Subway Art Canvas

I loved doing the Subway art project with Andrea a couple of years ago where we added all the places we've lived and places that were special to me and my husband. I knew I wanted to do another subway art project and found an inspiration piece on Pinterest. Gotta love Pinterest, right?

So the girls in my craft group and I made this variation of subway art. You can buy canvases at your local craft store, but I just used a canvas that I had on hand. It just wasn't my style anymore so I decided to up cycle it.

1. First, you Mod Podge vintage paper to your canvas and let it dry. We used several coats.
2. Then you can use either scrapbook alphabet stickers or vinyl stickers and place them on the canvas. I used large 4" vinyl stickers.

3. Then you just paint over the entire canvas (I used those little acrylic paint bottles and a foam brush). I used a robins egg blue and then a dry brush of gray to give more of a rustic feel.

4. Once the paint is dry, carefully pull off the letters. If some paint has seeped through, you can use a damp Q-tip to clean up the edges of your letters.

5. I went back a few days later and added a couple of tissue paper flowers and it's now perfect in my studio.

xoxo,

tia

Ladies Home Journal

We are so excited to announce that our Snowball Wreath is going to be published in the December/January holiday issue of Ladies' Home Journal magazine!! We had so much fun making these. The magazine hits newsstands on November 27th. Can't wait to check it out!!!

Xoxo,
Tia and Andrea

Christmas Vignettes from my Mom

I wanted to share some of my mom's touches of Christmas she has spread throughout the house. She has such a great design eye and everything was so festive and fun. I love how she brought out my grandmother's ceramic pieces she made when I was a little girl. My grandmother never finished this Santa but that's how I remember him and in my eyes, he is perfect!! Mom and I have a large collection of Wendy Addison glittered pieces and a few knock off artists' glittered pieces too. We love them all!

Here is my grandmother's nativity scene she made. The mantle is the perfect spot!

Mom, Andrea, and I have a thing for old glass cloches. My mom's collection has grown since I was last home. I love her snowy combination in this one below.

Merry Christmas,

♥

tia & andrea

Oh how I love this ;)

Countdown to Christmas

I was so excited to find this advent calendar that my girl Janae and I made before I moved from Chicago. I couldn't find it last year as it was hidden away in a random box from the move. We had so much fun making these! Boy do I miss our craft nights!

These were so easy to make. We purchased a metal tray from Goodwill and spray painted it black. We used random size and shape containers to make it interesting and covered them in different papers and embellishments. We both used a lot of leopard print since we both love some leopard!! Then we hot glued magnets to the backs of each container and voila....a magnetic advent calendar! You can fill each container with candies or little notes and turn it into a scavenger hunt for your children. The possibilities are endless!!

Happy creating!!!
Tia and Andrea

Some life lessons...

Well..."they" are at it again. For a long time I stayed away from church. I was struggling with my first son's diabetes diagnosis (which unless you have experienced that, you can't begin to imagine how one would feel) and very angry that in my mind, God put this on us. And another reason I stayed out of church was because of all the hypocrites. Someone very important in my life once told me, "if you go sit in your garage, does that make you a car?". Meaning....just because you go to church every Sunday, does that make you a Christian? I have met so many hypocrites in my life that I can't even count them. They go around preaching scripture, posting it on their Facebook status yet doing things to others that are not very Christian like. And some are using their fan pages to show their fans just how insecure they are. To be such an unGodly person to sink so low as to post about me, making fun of my 2 sons' diabetes and the cause that I work so hard for, is one of the saddest things I've witnessed. Well, I choose not to go down that road again. As the quote below says "Never look down on somebody unless you are helping them up."

I am not a lucky person.....I am a blessed person. I choose not to be a hypocrite. If only the haters would spend more time focusing on their family and their own business instead of being so infatuated with me and what I'm doing, maybe they would be in a better place.

xoxo,

tia

Fabulous Chandelier

I am in love with vintage French drying racks but they take up so much space. So since we needed (well, not really needed...you could say I wanted) a new chandelier for our morning room, I thought....why not incorporate a French drying rack with a chandelier?

This thing holds 40 bottles and let me tell you it is very heavy!! I highly recommend having a professional hang this if you decide to duplicate this design. We used a heavy gauge wire to secure the drying rack through the chandelier chain. It is definitely a show stopper and conversation piece and I absolutely love it!!

Have a great day and keep shining ;)
Tia