Purple Pony Art Blog

Hi gang, it's that time of year again!

Anyone is welcome to a Christmas card from me.

As usual, if I get behind, you'll receive a new year's card. If I get really behind, stay tuned for a Valentine!

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I did not receive a lot of requests for the Christmas card call, but I did send out New Year's cards. We had a busy holiday and with the Canada Post strike, I just didn't know when to send out cards either.

I sell mostly cards at Christmas craft sales (and hardly any Christmas cards, in case you were wondering!). Over the summer I brainstormed making Christmas ornaments. Actually, I brainstorm about this every year, but usually at Christmas time, and then I forget by next Christmas :-D

In August I sat down and prototyped a cardinal Christmas ornament. It required a lot of steps, but I made 50 of them to give out to co-workers, where they were warmly received. A lot of us take for granted the amount of thought and design that goes into product development. The end result looks effortless, but I can sure you the road to that effortless look is a lot of wadded up paper balls, torn in half prototypes and sighs. However, making the cardinal ornament led the way to a lot of success for the chickadee ornament. I made 12, sold 9, kept one for myself and two as gifts. Here's what they look like:

Each one is handmade, although I had a little technological help! Here's a rundown:

• I drew and coloured the chickadee, then scanned and reduced it on the computer


• I designed a blue circle fill in CorelDraw and the greeting on the back


• I die cut the circles and affixed them together


• Then I die cut and hand brushed the pine branches with embossing paste, white paint and a glitter brush. I really need to figure out how to make this step better!


• I printed out the cardinals on a laser printer and cut one out by hand. For the cardinals, I printed them on cardstock and made a mask so that my Pazzles could do the job - but the glossy paper would not have worked well in the Pazzles


• I ended up making the ribbons by hand because I could not find small ribbons the right size


• Then I assembled the whole deal and strung it on a gold thread

Whew! I plan on making more next year, along with the cardinals and maybe a third winter bird - we'll see how productive I am!

I turned my 2003 holiday horse into a colouring page! You can download it for free from my website. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to open and print it. Have fun!

What do you give someone that has everything? What do you give someone that has asked for no gift? The simple answer is the gift of love :-)

My parents came over on Boxing Day and Mom had a large frame with her. What could it be? I found out in an instant and I LOVE IT! Years ago the only craft I practiced was cross-stitch and I only completed three large scale pieces (others remain unfinished as of this writing!). Maybe this piece, Country Alphabet, had a better chance of being finished because it simply was an alphabet.


The frame is 18x24" and I was pleased to see that Mom had made a buffer so that stitches would not get crushed. I can't tell you how long it took me to finish this. I probably started it in 1995. I had to improvise on the U because it featured a portrait of Uncle Sam, and being Canadian, well...

I moved a few times since finishing it and and I always wondered where my alphabet went. When I was cleaning out the basement this past summer, I was sure I would find it. Turns out I had the wrong basement!

I still love cross-stitch, but it's so hard for me to complete for some reason. I have a horse pattern on my website that you might enjoy! I got halfway through stitching the model and then I gave up. Sigh! It's a wonder anything gets done with me!

It's always nice to be ahead of the holidays! With the way it's snowing outside, it might as well be Christmas again :-) This picture was languishing on my desk for a while - it was just one of those pictures that needed a half hour's worth of work to complete. It took a lot of effort to do this, since it's always more exciting to start something new :-) Click for larger.




PanPastel and Colored Pencil ::: 7x9" ::: April 28, 2010