creative spirit challenge with plenty of glitter

Glitter, glitter everywhere!

I always seem to be happily covered with glitter and with the holidays this is especially true. Seeing that sparkly, shiny stuff everywhere I go makes me want to put it on everything I see.

I always thought it would be fun to carry around a tiny bottle of glitter and stardust and leave the smallest pinch of it in unexpected places. Not so much of course as to make it a nuisance but just a smidge where someone might look and smile and wonder where it came from. On the handle of a shopping cart, the petals of a flower in a nursery, on top of a roll of paper towels on a store shelf. And you should be able to dust it off right away so it would just disappear.

Like magic.

I'm slowly starting to put up my decorations. Garlands and lights drape my mantle and doorway and glittery icicles are ready to go in the windows as soon as I motivate myself to move some furniture out of the way. The first place I decorated was my little studio (aka the dinning room).

My chandelier is dressed for Winter with this frosted leaf garland, drops of silver icicles and gold moons and stars. I also want to add glitter paper fairies I saw at the store last week and I hope they still have them when I go back today.

I've had so much fun dressing up my chandelier this year. I can't believe I've never done it before. Well I use to hang a few ornaments from it for Christmas but never decorated it the rest of the year. Now that this room is also my studio I've been inspired to put things in it all year long.

Inspiration comes in many ways and one I always count on is magazines. Particularly all the Stampington magazines like Somerset and Where Women Create. I just picked up the latest issue of Somerset Workshop which features complete projects by several artists. This issue includes one of my favorite artists, Vanessa Valencia. I have always loved her art, especially the series of paintings with the paper dresses featured this season. After reading her tutorial and drooling over admiring other pieces of her work I was inspired to create a collage using some of the techniques she showed.

I decided not to try the paper dress process she does so beautifully (I think it's so uniquely hers) and instead I used the template from my Dress Up 2010 December paper dress. After all these months of crafting little dresses I finally painted a girl to wear them. This was a fun project I did one night on a whim and I finished it the following morning. I added glitter (Vanessa used mica flakes), painted the ribbon and surrounded her with magical butterflies. I think she could be ready to step onto a stage to sing a beautiful aria.

I'm including this project and the rest of this post in Cindy's Celebrate Your Creative Spirit at Whimsical Musings on the 8th. Her monthly challenge has been doing really well so don't forget to visit her to see all the other inspiring things everyone is doing.

I hopy you're having an amazingly creative and glitter filled Monday!