I have been wanting a pretty Easter Wreath for my front door, but never found one that I absolutely loved.

While looking at all the lovely arts and crafts that people made for their Let Your Art Guide You weekly submission, I found this great tutorial for a lovely Easter Wreath here. It was easy, cheap, and quite fun to make! Thank you Debbie! It was exactly what I needed!!!

So of course, we need some little Spring chicks to celebrate! I found this sweet little pattern in Super Cute Crochet. This will be placed lovingly in a little person's Easter Basket on Easter morning.

Cheep Cheep!

XO

For years I've wanted to learn how to crochet. So, seven and a half years ago, I set out to learn. I started googling and stumbled across more knitting tutorials than crochet. Crochet took the back-burner, while knitting became my new passion. Knitting for Dummies was my new best friend.

But I never lost the urge to learn to crochet. I played a little bit with it here and there. For some reason, I was able to crochet ruffles, so I put ruffles on a lot of things. But even though I was able to go through the motions of crocheting, I didn't know the name for the stitches, so following a pattern was impossible.

Last week, however, my new stitch n bitch group was born! A bunch of girls met up at a local coffee shop with yarn in tow. My friend Aaron brought her mom Dodie who graciously helped me out and taught me the names of the stitches! I can now follow a pattern! Although not entirely schooled, and my knowledge is still pretty basic, I set out to find a book on Amigurumis. I've seen them EVERYWHERE and they've been the recent incentive to finally learn to crochet. I found this book at my local library:

The patterns are great for beginners and I was able to accomplish this wonderful little pony and acquire some confidence with a crochet hook!



Now, one leg is a little skinnier than the others, and the button eyes don't match, but I think it's part of her charm. Sapphire has fittingly named her...Pony. And I've learned another skill that I'm going to really enjoying honing...

Maybe it's a hybrid. A cross between a painting and a sculpture . A 'Painture'. Whatever it is, I think it's going to be pretty cool when it's done! Hopefully she dries evenly and doesn't crack terribly. Only time will tell, of course, but I like it so far! I have always loved free-standing sculptures, but I am in love with cool wall art, so I'm always trying to incorporate the tactile aspect of it. I'm really excited to see what will come of her. She's made with an air drying clay, shaped around a wood board. No kiln necessary...which is good, because, alas...I DON'T HAVE ONE! lol I will sand, seal, and paint her and hope for the best!

A little bit of fluff for this week's challenge :) I'm still in a bit of a slump with regards to inspiration and such, so I couldn't get too intricate, but I couldn't let Emily down! Anyhow, here's a little birdie just in time for SPRING!!!! And if you haven't yet joined the challenge, I urge you to! Have a peek here to see how you can join the fun!


XO

I've gone cupcake crazy!!! I knit this one up last night while watching the movie 'Still Waiting', the sequel to the movie 'Waiting' starring Ryan Reynolds (and he's a fellow Canadian and OH SO DREAMY!!!). Definitely not as good as the first, but still pretty bang on for likeness to reality in the service industry! Anyone who's ever been a server or bartender should definitely watch 'Waiting'. It's kind of uncanny how accurate it is. The screenwriter was definitely a server in his last lifetime...

I was on ravelry the other day and saw some adorable cupcake dishcloths, and I thought...that looks like fun! So, I decided I needed to make up my own version! I probably knit it up in an hour and I'm really excited to make my housework a little less deplorable! lol

Sisi loves it and insisted on wearing it for the remainder of the day!!!!
If you want to make it, you can find it here!

Thanks so much to Natasha May for giving me a lovely award! I'm so excited! Especially coming from her, because she's got mad skill, I tell you! I love her work! It's so fresh and beautiful, so please be sure to check it out...you'll be happy you did!

So apparently there are some rules for this award. That's cool. I can dig it ;)

The rules for this award are:
1. Thank the person who gave this to you.
2. Copy the logo and place it in your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that no one would really know.
5. Nominate seven 'Kreativ Bloggers'
6. Post links to the seven blogs you nominate
7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know you nominated them.

So here goes nothin'...

Seven things people most people don't know about me....

1. My first nickname (which has unfortunately stuck with some of my family members! lol) is Dirty Dobbin Two Shoes (I guess I liked to play in the mud when I was little...but I'm not sure where the Dobbin...or the two shoes bit came from. An imaginative dad, I guess!


2. I went to film school and was fortunate enough to write and direct a short film!

3. I've been on TV in commercials a number of times, and had roles in some short films!

4. I come from a long line of artists. On my mom's side, there's so much amazing talent, and I consider myself so fortunate to have been blessed with this talent gene!

5. I'm a very free-thinker. I tend to disagree with the mainstream on most things. I never take anything for face-value. I insist on doing all sorts of research on things before forming an opinion of my own. However, I like to usually keep my opinions to myself, because I'm not a fan of people who force their beliefs on others!

6. I'm 155 lbs. Yep. You heard me. 155 lbs. And proud of it! They're my curves and I love 'em!

7. I just got some pink streaks in my platinum blonde hair and I LOVE THEM!

It was hard to pick just seven nominations out of all these amazing blogs out there, but here they are! Please check them all out. They're all so great and unique in their own ways!

1. Alexz
2. Emily
3. Maria
4. Nicola
5. Lori
6. Laura Beth
7. Moriah

PS - I hope none of the girls that I've nominated have a no award blog! Sorry if you do :)

As for giveaway Fridays...
I've been neglectful of you all! I promised a blog giveaway every Friday, but I got overwhelmed, so instead, I was thinking that periodically I would do giveaways...that I'd just surprise you all every now and again. I hope that's ok?

I would like to offer this to you all. I'm going to keep it going until April 1st. Just leave me a comment and be sure to leave me a way that I can get a hold of you to let you know you've won! I'll choose the winner by way of random number generator!

Thank you to you all! You're all so inspiring and I adore all your comments and love and talent!!!!!

XO

Deedra

My friend Emily from Art N Sewl has started a challenge to submit a new piece of art weekly. It's called 'Let Your Art Guide You'. Well, for the most part I've kept up...all except for my uninspired week last week lol. Anyway, it's a great challenge to help us to nurture our creative spirits. I urge all of you to do the same. This is good therapy for the soul.

Here's my submission for the week, and it is also a swap with a fellow craftster member, so I got to kill two birds with one stone (geez, that saying is SO BARBARIC!!!). This one still has a little drying to do. Her dress isn't exactly white. That's a gel medium that needs to dry translucent. I used it to secure her beautiful, sparkly sequins!!

Anyhow, hope you like her...and I really hope my swap partner likes her, too!!!

Update: Here she is once the gel medium has dried!

So, being a big fan of Knitty, I love to scour their patterns. They're all so hip and fresh and unique. I found this little ruffled halter for Sapphire that I couldn't resist. It's too adorable for words. I started knitting it up with what I had in my stash. Being that it was a summer top, I decided that a regular cotton would do the trick! So, I knit the body in pale pink. I only had scraps of other pretty colours, so I decided on a simple pale brownish beige for the ruffles. But then I decided it would be boring, so I figured I would incorporate all of my other scraps and just make it a multi-coloured ruffle. I think it's kinda cute. Heck...the world needs more colour, anyway, right?

Regardless of colour, my little girl will pull it off no problem. I'll be sure to do a photo shoot when it's done!!

I've been feeling a little uninspired lately, and as such, haven't been painting a whole lot. Here is one that I did manage to start...and finish, though.

I made her face and the little round medallion at the bottom right out of polymer clay and then the rest of the texture was made with my usual...drywall compound and fabric paint. She's 5x7 on canvas board and is as of yet unnamed...

I haven't been up to much except knitting and taking care of my seedlings for my vegetable garden this summer lol. I haven't been around much, and I'm sorry :(. But I did knit this shopping tote for MYSELF this week! Woo hoo! I never really make things for myself, and I'm happy that I did this time. Kinda fun to reap your own rewards sometimes!! Anyhow...it's huge. This is a really really big shopping tote. I may just be able to donate all of my other shopping bags and just keep this one, because it could hold EVERYTHING...including my kitchen sink!