Celebrating Spring

with a May Day Basket...

{ or ceramic wall vase }

created with cotton lace and clay.

and filled with special garden treats to surprise my neighbor.

Happy May Day!

Decoupage Seashell Frame

I was happily surprised when my neighbor Stephanie invited me 

over to her home for an informal craft party this afternoon.

I wasn't sure what to expect, 

she takes X-rays all day long and I had no idea she was into art.

She mentioned she had picked up some acrylic paints and 

wooden frames at Michael's on sale.

So I went back to my studio and collected some of my favorite

 decorative napkins to share with the other women who were 

coming together for some creative fun.

The pretty napkins were a big hit!

It made the play date so much less intimidating to the new artists.

Decoupage was a word they had not heard before.

I shared how to pull the napkins apart and carefully rip around the 

images they wanted to use on their frames and layout the designs.

Some stamped letters and painted the background with paints, 

others left the natural frame and did a color wash on top the images.

Then I showed them how to decoupage the images in place with 

good old fashioned white glue watered down and using a paint 

brush starting in the center and working our way out to release any

 air bubbles.

They were thrilled with the results. 

 I am sorry I hadn't brought my camera to catch photos of all the creativity and fun.

I have only my example to share with you today.

Seashore inspired mosaic tray

I began creating various sizes of ceramic tiles to use in an old 

wooden tray that I found at a thrift store.

 I chose to paint it all white. I had primer and house paint leftover 

from work around the cottage, and it worked perfectly on the 

old brown tray.

The goal was to incorporate the varying shades of Tiffany blue hues 

that I had been using on some of my latest ceramic serving pieces 

for alfresco dining at the cottage along with the color of new

 growth in the spring a lovely green that I had used to paint all the

 shutters around my historic cottage.

 I intended to use it for serving in the charming bricked in courtyard 

full of flowering plants and vines.

I added in some beautiful glass tile samples leftover 

from a sample card, some flat marbles typically used for floral

 arranging and even a few stray pearls, and vintage buttons just 

because I could!

Pieces with raised shells and embellishments I placed in the corners

 of the tray to reserve the center to be flat for serving.

I chose liquid nail to glue the pieces in place, and when it was 

completely set I used white grout following the manufacturer's 

direction to fill in all the spaces.

There are some days when it all comes together and causes your heart to sing! 

Thrilled to have it published in Somerset home!

.