Creative Souls Whimsy

The theme of this month's Creative Souls Workshop was "All the World's a Stage." Each participant was given a "character" with a head, arms, legs and an odd "body" piece. They all created truly wonderfully whimsical characters.

Judi (Front)

Judi (Back)

Terri

Michelle

Laurel (Front)

Laurel (Back)

Liane (Front)

Liane (Back)

Vicki

Heather

Meeting Deborah Norville

Deborah Norville gave the keynote presentation last month at the Craft & Hobby Association Convention in Anaheim, and I had the opportunity to meet her afterwards at the book signing of her new book - "Thank You Power."

Heather Morrow & Deborah Norville
January 2009

I found her keynote inspirational. She told the story of growing up in a small town in Dalton, Georgia (aka, the Carpet Capital of the World) and learning how to sew. She won several beauty competitions with her talent as sewing. As she moved into broadcasting, making your own clothes was frowned upon, so she did it in secret. She has come out of the "crafting closet" and launched her own line of yarn for knitting.

"The One You Love" Workshop

"The One You Love" Creative Souls Workshop was Saturday, February 7. Each participant was given an unfinished wooden frame to decorate and a Valentine's box of goodies (including a sheet of Decoupatch paper) to embellish their frame.

We had a little extra time at the end, so we used the left over supplies to create a special V-Day card.

"Be Mine Or Else!" -- Vicki is serious about her love.

We used a rolling stamp to create the pattern on the paper and then blended the color into the background with an applicator.

The inside says "I only have eyes for you." Just too cute!

The inside says "Love"

Mary Engelbreit Takes My Cupcake

Mary Engelbreit and Heather Morrow

I have just returned from the 2009 Craft & Hobby Show in Anaheim, California. It was a crazy four days filled with 10 art classes and a huge wholesale vendor show with a ton of "make-and-take" projects to highlight how to use their products.

I ordered quite a bit for my Creative Souls Workshops, so look out -- the projects this Spring are going to be out of this world.

One of the highlights of the show was, meeting Mary Engelbreit, artist and entrepreneur. Her magazine (ME), which is no longer going to be published, has taken crafting and scrapbooking to a whole new level. In addition, her illustrations have been published in hundreds of books and licensed for everything from Christmas decorations to cookie jars. In my world she is best known for her "Henry" Scottie design.

My friend Marie and I had heard that she was going to be at one of the booths, but we had no idea where, let alone when. About mid-afternoon, I stopped at a "make-and-take" project table at the Plaid booth. We were using their new line of glitter paints (which I ordered) to decorate ceramic cupcakes. While I painted glitter on the cupcake, Marie went to pick-up another project we had done earlier in the day.

Marie returned and we moved onto the next "make-and-take" project table in the booth; however, it was being closed down. When we asked why, we were told that Mary Engelbreit would be arriving at any moment and they were using the space for her. We couldn't believe our luck and we were not about to give up our front row space.

When I met Mary, I was holding the freshly glittered cupcake (bottom of the photo) and she asked if it was for her. I told her sure, but that it was still wet. She didn't hear the it is "still wet" part and went to grab it. Needless to say, her hands were covered in glitter paint. As they scrambled to get something to help her clean-up, I left the cupcake off to the side to dry and my business card.

It was great fun and I don't think she will ever forget me because of the glitter painted cupcake she took home.

Alphabet Soup

The theme of the Creative Souls Workshop on Saturday, January 10 was Alphabet Soup. Each participant got an 8" 3-D Letter of their choice to decoupage. Each piece is as unique as the artist who created it.

Vicki's S - For her new granddaughter Serena.

Leann's L - The diamond mirrors give it a mosaic quality.

Heather's Q - Queen Bee.

Laurel's L - unLeash the Goddess within.

Michelle's M - her nickname is Micki.

It was a great Southern California day, so we were able to have the workshop outside in the backyard of Heart & Soul.

I do have extra Alphabet Soup kits available for purchase. It includes a letter of your choice and the papers and other embellishments to decorate the letter. The kits are $20, plus $10 for S&H.

The next Creative Souls Workshop is on Saturday, February 7. The theme is "The One You Love." We will be decorating a picture frame using found objects -- just in time for Valentine's Day.

Holiday Ornaments at Heart & Soul

On Saturday, December 13, 2008, I held a Creative Souls class at Heart & Soul in Pasadena. We each made 2 different types of ornaments. Unfortunately, they did not photograph well, so there is only one picture of my second ornament.

For the first ornament, we took images from holiday cards and glued them to paper mache ornaments. We then applied a special double sided sticky tape to the image and covered it with tiny clear glass beads -- giving it a very reflective quality.

For the second ornament, we found a small image that was cut down to the size of a monocle. A special crystal clear glue was applied to the glass and then the image was adhered to it (see below).

As a bonus, I brought my Revolution die cut machine with the template to cut gift tags. Donna and Vicki really had a blast cutting out the tags from old Christmas card images.

Happy Holidays!

Surface Decoration Class - Decals

Over the past six weeks, I took a course at Xiem on Surface decoration. The final class was to create decals to fire onto pieces of pottery glazed pottery. With a little help from Pottery Barn (hey, I've been busy), I applied my photos of my artichoke in the progression of blooming to these 4" plates.

The image is sent off to a guy who makes the tranfer "paper" and then it is applied and fired.

These are not for sale, yet. But check out my new blog. http://heatherspottery.blogspot.com.