holiday decor

What a good day!  I attended a class that my Bella pal, Sheila was teaching today at a barn. Yep, a barn. But not any old barn. Yes, there were stalls, and horses and hay, but there was also a full kitchen, two bathrooms, a bedroom, living room, dining nook, and full work space!

No, not a typical barn at all.  And the farm dogs were foofy, standard poodles.

The cute as a bug owner, Kelly, has set up the place for her design business and will be using it also for these class events. Along with the class, was shopping. Good shopping. Two of my favorite dealers from Rusty Chandelier had spaces here along with all of Kelly's gorgeousness. Clothes, jewels, and vintage tidbits filled the space, and I spent an hour before the luncheon was served exploring it all and picking out some treasures (photos later).

Sheila taught 3 classes, but Beth and I just signed up for one. And it was a doozy. What a cool idea she had to share! This is Sheila's class example, and she provided everything we needed to complete it just like this.

  But I had some changes in mind…. For the bird, I brought ledger paper with pink lines, and made the wings and tail feathers from millinery petals.  The eye is a crystal bead that Sheila provided. (I dropped mine, but Beth gave me hers to use) I used the Cropadile to punch an eye hole, then glued the bead inside, so that it was 3-d from both sides.  And you can see through it in the light for a little glow.

Before making the wired branches as Sheila instructed, I wrapped the "trunk" in pink velvet ribbon.  My theme became "Be My Fairy Valentine", so I used lots of fairy girls, pink flowers, and hearts. 

One cool thing about these trees, is that you can take all the goodies off and change them with the seasons.  So, next this can be a springtime tree.

There are pink velvet flowers wired onto my branches, so I am all ready for spring!

Sheila provided the oval chipboard, but instead of the photo she offered, I glued on some hand painted roses that I'd brought along.

Two little wooden hearts got covered in wallpaper on one side and that pink lined ledger paper on the other.  I snipped a length of a broken pearl necklace off to tie into a loop at the bottom to hold a little rose bud. ( I should have cut the length longer, it was a bit hard to tie with the string that short)

To hang the heart, I twisted a bit of wire into a kind of, heart shaped hook.

The spool and wire were things Sheila gave us, along with instructions on how to make a little nest with three eggs in it.  She is a wonderful, patient teacher and took time with each of us individually to explain the wire weaving to make the nests. I'd never tried one before, and really enjoyed learning that part. I can see lots of nests in my future…

The nest I made wasn't for birdies, though, its a fairy nest.  I wired this frozen Charlotte onto the top of the spool and made wings for her from little feathers that were in our kit ( I used one under the nest too) and some velvet millinery petals.  (Do you think she looks like she is hoola hooping? Maybe I should make her a tutu to cover the wire?)

To the front of the small spool, I added another wallpaper covered heart.

Before the class this morning, I glued a rhinestone heart to the front of this locket and made a tiny collage to put into it.

The fairy hanging behind it, is an old photo that I painted on. Then I covered the back in rose wallpaper, added ribbon and flowers to the bottom, and punched a hole to hang a crystal from (that Sheila had in our kits, she really provided some fun baubles for us). 

This is also a locket, with a mirror on the other side.  This is something that I hung as is.  I added a framed ribbon rose by my friend, Natasha, too.  

The tree was so much fun to make, that I almost can't wait to make more stuff for it and change the theme already!  I will be first in line to head out to the countryside for the next Farmstead Style experience, let me know if you want to come too!

Again, I need to thank you all for making the wallpaper FLY out of my boutique!  I've added a few more here and there and have tried to keep it stocked up, but some packets that are sold out won't be replaced.  I did replace some scrap packs and added this selection. Hopefully, later in the week, I'll have a chance to add some more.

But I have to work on a little segment for our local cable news channel for Thursday. Which means cleaning my house for the cameras, and showing 5 projects about Romantic Decorating for Valentines Day.  So, maybe the wallpaper will have to wait. My house is a wreck again.  Didn't I just spend a solid week cleaning and redoing??????

Speaking of time flying, where did January go???  But, you still have a little time to enter the January Giveaway drawing for a little painted and glittered cardinal!