Hello friends and TGIF!!  Hope you have some happy plans laid out for the weekend!  I will be doing various things including helping my son move!

If you remember my post from last Friday, I shared some hand-made cards that I had entered into my local County Fair.  There are a few other items that I’ve entered besides cards for certain categories and I thought you’d enjoy seeing a few other things that I’ve created just for the fair:

My first project was entered into the “Christmas Centerpiece” category, and I was excited to see that I had won first place with this!  Can you tell what I’ve used to create the “snowman hat” design?

Let’s take a closer look…

I asked hubby to save me one of his empty coffee cans and I’ve spray painted it in black.  I’ve also bought a $1.00 charger plate from Hobby Lobby in black and then attached them together to form the snowman hat.  Then I took some white paint and splattered the entire thing for a fun “snow fall effect”.  I then began to decorate it by attaching some ribbon, pine tree sprigs and pinecones.

I bought a really pretty snowflake ornament with lots of sparkle to use as a center piece for the front of the snowman hat.  The ribbon bow was attached below that and then the pinecone and sprigs were placed and attached in the center of the bow.  (Even the plaid ribbon has some pretty sparkle in it!)

For the pinecones and the “snow” over the top of the hat, I have used some embossing paste mixed with some texture stones to give it a thick snow appearance.  While it was still wet, I’ve added some glitter to all of it.  Love the way this turned out!  It will be a great center piece at Christmas time! 🙂

And since I was in a Christmas mood, I also made another item for the Fair:

This poinsettia basket was entered into the “handmade basket” category, and I was happy to see that I had won first place for this entry as well!  For the fair entry, you can have a basket made of anything as long as it was handmade…so of course I made a paper one! 🙂

I remember a while back this awesome basket with a tutorial that someone had made from Heartfelt Creations, and I knew I wanted to give it a try.  It is such a sturdy basket too as I’ve used some pretty heavy-duty paper to compile it together.

The papers that I’ve used are actually some pretty old ones from a past Stampin’ Up! collection.  They’re double-sided and you can see the pretty poinsettia pattern on the other side from inside the basket walls.  The poinsettia die was a purchase I had made from a sale item in a booth at that Stamp Convention I went to earlier this Summer.  I love the embossing details it made with the poinsettia flower.  I also took some white ink to pop them out a bit so they’re more noticeable.  There is one on each side of the basket and a smaller one at the top of the handle.

I’ve used some gold foil paper for the center of the flowers and then added some gold enamel dots on random spots for the centers.  I took some thin and narrow gold ribbon to the edges of the handle and then tied a triple bow with it and placed the poinsettia in the center.  I just filled the basket with pinecones that I had on hand, but I could see so many things that this basket would work for!  Maybe I need to make one for another Holiday too?!

Well although I made these for the fair, they will be nice to use for my own home and of course the photos do not do justice to what they look like in person!  I had so much fun with these projects too!  (I may still have another project or two to share with you from the fair entries…so keep watching!)

Lastly, I’m also very excited that I have fully completed my ICAD challenge for 2018!!  Yay!!  I cannot believe that I kept up with it the entire time and did a card for every single day the last 61 days in June and July!!  I know that I’ve posted every week what I’ve done, and this is my final set for week 9:

These were so much fun!  Some days were really hard and others I zoomed right through it!  I learned many things not only from other ICADians, but also about myself with art and how it affects me physically, mentally and emotionally.  I am very surprised in more ways than one.  Just when you think you don’t have it in you…you can surprise your own self! Have you ever done something like this?  I urge you to try as it is such a learning experience.

There is just NO WAY I would have enough room to get every single one of these cards in a photo shot!  I had a huge ring binder that I kept them all on and they actually just barely fit on it!  LOL!  Such a fun thing to see all of these together at once and it will be great to go back and look at later too!  Glad I wrote on the back of what each one was.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my post today and have been inspired in some way!  There are SO many crafty things I enjoy doing…. there are just never enough hours in the day sometimes! LOL!!  We crafters can understand that! 🙂

Thanks so much for dropping in, I really appreciate your kind thoughts and read each and every one!  See you soon!