I’ve been embarrassed to admit that I have no wall art on my unpainted walls that have been screaming for color—“PAINT ME!” I guess I have a hard time deciding on something that I want to look at every day and, because I change my mind so often, I haven’t come up with anything that appeals to me. I know my plan was to stick to neutral tones so that I could add bright combinations of accessories, like pillows! So I finally broke down and hung a set of shelves. I chose a narrow wall surrounded by windows in my living room. They are the main focal point of the room and one of the first things that catches your eye when you walk in the front door.

I experimented with displaying different trinkets and picture frames on the shelves, but nothing seemed to work. There was no balance. No chi. Until one day an idea came to me as I was walking through the aisles of my favorite second-hand store. I noticed that there were an obscene amount of unappreciated glass containers of all different shapes, sizes, and colors. And at fifty cents to $2 a piece, they were a steal! They seemed to look a lot more fascinating to me in clusters. So I picked out a variety of clear glass pieces that worked well as a group and decided that my theme would be natural objects. I used a combination of things that I found outside along with a bag of potpourri. I added plants, candles, shells, rocks and voila! Wall art! Amount spent on glass containers, $23. Next challenge? Paint!

I don’t know what it is with me and paper, but I do love working with it when it comes to crafting. Another common trait that I lean toward is repetition. I find satisfaction in making hundreds of little things that are eventually put together to create one big thing. So there is no doubt that you will see more of that from me in 2010.

With that in mind I have incorporated both obsessions into this picture frame. The holidays are a time when a lot of families share photos, and I sure did get enough to cover my fridge this year. I thought I would make a special frame for my brother and sister-in-laws first official family photo! How cute is my nephew!

Quilling is a craft that takes no time at all to perfect. You basically just curl paper. I’ve seen it used to embellish scrapbooks and make snowflake ornaments. Some of the advanced creations are quite impressive.

Yulia Brodskaya, an artist of many forms, has been publicly exposed mainly for her pieces that involve quilling. She is one of my favorites on my list of artists who work with paper. You can check out her work on her website at http://www.artyulia.com/

Happy new year everyone! Yesterday, as I was cleaning up around the house and mentally preparing to commit to all of my new year resolutions, I was reminded of Nina Simones song, “Feeling Good”. It’s the perfect song to start out the new year.

Looking back on all the projects that I’ve completed, it makes me so proud. Before I started this blog I never finished anything. I would always stop in the middle of a craft and never finish it! I still do that at times, but this blog has helped me to be more disciplined in finishing what I’ve started and achieving that feeling of accomplishment. I am looking forward to this next year. I’m hoping to continue to challenge my creative abilities and as I am now a part of the blogging community, I look forward to being inspired by other crafters.

We had our holiday work party last week. One of the activities was decorating glass ornaments, which happens to be my all time favorite Christmas crafts from last year, and of course it was one of my first blog postings! Since then I’ve probably made about 4 dozen and have passed on all my tips to friends who also couldn’t get enough of this addicting craft.

With my new collection of silver candle stick holders, I had a good excuse to integrate the two as a centerpiece for my dining room table.

As a second idea, I found this gigantic hurricane vase, put a silver candle stick holder in the middle and surrounded it with more ornaments. For a step by step tutorial and other helpful tips on how to make these one of a kind ornaments, check out last years posting on “One of a kind ornaments”

As I unpacked all my Christmas décor, it dawned on me that I have accomplished a lot this year with all of my crafty creations. I have been writing this blog for a full year now! In my first post I introduced these cute little Christmas village houses. So I thought it would be a good time to resurrect some of my favorite Christmas crafts, starting with these.

Since then, my collection has grown from 2 to 20, with 8 fully painted.

This year I have them all displayed in my craft room on top of my sturdy Ikea furniture.

I learned how important it was to coat them with a protective gloss because they are very fragile if you don’t wrap them up with bubble wrap and pack them away year after year. A few that I didn’t finish completely were wrapped and boxed up last year. They survived the move in one pieced, but the ones that weren’t painted with a matte varnish were slightly damaged and chipped. I pass this on so that you can learn from my mistakes.

At night you can see that each of them have a light inside that illuminates through their windows. I got a string of 12 battery operated Christmas lights from Michaels. I also like the battery operated tea lights. They work just as well and even flicker like a real candle.To learn some other tips, refer to my original posting from last year called “Let the fun begin!”