Leather Journals with Signatures

These are some of the leather die cut journals I made this week. 
The top row; Passport scoreboard XL die by Eileen Hull. 
Bottom row; Notebook L die by Eileen Hull. 
The brown leather I used didn't need anything extra since it had lots of body and in one piece. On the black and off-white journals I used a small piece of chipboard down the center of the spine. I used my Passport die and paper to make the signature pages. 

Valentine's Card

I made this for my Happy Valentine card this year. Its not your typical type for February 14 card. I used  one of my crimpers and rubber stamp for the background. Foreground I used TH stamp and flower die-cuts, plus Dina Wakley washi tape on fold. 

Handmade Card

I made this card using embossing folder, thinlits dies and rubber stamps. Along with archival inks, distress inks and watercolors. 

Christmas Cards

After thanksgiving I started making a few Christmas cards, here are some of the ones I mailed out. A few of these were card front applied to a folded card. I used watercolors to paint these stamped images. I inked all images with black archival ink.

Handmade Santa

I started making the Santa dolls as soon as I finished a wool tapestry stocking for my mother.
https://craftingwithowse.blogspot.com/2018/11/tapestry-stocking-for-my-mother.html

My 9" Santa doll was made with muslin and vintage wool felt. I've had the felt many years and wish I had more now. I used muslin to cut-out doll pattern, hand sewed and stuffed, next I applied white gesso to head, hands and feet. I used Dina Wakley acrylic paint on feet to look like shoes. The hand were left white. The face was painted with a watery magenta scribble stick by Dina Wakley. Two dots for eyes were made with a Sharpie. A tiny bell was handsewn on the hat. All clothing was handsewn. The hair and beard was made using Bernat yarn.

Tapestry Wool Stocking for My Mother

I started working on this Bucilla stocking from a tapestry kit the first of August 2018. I didn't think it was possible to finish before Christmas this year. I was making the stocking for my dear mother. She turned 93 this year.
I took the first photo, August 18, as you can see I hadn't added that much wool yarn. It was slow going adding wool yarn. The finished stocking is 18" long.

Mom said she didn't want her name on it. I worked on the stocking nearly every day. This was my first tapestry. I stretched the tapestry to a 14x18" wood picture frame, that didn't work very well, so I purchase a frame made for tapestry work. It worked much better.

November 17 I finished the stocking and took the photo below. In a few days we will be taking this stocking to my mothers. I lined the stocking in black fabric. The back is black felt. I finished it by hand stitching. 

Handmade Bears

While recouping from pacemaker and other health issues I made a lot of felt bears. Most of these bears have gone to family near and far. These bears are 5 inches tall if they could stand up. To make these tiny bears I have to use magnifying glasses because I can't see the stitches without them. 

The graduate bear (below) was made for one of our granddaughters that graduated from her two year college this year.

The last bear (below) I hand-stiched a dress and a made a red felt bow with white curls in her hair. I made this bear for my 92 year old mother. 

It takes me 6-8 hours to cut-out and hand-stitch one bear and longer if I make hand stitched clothing.

The bears I made were blue, red, purple, burgundy, grey, beige, teal, cream, medium brown and dark brown. 

Update: It's now August 10, I finished my last bear (No. 25) to give to my husband he wanted a blue bear and then I shipped out two bears one to Arkansas and and one to Wyoming. They were just like the bear below.