Painter Pauline

It's funny . . . I've looked through all my Carolyn DeAngelis patterns at least a million times, but they just hit me differently on different days depending on my mood.  I was looking for a pattern and stumbled across Painter Pauline.  She's never interested me before, but this time I immediately thought of this painting that Mariah did in art class.  It was chosen to be included in a county-wide student art show.

I thought it would be a really cute way to commemorate that achievement by incorporating it into an ornament.  I thought the ornament had some cute details, so I got to work on those.  I matched up the colors in Mariah's painting to my felt and used those colors for the palette.  I Googled "dollhouse miniature paint brush" and found this image:

I figured I could make that work by painting some wooden toothpicks.  Next, I laid her painting on the floor and took a picture of it.

Then I scanned it into my computer, put it into my Print Shop program and shrunk it down to about 1.5" x 2".  I printed it on cardstock and mounted it to a thin piece of cardboard.  There's a lot going on with this ornament and her hands are certainly full, but look how cute she is!

It doesn't show up well in the picture, but the hat is black and the legs are navy.  This is the first time I've done a pattern where the feet are turned in.  It was tempting to turn them out, since that's how all my other ornaments are, but I decided to stay true to the pattern.  Ditto for the little buttons.  Carolyn shows them this way -- cut with a hole punch and a little "V" nipped out of them.  Here's a close-up of the paintbrushes:

Making an ornament really personal is one of my favorite things to do.  This Flat Zach ornament from a few years ago is still on my greatest hits list.  When you take the time to give it that little personal touch, I guarantee your recipient will really treasure it.  I managed to make this one without Mariah seeing it and I can't WAIT to see her face on tree decorating day!

Sammy the Sea Turtle

I posted Serena the Seahorse last time and told you that I'd ordered the pattern from an Etsy shop called Squishy Cute Designs.  When I was ordering, I perused the other patterns, too, and stumbled across the magnificent Sammy the Sea Turtle pattern.  I'm not really into turtles, but our family did have a great turtle encounter last summer on our Mexico vacation.  

We had rented a house on the beach and there were lots of signs and roped-off places in our general vicinity marking where sea turtles had laid eggs.  My husband got up early one morning to find some conservationists on the beach right outside our house.  A turtle was out there laying eggs!  We got both kids up to watch and we had the opportunity to watch the mother tossing sand out of the hole and then crawl out and return to the ocean when she was finished.  

When I saw this pattern, I immediately thought of this experience and knew I wanted to make the ornament to commemorate it.  It's a really basic turtle design, but I love what she did with the stitching detail and the embellishments like sequins, beads, and buttons.  Even with all the little shell pieces, it was a relatively quick ornament to make.  And it turned out great!

(It's hard to tell in this picture, but the green felt for the shell is a darker green than what I used for the body.)