Teacher "Inspire" Necklace

Here is a gift I designed and made for my son's teacher for her Christmas gift.  I did some metal stamping and wire bending to achieve some of the elements on this necklace.  Some elements include: Porcelain figure, Tim Holtz charms, a typewriter key, and beading.  I hope you enjoy and get inspired to make your own teacher gift as they deserve everything beautiful and special.  

Merry Christmas!
Tashia Boyd

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Click image to enlarge.

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I did a video on my small Christmas minis...just forward thru the haul stuff if you don't want to watch that.

Merry Christmas!
Tashia Boyd

Christmas Mini Albums

It's been crazy as usual but I was able to complete 3 Christmas albums because they are small!  I used all Teresa Collins "Noel" Christmas papers, silver German glitter glass, (one of my most used crafty items), diamond dust, and lots of trims! (seem binding of course)  I used the Sizzix Bigz Banner, Layered Oval Scallop Die for these albums.  Each album is the same but with different style covers.  These were fairly quick to complete as they are small.  I prefer larger sized albums.  I just got in some new Sizzix Pro dies which are basically 12x12 and should be getting in a new Accucut die soon if not today.  

Merry Christmas Ya'll!

Tashia Boyd

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Click on image to enlarge

Click on image to enlarge

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Heirloom Thanksgiving

It's the day before Thanksgiving and I have lots of prep work to do today so I'm not running around like a turkey with my head cut off tomorrow.  All my china and some of my glass heirloom are pulled from their resting places.  I sometimes feel sorry for them as they rarely get used.  I don't use the glass as much as they are very fragile and dainty and would be sad if I broke my grandmothers prized glass that my grandfather gave her. She had a lot!  He must have given her a piece of glass every month or so! 

Today husband is going to make the "J Alexander Orzo and Wild Rice Salad" that is his absolute favorite dish ever.  It has like 100 things in it....just kidding.  But it does have a lot of ingredients.  It's best served chilled.  I'll make half the dressing today which is from scratch: currants, Italian sausage, country bread and lots of herbs.....I''ll also need to make ahead the asparagus wraps: asparagus, goat cheese, orange zest, basil, prosciutto. Last but not least, raspberry sauce for the chocolate creme brulee:  home grown raspberries, sugar, water and corn starch.  I almost forgot the punch....

Well, I better get to working on things.
XOXO
Tashia

Altered Skinny Boyfriend Jeans and T-Shirt

I know you have a pair of those Skinny Boyfriend Jeans that are all grunged up, tattered and holy! I wore mine the other day and felt a very cold breeze thru the grunged tattered area of my leg.  I love these jeans and wasn't about to stop wearing them because it's now 40 degrees out.  So I did what any girl would do.  I got out some scrap fabric and used some Fabri-Tac and stuck that fabric on like nobodies buisness.  GIRL....they rock even harder now.  I LOOOOVVE my "new" Skinny Boyfriend Jeans.  I also made a "Cupcake Flygirl" t-shirt.  For the t-shirt I used two Sizzix dies, cupcake and wings.  Turned out rockn too.  Hope you get inspired to alter your jeans.  Have a great Pink Saturday!

XOXO
Tashia Boyd

Gift Embellishment-Paper Rosette

Here is one of my favorite gift embellishments!  I just used some paper scraps and of course more seem binding because I'm obsessed with it!  I just stamped the "Thank You" right onto the seem binding and put some bling on the ends of the seam binding.  I was excited to get away from using Halloween colors and Christmas colors for a change.  To zoom in on any pictures on my blog, just click on the picture!  Thanks for stopping by and leave a comment!

Have a great day!

Tashia

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Halloween Mini

Whew! I finally finished the epic Halloween mini photo album I started about 2 months ago! It turned out fabulous. I was able to use past photos, present photos and have room for future photos. I used the "Haunted" paper collection by My Mind's Eye. The book measures 12x7, which I love! That size allows for lots of creative space and space for large photos. I used lots of seem binding as I do in most of my craft projects. I buy it in bulk from a company out of New York. (I'll do a post on that separate.) On the binding I made a dangle charm with various charms, a witch and leaves. At the bottom of the dangle charm I handmade the glass picture charm by sandwiching a collaged picture of a witch on top of some Prima paper between 2 glass plates. I then soldered the glass plates together. In the album I used a canvas to do one of my favorite techniques of photo transfer. I use Golden GAC 500. It works like a past. You brush it over the picture and place the picture face down onto your canvas and let it cure for 24-hours. After it has cured, spritz water over the paper/image and rub until the paper is gone and viola, you have a photo transfer!

I'll try to get a video of the album up soon. Thanks for taking a gander at one of my most prized possessions. I hope you like it. Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Hugs,
Tashia

Super Wyatt!

Great news! My little warrior is back and running around stirring the pot! The bruising and spots on his leg seem to be going away. Thanks for all the prayers and kind words of support.

Tashia
Let go of whats gone and hold on like hell to what you got!

Life's Little Interruptions!

This is the first I have thought about my fabulous Thanksgiving Dinner menu due to a waterfall of interruptions. So for my 4 followers and for those who peek in on occasion, here is what is going on. My sweet, precious pot-stirring three year old woke from a nap last Wednesday and could not physically move himself out of bed. He screamed out in pain as I picked him up from his bed. Ended the day by taking him to ER thinking he broke something after falling the previous Monday evening. X-rays were negative. By 8pm, he was running around like normal Wyatt! Thursday, woke up and ran around. Friday woke and couldn't get out of bed. Friday I rushed him to his physician who diagnosed him with Strep!? No signs of strep, no fever, no sore throat. But thankful thinking this would solve his problems. Well, not really. Saturday he woke up, got himself out of bed and was running around and I was thinking this was all behind us. 10:30am, mid stride, he froze, couldn't walk, too painful. My heart stopped, tears followed and I basically just dropped. I did the ugly cry all day. Sunday seemed to be a better day, less pain. However now, he has developed red spots on his legs and his left hand is swollen (not wrist). Feet swollen (not ankles). They are not hot to touch nor are they red or rashy which would indicate possible rheumatic fever. Monday I carry him and Parker back to the physician. I took Parker only because he developed a stuffy nose and just wanted to make sure he didn't have strep. Even though he had no sings of strep, I am at this point, just freaking out and need to ease my mind. Sure enough, he has strep! I am now sick as well. So here we all are, sick puppies. What a mess, right? While at the MD, she took some blood and started running all the tests. First one came back Monday evening showing his platelets were normal! I'll have more test results today. I don't know what to think at this point. I thank god for wonderful friends, family and most of all my wonderful Employer. Thank you for everything!

Take care guys.
Let go of whats gone and hold on like hell to what you got!

Tashia Boyd

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Christmas Advent Calendar

This is going to be my Christmas Advent Calendar for 2010.  I used a 7 Gypsies Receipt Holder.  For this project I will be using three receipt holders to accommodate all 25 days of Christmas.  Each holder has 10 slots.  I used the Teresa Collins "Noel" Christmas paper collection, Echo Park "Merry Christmas" paper collection, ephemera, Starbucks coffee cup wrap, felt poinsettia from the Sizzix Originals "Flower Petals & Center" die, glitter, diamond dust, seem binding and some other embellishments.  It probably wont be complete until close to December as I still have a Halloween album to finish!  I'll post of video when the calendar is complete.

Thanks for Stopping by!

Tashia

Finally, Halloween is over!

It's time to put away all the ghosts hanging from the trees and pack away all pumpkin orange and scary skeletons till next October.  I had a wonderful time making this Halloween as memorable as possible for my two goblins.  I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.  Surely Parker will remember the Halloween dinner menu:  Monkey Brains, Witches Brew and Lost Souls.

Now, to design my Christmas Advent calendar and work on the menu for Thanksgiving...Yikes.  Were hosting Thanksgiving this year for about 12-15 people.  Scary to think I'm responsible for the turkey!  I keep seeing images of the Griswolds Christmas Dinner!!!

Happy November Y'all!

Somewhere, somehow, I got interrupted! I have a pair of size 2 Gap black leathers pants that haunt/taunt me that hang in the closet next to my wedding dress. They’ve been there for 8 years! I no longer fit into the pants, heck, I probably couldn't fit a leg into those pants! I use to do a lot of things eight-nine years ago, before I got married, moved to rural Tennessee and had 2 boys. Not that I don’t love my family, but something happened this weekend that made me think, “How did I get here?” How is it I find myself putting on pink dishwashing gloves to fish out about $2.00 in change out of my toilet? How did it come to this! What happened to that art-loving, fashionista girl I use to be? Is she still here or did she wither away and die? Do I want to be that girl in present day or do I want to be who I am today? I miss that girl! She was fun, had cool clothes, had time to take a shower and could use the potty without having to fish junk out of it that my 3yr tossed in.

Initially I wanted to name this blog Girl Interrupted. However, that was already taken. I thought, well maybe mommy interrupted, but really, this is about how my life as a girl who use to wear size 2 black leathers pants got interrupted by life.