What I am Working on for Thrus, Wooden Christmas Ornament's

Happy Veteran's day to all, and Thank you to all those who serve and have served !

I am once again busy creating some holiday items; I have been working on some Christmas ornament's. These are quite simple and fun to make, and any craft store will carry the pre-made wooden pieces. I had some holiday craft paper to use for the little round bulb; what I did was trace around the bulb first and cut it out and decoupage to the wooden bulb. Next I sanded the little bear and added a oil based stain and painted the facial features with acrylic paints. I also stained the bulb first let it dry for a day then painted a few trees and some snow for a cute simple scene.

I need to note; that the bear and bulb are separate pieces that I have hot glued together. The finishing touches are some gold ribbon for the the bear and some jute so that the ornament can be hung on the tree. Yes I am trying to give the ornament's a bit of that old look by using stain. In this next one I used wrapping paper and I used a gray acrylic paint for staining. So far it is coming out just the way I want it ; I sanded the bulb down just a bit to get the paint to give it an old look and I will do the same for the bear which I will stain a black being that black bears are found lots around Oregon. I will be adding these to one of my two stores Esty or Artfire, but I also wanted to share how to make them so that you all can get a bit crafty for the holidays with me.

What I am working for Monday After Nov 8th

Howdy to everyone! well Halloween just seemed to fly right by without a second thought, hard to believe its November and Thanksgiving is in just a few weeks; so I have decided to have free shipping in my art fire store here http://www.artfire.com/users/49stocker
This will go on the entire month of November, in the mean while I am working on this cute gingerbread doll that I will have completed in a few more days and I will add to the art fire store. I am also going to be doing some shows starting November 27Th and I will give more details about that a little later on. I am making the gingerbread doll from some great off brown felt, I have also designed a rick-wrack stitch around the arms and legs using my great sewing machine. The outfit will be a cute dark red Christmas dress with pantaloons and a bow for this doll.
Once again I went to the talking tombstones and had a wonderful time learning about those who traveled to Astoria Oregon and learned what life was like way back when here are a few photos of that adventure.


I love when the local people dress in costume and tell about a certain person, here in this photo I learned about a young woman in love and having some riches but falling ill to a disease. The gentleman below is the first car dealership that came to Astoria Oregon, and amazing enough the whole town of Astoria burned long ago. While he was trying to save the building where he had cars the fire depart was attempting to stop the burning of Astoria by using dynamite and so when the fire department attempted to blow up his building he got up on the roof and began shooting at the fire department with a shot gun, what an interesting story! He chased the firemen away but the fire left the dynamite and so he blew up the house that was next to him!

I love this event because its a bit of history in my own community that I learn about.

A New Fall Time Rag Cloth doll, Amber the Sweets

Well its storming this morning like crazy here on the Oregon coast, so I am sitting and drinking some hot blueberry tea and talking about the latest doll I just finished.
This is Amber the Sweets, and she is from a pattern that I designed, she is 16 inches long and I have made the body from drill fabric and stained it with my special stain and baked her in the oven at 200 degrees.
I then painted the facial features with acrylic paints and the design of the facial features are my own.
Now the dress is not stained and is a cute Fall time cotton fabric with sun flowers, crows, cats, and a house on it. I also did a fancy stitch on the dress to make a rick rack design around the bottom and sleeves of the dress using a off white cotton thread. The hair of the doll is an orange yarn and I have made loops and sewn them to the head of the doll using a heavy quilting thread. I will be adding to the art fire store Wend morning bright and early. This morning I have to get those Halloween decorations down before this wind blows everything away, I hope you all are staying nice and warm on this start of November 1st.

A Halloween pudding pie to share on the ghoulish Holiday

I came up with a ghoulish pudding pie to share with all of you this Halloween Holiday; the pie is very easy to make and be done in a few hours.
What you will need:
2 boxes of vanilla pudding not instant but stove top pudding
2 boxes of chocolate pudding again not instant but the kind you make on the stove
1 gram cracker pie crust
1 can of whip cream
1 cup of crushed Oreo cookies
1 jar of orange jell ice cream topping
1 bag of Halloween candy your choice but it should be candy corn or similar
Begin with the chocolate pudding cook it according to the box directions, then as it has cooled a little add to the crust, but only about half because you can get 2 small pies from this recipe; Let it set up a little before starting the vanilla, then cook the vanilla up also following the instructions on the box, now let cool just a little and add about 2 tablespoons of the orange topping and mix until the pudding turns a bit orange. Now put the pie in the refrigerator, let the pies set up and cool down.
Once the pies or pie is cool top with the Oreo cookies, and the orange topping making any design you like; on the outer edge add the caned whip cream and add to the center, finally add your candy and place back in the fridge.

Free Halloween craft idea how to dress up a chalk board

This is a simple project and easy to create; What I am using is a 12x9 craft chalk board that you can find just about in any craft store. Then take some sand paper and sand down the wooden top and bottom until you can see some wood grain showing up and the chalk board looking older and used. Before I sanded I took a black marker and wrote a short saying onto the wood then sanded making the ink also disappear in to the grain. Now you can stain the chalkboard with a wood stain and use some crackle, or use an acrylic paint as I did.


Next look for some cardboard, such as poster board, a left over pizza box is what I used for creating the little mummy. The head is 4 inches long and 3 inches wide; but you can design the head the way you want I just went drawing freehand and idea I wanted for the head and make your hand simple! because you will be using hot glue for the quilting batting and fabric, and cheese cloth. Lay the head onto some quilting batting and cut the batting out larger than the head, you will also want to be sure do this for the fabric also so that you can glue the fabric down tightly and have no loose ends.


Before I started to finish, I took the cut out pieces of cardboard shapes and just laid them onto the chalkboard to get an idea of how I wanted it to look.



As you can see with the one hand I am doing and how I am adding the batting to the head. One more note; when you cut out the face(head) go ahead and paint it with acrylic paints and let it dry over night before adding the batting and fabric to the cardboard or you will have a mess with the facial features being marred up with trying to glue.


After your head is dry, begin to hot glue the back of the cardboard and pulling tight sightly. Begin cutting strips of cloth cheese to wrap around the head and hands also using dabs of hot glue to hold in place.






This is how it show appear, but use your imagination to it fullest, also you can drill 2 small holes at the top chalkboard and add wire, rope, twine, or jute, even Halloween fabric, add jute or fabric and tack with a tack and tie chalk into the jute, wire, fabric and you will have a very spooky message board for Halloween there is lots you can do with this project to make it your own just experiment as much with it as you like. The project takes about 2 days to complete.

19 inch Fall Time Primitive Rag Cloth Doll

I just finished new pattern and rag cloth doll for the Fall Season; this is Miss Primitive Fall Time. I sat down a few days back and designed a new cloth doll pattern this one is 19 inches in long and the body is designed from cotton Osnaburg. I have stained the body and all the clothing in my special staining sauce and baked it all in my oven at 200 degrees then I hand painted the face and legs, shoes using acrylic paints took some light weight sand paper and and sanded the entire doll, the last step was to roll everything in cinnamon. So the entire doll looks quite aged. Her hair was a purple bumble yarn that I also stained and dried in my oven; her clothing is fall cotton fabrics. I have hand sewn the hair, arms and legs on using a very heavy quilting thread. The nose of the doll is done with a black embroidery thread using just a single strand. I will be adding her to the art fire store Monday but for now I just wanted to talk about the new pattern and design of doll that I came up with; a quick note I did exaggerate her hands just to give the doll a different look. I plan on making more of these cute fall time dolls and I am working on a design for some Christmas dolls. Later next week I will have another free fun craft project to share with everyone and I will show how I made one of my witch dolls the week after so I have lots planed for the rest of October along with decorating my yard and getting for for Halloween I may have a free giveaway thinking about it for now.

Fall Time Sweet Treat Carmel Apple Bake Recipe

I just had to share this sweet treat for fall time, there in the picture I have just about completed this treat. This is simple and hardly takes any time. So here are the items you will need:
9x12 baking pan greased
2-3 apples, these can be red or granny smith, etc. You can peel the apples and slice them, personally I like to slice the red apples thinly and leave the peel.
2 cups of flour
2 cups of oat meal
1 jar of Carmel sauce
1 1/4 cups of butter softened
1 1/2 cups of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 cup of crushed peanuts (optional)
First step mix the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking soda, peanuts and butter all together and then press a little over half of the mixture into the the pan. Do this when the mixture is kind of crumbly and sticks together. Now bake about 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove and begin the second part of the recipe.
Place your sliced apples in on top of the baked portion now begin making the Carmel part of this recipe.

You can go 2 different ways buy the Carmel candies and melt them and pour over the apples or you can buy a jar of Carmel sauce and add 3 tablespoons of flour and mix well then pour over the apples in the the pan.
Finally sprinkle over the remaining flour mixture and bake for about 30 minutes at 350 degrees.



What I love about this recipe is how you can change it but the use of different apples, nuts, you could add raisins you can use your own Carmel sauce recipe or make it simple by just adding flour to thicken the sauce. So have fun doing up this sweet treat.