with heart in hand...

I promise this is the end of the handmade Christmas gifts! I'm sure you've all seen the jewelry hands for sale in a variety of stores... I decided to buy one for each of my girls, but in keeping with our handmade Christmas, I gave the hands a makeover and personalized them.


And since "hearts" figured prominently in the makeover, I thought I'd share them with you in case any of you are looking for Valentine gift ideas!


The hand on the left was stark white with silkscreened green vines and pink roses... The hand on the right was matte black with an ornate gold cuff. The first thing I did was apply sealer to both pieces and paint the hands creamy white. I then 'tattooed' a little black heart on each palm.


Left: With the help of a little craft paint, the gold ornate cuff was transformed into a blue-green/turquoise-ish cuff (Amanda loves all shades of blue). Right: I glued inexpensive pearl beading (a junktique store find) around the wrist of the other hand to dress it up a bit (Courtney likes pearls). Amanda's hand got a coat of clear pearlescent paint on the nails because she rarely wears nail polish; Courtney, on the other hand, is always applying nail polish so the nails on her hand got a coat of pretty rose pink paint!

The final touch was this quotation that I painted on the bottom of each hand, which fit right in with the "hearts" and "hands" theme.

"A mother holds her children's hands for a while, their hearts forever."

And there you go - that's the end of the Christmas gift posts... Promise!

Good luck to all of you who are going to be making photo canvases! I hope you have lots of fun! Let me know how they turn out! .................. Donna

bluebirds of happiness...

This year we made most of our presents in an effort to simplify and maybe save some money. I managed to size and crop some photos of one of my projects (being without a computer for a few days slowed me down a bit!)

A while back I saw a post on Brenda's beautiful blog, Cozy Little House, where she was making the prettiest birds in such beautiful, colorful fabrics! That project of hers immediately came to mind when I spotted this blue & white snowflake fabric at a junktique shop (and at only $1.00 for a couple of yards!). I decided to make each girl a "bluebird of happiness" as one of their homemade gifts and the snowflake fabric definitely fit the bill.

Now I am not a sewer or seamstress, so right off the bat I was off to a rocky start. The first bird, a prototype that I'm keeping, looked much more like a seal than a bird. And the next two, pictured above, came out much smaller than I expected (I forgot about that pesky seam allowance!)

After stuffing the birds, I attached a wing ornament to each. I purchased them several years ago but never got around to using them, so they came in handy for this project. I wrote the date and a little message to each girl on the underside of the wings.

I pressed sticky rhinestone eyes onto each bird (from my stash of craft supplies)...

...and finished them off with a vintage earring (again, from my stash) clipped onto the ornament ribbon around the throat.


To say these birds are a bit tipsy is an understatement. I hot glued a big flat button to their undersides, hoping it would keep them upright. And if you place them just so, they do stay upright...

So thanks for the inspiration, Brenda!! If I hadn't seen your fabric birds, I doubt that I would have thought to make these!

I'll share a few other homemade projects once I get pictures onto the computer!

Donna