Marching to Their Own Beat!

These little guys are just the cutest! They even have working hinged mouths. They stand about 5" tall, just a perfect height for the little Christmas bags.

It's Movie Time....Where's the Popcorn??

This is one of the movies I previewed early this year for the kids. I was so impressed by it that I decided to purchase 3 copies, one for each of the kids (Matthew, Brandi and Ryan)...yes, I know...they are all grown up now with little families of their own....but you are NEVER too old for a cartoon!

This particular movie is based on the Fairytale by E.T.A. Hoffman and features the voices of Leslie Nielsen as the Mouseking; Robert Hays as Squeak; Fred Willard as Bubble and Eric Idle as Drosselmeier.

Cutting Board

I used to have one of these boards (once upon a time maybe 4 or 5 moves ago!!) for my sewing room. I purchased this smaller one (18"x12") to help with the cutting of the paper for the displays. There is nothing like these self-healing cutting boards. Now all I need is a rotary tool :)

Crazy for Beads

Well this blog will cover both projects that require beads --- the Wine Glass Charms and the Sugarplum Faerie Pendants.

I purchased some beading matts. These ones are made of foam and not the tacky ones that I originally wanted. I will have to wait to see how well they work.

I ordered new beads for the Wine Glass Charms in a 4mm size as I found the seed beads just a bit too small. I am extremely happy with colours I got and have now placed another order for more of the same. 

                   

Jump rings....lots and lots of jump rings. As these are needed to attach the Wine Glass Charms to the wires and also they are needed to attach the Sugarplum Faerie Pendant to the bead charm holder. It is hard to tell in these photos but one set is matte and the other set very shiny. 

And finally, I ordered a longer length of beading nails and ended up ordering the eye type instead of the flat head! Oh well, the correct ones have now been ordered. 

Wooly Birdies

I managed to pick up another ball of yarn so I complete the final 6 partridges. This wool is of a different colour so I look forward to seeing how they turn out. The photos show the yarn to be quite a dark shade when it is actually quite creamy in colour.

Flower Petal Faeries

Well there are many components to this project!

Firstly, the wire. As this is a speciality cloth wrapped wire I must say I have had a lot of difficulty in finding what I want. The wire that I was able to get is of the correct gauge but I wished that I could have found it in other colours.

Perler Beads, not as easy to come by as one would think. These are used underneath the bottom layer of petals to make them balloon out. 

Feathers....I thought that some of the Faeries should have real feathered wings not sure how they will work but I look forward to experimenting with them.

I recruited my Mom and my husband to spend an hour or two taking apart flower heads. Thank you sooooo much :) Now, I should have all of the flower petals that I will ever need to complete a whole bouquet of Flower Petal Faeries.

As well, I purchased more of the wooden boxes that I need to hold all of the Faeries precious goodies. These need to be stained to match the doors.

Soapy Bubbles

Some days a complete stranger goes out of their way and gives you a wonderful surprise!

I was in at Michael's Crafts buying...well....lots of stuff and while in the check out line, this wonderful woman came up to me and handed me a 50% off coupon, she smiled and said "my dear, your basket is fuller, here you need this more." I couldn't stop thanking her!!

So I used the coupon on the 10lb brick of moisturizing clear glycerin soap. And yes, I know I shouldn't have been carrying it around the store in the first place!!

I also picked up some colouring dyes...well more than some! I picked up every package they had :)

The sets include the following colours: Lilac, Peach, Seafoam, Yellow, Red, Blue, Turquoise, Lime, Orange, Wine and Gold. 

The store only had 2 types of fragrances though - Pearberry and Honey Almond. I will need to order the other types I need on-line. 

The Spree

Well a trip to Alberta and the VISA is just a hurtin!!
Where to start, oh where to start!

As I have so many parcels to go through, I have decided to do this by project :)

Hanging by a Thread

Well actually by a jump ring!!

Here is another spacer bead that I can use to hang my Sugarplum Faerie pendants from. These ones have a little daisy flower stamped on them. (The others had a star, please review my blog post from March 17).

Faerie Charms

These are quite different from the first set of Faerie charms that I ordered. These ones a bit smaller but they are 3D and they have quite a bit of weight to them.

Here is a side by side view of the previously ordered Faerie (left) and the new one that arrived today (right).  As you can see, the new one is quite a bit smaller but has more dimension. 

Faerie Dust

The wee little glass vials came in today. And wow, are they ever tiny!! Who makes these kinds of things? They even come with a spill proof twist on lid!

These will be used to hold Faerie Dust in the little wooden boxes that go with the Faerie Doors and Petal Faeries.

Are they not the cutest little bottles you have ever seen!!

The Cutting Edge

These came in from momandmescrapbooks (ebay)

Next two steps are....

1. trying them out (that's the easy part)
2. picking a favourite (that's the hard part)

These will be used to do the edging on all of the display cards. After finding out that an embosser machine will not be able to work, I thought that at least putting a decorative edging on might help.

Tiny Little Soldiers All In A Row

Well if lined up....who knows how far they would go! I received the last of Lois7374 (ebay) stash of little Nutcracker Prince charms, 98 of them in total!! This should complete all that I need to make the wine glass charms for this theme and if not....Lois said she would order more in for me  :)

Cybr Trayd

I love this title. My final package of the day (yes it was a parcel day for sure)....came from a company called Cybr Trayd (ebay).

This package contained 3 of the 4 soap molds and some sparkly powders for our soap.

I am not sure exactly what happened to the 4th tray but an inquiry has been sent in.

But these are the ones I received today...


The Honey Bee (for Christmas 2012)

The Partridge in a Pear Tree .... the Pear

And for the Sugarplum Faerie...there are actually 4 designs on this mold tray (hard to take a picture of clear plastic)

The mold that is missing is for the Nutcracker Prince. I will keep you posted on its status. 

The final part of this parcel is the sparkly stuff :)

It is called Shimmering Lustre to give soap a festive shine! I thought that it would be a nice touch for the Faeries and who knows....just might go crazy and use it for all of them! I purchased the gold and pearl colours. 

Sugarplum Faerie Pendant

Well folks...she is almost complete. I have being shipped to me now longer nail pins to complete her....but I do believe everything else is ready to go!

Of all of my projects...so far....(well besides the Petal Faeries)...this is my favourite. I can't wait to assemble these and see how they really turn out.

I received the pearl beads from bluemiste82 (ebay). I can't believe how quick they got here too!

Flower Power

Petals from Heaven :)

The little Petal Faeries that I am making require lots of different sizes of petals. At first I didn't know whether I should just buy silk flowers and take them apart or if I should just buy packages of petals. In the end I did a little of both (thank you to my Mom for buying flowers and taking the time to take them all apart to mail up to me).

This package of goodies came from Blissful Moments (ebay). What a wonderful selection of colour I have now :)

This row has green/yellow daisies and red daisies....

This row has purple/white daisies and cream daisies......

This row has bright yellow prima and my all time favourite the orange/yellow prima petals (this style seem to come in a variety of sizes too!)