Charming Broomsticks

Last weekend, Kathie and I took a Williams & Sonoma cooking technique class, and afterwards, as you usual, we explored downtown Los Gatos for a little bit. On this trip, we discovered a wonderful little store called Vintages of Los Gatos. I love that store...they had lots of wonderful things! I even found a couple of very old photo albums – one was from the 1800s and came from Paris. I’ll be doing some sort of altered art with those–eventually.

Another little purchase I made there was the cutest little broomstick that was made by the owner — a very simple design with a "happy halloween" tag attached to it. Adorable! And, it was the last one. It was so cute, I decided to make more of my own to give to the ladies that attended my class this weekend.

Last month, when I taught the halloween haunted house class, Kathryn made some fabulous pumpkin cupcakes for me to bring for everyone in class. They were yummy! Unfortunately for me, Kathryn has been very busy with homecoming this week—so no cupcakes for this weekend’s classes.
Instead, the ladies got broomsticks!
For Saturday’s class, the "charming" broomsticks were a bit on the larger size so you can do various things with them -- maybe hang a small halloween sign or vertical banner. I also thought the larger broomstick would look nice on the haunted house we were making, and a couple of ladies, did incorporate the broom onto their house. I wish I had my camera with me - it was cute!

For today’s class, I made candy-pull wrappers, put a chocolate bar inside, and decorated the top with a vintage halloween image, attached a witch charm from ACharmingplace, and attached the broomstick. Not as yummy as the cupcakes, but still cute!

A simple card...

Wow, another post in the same month! Nothing fancy, just a card for a friend using scraps of paper from my dream banner class, some Rock Candy Stickles, and a filigree charm from ACharmingplace. I made the little flower from some seam binding.

Tomorrow, I'll post some "charming" broomsticks I've made for the ladies that are taking my Eerie Halloween House/Album tomorrow.

An Altered Box

I know–it’s been a while...I’m a bad blogger...
Wanted to share an altered box I made for a box swap I was in. Our little "drama queen" group drew names for this swap, and I drew Kathie O’s name. I was happy to have pulled her name because I thought it would be a little easier to figure out what she likes since we often go on "inspiration journeys" together. I know Kathie will like everything I put on her box...I know this because we both were drawn to and bought the same things while on these inspiration journeys! But I’ll bet Kathie’s shells are sitting in a box somewhere in her craft room...my shells are in a box too...one made for Ms. Kathie.
I altered a magnetic box from Michael’s like this one (although the one I altered was bigger)

and turned it into this shadow box...I hope Kathie likes it.

A couple of close ups...I added a 7 Gypsies knob...

Here's the "shadow box" portion. I made it with foam core and covered the ugly edges of it with ribbon.

When it comes to boxes...Kathie has a "foot" fettish so I had to add some feet to it (thanks Michelle for confirmation of the "foot" fettish) which are really drawer knobs...

I added a Basic Grey rubon and used Glimmer Mists and embossing powder for the background. And I just love those seahorses, but...

my absolute favorite part has to be the octopus! It makes me giggle every time I look at it. I bought the octopus (and the majority of the other shells too) from Tangerines in Dublin. Gina Gabriell, the owner of Tangerines, also makes beautiful art dolls — she even makes the eyes and sells them! I think they are amazing! I bought one of the smallest pairs she had and attached them to the octopus...Kathie loves body parts...I think eyes qualify.