A New Year

Its almost a new year! I'm busy dreaming up new stuff for my shop! I can't wait to share!

More Decor

I thought I would show you my Holiday Shabby Chic side. The tree is in my studio. The wonderful and lovely star garland is from my sweet friend Madai. I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday!

Winner!

We have a winner. I assigned everyone a number, cut them out, and had my kido draw one. I don't know your name but you said:

"I love your creativity. I have some beautiful tags that I ordered from your shop--they are so gorgeous that I hate to give them away!Wishing you a wonderful holiday season from Australia."

Congrats!

Thank you all so much for commenting. I wish I could send you all something. I really do. Well Christmas starts today for us and I have A LOT to do! I will be back soon with more Holiday decor pictures!

News....

Tomorrow is the drawing for the blog give-away. I can't believe I got almost 100 comments! Wow! I am blown away! I can't wait to announce a winner Friday morning. You can still comment until midnight tonight.

I will also be closing up shop tomorrow. I will be having a sale starting today! I will reopen sometime in January. I have a lot of new things in the works. I will be adding old but improved tags, lots of new tags, Valentines day goodies, vintage flea market, and destash supplies. I have already started going through my studio and have a huge box of de-stash items I am going to pass on to you at really awesome prices.

I'm very pleased to tell you we will be continuing the Joli Paquet blog and kits! Can you just imagine a Vintage Valentines Day?!

The pictures are a little vignette I put together on top of a stack of suit cases. I just love the romantic warm glow the vintage star has. I might just leave it up year around! I just adore all your very sweet comments on my decorating. Its amazing what you can do with what you already have.

Gift Embellishing

I have been wrapping gifts the last few days. I REALLY don't like the wrapping part. I'm not sure why. My husband is awesome at it. The gifts look perfect when he does it. I asked him this weekend to puleeese be the wrapper and I would be the embellisher. "But you do such a great job!" he argued. Needless to say the gifts are wrapped but the tape is showing and the corners are not straight. But the embellishments are fabulous! I found this gorgeous flocked deer paper at Hobby Lobby. The toppers can be used as ornaments after being opened.

Pearls, Lace, Glitter, And Stars Thats What the Holidays are Made Of

I'm way behind on Christmas decorating this year. My style and taste have changed sooo much in the past year that when I started opening all my boxes of decorations I was like "oh this will NOT due!" I culled my tree decorations to only meaningful ones and got rid of anything that had regular glitter. It just does not compare to glass glitter and silver glitter. I am ruined for life on glitter! After cherry picking my favorites (the family's too) we weren't left with much. So I have been making and hunting for decorations more to my style. Its a slow process but a very enjoyable one. So far this shelf is all I have finished. I LOVE it. Christmas past! I wish I could do the whole house in this style but the hubby and kidos would be so sad! I will show you more as I finish decorating. It may be Christmas eve before I'm done!

Thanks for all the comments on my last post. I am overwhelmed and tickled pink by all of you!

From Me To You

I have been overwhelmed at all the wonderful people I have found and who have found me though this blog. I read each and every comment! They mean so much to me. I would LOVE to give every one of you a Christmas gift but we know that's not possible. So I will just have a super duper give away. Starting today though Thursday the 18Th if you comment on my blog you will be put in a drawing to win this package. I will announce the winner Friday the 19Th!

Just Popping In

We had a lovely Thanksgiving and I hope you did too! I have been so super busy with orders, shopping, decorating, kidos and now a virus is making its way around the family. But, hopfully I will have time for one more shop update before I close for a few weeks. Im planning on coming back in the new year with new, bigger, and better stuff! In the mean time I feel a blog give away coming so stay tuned!

Altered Holiday Tin

I did a tutorial on how to make one of these tins on the Joli Paquet blog today! There are some super yummy recipes and really cute craft tutorials over there! Plenty of fun stuff to keep you busy this Thanksgiving holiday. (Like most of us are not already busy)lol If you don't have your own stuff to make this tin I will be offering kits in my shop soon. I have lots of new kits and goodies to list as soon as I have time. I'm aiming for this weekend.

My Muse

So in the last few months I have been working and creating non stop. I have been on a glitter, holiday high! There were just not enough hours to create all the things I saw in my head. But I certainly tried. My hubby teased that I had become a workaholic. But behind the teasing I think he missed me. Awww. I tried to slow down but just couldn't. So the inevitable happened, I got burned out. So in the last few days I have scrubbed our home, cooked, read (Twilight-OMG what a book!), had lots of family time and took long baths in the middle of the day! And now feeling mentally refreshed I'm back on track. I thought about WHY this happens. I know it happens to many artist. I was given some great advice to "not fight it, and just accept the strange flow of an artist". I know my muse will always come back and the ideas will pour into my head again. So I do those "put off till later" things during my burnout spells.And most important I keep a journal of my ideas. I'm starting to think maybe muses are REAL! You know like an guardian angel or a spirit guide. And maybe we share them with other people. That's why creativity comes in spurts. And why we seem to have a few artist "soul sisters". Well, its a fun thought! You never know. So if I haven't been to your blog or e-mailed you back I'm sorry. Its ALL my muses fault. I will be restocking my trees and adding new kits soon to my shop.

P.s. Thanks for all the tree love (tree orders in my shop) I'm thrilled to see others love trees as much as me!

Thanks!

I just want to thank everyone who has been following the Joli Paquet blog! We had a wonderful turnout with our kits yesterday. But the fun is not over yet! You will still find tips, tutorials, and recipes through the month. Today you can find a VERY yummy recipe for truffles. And if you would like to know how to make the snowman in the above picture there is a tutorial for that too! I still have a few kits available here. Have a wonderful weekend!

The Kits Are Coming! The Kits Are Coming!

Yep that's right! Tomorrow is the Joli Paquet kit day! Everyone will have their kits for sale. I will have two. A Winter Wonderland -Chipboard Tag Kit and Sweet Dreams- Embellish a Stocking Kit (stocking included). I will be selling them in my SHOP. You can check the Joli Paquet blog to see where everyone else will be selling their kits. How fun would it be to give yourself a crafting day! Just get a couple of kits, coffee, sweets, and spend the day creating! I am also stocking my shop with LOTS of trees and glittery goodies. I think I feel the Holiday spirit sneaking in!

An Enchanted Forest

An Enchanted Forest is coming to Brandywine Boutique soon.

Don't forget the Joli Paquet kits will be on sale this Friday.

Tis The Season For Glitter & Flock

Hop on over to the Joli Paquet Blog for tips on using flock and glitter!

This Sweet Little Boy......

is the apple of my eye. And a darn good chicken wrangler too! Yesterday my hubby hollered "the chickens are out of the garden!" So kiddos job is to herd them back into the garden. It was very warm so he was wearing shorts but everyone knows you HAVE to herd chickens in cowboy boots. So he threw them on and went to wrangle chickens. I thought he looked cute/silly in shorts and boots so I took photos.

They grow up so fast. Recently he "gave me" some new rules for when we are in front of his friends:

No picking knots out of his shoe laces

No picking lint of his clothes

And Absolutely no smoothing his hair down.

Well humph! Thank goodness hugs are ok! Moms hug those little boys tight while they will still let you:)

Note: that chicken is Buttercup. The cute little yellow puff ball that tried to eat my freckles. Shes all grown up!

Christmas Past

I just thought I would share with you one of my holiday themes this year. I call it Christmas Past. You will find tarnished silver, sepia tones, antique photos, old papers, and silver glitter. A few of the Christmas Past items have already made it into my shop. I especially like the tarnished tinsel. I'm using it on everything!

Show and Tell Sunday

Its show and tell Sunday again! Hosted by Cindy this week. You can find a list of participants here. This weeks theme is Vintage collection. The collection I'm showing today is not vintage but I think it fits in perfect with the vintage style. My favorite collection is real nest!

The one with the real eggs is my favorite. My sweet husband recently brought it home. He found it in some equipment that had tipped over. Apparently the poor little birds had built the nest and layed their eggs only to have their access cut off from it. I like to think it was early enough in the season for them to build another one. Bitter sweet. Oh how I love this nest. Its just so perfect. The white puffs are raw cotton. It even has snake skin in it and horse hair. Truly a Texas nest! And off course the sweet sweet tiny eggs. My husband was the cutest thing when he brought it home. He came in very carefully balancing a box in his hand, the very gently set in on the table. He said" I have something for you!" He slowly and carefully opened the box. I thought it must be some kind of live animal the way he was acting! Then I saw it and jump up and down and gave him the biggest hug ever! He really is a wonderful catch. Lucky me:)

The nest in the white cage was givin to me by my father in law. It really soft and made of grass. I thought it was so sweet of him to bring it to me.

Enjoy your blog visits and have a wonderful Sunday! I can't wait to see all the wonderful collections!

Happy November!!

Can you believe its November already!! I think this month is going to be the busiest ever for me. The Joli Paquet Blog has officially started today. You HAVE to go see Lori's snowman tutorial. I can't wait to try it! I thought I would give you just a little look at one of the kits I will be offering in mid November. Don't forget if you make any thing using the Joli Paquet tutorials or kits you can upload your pictures to flickr group.

Happy Halloween!

I didn't dress up, but I did dress Millie (my mannequin) up. She got to try on lots of pretties. I haven't told her yet she doesn't get to keep them because they are going in my Vintage market!

In other BIG BIG news: The Jolie Paquet Blog is OPEN! And its starting with a give away! I can not wait to see all the kits and tutorials. Its going to be so much fun!