Look what came in the mail!

This year I participated in a Winter Holiday Gift Swap reader challenge through the Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine. Awhile ago I sent out the "Wish" pin holiday gift that I made and then I waited until Cloth, Paper, Scissors sent me a gift from another reader who participated in the swap. Today I received my gift and it is so adorable. It's a whimsically embellished wooden decorative piece with a clothespin attached to the back so I can clip it onto something, possibly a picture frame. I absolutely love it.

The piece was mounted on an equally adorable handmade card complete with fun and cheerful ribbon embellishments.

I think my fellow reader and gift-giver must love glitter as much as I do. On the back of the card she printed a very glitter worthy quote, "You're not completely dressed until you have glitter on your face!" Reading that put a smile on my face, especially since I have a love for glitter and I am always thinking of new objects to glitter-fy. Caroline, thank you for the lovely handmade gift!

Want to see some of my glittery projects that I've written for Art Glitter? I have 4 more Art Glitter articles to write. Stay tuned!

Sparkly Altoid Boxes

Glittery Petite Purses

Playful Penguin Process, part 1

Here's a peek at how I created my Playful Penguin piece that's lounging on a polka-dotted innertube.

For the inner tube under structure, I used some wire to shape it into a circle. Then, I covered it with some scraps of gripper liner and aluminum foil.

Here's the inner tube under structure, with the penguin's under structure, which is a burned out light bulb. The white material on the bulb is a type of paper mache medium.

After covering the inner tube structure with foil, I covered it with a layer of paper mache medium.

And here is a mock-up of my penguin drinking from a glass with a straw. I used some sculpey clay to shape a mock glass and beak and inserted a wire to form the straw. The sunglasses shown here are the original glasses that I then made into a mold to make sunglasses with resin.

Here's a close-up view of my penguin/straw & glass mock-up. Stay tuned for my next post featuring more work in progress pics along with the finished piece all painted and glazed.

Stop by my facebook fan page album titled "Works in Progress Step by Step" to take a look at other pieces I've worked on. And please don't hesitate to become a fan of my Lilly Bug page. :-)

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 4, the finale!

Here is Buster in his "natural" surroundings. He made it into the "great outdoors." And he'd like to share with you some pics from his visit outside. Many of the photos are close-ups of flowers because I think Buster loves flowers even more than me. Please take a look.

Here's a view of the flowers and grass from above. The base of grass blades took a lot of time to sculpt. I kinda wish that I would've kept track of the hours it took to make the grass, but maybe it's best left unknown.

One of the books of flowers I got from the library had a photo of Snowdrop flowers. I love these flowers and I wanted to make sure I included them on this piece.

Assorted flowers, flax flower, daisy, & coneflower.

Close-up of flax flower.

Close-up of daisy.

Buster enjoyed buzzin' around outside.

At one point, he met a lil' bee friend that landed on his face to say "hi!"

And here's Buster flying away at the end of the day. He hopes you enjoyed this four part series of his journey from a watercolor into a 3-D sculpture.

To revisit any part of his journey please click any of the following:

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 1 (features the beginning stages of the Buster sculpture)

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 2 (features some of the details of how I made the picnic basket and tea set)

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 3 (features Buster the Bee in color after the entire piece is put together)

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, Part 3

You've read, you've waited and now it's finally here, my Buster the Bee sculpture in living color.

I tried to take photos from every imaginable angle. Someday I'd like to make a Buster the Bee video to post on youtube. Right now I don't know enough about how to make a video and where to find copyright free music. I'm thinking the song "Flight of the Bumblebee" would be a good song for my Buster buzzing over the field of flowers.

Buster being busy as a...you got it...busy as bee.

Uh-oh, what happened to his picnic basket and tea set?

Buster decided to do a practice flight without the basket and tea set.

He wanted to make sure he timed his flight correctly to Toby's shell for the surprise party.

There he goes buzz, buzz, buzzing away!

And here he is ready for the party!

My Buster the Bee sculpture measures approximately 23" wide by 16" high by 15" deep. It's kinda difficult to measure a sculpture with flowers poking out in all directions. So how do you like my Buster piece? It's one of my favorites, especially because I love flowers and there is a whole field of flowers to see even in the dead of a Wisconsin winter. My next post will feature pics of Buster in the great outdoors.

Missed any of my Buster series?

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 1 (features the beginning stages of the Buster sculpture)

Buzzing Behind the Scenes, part 2 (features some of the details of how I made the picnic basket and tea set)

My 1st Craft Show Experience

Well, I survived my first craft show last Saturday. My friend Deanna helped me get all of my last minute things together on Friday. Thank you, Deanna! :-) We had to leave by 6am on Saturday morning, so we packed up most of the items on Friday night.

How successful was the show? Well, in terms of selling things, it was not a big success. Nonetheless, I did sell 2 of my chicks, a Petite Purse, and a Scottie dog pin. One good thing about doing the show is that I was able to meet two other Etsians exhibiting there. I was able to chat all things Etsy, etc with them. And from doing the show, I could see people's reactions to my work and people were able to see my work "in person" vs. seeing it "online." Near the end of the show there was a woman who mentioned to me that she's been thinking of organizing a craft show in the Delafield area and she was interested in having my work at the show.

Another good thing is . . . I have a little bit of craft show experience to learn from and draw upon. Plus, there's the fact that all of the proceeds from the craft show organizers went to the MS walk/run. If I wanted to be "facetious" I would say that I could've brought a TV tray to display my work on since I sold only a small fraction of what I made and packed up to bring to the show. It was a lot of work to do, but as you can see from above, there were plenty of good "non-monetary" things gained from doing it too.


This is the Scottie dog pin that I sold at the show. Hurray! :-)


I mentioned that I sold a "Petite Purse" at the show. What is a Petite Purse? Some of them are photographed above. I just added a few Petite Purses to my Etsy shop, Lilly Bug Boutique.


The yellow "Petite Purse" above is one of my favorites. Yellow is such a cheerful color. :-) This yellow one is posted in my Etsy store as well as the blue one shown below.


Petite Purses are perfect to tuck in a little gift, such as one of my pins or magnets. I tucked my little froggie pin into the Blue Petite Purse.


Please hop into my Etsy shop to see my products. Thanks for visiting! :-)