A French Style Easter

I've been busy in my studio this week creating all sorts of fabulous Easter goodies

 - all French inspired of course -

Beautiful Easter eggs

painted in the palest shades of blue, gray, and pink, adorned with French crowns and glitter.

I've been painting baskets in weathered gray tones

and making these handsome Easter rabbits!

They're available in both weathered gray and white

and they look quite "at home" all nestled in these beautiful baskets!

The French Marketplace has been re-stocked and more new items will be arriving soon.  There will be lovely wooden chunky candlesticks and more baskets too.  Be sure to stop by!

I've also re-stocked the French Flashcards.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Painted Books to add French Style

Before I even begin this post, I want to thank all of you who came over from Junk Chic Cottage to visit!  You guys are awesome!!  Thank you Kris for featuring me Saturday.  I was so honored to have been your Saturday Spotlight.  All of you - my readers and followers, lots of new friends - you guys are amazing and you made my weekend.  I even sold a lot of items in my shop, so I thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

Old, timeworn, French books.  I love them but I don't have any.  I did however, find on Pinterest, a cool idea that I'm sure you all have either seen or maybe even tried yourselves - painting books!

Okay, so I started adding of few Easter touches around the house.  It's been so cold, I think I'm trying to coax spring to arrive a little sooner than later!

I have this pretty silver dish that I found at a flea market so I filled it with some moss and added Easter eggs and a faux chocolate bunny.  I put it on the coffee table but it needed some height.  Here is where the books come in.  I like to stack books to create height in some of my vignettes.  It's pretty and it's functional but this dish required larger books.

On Pinterest, I saw people painting old encyclopedia sets.  About a year ago, I found a set of books called "The Young Students Learning Library."  They're basically a childrens encyclopedia set.  I bought them and have been holding on to them to paint "one day"

I painted each of the books with Amy Howard at Home One Step Paint in Robins Egg Blue.

Then I hand stamped the painted books on the covers and spines.  I used StazOn ink by Tsukineko

  so that it wouldn't smear when I antiqued them.

{I'm not paid to endorse either of these companies...I just happen to like these products}

After everything was dry, I just rubbed some walnut ink around the edges and in some of the stamped places to age them a bit.

It was a fairly quick project and I'm happy with the way they turned out.

I think they add just the right height to my flea market dish!

I hope you get a chance to try this!  It was a fun project and you can use these pretty much anywhere in your decor.  They look great on book shelves too!

 {plus, the information inside the books is interesting and fun to read for the little ones}

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen

Linking up to:

Savvy Southern Style Wow us Wednesdays

A Daily Cup of Mrs. Olson Share Your Cup Thursday

Nancherrow Fridays Unfolded

A French Mannequin/Dress Form Tag Tutorial

Our homes and the way that we choose to decorate them are a reflection of who we are.  But what about the little touches, the smallest of details.  They should be a refection of us too.  The little things that we do whether it's decor for a party that we're hosting or a special gift for a friend.

That is why I came up with these fun little tags.  Our youngest just had a birthday party last weekend and I wanted to make her thank-you notes.  I wanted them to be special.

I made these to attach to the cards

and once I started, I just couldn't stop!

I thought it would be fun to share them with you and tell you how I made them.

Okay, here is a list of the supplies that I used...

FOR THE TAGS:

cream colored and patterned cardstock

various rubber stamps of your choosing

ink pads in your choice of colors

Tim Holtz Walnut Stain distress ink

a dress form die to be used with a die cutting machine

hole punch {I used 1/8 inch)

hemp twine {or any type of string}

FOR THE EMBELLISHMENTS:

1 1/2 inch scalloped circle punch

glass pearl beads

glue

crepe paper cut into strips or crepe paper streamers

French script stamp

gossamer ribbon

First, I cut out the tags with my die cutting machine and then I used the distress ink to "age" the edges of the tag.

Now comes the fun part, dressing them up!

You can embellish any way you want.  For mine, I stamped them with different stamps that I had on hand.  I used black ink for some and pale aqua chalk ink for others.

I made some paper flowers to embellish some of the tags by punching several scalloped circles and then stacking them to create the flower.  I added a glass pearl bead in the center to finish it off.

For the ballerina dress forms, I stamped some crepe paper and then ruffled and glued them along the waistline.  I tied a pretty pink gossamer ribbon around her waist to make her lovely!

{These will go on our thank-you notes}

You can also use pretty patterned papers and just leave them as is.  Once you're happy with your tags, punch a hole in the tops, string them and you're done.

Hope you have fun making them!

If you don't have the cutting die/machine but you still want some, I've made lots of these and they're available in my Etsy shop.

If you have something special in mind that you don't see here, let me know because I may have just what you're looking for and I'd be happy to do a custom order!

Happy Thursday!

xo and God Bless,

Kathleen