Little Christmas ornaments

Here they are now, my miniaturised paintings transformed into little Christmas tree decorations. Each ornament has been put together by hand.

These little lovelies will be in my Etsy shop as soon as I can get decent photos of them tomorrow. I just thought I'd put them up here now as I'm really pleased with how they turned out.

Work in progress

I love this little drummer bear. He's tone-deaf, of course, but just the sight of him banging away on his tinny tin drum fills me with warmth.

He and his friends (oh yes, he has friends) will soon appear in my once-in-a-blue-moon shop update. Watch this space!

Christmas . . .

. . . is coming to the Art of Whimsy! All will be revealed at the end of the month.

The art of shrinking

Shh, don't tell my daughter that I've been playing with her shrinky dink plastic sheets.

I never got to have a shrinky dink set when I was a child so when I saw this book, I just had to get it for my daughter as a birthday present in May. She and I have had a lot of fun tracing pictures from the book onto the sheets and making shrinky dink charms, but today I thought I'd play on my own while she's in school.

Two little shrinky pictures drawn and cut. Now into the oven they go!

Here they are in all their shrunken glory. I'll be turning these babies into brooches for two good friends. I'm having so much fun I might just go and make many more. This is quite labour-intensive though, as I draw and colour each piece. What would be great is if I could find shrinky dink sheets that can go through a printer. There are a few available online, but they are too expensive for my measly art and craft budget. They might just have to go on my wish list for now. Sigh.