Soldering

Many years ago I taught myself how to solder stained glass. I had all the supplies....soldering iron, foil tape, flux, glass cutter... Then I got divorced and for some reason way beyond me, I lost all those items in the settlement. Hmm

Anyway, over the past couple years I have been wanting to get back into it but just never got around to restocking my supplies. A couple months before Christmas, I saw a 'kit' from Simply Swank that had all you need to get started.

On Saturday, I took my birthday money and bought the kit (as well as lots of extras!)

Below is my first creation......I said it had been a very long time ago!!!!! My soldering is a bit rough but I had a blast! The girl is a stamp from Oxford Impressions. She is colored with pencils.

Hubby bought me a new camera for Christmas. Minnie no longer runs everytime I pull it out. Silly girl would fly out of the room everytime I grabbed my camera. I am wondering if the fact that the new one is black and not silver has anything to do with it.

So, this is a charm of Minnie. It is 1" x 3/4". My soldering was MUCH better until I had to adhere the jump ring. Then the top got all messed up....I was having some major issues LOL It took me 4 tries to even get it on there and yes, I know....it is not in the middle. I may eventually remove it and try again. But not today!

Thanks Mom for the birthday money!!!!!!

See, no running! Last week, she would never have stayed still, she would be flying down the hall and my only shot would be of her tail turning the corner into the bedroom. LOL

BTW her tail is NEVER still, the tip swishes ALL the time...thus I caught it in mid air LOL

Now that the gifts have been opened...

Long time no see...

Now that all the gifts have been given (and opened) I can post photos of my latest projects. I haven't done much lately. Between work and getting ready for Christmas, I didn't get a whole lot of art done!

I was in a stocking swap with Pam. The rules? Alter a Christmas stocking using nothing but supplies from our stash.

I bought a white velour stocking from the dollar store (my only purchase for this project)

I pieced together all kinds of Christmas fabrics (and didn't even come close to using all the patterns I have on hand) I was going for sort of a 'crazy quilt' look.

I then painted a Santa on a page of German text from an old book (I had received these pages years and years ago in a swap). I embellished with lots of buttons and cut out the mini Christmas cards from some card stock bought earlier in the year.

This snowman is made from a gourd that I dried years ago. I still have a box of dried gourds in my shed. I pull them out whenever I need to make a Christmas ornament. This little guy was tucked into Pam's stocking.

Finally, my hubby thinks sock monkeys are very cute and let me know that he never had one as a kid. I found the original socks online along with the original pattern. Hubby got a great kick out of finding this happy fellow tucked under the tree.

I didn't make this but Minnie wanted to share her present too. My little girl is now living 5 feet above the rest of the world LOL She is enjoying her bird's eye view of.......the birds! :-)