Checking out the Macy’s Window Displays

Cheese!

The Mister’s homemade Stollen

Egg Casserole

The new Maggie Daly Park in Grant Park

Touching the “Bean”

We had a very nice December, Little Bug’s grandparents visited for Christmas and then The Mister’s sister came for New Years.  As you can see, we went downtown to check out the new Maggie Daly Park.  It’s a pretty awesome space for kids, right on Chicago’s lakefront.  Parts of it are still under construction, can’t wait to go back this Spring when it’s done!

I took about three weeks off from jewelry making and am now trying to get back to work.  We’ve been having a bit of a cold spell and with my soldering station being located in our unheated garage, I have not been able to work as much as I would like.  I’m currently finishing up four pieces, a giveaway necklace, a couple of pieces with beautiful bold cabs of Owyhee jasper, and a linked bracelet with boulder Turquoise and Missouri fern fossil.  Once those are done I will start work on a Valentines inspired collection.  Hope to share some preview pics of that soon.

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Just a quick post to say “Hello!”  I’m busy busy busy over here at The Tulip House, shopping, making, and decorating!  I plan to do an Etsy shop update tomorrow night and Friday.  I’ve got a couple of pairs of Turquoise post earrings to list as well as two or three new silhouette necklaces, and maybe some other stuff too.

There’s a 15% off “Shop Early” sale going on in my Etsy store, you’ll find the coupon code in my store announcement.  Head over there, sale ends on Sunday.

Toodles!

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Little Bug and I made these Autumn-y candle holders last week.  They are super easy to make and real purty.  I thought I’d share our project.  If you’re crafty you may have all the supplies on hand.

You will need the following:

A jar.

Some glue. (I used the glue above from The Paper Source, because that’s what I had.  Elmers will work fine too.)  I thinned my glue with a little water to make it easier to paint on my jar.

Tissue paper cut into pieces.  Whatever color, size, and shape you like.  Circles might be neat.  But, who has the time to cut circles out of tissue paper?  Not me!

You will also need a small brush to apply the glue and a candle.

Now play close attention to this part because it’s pretty tricky.  Brush your thinned glue onto the jar and apply the tissue paper to the glue, let it dry.

Done!

We also made a kid safe version of this for Little Bug to give to a friend.  I substituted a plastic cup for the glass jar and a flame-less candle for a real one.

Wouldn’t this make a cute little night light?

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At age 2, Little Bug didn’t really know what Halloween was, so I took it upon myself to decide what he would dress up as.  I found a cute and simple skeleton romper at Old Navy, but wanted his costume to be a little bit more creative than just a store bought onesie.  I figured there was no way he would let me paint his face, so then I thought, hmm, what about masks, what about papier-mache, ooo, what about sugar skulls, ooooo!

To make the masks I followed a tutorial I found on the Inside Nanabread’s Head blog, here.  The steps are pretty simple, you create a mold of your face using Aluminum Foil, cover that with strips of paper dipped in homemade glue, let it dry, and then draw and or paint on your design.

It’s a bit tricky to mold your face using foil and to have it keep it’s shape.  Even more tricky to mold the face of a 2 year old.  Overall I think our masks came out really well.  After I did a few layers of newspaper “mache,” I did a final layer with regular white printer paper so I would have a blank surface to work with.  I also did a fair amount of reshaping during the drying process so as not to lose my facial details.  It seems as the mask dries it tends to want to flatten.  Once dry, the masks were a bit rough on the underside and sides.  So, I did a bit of trimming around the edges of the masks and covered the cut edges with paper.  If you are going to try your hand at making one of these masks, be sure to give yourself 2 or 3 days.  They take some time to dry and you may find that you need to add some more paper here and there, as well as do some clean up, to get it how you want it.

I did all the papier-mache-ing, The Mister drew the faces on with pencil, and I painted Little Bug’s mask and mine.  The Mister painted his own mask.

We were up past midnight working on these masks and the next day, Little Bug ended up wearing his for all of 30 seconds.  Just long enough for me to take a couple of photos!  Which of course I can’t seem to find.  (He was kind enough to let me take a few photos of him with his mask today so I could do a blog post.  Thanks for being a good sport Buggy Bug!)

Happy Halloween!

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Naturals Collection display

One of a Kind Necklaces

Ring Display

Rings after the rain

One of a Kind Rings

Everyday Necklaces and Earrings

Earrings, Silhouettes, Copper Triangles, Tiny leaves, and more

Earring Clothesline

Silhouette Necklaces

My Booth

The post The Bucktown Arts Fest appeared first on Starving Artist Designs.

Photos from our July trip to Wyoming.  We stayed on land owned by The Mister’s relatives which backs up against the Medicine Bow National Forest.  As you can see it was lovely there, a BIG Thank You to the Stearns for having us!

My apologies for being so absent on my blog as of late.  I am spending every free moment working on jewelry in preparation for The Bucktown Arts Fest.  It’s one of my favorite Art Fairs here in Chicago and this will be my first year as a vendor!  If you are in the city please stop by.  It is located on the grounds next to Holstein Park in Bucktown, August 23rd and 24th, 11-7, free admission!  I will be booth #3.

Once the craziness of prepping for the fest has passed I hope to be back to regular blog posting.  In the meantime you can catch snippets of my jewelry and stuff on Instagram @TorchandTot.

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Unakite, silver, and pink gold cocktail ring

Unakite, silver, and pink gold pendant

Threesome ring, Peach Moonstone, Carnelian, Grossular Andradite, and silver

Petite cabochon necklaces, Orange Spessartine Garnet and Jardin de Primavera Jasper

Tiny Triangle ring, Wyoming Jade and silver

The post Spring work preview appeared first on Starving Artist Designs.

Happy belated Easter!  Did you have a lovely weekend?  We had great weather, (anything above 50 degrees qualifies as great in Spring in Chicago.)  Little Bug started off Easter Sunday with an egg hunt in the backyard.

I made a simple but yummy meal of roast chicken, roast sweet potatoes, fresh asparagus soup, a chopped vegetable salad, raspberry jello salad, and for dessert, lemon pudding cakes,(recipe here.)

I dressed our table with a runner I made following this tutorial from the Etsy Blog.  The flowers I made with tissue paper and floral wire.  They are very easy to make and really pretty!  I followed a tutorial on the Lillyella blog here  as well as this tutorial on the Rust and Sunshine blog.  Both approaches make for lovely flowers.  (The yellow napkins are from Crate and Barrel.)

Every year on Easter I take Little Bug’s picture.  Last year I posted his picture on my blog along with a picture of him on Easter year one.  So this year I thought I would do the same thing.  It’s fun to see how much he has grown.

Little Bug’s first Easter, 2012, age approx 9 months

Little Bug Easter 2013, approx. 21 months old.

Little Bug Easter 2014, Approx 33 months, (2.75 years old.)

The post Easter Weekend appeared first on Starving Artist Designs.

Aren’t they the cutest?  These little boats are really easy to make so I won’t do a step by step DIY.  Just melt some candle wax into a half a walnut shell and then stick a toothpick in the wax.  You can attach your sail before or after you put the toothpick in.  With the fabric sails I glued them onto the toothpick and then stuck it in the wax.  For the paper sails I “laminated” them with clear contact paper so they would last for more than one voyage.  You can find all kinds of fun ideas for sails online, just google “walnut shell boat.”  Also, I found walnuts in the shell in the bulk dry goods section of Mariano’s Grocery store.

I floated these in the bathroom sink with no issues but when I put them in the tub with Little Bug, they all tipped and sank.  : (   Not sure why.  Too much current?

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So, as stated in my last post, we’ve all been sick recently.  And, while we’re feeling much better, we all have a lingering cough.  Especially Little Bug and especially at night.  He’s been waking up a dozen or so times a night coughing.  A couple of days ago I decided to search the internet for some natural cough remedies.  I found a website with some interesting massage techniques for alleviating cough, but Little Bug is very ticklish and won’t really sit still long enough for me to attempt massage.  Then I found This, an all natural salve that I could make and apply right before bed.  I was able to find all my ingredients at Whole Foods, so I only had to make a quick trip to the store and I was able to make the rub and use it the same day.  This salve is super easy to make but I must warn you, it contains essential oils and those can be costly.

The first night I used it Little Bug woke up only once, coughed twice, and then went right back to sleep.  The second night I used it, he slept through the night with No coughing!

Here’s the recipe:

• 5 tbsp.extra virgin coconut oil (a natural anti-viral)
• 1 tbsp. evening primrose oil (or any carrier oil, such as, Sweet Almond, Olive, Jojoba)
• 2 tbsp.beeswax (you can buy pellets online, Etsy, Amazon)
• 8 – 10 drops tea tree essential oil (also a natural anti-viral)
• 15 – 20 drops rosemary essential oil (aids breathing)

In a small pan, melt the coconut oil and evening primrose oil.  Add the beeswax, chopped up (or in granules) and stir until melted.  Add the essential oils and stir to combine.  Pour into a 4-oz. glass jar and allow to cool.

Apply to feet and cover with socks.

I’m not terribly knowledgeable on Reflexology or Aromatherapy, but I guess we have an artery on the bottom of our feet that goes straight to the heart.  Putting the salve on the feet allows it to be absorbed quickly into the blood stream and gives it access to the heart and lungs to work it’s magic.

(Apparently some folks have adverse reactions to Tea Tree Oil so best to test with a tiny amount of oil prior to making the salve.)

Beeswax can be tricky to find in the store.  I didn’t want to run all over town searching for beeswax pellets.  I knew that I had seen pure beeswax candles at Whole Foods so I figured I could buy a small candle and cut it up.  When I got to the store I found that in addition to the candles they also sold little cakes of beeswax, so I got one of those.

Also, unless you have other plans for the essential oils, buy the smallest ones they sell.  You need a very small amount for this recipe and 4 oz of salve will likely last 6 months to a year, depending on the size of your family.

(I got the cute little blue jar at Whole Foods too.  Was going to use a small jelly jar but then I saw that one and it was exactly 4 oz so I grabbed it.)

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