A Christmas glimpse... the calm after the storm

I hope your homes were filled with holiday cheer, much love and excitement this Christmas Season! Our Christmas weekend was a busy & special one... my whole family was together for Christmas this year. I love enjoying these special times and never want to take our time together for granite!

We enjoyed a beautiful Christmas Eve dinner at my grandmothers house and had fun playing the white elephant game later that night. I think it was the first year ever that everyone ended up with something they like... haha... just wait till next year! ;)

My daughter LOVES her gifts, an artists set and pink digital camera... I love that we share a love for art & photography!  Maybe a sewing machine will come next year? ;)



I did my best to come up with handmade gifts this year! Wow, it was a lot of hard work but soooo rewarding & a fun learning experience. Of course we bought the kids toys though! lol...I'm not an idiot!

I got some good guesses on a lil preview of something I was working on as a gift. 

A textured clutch! I am in love with creating texture in fabrics, so much fun!

Another pinch textured handbag for my daughter Eliannah. I made all the girls tiny purses & matching blinged out flipflops for dressup time. So cute, bummer I forgot to take picutres of the tiny sets!

I will be posting a texture tutorial next on how to create this look for your own projects!

A chocolate linen & patterend purse, I scored big on this gorgeous fabric... 75% off $24 dollars a yard! Made a purse for both my mother & mother-in law, great for spring season around the corner.

I have also finally conqured the zipper! After many curse unfriendly words were exchanged and projects left to die in the trash... we have come to live happily together. I may just be leaving my faithful snaps and velcro for my new love! ;)   Don't let all those teeth scare you away... he's not as unfriendly as appears. You'll be glad you learned!

I didn't get pictures of all my creations this year but was happy that I took the handmade challenge... I learned a lot and each item was well loved and received by my friends/family! :)

I just love the calm after the storm, the post Christmas craziness turns still... the kids are quiet & happily exploring their new treasures. My little man just melts my heart, he turned 7 a few days before Christmas.

Hope you had a wonderful Christmas! We survived our Christmas / birthday craziness and I'm SOOOO thankful to have my husband back from long hours at work. So sit back and relax before you start the big x-mas decor repacking project! ;)

Elfing Christmas

Tis the Season to be busy!

lol... gotta love the title, I've been hard at work getting my elf on. ;) I love Christmas but am ready to get life back to somewhat normal...

or at least get my hubby back from playing "Brown Santa" ;)

(photo credit: blinkin, thinkin, inkin)

But seriously I've been bit by a seriously large craft/art bug this month! Check out a few of the projects and paintings I've been working on... more to come soon, surprise's for x-mas! ;) I'll tell you one thing, I LOVED being able to do "christmas shopping" from my own shop for little things & gifts for teachers. The kids had fun picking something for their teachers, best part didn't have to spend a dime!

The Mrs. Bag - Upcycle made from a friends "His & Hers" sweater & belts

A secret project, LOVE creating texture in fabric... I will reveal more of this later! Any guesses?

Of course I've also been painting!

The Beautiful Life

A Tuscany landscape triptych with Italian poetry

La bella e vita

Amore di famiglia

grato per il sole

caldo giorni

-----------------------

The Beautiful life

Love of Family

We are grateful for the sun to warm our days

and family to warm our hearts

 

Thats it for now... more to come later. I'm off to watch a movie with my hubs before this final crazy Christmas week hits.

Love, Heather ~

LuvARoo Wraps

LuvARoo

Many of you know in addition to Sew-Over-It... I also create/sew LuvARoo Wraps (baby carriers)

I had a woman share a NY Times article with me this morning on Kangaroo care and baby wearing, and I was SO inspired! After reading this heartfelt article, I would love to help out!

**Please see my LuvARoo blog for more details and the NY Times article! -

www.LuvARoo.blogspot.com

I will donate TWO LuvARoo wraps (also free shipping to someone located in the USA)

One to a Foster mother of a newborn in need

and

One to a Mother-in-need with a Preemie newborn

If you know someone in need you would like to nominate to recieve a helping hand this holiday season please e-mail me with info & story at: LuvARoo@gmail.com

Inspiration: Fire & Ice

FIRE & ICE

I love these contrasting colors, the icy aqua blue paired with a coral orange.

Warm & Cool tones.... it just inspires me.

I enjoyed making an etsy treasury list just for fun.... check it out!

Feel the heat of the flames warmth this ice cold Winter. See the beauty of the contrasting hot / cold colors. Great last minute Christmas gift ideas too! ;)

HERE

Check out my Website!

Website Updates! :)

I finally got around to updating my website and changing the name to Heather Hurzeler!

It's a great way for me to keep all my "Creations" together, eventually I'll move to a single Blog that includes everything at HeatherHurzeler.Com.... but not yet.

Its getting way to confusing for me to keep 3 different branches going at once, on different sites: : my artwork at Hurzeler Creations, Baby Products at LuvARoo, and sewing projects at Sew-Over-It.

So I simplified..... to www.HeatherHurzeler.com  -- also called HurzelerCreations.com

Seriously, I was beginning to feel like a pyscho, not to mention daily forgetting my zillon passwords. Haha. So this should give me more time crafting and less time searching for passwords, uploading. and general hair pulling craziness! ;)

Let me know what you think, it's still a work in progress... but a big improvement from before.

Enjoy some larger pics of my artwork and I hope to have some tutorials up on the site as well too.

Much love to all  my friends and followers.

New Pillows and Camera

A few NEW pillows in the Shop

 and fun with my new Nikon camera!

 I added zippers to make these easy to wash, and to change pillowcase after seasons change.

My love bought me my first SLR digital camera, a Nikon D3100! I've been having fun learning, and being SUPER inpressed with the quality difference from my lame ol point and shoot, to my new Artists tool! ;) All the new pillow pics were taken with my new camera, great right!?

Even my kids are saying no more pics mommy... I've been playing paparazzi! haha.. ;)

Gotta practice on the friends kidos too! How adorable is this lil man!? 

 Thanks to my handsome hubby, I'm enjoying keeping these precious moments forever in a photo. 



Inspiration: Cozy Sweaters

Inspiration: Warm Cozy Sweaters

Repurpose projects - Great & easy gift ideas!

My Tutorial HERE

I've been making loads of cozy sweater pillows, and some fab sweater purses... but I wanted to find some other cozy easy ways to use the extra left over pieces from the sweater projects! Waste not! ;)

Here are some ideas I found from across the web for great cozy sweater repurpose projects. 

Sweater Christmas Stockings

Photo: Martha Stewart

Instructions on how to make your very own beautiful Sweater stockings HERE

 

Cozy Fingerless Gloves / Handwarmers

Learn how to make your own gloves from a tutorial HERE

Beautiful Sweater Scarf - made by Tea Rose Home

Tutorial HERE

 Charming Knit Sweater Ornaments - Sold by Cost Plus World Market

These are adorable, and would make great gift packaging decorations or tree decor. Make these in any color / shape. LOVES! Make your own from repurposed sweater leftovers.

Repurposed Sweater HAT & SCARF childrens set

And last, one of my favs! So cute, and a great idea for kidos! I could see Baby Gap selling something just like this, a great idea for that funky old stripe patterned sweater in the back of your closet! Simply serge or sew pieces together, doesn't get any easier than that. :)

Tutorial by: Skip to my Lou

I'll be adding some more sweater PILLOWS to the shop tomorrow.

Go get cozy, put on a sweater.... or better yet, change that old outdated one into something new and fab.

Enjoy!

Studio Mini Makeover

Update from the Studio

Mini Makeover and Fabulous Garage Sale Finds!! :)

Between last week and this weekend I've been lucky enough to stumble upon some amazing finds at even better prices to help give my studio a little update! :)  I wasn't a huge fan of the black wire racks in this room but they did their job, I'm in favor of most things being hidden away from the curious fingers of my toddler!

Remember how this wall looked before? SEE 

Don't worry I am still have all my wine crates for storage, they are being well loved and used. ;)  I came across a garage sale from the sweetest older woman who quilts for a hobby. She was selling this hutch that she owned for several years but it never made its way out of her garage.

Pretty right? Well, I just about fell over when she opened it to show me what it was!!

A SEWING cabinet with an ELECTRIC lift!!  I was in LOVE!

Its Solid oak and very heavy, has plenty of organization and hidden storage!

Its seriously pretty amazing, I didn't know that things like this even existed! I cleaned it up, and spray painted the handles a dark metallic bronze, they were a brassy gold before... much better now. She told me the electric lift didn't work, but to my surpise I plugged it in at home and UP came my sewing machine from the bottom storage rack.

Yes, I admit I have childishly joyfully played with the lever.... up... down.... up... down... happy dance!! lol... 

I researched it online and found nothing else like it except for one, a long lost twin seperated at birth perhaps. ;) A super sweet crafty fellow blogger from Quixotic Crafter, she shared some info about with me her sewing cabinet hutch as well.

Well next I met a neighbor of mine that was having a garage sale, but decided it was to cold... so they would just give the items left away for free! Arizona doesn't really get that cold, but it has been chilly this week.  But heck, my gain! He was dragging this cool looking stainless steel workbench table to the curb as I pulled up.

He told me he & his father were shoe cobblers years ago... and this was the last piece left from their shop. It needed some love, but with the stainless steel top, leather straps and height it made for the perfect art worktable for my studio! I'm not a fan of an easel, I'd usually rather lean my canvas against the wall from the table top to paint (see the fabric covered cork board to protect my wall from paint). And spread my paints & brushes all over the table.  I cleaned this cobblers table up and painted it a pretty aqua for my studio... I left the leather straps, they are perfect for large brushes!

It was a great week, I have much to be thankful for... including how God always provides even down to the smallest details! :)

Now, time to get painting & sewing... I will be adding some new items to the Etsy shop soon! 

Heather ~ 

SALE - Black Friday

A little "Thank you"!

I'm having a black friday sale in my LuvARoo etsy shop this weekend, so head on over and save 20% on everything!

Use the coupon code: BLACKFRIDAY

I ended up heading out to a couple stores this morning at 8am, tried to get a firepit from Target for $29... but they sold out first thing... (while I was happily sleeping in bed.. lol...) So I found another firepit at WallyWorld (full price, but it was well worth the sleep), and bought cozy slippers for the kids! None of it was on sale... lol.. I think I'm the worlds worst black friday deal finder.  Regardless, we are looking forward to family cozy firepit time tonight! :) Now I gotta go get some marshmellows.....  Enjoy your weekend & turkey hangover! ;)