Happy Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s – a day that love is in the air! And a day that we express our love, love from our heart. The heart represents our feelings of love and I want to share my heart with you. I doodled this simple heart on an art journal page I worked on recently.

Phyllis Dobbs Heart doodle

Express your love, but not just to your significant other – share it with your parents, your children, and friends along with a Valentine hug.  And don’t forget to hug your pets – they give us so much love too!

These other talented artists are participating in a Valentine’s Day international blog hop. So please check out their blogs for  extra Valentine art –

Chris Chun (thanks Chris for organizing this!)

Allison Langton

Gabby Malpas

Patricia Shea

Sharon Himes

Barbara Johansen Newman

Skye Rogers

Belinda Strong

Ellen Blonder

 

 

Peggy Jo Ackley

I wish you a happy Valentine’s Day!

Phyllis

Redux – Paint a Flower Pot for Holiday Entertaining or Decorating

The holidays are rapidly approaching but there’s still time to create some great craft projects to help with decorating and entertaining. I want to share one of my earlier Christmas craft projects that is so quick and easy to make and has so many uses – the versatile terra cotta flower pot painted in holiday colors.

Christmas flower pot for entertaining

This painted flower pot can be used to hold food like cookies and candy (line the pot with a napkin first so that the food doesn’t touch the paint). For decorating use, it can hold ornaments or a plant. The size of pot that you use can also determine the use. A small 3 or 4 inch pot can be filled with food or small gift and given as a gift, or placed by the plates at a dinner party as a favor. Simply line with cellophane, tissue paper or fabric, add a food item or other small gift, bunch at the top and tie with a ribbon. Let your imagination come up with many more uses.

I used red and white for Christmas (which can also double as my school colors), but you can use other colors for different holidays – red, white and blue for the 4th of July, shades of green for St. Patrick’s Day, bright fun colors for a birthday, pastels for Easter, and so on. I also painted a flower pot for Halloween.

Easy peasy! I used a very simple design that is very easy to draw.

Wash the flower pot and go over it with alcohol to disinfect it.  With a pencil draw the lines for the stripes around the rim and draw 1/2″ circles randomly below the rim (or create your own design). Paint as shown in the photo.  I recommend painting one color at a time, allowing it to dry before painting with the second color. The white dots on the stripe were added last, after all drying. When all the paint is dry, seal with a coat of clear satin acrylic.

Enjoy!

Phyllis

Redux – Sew a Christmas Apron

Sew a quick Christmas apron in just a couple of hours and wear it tonight! Aprons are fun and trendy to both sew and wear! I designed this apron pattern to wear for Christmas cooking and entertaining. Designed for an earlier post here on my blog, I wanted to share the apron pattern  again. Its so easy to make, even for a beginner, and can be made in a couple of hours from your fabric stash.

Free Christmas Apron Pattern

This apron pattern and others are available in Etsy WhimsyColor.

Thinking of Christmas aprons brings thoughts of all the wonderful smells of food cooking, cinnamon, and other spices. I also think of the citrus smell of oranges.

Enjoy both sewing and wearing it!

Phyllis

Happy “Thanks-giving”!

I wish each of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. In remembering the true meaning of the words “thanks giving”, I think of all the things in my life that I give thanks for. Remembering the positive will suppress any negatives we might have. You can have only one thought at a time so concentrating on the positive will brighten our days.

At the top of my list, I am thankful for all the love and joy given to me by family and friends. The people we are in contact with, whether on a daily basis or much more infrequently, shape just about every aspect of our lives. For those who have passed from my life, I am ever thankful for their love and the cherished memories that will never fade.

I am thankful for all of you who read my blog and again wish you a wonderful and safe holiday!

Phyllis