Rescue those ugly ornaments from the clearance bins! I found these rather “blah” snowflake ornaments at the dollar store. They seemed to be saying, “please cover me in glitter and make me pretty!” Ironically they look better photographed than they do in person. The “before” photo below does not portray an accurate “ho-hum” ugly look.
I decided to glitter the snowflakes with some glitter from the Art Institute Glitter line. I love their glitter and their glitter glue named “Designer Dries Clear” adhesive.
I used a small, old paintbrush to brush the adhesive on in sections. Then I used a glittering spoon to sprinkle the respective glitter colors onto the snowflakes.
For the snowflake above I used the Indian Summer vintage glass glitter and the Shiney Si ultrafine opaque glitter (one of my all time favorite colors, it’s so sparkly!). I also used Shiney Si on the snowflake shown below and T-Bird ultrafine pearlescent color.
Next time you’re out shopping and you see some ugly ornaments hanging out in the clearance section, maybe you can give them their very own sparkle treatment and breathe some new life into them. Happy glittering! Hope you enjoyed the snowflake project!
I took the photo above with a lens of the holiday specs in front of my camera lens. It’s hard to decipher the shapes from this photo, but you can see how the glasses work a little bit.
The Christmas Carolers in the gazebo at the park.
There were also Christmas lights set to music in one spot at the park. We stopped to watch the light show and then headed back home. It was a fun night visiting the park during the holiday season!
I’ve also created “Bagel Babe” Penguins for my bagel loving friends where the penguins were each holding a little brown bag with a bagel image on it. They also were holding little purses. These penguins were created before I was introduced to 
You can find the Playful Penguin sculptures shown below at my 
Aside from working on magazine projects, I’ve also been busy working on making Christmas gifts for my two sisters. I’m also working on a special order for a giraffe sculpture. Hopefully I will get a chance to blog about some of my current projects in the next month or two.
My 
My snowflakes finally begin to get some color added to them.
A snowflake character donning ear muffs and a scarf. Who knew that snowflakes ever got chilly?
The photo above shows a up close look at the knitted hat for my snowflake character.
It’s my little watercolor corner of the world. My watercolor workspace! There’s my palette and watercolor board with watercolor paper taped to the boards. My little “test” sheet of paper to see how strong the watercolor looks before applying it to my actual image. I guess that’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed looking into my studio at the current artwork I’ve been creating. Talk to you later!
Snowflakes in summer, oh my! Right now I’m working on a series of watercolor snowflake characters. The photos of the snowflakes above are an assortment of cutout paper snowflakes that I used for my snowflake patterns for my characters. In the middle of summertime there I was cutting out a handful of snowflakes. After I had all of my snowflake characters drawn out on my watercolor paper, I taped down the paper to my watercolor boards. Then I carefully applied masking fluid to the outside edges of the snowflakes.
The photo above shows the masking fluid after it was dry. Using the fluid allowed me to work on watercoloring the background more efficiently and helped to keep the edges of the snowflakes in shape.
Here I am removing the masking fluid from the piece with my polka-dotted eraser and my finger tips. Wow! That masking fluid is stubborn stuff, my finger tips were getting red from rubbing off the masking material. I also tried using a kneaded eraser to remove it. I just wanted to be careful not to damage the surface of the paper as I removed the masking fluid with the erasers.
Here’s a close-up look at one of my snowflake characters with some of the masking fluid already removed. I hope you enjoyed your visit. Stay tuned for an 
I was looking through photos of some mural painting jobs that I had done in the past. After looking through them, I thought that I’d share some of them with you. Back then when I was working on murals the name of my business was, “Chrissy’s Creations.” The photos above show what I painted at a local hair salon. This salon was in the same strip mall where I worked at a Hallmark store. Unfortunately neither the salon or the Hallmark store are still there after they tore down the old mall building and built a new one.
These photos are from a bug and nature themed bedroom that I did. It was a fun room to paint. My client wanted me to include some lightning bugs, so on another wall (not shown), I painted some lightning bugs that glowed in the dark. The bug/nature room and the hair salon jobs were an average size mural job. Next, I will show you a collection of photos that feature the biggest mural job that I have done.
Here’s a photo of the very beginning part of the job. For this job my client wanted me to paint the entire room to look like a town with a bakery, flower shop and flower cart, candy shop, barbershop, and dress shop. I didn’t work there consecutive days, but in total it took me 14 days to complete everything. It was the most enjoyable of the murals that I have painted.
The “Tastee Bakery” was the first building that I started to paint in the room. It was a “treat” to paint all of those “tastee” desserts in the window.
An artist who aspires to become a children's book illustrator. Stays young at heart and an avid daydreamer. When the weather permits, I enjoy visiting/biking on the nature trail near my house. Visiting the trail has brought me many hours of enjoyment and relaxation. My camera is usually by my side while on the trail. I like to try to find the small and unnoticeable as subjects for my photos. And of course flowers and plant life encompass many of my subjects.
