Cupcake Designs Snow Globes

Remember those boxes I shared with you on the last post?  I'll be sharing those with you a few at a time because there are several.  Today I'm sharing the tiny snow globes cupcakes and they come in those great storage boxes. They measure 45mm or 1.77 inches.

I probably shouldn't have shared that last one because the lettering was messed up, but it's the only sample I had to photograph.  The last two birthday cupcakes have an "on and off" switch on the bottom.  When you turn it to on and blow in the hole on the front the candle lights up.  You can then blow to turn it off. 

I've seen some of these on Amazon if you are interested.  

I'm not sure if I'm going to invest in purchasing these to sell, but I'll try to keep you posted or give a link of anyone that I know is selling them.

Now I get to figure out how to display all my samples!

Exciting News

The UPS truck arrived and it's like Christmas around here!  I haven't even looked inside yet and I'm excited about the design on the boxes!

I need to photograph these during daylight hours, so I'll share more soon.

Maple Place Autumn Folk Art Painting

I've been locked away in that tower on the top right of this scene working diligently on finishing up this painting before fall is over.  Seriously, I do wish I had this round studio room to paint in, but mine is just a cramped little spare room in our house on the second floor.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving though, I am very thankful to even have a room that I can shut myself in where I can dream of quaint little villages where people have the time to stack pumpkins in massive iron urns and line up little pumpkins on their porch railing.  The Lord provides the rest of the decorations. This is a place where people truly are thankful for their many blessings. 

"Maple Place"

Uncle John and Aunt Dottie, as they are know to all in their little village, have been inviting folks to their home for Thanksgiving for longer than anyone can remember.  They share their home, a turkey dinner, and their blessings with those who have no where else to go on this day.  Family and friends help to make this a day that they will not soon forget.

Fall Back This Weekend

Have a great weekend and don't forget to change your clock!

Below are a few more images of our weekend in Arkansas.  These were taken by my son, Eric.

Surround yourself with the sights and scents of autumn this weekend and count your blessings.

A Cabin in the Woods and A Giveaway Winner

This past weekend we went with our family to Eureka Springs, Arkansas.  This is what welcomed us as we entered our cabin.

The owners had the mantle and the deer decorated for Halloween.  What a great weekend!  I'll share more photos with you in the next post of all the beautiful scenery.

Before I forget though, I want to announce the winner of my print giveaway.  Two ladies came so very close to getting all the differences between the two prints, but the winner is Susie.

 The only thing you left out were the extra leaves that were scattered on the two large houses.  Susie please leave me a comment with your email or email me with your address.  

Halloween Folk Art Painting Update and a Giveaway

I added more details to this painting yesterday.  It's really tough to decide when a painting is finished.  See if you can find all the changes.  You can check out this previous post from Sept. 18th to see what it looked like before.

"Echoes of Trick or Treat"

The first person to leave a comment on this post with all the changes will win an 8" x 10" print of this fun Halloween design.  If no one finds all of them, the print will go to the person who finds the most changes by next Monday, Oct. 28th.

Good luck!

Trick or Treat Halloween Cupcake Painting

This new Halloween painting is finished and up for auction on eBay.  

"Trick or Treat Cupcake"

Decorate your home for Halloween with this colorful cupcake print. A yellow cupcake is topped with creamy orange butter cream frosting decorated with green piped decorations. A piece of candy corn sits on top of the yummy frosting and a tag attached to the side of the cupcakes says "Boo". Green "Trick or Treat" letters are dripping with orange frosting and a black and white checkerboard border is painted around the scene.

We had our new front door cut to fit yesterday and that's what I'll be painting this week.  It will be great to have a snug door to keep the winter chill out!  My entry looks so inviting with a door propped on saw horses.  Hopefully, once it's finished, I'll get my autumn decorations out.

Christmas Cupcake Painting

I love looking around blogland at all the beautiful fall decorating. While all this autumn beautification is going on, I've been busy painting a Christmas cupcake.  This painting is now up for auction on eBay:

"Fruitcake Cupcake"

I have several older cupcake designs that I need to paint again so they can be available for art licensing in a larger format. 

Maybe I should be working on some of the older autumn cupcakes this week to get me in the mood to put out some pumpkins and mums.  I'm always ahead or behind the current season.  How about you?  Are you already decorated for this fall season?

The Christmas Candle | Official Movie Website

The Christmas Candle | Official Movie Website

I'm so excited to see this movie by Max Lucado which comes out November 22nd!  I was so delighted to see that Susan Boyle was going to be in it.   Susan was the winner of "Britain's Got Talent" in 2009.  Check out the link.

Working on Christmas Cupcake Paintings in September

Yes, it is only Sept., but I work on Christmas paintings year round. I've decided to paint this "Fruit Cake Cupcake" painting again and a few other cupcake paintings to use for licensing projects.  When I originally painted my cupcakes they were all on little 4" x 4" or 5" x 7" canvas which are way too small to photograph for licensing.   

Today I decided to paint two of this design.  The one on the canvas I will be selling and the other, larger one (painted on canvas paper) I will photograph for licensing.  I may also eventually sell my larger illustrations.  

As you can see in the photo above, I enlarged the design on my printer and will be changing the lettering layout to better fit the canvas or simply leaving the lettering off.  

Halloween Painting Listed on Ebay

"Echoes of Trick or Treat"

This painting is now up for auction on eBay.  You can check it out by clicking on the title above.

I don't want to bore you with a lot of my vacation photos, but want to share a few of my favorites this week.

If you've never been to the Maroon Bells near Aspen, Colorado, you need to put it on your bucket list.  I've been to Colorado many times but had never heard of it.  Below are a couple of my favorite photos when we went hiking through one of the trails.

I'm amazed by Aspen trees:

One of the most photographed mountains in America is this one in the Maroon Bells and now that I've been there, I know why.

Praying for the families of Colorado.  This has been a tough year for fires and flooding.

I've got to get back to my painting!

Celebrating our 40th Anniversary Colorado Style

We had our photo taken at Helen Hunt Falls before we were married and decided on this trip to do it again.

Colorado has always been our favorite place to vacation.  This was the perfect trip with my favorite vacation destination and my favorite guy!

Colorado Vacation

We've been in Colorado for vacation for the past couple weeks and it's been hard to return to reality.  

I must get back to work today so I'll share more tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll have some time to check out what's been happening on your blog.  You miss a lot when you are out of internet range, have no t.v., and no cell phone service.  But, it was heavenly!

On House Cleaning......

This is a message my son, Eric, put on Facebook and this is how I feel about housework:

I thought Endust was supposed to be a one-time-use product, 

but it doesn’t really, you know, “end dust.”

It really should be a one time deal.  What do you think and is dusting your least favorite chore?

I'm busy cleaning though I wish I were painting.

Echoes of Trick or Treat / A Halloween Painting

Well, I'm ready for Halloween, how about you?  Just kidding.  I'm not carving my pumpkins just yet.  This painting was such a delight to paint from the two girls dressed as a lady bug and bumble bee to the cats perched on top of the arched hedge between the two lower houses.   I adapted this painting from a smaller one I had done years ago and just kept adding and adding.  I will put this  painting on eBay when we get a little closer to fall.

Echoes of trick or treat resound through the night as costumed children squeal with delight!

"Echoes of Trick or Treat"

Spooky House Halloween Painting

Would you walk up to this house on Halloween night (house on lower left)?   I've always thought this house looked a little spooky from the day I took the photo and I think it works well in this painting.  Once I finished painting the shrubs and sidewalk, I realized that all the lights are off in this house.  I may have to change that.  I like my Halloween paintings to be child friendly especially with little goblins going door to door.  What do you think, lights on or off?

I started the lower right house this afternoon and hopefully this painting will be finished by the end of next week.

Halloween in July

Goblins are now running through the streets of my Halloween painting chanting "Trick or Treat" in tiny ghostly voices.  

I'm still trying to beat the heat by painting a fall scene in July and it seems to be working.  We were actually able to open the windows last night and let in a cool breeze and today only topped out in the low 90's.  

What are you doing to get your mind off the stiffling heat?

Another Makeover and Halloween is Right Around the Corner

I've had this box for years and had never done anything to it.  In fact I forgot to even photograph it in it's raw wood state.   This box has great storage, but I simply had no place to put it.  My mother decided it would make a great foot stool for her small apartment, so a couple weeks ago we painted it and covered the top with linen.  Our first plan was to use black brads under the lip of the lid to hold the fabric.  Noticing that we were straight line challenged and that our brads appeared to be curving up and down, we went out and purchase rope and wrapped it around the edges three times to cover the staples that were now holding the fabric in place.  It's definitely not perfect, but Mom loves it and that's what matters.

Below is the painting that is currently on my paint table.  I still need to come up with the remainder of the village that goes at the bottom of the painting.  I love the vibrant hues of autumn and all the little jack-o-lanterns are just so fun to paint.  Those little smiling faces will greet the little goblins I'll be adding next.

Montgomery Ward Chair Trash to Treasure

Just in case you think that bloggers have got it all together, let me give you a little background on this project.  I started this back in January and this is July.  I'm very good at putting things off, also known as procrastinating.

I usually finish my projects once I start them, but will make no promises as to when that will be.

Here is the chair that was given to me by a dear friend.  I have a collection of chairs that come in handy when we have a large dinner and I run around the house collecting them to put around our dining table.

This chair closely matches my buffet which I hope to paint sometime in the future.  (Note the Christmas decorations on the buffet.  I told you I procrastinate.  This photo was taken in early January.)

My husband had to cut a new plywood seat.  Even though this one was terribly cracked it was sturdy (more likely petrified) beyond belief.  But, to be safe we replaced the wood.

This is the Mongomery Ward tag that was attached to the bottom of the seat.

If you read my blog you know that the table did get finished way before this chair and I blogged about it here.

This was the dingy/dirty chair cover that I removed.

Nasty/stinky padding was removed.

I used left over fabric from my window coverings to replace the old chair fabric (please ignore the dirty window)...

and cut new padding...

The chair was painted as per the instructions for the side table above.  You can check out the link for the "Side Table Transformation" for that information.

I found some blue and white checked fabric napkins in my buffet that I used to cover the chair back and added a button in the center.

What do you think?  Should I paint the buffet?  What year do you think I might get that done?  

I'm linking today with:

Fabulously Creative Friday... Linky party!

4th of July Folk Art

Happy 4th of July!  Wishing you and your family a safe and fun filled holiday!

Check out Max Lucado's blog post for today.  It's a very inspiring read!

God Bless!