Colorful Butterfly Charms

Lately, I have been on the computer a lot...tons of writing! Last night, I just needed a creative break...but was too tired to stitch. So, I pulled out the box of fingernail polish bottles...and painted some butterfly charms.  

  Then, I dug out the Ranger Alcohol Inks and painted some more!  

  Now, I had a great stack waiting for me this morning...all dry and ready to be put into the charm draw...just waiting for their home on a crazy block!  

How Many Colors Do You Have?

It's time for all the gorgeous Spring Colors of nail polish to come out. So, I'll be watching for sales at my local drug store!

Here's my current stash!

And I use these for painting charms! Well, sometimes my nails too...but, mostly...it for brass and pewter charms!

So, watch out for those sales papers..and stock up!

Fairy Tea Party Block

We just finished a teacup challenge block contest over on the HGTV board. So, I can now post photos of my block. Over 30 ladies entered their blocks, and they were stunning! Check them out here: TEACUPS

The hostess sent us three small pieces of fabric, 2 scraps of white, and a cream background teacup. To this she added a snippet of lace trim, a pewter teapot charm, and a brass basket charm. Eclectic mix to be sure!

I pieced my block of creams and white with lot's of lace to make it girly! Next I found a photo of some Mary Engelbret stickers and enlarged them, printed on silk, and added fusible to the back for adhering to the block. I treated several seams as "shelves" and set my ME teapots and cups there. The white/cream backgrounds in the patches bothered me...so I stitched some "wallpaper" on them.

An applique teapot and an embroidered teapot were added to the mix; along with several of my pewter fairies.

The fairies and the pewter teapot charm were painted with nail polish. The basket charm was also painted to blend with all the other elements.

Lot's of beads, silk ribbon, buttons, and stitches...

and voila a Fairy Tea Party Block! I like the "wallpaper" and will do that again...but hand stitching all those back-stitches and wrapped back-stitches took some time!!

Here's the close up of the teacup fabric square...filed with flowers and a dancing fairy.

Pewter Charm Painting!

Just spent a lovely couple of hours with my granddaughter...playing with fingernail polish! And we didn't make too bad of a mess!

 We polished up some pewter charms, like this birds. Not hard to do, and if you let the polish dry completely (before picking them up) you don't get it all over your fingers either.

Of course, that's not an easy concept to get across to a six year old!

I was painting some fairies for a customer...

And while looking for some charms for Aidan to paint on I found these cute little strawberries...so, of course, I had to paint them up too!

I think there is a fat quarter of strawberry fabric around here somewhere...if I can locate it, a pincushion might be in the works this week!

And...these photos were taken with my new phone. I upgraded my service (another 2 year contract with Verizon) but that's okay since I like their service. Anyway, the phone cost me a whole $12 in shipping...and it has a 5.1 mega pixel camera (the real reason for me deciding to upgrade). My actual camera is a 3.2 MP and is starting to make strange sounds...so the phone is my backup plan if the camera goes out completely.

So, if ya'll have pewter charms and want to add some color to them...just pull out your fingernail polish and go to town! I buy up the "odd" colors when they go on sale...and have about 30-40 shades now. If you don't have any charms...and want some...just check out what the Studio has (link above). I'd be happy to polish them for you at no charge if you like. But, I encourage you to give this a try...it's loads of fun!

Lot's of fun for kid's projects too! And if you don't like the results...just a cotton ball with fingernail polish remover clears all of your mistakes away!