Custom~made Christmas

Are you interested in having a custom charm made for a Christmas gift?

I would love to ‘spur’ your thoughts in that direction.

Here are some of my favorites.  Maybe they will help you think of some of your own [hi-quality] photos that would make beautiful, one-of-a-kind [heirloom~quality] gifts for your friends and family.

I make custom charms for $20…each one is 2-sided [such a deal]!

I’ve just inspired myself to host a give-a-way…for your own custom-designed charm.

Leave a comment with this post and you will be entered in to this most amazing give-a-way! 

don’t let this distract you from getting your custom charms ordered for Christmas …  🙂

Give-a-way is now closed!

…and for some Christmas ornament ideas…  [$25 each]

farmgirl style…

I’ve been working on a set of farmgirl.ish charms for the MaryJanesFarm store in Moscow, Idaho.

While I was making these I realized that I have slipped past the wanna-be farmgirl and am {nearly} a bonafide farmgirl. 

…I say ‘nearly’ because there are gals that work it so much harder than I, but I truly feel it when I’m out there mucking out the stalls and milking outside when it’s snowing or the temperature has slipped down into the teens.  I’ll admit though that I do really enjoy it all and as soon as we get our little barn a bit further along I can do my milking inside…Whew!

…here are a few other charms that slipped into the mail pouch…

Stylin’…the farmgirl way!

Can a girl {who loves boots of all kinds} have too many?

I’ll just answer that one myself…

No!…it’s just not possible

I picked up these beauties while being ‘thrifty’ last week.

blessed indeed

I recently made these charms for a customer.

Oh, how I loved working with her photos.  I just fell in love with them {in fact, I got permission to use them in other charms…thank you Lauralie for sharing}.  The little girl on the horse in Lauralie herself and her mom is one of the ladies in the other picture…don’t you just love that red hat?

crazy with cuteness…

Sometimes pictures come my way that make me crazy because they are just so fun, beautiful or….just plain CUTE!

…and CUTE is just what we’re talking about here.
This is the tiniest charm I’ve made that involves a photo…it measures just a little more than ½” square

The Nana  {pronounced nonna..and the link actually takes you to a more recent picture of little Oliver} who ordered it is going to add charms with pictures of her grandkids to her charm bracelet so we had to go just as little as we could.

I love, love, love how it turned out.

Course, we couldn’t go wrong with such a sweet little face!

{LOVE}vintage wallpaper

Before I write another post on hiking the mountains for wild mushrooms and stinging nettles or gardening or my beautiful new grandson or my desire for goats or what I’m doing in the kitchen or…,I decided that I had better return a little more often to the partial roots of this blog and show some crafty/artsy/home-spun goodness. 
My one and only true purpose for this blog is to show ME…all of ME.  The things that I love to do…the wonderful variety of things that make me tick!  {I shouldn’t say that word…all of my traipsing around in the hills makes me constantly think that I have things crawling on me…I’ve only found one tick!  blech}  With that in mind I do try to show a potpourri {such a great 70’s word}, all the while not getting stuck in any one area….{such a great challenge and oh, how I wish that was my greatest challenge in life}.

A vintage♥love of mine is wonderful, old, fragile wallpaper.

It comes with so much amazing variety in color and texture.

Each roll that I spot makes my heart beat quickly and get all fluttery!

Knowing that each piece is a one-of-a-kind {for me}, makes me want to use it carefully and sparingly.

Cutting away small snippets and encasing them in bevel glass is the perfect way to preserve and showcase beautiful things.  Using it in this way allows me to use it often and yet still have a lot left over!  🙂  love that

these custom charms are going out in the mail today

I’ve added the remaining pictures to show some of the other charms that I’ve made using vintage wallpaper.

If you ever come up with a one-of-a-kind family heirloom idea, I would love to help you with it!

MaryJanesFarm…

It has been such a privilege to work with MaryJane Butters of MaryJanesFarm for the past couple of years.

Making the custom charms for the members of her Farmgirl Sisterhood has been the driving force of our working relationship.

I appreciate her genuine, down-to-earthness and I love it that she always treats me like ‘one of the gals’…

It has also been rewarding when I am able to connect with some of these Farmgirls who have ordered charms.  When they take the time to send a note of appreciation my way it truly warms my heart.

I should also add that MaryJane’s magazine MaryJanesFarm is a favorite and there are so many things in the current issue that I LOVE!!!   i.e. an article on Tasha Tudor {sigh} and the importance of a hand-written note {that hits me where it hurts!}…

I also LOVE my RED cowboygirl boots!

taken last year in front of our booth at The Creative Connection ~Minneapolis…by MissAmber

especially for you, Mom

Mr T designed this thoughtful charm for his Mom for her birthday this week.

When he was a little boy his mom had spent a great deal of time prepping for and applying floor wax.  Before she was done with the ‘job’ she ran out of the wax.  When little Mr T walked in her frustration softened and she said, ‘I wouldn’t trade you for a can of wax!’   That’s been their ‘little thing’ over the years.

I’m pretty sure that she’ll smile when she gets this in the mail.

many of us have no idea the work involved in waxing the old floors…they would first have to be perfectly cleaned, stripped of the old wax and then have the new wax freshly applied ~ oh, such sweetness when the project was complete   ~   I love clean, fresh floors, especially when they shine!

A Charmed Welcome….

Yesterday my Mom and I drove to the big city to meet up with my sister to…do nothing in particular.

We visited some thrift stores and had a splendid lunch at Chaps…one of my favorite places to visit.  Not only is the environment there…well, just perfect but the food is wonderful and being with my Mom and Sis made the company divine!  {i always enjoy an opportunity to sneak in a swEet visit with owner/operator extraordinaire Celeste, too!}

One of my fun purchases was 30 award ribbons {$1.98} that I switched-up and made into a name tag idea…possibly to be used at our next art retreat.  OH, YA!!!

These two charms pictured above and below have a sweet story…

The condensed version is, they were designed as a very thoughtful gesture to welcome a mother and her daughter to a new family and a new country…

L.O.V.E.Banner :~

When I am hosting an art retreat or workshop it’s nearly impossible for me to make anything…especially when I’m teaching.

It makes me a little sad but it’s just the reality of it.

On Saturday, after the luncheon was out of the way my friend, Cathy, kept encouraging me to sit and so I could get a good start on ‘my’ banner.

Thanks to Cathy I was able to get just enough of a start to get me excited about finishing it.

 

This is literally one of my first charms that I made {about 4 years ago}.  It’s  fun to just add them to a project here and there.  My craftsmanship had a long way to go but they make me smile!

Here are a couple of charms that I made yesterday…

Cathy’s birthday is this week so I snuck this picture off of her FB page so I could charm it up for HER!

Better than flowers…

One of my favorite things about making charms is knowing that I can be a part of preserving and sharing family memories and history.

I wanted to include the original picture because it didn’t come out very clear in my photo of the charm.  This is such a beautiful picture and it says so much.

Marie’s grandfather is leaving on a train for the Korean War.  He has a  loving wife and three beautiful little girls…and one on the way.

Saying Goodbye!

I also did a Christmas ornament for her.

I’m wishing I had worked a little harder on my pictures here.  Winter’s light is not always good to me…

Speaking of Christmas ornaments…

Before Christmas I was able to get an ornament and a charm out to a friend.

She had been in the hospital and her family asked that no flowers be sent.  It doesn’t sound like too many people ‘listened’ to that request but it encouraged me to think about what else I could do for her.

With my mom’s resent visit{s} to the hospital I knew that although flowers are nice they are SO expensive and it’s hard when you are trying to recover from a serious illness/surgery to lay there and watch your beautiful flowers die.

I’m just being real here…

Is it possible that we send flowers to make ourselves feel better?

My mom had one gal show up with two quilting magazines {knowing my mom loves quilting} and a crossword puzzle book.  very thoughtful

I was thankful that Amber~Tres Birds Photography had recently done a photo shoot with this family so, with her permission, I grabbed a few pictures and went to work.  My dear friend has some challenging months ahead of her and she mentioned that she would be wearing her charm everyday as she walks through this journey.

Better than flowers?   I think so!