin dolls and have never seen a cuter bowl of beans ever! Isn't this the cutest? Okay, the friends-n-beans is similar to Frank-N-Beans if you haven't figured that out already (now that is funny)! As you can see she decorated this bowl of beans so colorfully in a green bowl of beans. The doll wearing orange would be LeeAnn, she has been a great cheerleader to me and her sweater has initials of SBCW which stands for my business name! She wears orange because she loves anything Fall or Halloween, I am sure you know this if you have seen her work! These tiny dolls have hair, little pipe cleaner arms and so much detail. Okay now the purple doll represents me, I am holding a miniature version of the publication my artwork was featured in, now isn't that darling? I just wish I was as thin as my clothespin look alike! Well I am working on it, just started on some Nutrisystem, we'll see how that one goes! On the bottom of the bowl there is a nice to and from tag. This is one of my favorite things!!! Thank you for this thoughtful and fun gift, it never fails to make me smile. 

 

Okay, now for some fun news! LeeAnn's talent is unmistakable and I always knew her things were suited to be published, they are in that leaque. I also knew that her things were perfect for Art Doll Quarterly, this is a wonderful publication with the best of the best artists. She doubted she would ever make it into this thing but just like I told her ...SHE DID!!! If we get brave enough to reach for our dreams then we may find them within our grasps. This is the one time I can happily say I TOLD YOU SO LeeAnn's artwork will be featured in the August Art Doll Quarterly, she will have not one but several pieces featured. This is so exciting, the sky's the limit for her and her talent speaks for itself. Here is a picture of the front cover and a sneak peek at the inside. We will have to wait for the magazine to actually come out to see the actual article and all her works. Congratulations my friend!!!!

 

Here is a look at the cover, you really must buy this if you haven't before, it is so inspiring to see all the artwork that this publication features.

 

Look there is one of her pieces right here on the lower right!

 

Well that's it for now, thanks for stopping by!