Trying New Things

Debby and I have been expanding our creative reach. YouTube teaches us an incredible amount about what the options are in the way of crafts, exactly what you need and how to do it. I get carried away with the possibilities when it might be in my best interests to focus on one or two things, but I can’t help myself.

I found a very pretty necklace and earrings set that I want to create with seed beads on YouTube. I’ve got all the beads and tools; now all I need is the time.

We’ve also been putting together several jewelry sets that consist of a necklace with matching earrings that are now showing up in our shop. You can look under the Jewelry Set section on Etsy or our website https://debbytammycreations.com. These have been a lot of fun to make!

Another avenue we’re exploring is using digital images and/or text to create cute or inspirational t-shirts, notebooks, coffee mugs, etc. The sky’s the limit it seems! I created a mug and a notebook with a Degas ballerina painting that is available for use in the public domain and listed those this week.

Last night I found a cute image of what look like different colored paper dolls holding hands around the perimeter of a globe. I added “Love all Mankind” text to the globe and put it on a coffee mug. We’ll see if any of these sell.

Debby made some adorable designs for onesies that are already selling, and she got some that I can’t wait for her to take pictures of Eden wearing so we can add them to our listings!

My favorite thing in the world now is painting! I’m not so good (yet!), but good enough that I can paint some birds and flowers. Flowers are a lot harder than they look! Making them turn different ways and adding leaves in the right places can be difficult. I love David Jansen’s YouTube channel because he teaches how to do 30-minute paintings. I’m signed up for some of his online classes that go much more in depth, too. I’ve added a few listings recently of birds and flowers, and actually sold one of my ballerina paintings last week to a complete stranger! That gives me the motivation to carry on. I’ve found lots of pictures from the web that I can try to turn into paintings in the coming days.

I’ve been experimenting with different boards and canvases as well. David Jansen has us use MDF board that you can buy at Lowe’s or Home Depot for practice, but so far it’s my favorite surface to paint on! It’s so smooth and my paint moves and blends easier than it does on canvas. I picked up some small oval canvases at the craft store so I need to crank out some more little birds or flowers on those. I think they’d look nice as sets. Maybe one could be a female cardinal and another one the male, facing each other or something.

Keep checking out our Facebook page and Instagram (debbytammycreations) to see what’s new! We appreciate our customers! Let us know if there’s anything you’d like us to try to create, too.