The alm Project – Diary of a Crafty Insomniac

Sitting on my Favorite chair. Look at these precious pups, don’t they look like they are saying “I am ready for my close up”? I was flipping through my illustration stash – looking for some inspiration to create an house warming gift for a friend. I came across these dogs that I had ‘sitting’ around [...]

Last year I did my annual after Christmas ornament shopping and I came across some gorgeous ornaments in my local Pier 1 Imports store. They are called “Li Bien“. It’s a Chinese phrase that means “inside”. The Li Bien ornament showcases the  age old skill of inside painting, which originated in the Qing Dynasty. It [...]

The Reggae Argyle Collection My friend is moving into her new condo the beginning of next month. Like most rental homes, the walls are painted ‘rental beige’ and the landlord is insisting on keeping the ‘neutral’ color. Note to landlord – beige is not a color, its a shade – at least in my opinion. [...]

My brother is a farmer, he has goats, cows, sheep, rabbits, chickens, pigs…all is meals are fresh and organic, 85% of the food he eats comes from his farm. A few weeks ago his daughter call to complain about an issue she was having with her dad. Apparently, she had ‘adopted’ one of the goats [...]

I lost my dad a few years ago, but each Father’s day I honor his memory by making him a gift. My brother served as the model for the arm. You may download this image by right clicking on it and saving it to your computer. I searched the web for a copyright free tattoo, [...]

Psst, I have a secret. I am going to reveal my design process for the pillow pictured below. Here goes… Create your characters as a separate file – that way you can use them over and over. I was washing my car and my son kept getting in the way, so I turned the hose [...]

Each summer I create something new for my home. This summer, in anticipation of numerous outdoor picnics and  barbecues, I decided to make some table cloth weights. These gems are functional and beautiful – they look perfect dangling from the end of my table cloth while keeping it in place. I got a bit carried [...]

I was blog hopping and I hopped over to “Just Lu’s” blog where she posted a beautiful embroidery project. I suddenly remembered that I had a quilt that my mom and I did for my son when he was a baby (15 years ago). I sketched my son while he was sleeping – that was [...]

A few of my friends has jumped  on the DIY/handmade/indi. bandwagon. I have been teaching them a few of my tricks. Last week’s lesson was how to do silk ribbon embroidery. I created the project above to include a variety of silk ribbon stitches. Frankly, I crammed in as much stitch variation  as I could:) [...]

I have been stalking the squirrels in my backyard – I wanted to take a picture – I needed a reference for a pillow I was dreaming up. Finally, one stopped long enough for me to snap a photo, but the image freaked me out! OK, I know it was the flash on my camera, [...]