Cloches! Yes, I love them! I came across so many cool small collectables in my decor this last year while decluttering. . Things like real bird nests, small animal figurines from my mom and grandma, silk flowers, teacups and saucers, fairy garden pieces, old books, etc. I decided to kind of combine some of these seemingly random pieces with the idea of terrariums and cloches. Tidy up my smalls, so to speak, into intentional seasonal decor pieces. Then I was off to find my glass tops and some platforms, dishes, and trays for the bottoms! Some were vases, jars, goldfish bowls, and candy dishes. Two were cloches from mantel clocks. I decided I needed two or three for each season so I could rotate them out. I have supplies for nine total and have made these five so far. Still hand making a few more this week. Highly recommend for corralling your varied smalls into a sweet decor project. This is my result!  

 Join me on Instagram for snapshots of my latest crafting projects! Most are in the paper crafting, quilting, or Genealogy fields. Enjoy! link  https://www.instagram.com/nanabluebird1/?hl=en

    Got Photos? Packing Page Kits from Photos to Finished Originally written April 20th, 2006 by Kathy Aho copyright 2006-2023 I admit it, I am a VERY productive scrapper. I get pages done. And cute ones too. I journal, I embellish, I add handmade doodads as well as store-bought. I honestly can say that after 30 years of scrapping, I make great scrapbooks. And I do them fast. Need a two-page layout design in 45 minutes or an album in a week? No problem. I get asked all the time HOW I do it? I will share with you my straightforward and simple process. If you can master this, you can get a LOT more done in your limited scrapbooking time. I can get up to 160 kits packed in a weekend and later get up to a hundred pages assembled in a week. And I do it consistently, incorporating the cutest and newest materials and accents. But you don't want to hear me brag. You want to know HOW to do this for yourself. Planning is the key. You probably have heard that many ti...

 ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? After a two year blogging hiatus due to a surprise health issue, I am here again! I was creating pretty much the whole time but not blogging it at all.  I now have some renewed creativity and a few new goals. Not to mention oodles of ideas! So here we are again with some VERY fun things to share. My paper crafting has taken a front seat on this recent journey and I have a few items to post here that you may not have seen yet. These --and more-- can be seen close up at my Instagram     NanaBluebird1     I hope you enjoy these projects as much as I did making them the last three months.  :)  Can you tell I love Tim Holtz products?  I also have a pretty big collection of it which I actually do USE regularly.  Don't squirrel things away--use them and enjoy the process, I want my scrapbooks and genealogy albums to reflect me and my style so I often make my own page accents and accessories.  Enjoy a...

Spring has Sprung and the flowers are bringing in all the lovely colors right now. This is one of my favorite times of year. I am just settling down here with a cup of tea and sharing some of my favorite blooms this season with you below. Enjoy!

Check out my Nana Bluebird Design Etsy Shop, Instagram, Pinterest and Blogger pages.Support Small Business Saturday and Nana Bluebird!  Live links below the snazzy new banner made just for us by Sameeha Bricklemyer at The Inked Leaf.   Looking sharp! My Etsy Shop specializing in paper crafts and Quilt art decor items. https://www.etsy.com/shop/NanaBluebirdDesign/ Nana Bluebird Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nanabluebird1/ Pinterest pages for Nana Bluebird https://www.pinterest.com/nanabluebird1/ Happy Holiday season and God bless.

       Fall is coming! We have had cooler temps all week and I am glad of it. My crafting mojo is coming back stronger and stronger in all varied projects. Quilting, wool work, paper crafting, gardening clean up, canning and freezing the bounty and  even minimizing my household. I won't say I am motivated for housework. Now that is going too far. Haha! But I do feel an energy to start getting my nest streamlined and getting things ready again for our Minnesota winters. I want to get back down in my basement studio and crank up the music --and the creativity!  I am trying to track my increased motivations on Motivation Mondays and the results of my goal-making on Finish it Fridays. Join me as we start a few new endeavors!

Is it Spring yet? Gardening is one of my top three hobbies. I also love quilting and scrapbooking. If I had to choose a fourth it would be thrift and garage sale shopping. Oh, and going to lunch with friends. But, maybe, lunching with the ladies shouldn't count....It is lot's of fun but not very productive! Frankly, I have not been super productive the last 8 months in any of my top four or five hobbies. Starting in late July of 2017, I had a sequence of several unforeseen and unrelated health concerns. One after the other I had a group of crazy challenges.  First a serious staph infection in my right middle finger that almost cost me the finger completely. Surgery was required. I was then hospitalized for 5 days, I was on IV antibiotics for 30 days, and bed rest for a month with my hand suspended above me in a sling. I don't know why I was smiling in this photo. Probably because I had no idea what all was to come next. We did save the hand and the finger. Praise Go...

 Just a look through some of the 35 quilt projects I did in 2015. I don't have pictures of all 35 of them here. These were all unfinished projects and now they are DONE! Hooray!  Onward to a new set in 2016!