Designing

I love to design, I love the potential and the ideas that come to mind whenever I dream up a new project.  When I was younger I sewed most of my own clothing and always loved picking out the pattern, fabric, but then when it was time to get started had a hard time getting started.  Once I was going it was all good but it was that boring, monotonous time period of pinning the pattern onto the fabric and cutting it out that I hated.  Because I was a 4-H sewer I always had to finish my seams which I also found very boring.  Can you hear my voice saying boring????  Well times have not changed and I am still a procrastinator when it comes to getting a new project started, I still dislike the boring parts of painting.  Oh don't get me wrong I love to paint, it is an important part of my life but base-coating?????  Seriously does anyone like to base-coat.  I suppose there are folks out there that do but I find it tedious and unfortunately a necessary part of the process.  So I set myself down at my painting table and force myself to do the boring, tedious things that I find distasteful.  So imagine my jubilation when I decided on one of my last projects to use scrapbooking/patterned papers for the coat on  my characters.  I've done this before, it wasn't anything new but I am happy to report that I eliminated the boring step of base-coating by doing this.  Will I use paper on all of my projects?  Probably not but I do like it on this one.  I decoupage the paper onto the wood piece and then added some shading and highlighting to make the areas pop and loved it.  Like I say this isn't anything new but I have to say that I enjoyed this part of the process more than base-coating.  LOL. 

This is a pattern that I did called HO! HO! HO! Santa Picket Ornaments and I love it!!!! The patterned papers just added the visual punch that these guys needed.  This pattern is now available on my website and you can purchase the picket ornaments from the guys at Ideal Wood Products Inc www.idealwoodproductsinc.com  You might have to call them to get the wood pieces as I'm not sure if they have had time to get them on their site yet.  Loved them.