custom order sunday.

Hello friends!
A happy, happy Sunday to you!
Here's a little taste of what I've been working on.

This is my newest hoop design.  Simple and sweet and made with little (or big) girls in mind.  I just love it and the sweet message it delivers.  You can buy one here.

And if you've ever wondered "Could Crystal really make a hoho for me out of what I have?".
Let this example put that to rest.  I was sent this obviously, very loved and treasured lovey. 
And though it took a bit of thinking and planning...

I think the resulting hohos turned out very cute. :) I was able to reinforce the stronger areas of the blanket and make it sturdy enough to make hoho parts.  Now the original owners children will have a little bit of their mom to be with them always.  Don't you LOVE them?  I do. :) 

In some cases, I only use what you send me...in others I add to it...either way, it is always a HUGE honor for me to be entrusted with something so meaningful to someone and to create something for them to love all over again.  Keepsake hohos are my FAVORITE hoho's to make.  You can order one for yourself right here.   

And, I don't know why I never thought of this, but I added a little bow to the girl ones. :) Eeek! I love them and I hope their new owners will, too.

And my poor little hoho got into it with the pavement and lost. Thankfully nothing was broken, teeth or otherwise and in the end he was more irritated than anything. 

Don't worry...it hasn't subdued his sass or spunk.  :)

Happy Sunday to you!!

custom order sunday and what i made for monday-easy caramel popcorn

Here's a double post for you...just so you know I have not given up on custom order Sundays or what I made for mondays...custom orders were still happening and treats are still being made. :)

Here's what I made for this Monday...

This is my friend lauren's caramel popcorn recipe.  This is a (very worthy) repost.  It's not too late to make this for gifts for friends and neighbors. 

 caramel popcorn

 3 bags of microwave popcorn

2 sticks butter; 

2 cups brown sugar; 

1/2 cup light corn syrup (Karo); 

1/2 tsp baking soda; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp vanilla

pop popcorn and put it in a large roasting pan.

preheat over to 225.

melt butter on medium heat.  add karo, salt and brown sugar.

stir constantly and bring to a boil. 

then leave it untouched for 5 minutes. 

this part freaked me out the most...i was sure it would stick to the pan/burn on the bottom/etc...it did none of those things.

Remove from heat.  Add baking soda and vanilla.  Stir it up until it is all blended and caramelly.  

Once it is all well mixed together...pour it kind of evenly over your popcorn.  Don't worry if everything is not covered...it will get there. 

Put it in the oven for an hour.  Every fifteen minutes get it out and stir it up. 
When an hour is up...remove from the oven and spread out on cool cookie sheets.  Break up any large clumps.  Try to share some. :) 

And here's my favorite custom order of the week...a friend of mine asked me if I could make her daughters drawing into a 3d creation.  The result, I think, is something cute and fun that I hope her daughter will get a kick out of. :)

And here's what our elf has been up to...

 ...making a copy of his little buns...

 ...rolling with his gnomie...

 ...playing a game of scrabble...

 and playing hide and seek with the legos.

And because I can't get over it...please explain to me how we got to this young man stage on the right?

How's your Christmas season?  Crazy or awesome?  Peaceful or insane?

custom order sunday.

Say hello to my Sunday project. 
Don't ask me why, but I have a thing for these cardboard deer. 
It started with a company here in Charlottesville that makes amazing versions of these. 

For example, there are many "art" items around town called "art in place".  

This huge rhino used to be one of them....they also have an amazing store full of all sorts of amazing cardboard creations. :) Cardboard Safari ships, too. : )

 So back to my deer...I was happy to find a FREE easy template HERE at Chronicle books.

 Some printing, cutting and exacto knifing later...and I had a deer. :) Free. 

 I mounted him to a canvas.  Then I painted him. 

 Then I loved him.

 Then Moses claimed him.  You know, because I told him I was making it for him.

 You can make one, too.  I just recommend a fresh exacto knife. 

 Enjoy and happy Sunday!

custom order sunday.

Howdy.  Welcome to my least favorite day of the year.  The day after daylight saving time.  I like to refer to it as "Our founding fathers/farmers hate parents day".  We barely made it to bed time.  Here's hoping to a quick recovery to "normal". 
Above is my favorite work of the week.  I am JUST loving making these creations...I feel so blessed to be able to create art for a living.  And God and I are working out the details to use this reignited love of mine for something more.  Hang in there for details. :)  I would also be thrilled to work on commissioned pieces in the mean time.

Here's another custom order that I just loved this week...Is this not the best and sweetest little ABC sampler ever?  I am filing this idea away to do with my boys once they are writing a little more. :) (This photo doesn't do it justice--taken with my phone...sorry).

 And here's a little work in progress. :)

And just a little reminder...don't forget about your "Operation Christmas Child" boxes.  Ours are due near the middle of the month so I would imagine yours would be due around the same time. 

And I've needed a new head shot a lot recently, and desperately needed something a little more professional looking.   One trusty tripod later and here we have it. :) What do you think?  Do I look like a pro or what? :)

Hope your weekend was JOYful and that this week you can be a blessing to someone. :) 

xo

custom order sunday.

This isn't really a custom order...but it IS my favorite thing that I created this week.  

I am getting nice and settled into my new studio and it's spurring some new creations. :) 

I am hoping to have prints of the art above but I keep hitting snags...if any of you fancy artists can help me out with how to make that happen...well I would love you for a long time. :)  

And these aren't a custom order either...just pretty.  I've added some bulk listings of these tissue cozies to the shop since it seems that every year I am asked to make some. :)

Hope your day is a lovely one. :) 

xo

custom order sunday.

Last night I dug in and finished up the last three letters on my alphabet sampler from Rosy Little Things. For a while I was pretty good at doing a letter a day...then I got bombarded (in the best way possible) with orders and I have just caught up enough to be able to devote time to my own projects again. :)

I used my own colorway and changed the letters a bit here and there...mostly the "O", which I added a flower to the center of. 

 It is FAR from perfect but I am hoping it is still all together lovely at least. :)

Some things I learned:
Use a thicker material next time.
"Disappearing" ink is a pain in the BUTT.
You are only supposed to use three strands of embroidery floss.  Something I didn't realize until half way through resulting in my sampler being in BOLD.
I hate the satin stitch.

This is a gift for my soon to be born niece.  I hope she loves bright colors. :)

This was a fun project and not something I would have taken on not too long ago but with google I was able to learn all the stitches I needed to know and may even make this again someday. 

Thanks for taking a peek!

Happy Sunday to you!

xo

custom order sunday.

I thought I would start using Sundays to showcase my favorite custom order(s) of the week. 
This one by far wins this week.  A customer contacted me to create these super cute Christmas ornaments from drawings that her daughter did of all four of her grandparents. :)

How sweet will it be for that little girl to present these to her grandparents on Christmas day? 
Their own self portrait and name drawn and preserved forever from one of their favorite little ones. :)
These kinds of orders are always fun for me to do because I can just imagine how happy the recipient will be to receive them. :)

And this is my favorite custom order for myself. :)
I think I FINALLY have a true little bit funky logo.  I hope to make this appear on labels and outgoing mail and all sorts of things.
I drew out what I wanted and Meagan from Brown Pigeon did an amazing job of HAND carving my stamp. 
She made my drawing look professional and sharp and the time from ordering to receiving was amazingly fast for how great the end product is.
I just want to sit and look at it, I love it so much!

Happy Sunday to you!  I'm off to bake mini apple pies...or cream cheese bars...or sweet and salty cookies...or mini pumpkin pies...I can't decide. :)