Snow Day!

beautiful beaded snowflakes

My fabulous snow dance worked last night and I'm so grateful to have another three-day-weekend. Hip hip hooray for snow days! I got a call from work this morning telling me that we were closing early due to the impending winter storm and I didn't need to bother coming in. It was music to my ears :). Not that I didn't want to go to work...but Erik has been home on vacation all week and this gives me the chance to spend a day at home resting and relaxing (or cleaning and organizing...) with him. Maybe I will even get a chance to dust off my craft table and do something creative! Thank you for snow days!

Pretty in Purple...

I made a few easy necklaces last month to give out as gifts...but this one is for me! I love the color purple and while at the bead store in December I fell in love with these and simply had to use them all together in a necklace. It's perfectly purple. It makes me think of all the lavender that grows in our garden...I can't wait for spring!

Fall Decor...

I love decorating for the holidays. I love "house stuff" as Erik puts it, and enjoy decorating the house each season. I don't go overboard, just a few things here and there. It gives me something to do and makes the house all warm and fuzzy feeling. Anyways, I don't have a fall wreath for our front door and decided to make a ridiculously simple one the other day. It's quite plain since I'm waiting until all the fall things go on clearance at the craft store so I can make a snazzy one for next year. But, until that happens, here's my "5-minutes-and-its-done-cause-im-sick-of-a-plain-door" wreath! (p.s.--I'm not loving the bow...but it will only be on the door for another week before I switch into Christmas-mode!)

Something for the birds...

In the spring I painted a few birdhouses for our backyard. Unfortunately, this is the only one that survived the wrath of the evil squirrels in our yard this summer. I don't mind squirrels, but these ones are quite annoying. They loved digging up my potted plants, eating all the birdseed and knocking the birdhouses off the deck causing them to crack apart into a zillion pieces. Grrr... Well, now that the squirrels have left our deck alone and are busy hiding acorns I have decided to paint a few more to add to the deck. I'm honestly thinking about anchoring these down, but instead I will take my chances and hope that the squirrels will leave them alone.

Beautiful Beads

Tonight after dinner I felt inspired to finish a necklace I started in June, yes folks, JUNE (yikes)! I received some lovely beads from Cassandra for my birthday back in June and tonight I put the finishing touches on the necklace. So...I present to you the first necklace I have made in quite awhile courtesy of Cassandra! Thank You! It felt so good the be making things again after a long creative siesta!

A day in the life of Ms. Anne...

I don't talk much about work here in the land of blog, but I took a few pictures of some projects Sarah and I did with the kids the past few weeks and thought I would share. Too bad I can't post the pics of the kid's making their projects...they are adorable! Anyways, here is a brief glimpse into "Anne-Land"...

Window art and hand print trees...

Apple taste testing and yes, I'm a nut!

Pumpkin prints w/silly stories and our goofy pumpkin creatures...

...one big happy pumpkin family!

So, there you have it...a glimpse into Artsy Anne's day job, at least the creative side of it! (trust me, not all sides of it are pretty--working with 3 and 4yr olds is always an adventure!)

Meet Jack...

Here is the Jack-o-Lantern Erik and I carved at Ben and Jen's fall outing. Isn't he cute! We were going for a goofy-Cheshire-cat look, but he ended up looking just plain goofy. I love his smile. Happy Fall!

Cool Crewel...

I was browsing at the craft store the other day and ran across The New Crewel book, written by Katherine Shaughnessy. I LOVE it! This is some pretty cool crewel. I've dabbled in crewel before in the past and I have many vintage crewel pieces made by my grandmother and her many, many sisters. I've always enjoyed crewel work and this book has lots of modern patterns that are super easy to do...the only downside is I can't find the correct crewel yarn to use ANYWHERE in the Manchester area. So, for now I am forced to practice with plain old embroidery thread. Oh well, at least I can get some practice with the stitches before the real yarn comes in. Yeah!

The photos above are of a crewel pillow made by one of my relatives on my Dad's side of the family sometime in the late 1960's or '70s. I'll be posting pics of my first project once it's completed!