Friday Favorite--Hannah Nunn

I'm so sorry I didn't get here last week with a Friday Favorite.  Time just got away from me.  But I'm back this week with an artist I'm sure will impress you, Hannah Nunn.

Hannah makes GORGEOUS paper cut lamps inspired by nature.  Her designs are fresh and simple and oh-so lovely.  She does table lamps of various sizes, fairy light lanterns, and candle covers.  She will even do personalized work.....a night light for your child's room, or perhaps a string of fairy lights for your wedding.  It's all so beautiful in her pictures.  I can only imagine how wonderful they are in person!  LOVE THEM!

As always, a few of my favorites here, but please follow the links to her etsy shop and check out her entire selection.

Two Little Chickadees Lamp

 

Tall Oval Daisy Table Lamp

 

Paperwhite Table Lamp

 

Pretty Papercut Lanterns

 

Set of Three Seed Head Candle Covers

 

Customized Name Light

 

Isn't Hannah's work amazing?  Plus, I think her shop photography is outstanding!  Well done, Hannah!

 

I hope you will go visit Hannah's shop and put a few of her items in your favorites folder...or better yet, your shopping cart! 

 

Have a great weekend!  I'm NOT WORKING this weekend for a change, and am off on an adventure with two of my sisters.  I'll tell you more about it next week.

 

Lisa

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frankie Goes Trick-or-Treating

It won't be long before Halloween is here.  Fall is in the air.  The mornings are chilly, the days are lovely, the nights are getting colder.  I love this time of year!  Of course, I've been spending all these lovely days in the studio, making Halloween and Christmas characters....my favorite things to make!

This little monster is all ready for trick-or-treating.  He's not scary like his father, Frankenstein.  Frankie just wants to have fun. 

He's wearing a boldly striped shirt of purple and lime green, with a big orange jack-o'-lantern on the front.  His little treat bag is handmade from kraft cardstock, and stuffed full of teeny-tiny Halloween treats.  (I just love corn candy, don't you?)

Frankie Goes Trick-or-Treating

 

What is your favorite Halloween character?  Do you prefer scary or cute?  What was your favorite costume as a kid?

 

Have a great day!

Lisa

 



A Sneak Peak

First off, I apologize for the photo.  Perhaps I should have ironed the fabric, yes?  But anyway, here is a quick little peak at this year's limited edition ornament collection:

 

I will be featuring each design separately in the coming weeks, and they will be available soon in my etsy shop.  Until then...

 

Back to work.  I sure wish I had some elves to help me out!!

Lisa

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

I'm not ignoring you all, I promise.  I am in serious crunch time, getting ready for my shows.  Not only do I have to make all my whimsical little characters, I have been completely redesigning my display for the shows!  WORK WORK WORK!! 

So, for the next couple weeks, I might be hit-or-miss here.  I PROMISE I will update you with all my new creations, and unveil the Christmas ornaments, and even give you a look at the craft show display.  For now, though, please be content with having a look at another Halloween spook.

 

I am seriously so tired I just about posted a spook you had already seen.  I sure hope I haven't shown this one already!  I think I need a nap!!

 

Have a great day!

Lisa

 

PS--This mummy is available in my etsy shop.



Friday Favorite #13--SBJewelry

I must admit, I did not discover SBJewelry on my own.  My BFF Marian discovered her first, and shared her wonderful work with me by presenting me with these adorable earrings one year for Christmas:

Dandelion Cutout Earrings



They instantly became my favorite 'go-to' earrings.  I was horrified when I lost one in the Houston airport!  But Marian, being the wonderful friend that she is, contacted Sasha and asked if she had another pair available.  She did, and she was very nice to replace them at a discounted price! (THAT'S amazing customer service!!)  Probably didn't hurt that Marian is probably one of Sasha's biggest fans and best customers.  She has since given me a locket similar to this one (mine is tear-drop shaped), just because:

 

Antique Style Oval Locket

 

And when I was going through a particular hard time when my Dad was dying, Marian sent me these earrings, just to brighten my day a little bit:



Tribal Hoops

 

I couldn't tell you how many pairs of Sasha's wonderful earrings Marian has herself. 

 

I really adore Sasha's work.  It's intricate and beautiful, but it's lightweight and easy to wear.  She creates some very interesting shapes and patterns.  Her pieces are beautifully cast from her original designs.  Sasha is a fabulous metal smith, and you can see how much she loves her work in her attention to detail.  I'm so pleased to share SBJewelry with you today.  Here are a few of my other favorites:





Flower Hoops

Small Sunflower Spiral Hoops

Double Sunflower Hoops

Ornate Tribal Hoops

 

I think all of Sasha's work is very interesting.  I hope you do, too.  Go have a look around her etsy shop.  You won't be sorry.  (Bonus!  She is having a sale right now on her lockets and her gold plated items!)

 

I hope you have a great weekend!  Thanks for dropping by!

Lisa

 

 

A Gentle Reminder

I just want to take a quick minute to remind you, my readers, of the giveaway I am hosting here on my blog.

In celebration for being published in Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Crafts magazine, (you can read about that great honor here) I am offering a set of the Quirky Snowman Christmas ornaments that were featured.  Entering to win is simple!  All you have to do is sign up to follow my blog.  There are two easy ways to do this, and either way will count as an entry.

1)  You can sign up to follow by email.  See that little box in the upper right?  Fill in your email address and hit submit.  You will receive a confirmation email from Feedburner, and you will need to click on the link there to activate your subscription.  Easy as pie!!  I WILL NOT USE YOUR EMAIL for anything, unless you happen to win a giveaway, and then I will send you a note (which you will be thrilled to receive!).

2)  See that little blue box on the sidebar that says 'join this site'?  Well, that is the other way you can sign up to follow my blog.  If you have a google account, just click that button, and when it asks, say you want to follow me!  Easy peasy! 

So, it's that simple to enter to win these adorable ornaments!

 

Once I have 30 followers, I will conduct a random drawing to determine the winner.  So, what are you waiting for?  If you come here to read my blog regularly, why not sign up to follow it?? 

 

I do truly appreciate all of you that take the time to read my posts every time.  It's wonderful to be welcomed into your lives!

 

Now I'm off to work.....

Lisa

 

 



Black Cats

I hope you are not tired of seeing Halloween pieces yet.....

I love black cats.  I had a black cat for 19 years.  Ironically, his name was Spot.  I loved that cat so much, but he was not a very social cat.  He liked me and David.  Sometimes my mom.  And possibly my niece.  That's about it.  Little kids.  Forget it.  He's been gone now for about 7 years, but I still think about him alot, and black cats at Halloween are always a big reminder of him.

Here are some black cats from my current Halloween collection. All three of these adorable cats are available in my etsy shop right now.  Enjoy!! 

 

 

 

 

Short, but sweet today, I know.  I'm SO BUSY right now preparing for my upcoming shows.   But I don't want you to think I am neglecting my readers.

 

Back to work for me!  Have a great day!

Lisa

Friday Favorite #12--Kath's Kreations

Dichronic glass intrigues me.  I find it very interesting how it changes when it is fused and heated.  The colors are so vibrant and wonderful.  I've seen a lot of dichronic glass in the 20+ years I have been doing craft shows, and admittedly, most of it looks pretty much the same.  It's basic shapes with a loop for a pendant attached.  Pretty, for sure, but not that unusual. 

So imagine how delighted I was when I ran across Kath's Kreations on etsy!  Yes, Kathy has some of the more typical shapes and styles, like these lovely earrings:

But, even better, she has many unusual and interesting pieces as well.  I love how she has combined other materials like wire and precious metal clay to create wonderful, wearable works of art.  Here are a few of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't you agree that Kathy's dichronic glass work is not like any you have ever seen?  I love it!  I invite you follow this link to her etsy shop and check it all out.  She has nearly 500 pieces in her shop, so obviously, I'm barely scratching the surface here. 

 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.  Mine will be a working weekend....it's that time of year!

Lisa

 

Oh, and in the spirit of the quickly approaching Halloween holiday, I thought I would throw in this 'bonus item' from Kath's Kreations:

 



Pumpkin Heads

More Halloween today.  I'm going to show you a collection of Pumpkin Heads.  All of them are made in much the same way.....polymer clay over an armature.  It's the details that set them apart.

Jack-O-Boo

 

Spooky Time Jack

 

A little story about these two guys.  I sculpted them completely, baked the clay, and was going to start doing all the fun stuff, and I realized that the pumpkin heads I had made were much too small.  Luckily, I always bake the heads separately, so they were not already attached.  A problem easily solved by making two new pumpkin heads. 

 

So I had two random heads lying around, and I couldn't let those go to waste, so I sculpted two more figures in a better proportion to those heads.  Here is the end result of that 'mistake':

 

Jack 'n Bat

 

Witch Jack

(She happens to be my favorite of these four!)



 

This is just a little lesson in turning a mistake into something wonderful.  Sometimes you do have to do a little extra work (making new heads for the big boys) to get it right, but in the end it is worth the effort.

 

Now, back to work.....less than a month until my first local craft show!  YIKES!!  I've got so much to do.....

 

Thanks again for stopping by!

Lisa

 

For more details and more photos of these four Pumpkin Heads, go to my etsy shop.

 





 



More Halloween

Hi, everyone!  I hope you had a great three-day weekend.  Mine was fine, but I actually did do some work on a new craft show display, so it wasn't all fun and games for me.  Today it's back to the studio....where I really love to be.

The past several weeks I have been concentrating on making Halloween and Christmas items.  I love both of these holidays, as there are so many different characters I can create for them.  Having enough TIME to execute all my ideas is my biggest challenge. 

Meet Dracula:

Toujours Pur is available in my etsy shop

 

I always begin my dolls with an armature made from wire and foil, and then I start layering on the polymer clay.  I used white for his shirt, black for his vest and charcoal grey for his pants.  I wanted his pants to have very subtle stripes, so I added skinny coils of black....a labor intensive process I think was worth the effort..  His shoes are black clay adorned with square pewter brads.

 

 

I used a custom-mixed silvery-grey color for his pale skin and gave him black hair with a widow's peak.  He has tiny little vampire fangs and black eyebrows that are made from clay.  His eyes are hand painted.

 

 

One of the things I love about making characters like this is that I can make the facial features very exaggerated.  He's got a long skinny face, and I LOVE his long, pointy nose!

 

 

The finishing touches are always the most fun!  A lace collar, a cape made of black velvet and tied with a satin ribbon, red Swavroski crystals, and my favorite part, a vial of 'blood'.  (Its actually watered down red paint!)  The hand-written label says "Toujours Pur Sanguin".  (I'm going to admit to some Harry Potter geekery right now.....I got the phrase 'toujours pur' from the book The Order of the Phoenix.  I thought it meant 'pure blood', but when I googled it, I found out it means 'always pure', so I added the 'sanguin', which means blood.)

 

I was working on another Dracula at the same time.  I do that.  I work on two similar pieces at a time--two snowmen, two Santas, two cats, etc.  They are never the same, but different incarnations of the same idea.  Here is the other one I worked on:

 

 

The process was much the same, the details and results very different.  It was a very bittersweet moment last week when I sold this one!  I've told you, I have attachment issues!!  I'm THRILLED to have made the sale, don't get me wrong, but it makes me a wee bit sad to send one off!  I keep reminding myself (and my husband does too) that I'm making these for OTHER PEOPLE to enjoy---I can't keep them all!  :D

 

Well, time is ticking away quickly and my fall craft shows are going to be here before I know it!  I must get to the studio! 

 

Thanks for joining me again today!

Toujours

Lisa