Angelique's Creations Blog

This was the second embroidery I did for my family. In 1996, my aunt had a baby girl and I thought she would enjoy a picture of her daughter, Gina. So when the baby was a few months old, my mom and I found a picture that my aunt had given us, and I happily went to work. Here’s the final outcome.

I made it for my aunt for either her birthday or Mother’s day 1997, I can’t remember which. From what she told me, everyone who had seen it always said they loved it, and I know for a fact that she still has it today, so I know she loved it too.

I had never done a portrait before, so this was a learning process. And as with any learning process, I look back and see things I would’ve done differently if I had been more experienced. For example, since it was a portrait, I wanted to try and make it more realistic by doing highlight and shadow on the face.

Below is a close-up so you can see it better.It looks okay, but when I do another portrait, I will most likely leave those off and just make the indentions for the nose and chin or anything else like that needs to be shown. Other than that, I like the way it came out.

Here is a close-up of the dress.All the little dots took a while, but I think it looks better with them than it would’ve without them. And unlike the face, the shadows on the sleeves of the dress worked out well. I guess it’s true when they say you won’t know what works till you try it, right?

For more delicate pictures, a lot of times I like to put lace around the edges. I felt like the pink lace looked really pretty on this one. And voilà! Here is the completed gift.

With the help of Gina, I now have a better idea of what will work on future portraits and what won’t. I am very grateful for that. Which is good, because I have a couple of portrait requests already waiting for me. As I finish them, I will write a blog and also post them on my webpage so everyone can see.

Hope everyone is healthy and happy!

I love doing embroidery. And I love giving them as gifts because it makes those I love happy. I try to find things that will be significant to the people I make them for. For my Grandma it was hummingbirds, but for my Grandpa, it is cardinals. This is what the cardinal project looked like when I first started it.

This is the finished embroidery before I put it in the frame.

It took me a while to make because I was going to school at the same time. But I finally finished it and got it to him for Father’s Day 2007. I wish I could’ve been there to see his reaction, but he lives too far away for that. However, from what my mom told me, he has it hung in the same room as the hummingbird. I’m glad he liked it.

The next picture is a close-up of the bird’s head. I like to do detail work on my pictures. The more detail the better. It takes a long time, but it comes out looking so pretty when it’s done. It took me at least a week or so just to finish the detail work on the cardinal itself. But I think it was worth it.

The picture below shows the feet of the cardinal. This is where I had a little bit of trouble. It took me a bit to figure out how to make them to where they didn’t blend in with the stick the bird is perched on. I decided to outline them because the color I chose for the feet was just a shade darker than the color for the stick. I figured the outline would help separate the two. It looks like it worked.

Overall I was very happy with the outcome. I am sort of a perfectionist when it comes to my work, so if I wasn’t happy with it, most likely I would have just chucked the whole thing and started over. Then it would’ve been the next Christmas before he received it. Everything worked out though, and now the cardinal is hanging right where it was meant to be. This is the final picture is my grandpa’s cardinal in the frame getting ready to be packaged and shipped (Sorry about the flash right in the middle of his head……remember boys and girls, flash and glass don’t mix).

Hope everyone is healthy and happy! Have a great day!

Back in 1995 I decided to make a hummingbird embroidery picture for my grandma. She loved hummingbirds and there were always hummingbirds around her house, so I wanted to make her something to immortalize what she loved. I had been doing cross-stitch and plastic canvas for a while, and I had done one (a flower made from the name Lola) for a friend. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that one; however, thankfully, I do have a picture of the hummingbird:

Here is a picture of my grandma when she opened it on Christmas Day 1995:

I think I was still working on it Christmas morning, but I finished it by the time we opened gifts. If I remember correctly, it took me about a month to finish this, but her reaction when she saw it for the first time was worth every minute and every poke of the finger.
My grandma is not with us anymore, but at least I was able to give her something made with love that she would cherish, and that makes me very happy.

Here are some detail pictures:

Hello All,

We have finally moved into my mom‘s house for the most part. We still have some big stuff at the old house, but we have moved all the computers and the microwave, so you know we have officially moved out. Luckily, my aunt owns the house we were in, so she has said there is no rush in getting everything out. We have an appointment this week on Thursday for my son, so we will bring more things into Freer this next weekend. Then we probably won’t be able to go back until August. But when school starts again in August, I will be bringing things with me when I come back into Freer. Then again, I will also take the kids into town to stay with their father, hopefully, once a month. We’ll see how that goes when the time comes.

Life has been pretty hectic trying to remember everything that has to be done when we move. My mom and grandma keep reminding me of more stuff every time I turn around. I hope to have all the utilities and bills turned off or transferred by the 11th of July, then all I will have to worry about is packing up all that big stuff and getting it to Freer. Will it be done by the end of summer? Who knows, but I am working on it.

I have also finally started designing beadwork designs for my mom. I don’t have enough experience creating beadwork yet because I haven’t been able to practice, but I have started creating designs so that my mom can make them if she chooses to. My brain seems to be going crazy with beading designs. She bought me a journal so that whenever I think of one, I can draw it for her or write down the idea. I only have the first few pages filled so far, but I am working on it. Hopefully between both of us, we can get more beadwork out on her website.

I’m hoping to have my website up and running by the end of the summer, and also hopefully write some of my other blogs I have been meaning to write. But then again, we’ll see how things go. Otherwise, nothing new for now.

Hope everyone is happy and healthy.

Within this last year, I have decided to make a lot of changes in my life. I decided to move to my mom‘s house, decided to change my major to psychology, and more recently, decided it was time to take care of my health.

The decision to move to my mom’s wasn’t hard ~ I really had no choice because of my son; and the decision to change my major wasn’t too difficult either because I had originally wanted to go for psychology years ago before I started college, but I let someone talk me out of it. So it took me several years and a few different majors to figure out that psychology is what I was supposed to be doing to begin with…..and now I have a 4.0 average in my major. That’ll teach me to listen to anyone else besides my own intuition.

However, the decision to take care of my health was a little tougher. I am diabetic and have known for years, but I never paid too much attention to it. Yeah, I would try every now and then to cut back on certain things, but I can’t say I ever really tried too hard. For those of you who don’t know, blood sugar levels should usually stay between 70 and 120, preferably less than 100. Mine was staying between 300 and 400. I figured I felt fine, so I rarely, if ever, took my medicine, and hardly ever took my blood sugar level unless I felt sick. It was stupid, I know that. I should have started focusing on it a lot sooner.

Well, about a month ago, I decided to start taking my medicine again. I was packing some things to take to my mom’s, and I ran across a book for toning the body. I sat down and started reading. It talked about exercises to do and about making a food log to keep track of your daily intake. Right now, I am not really interested in toning my abs or anything so much, but the food log got me thinking…..Instead of using it the way the book said, I could use it to keep track of things that affect my weight and my sugar. So for a couple of days I wrote my food intake in a spiral notebook, then I got tired of writing everything over and over again. So I went through and created a food log on my computer. It has the day of the week, a place for the date, a place for blood sugar and weight, and spaces for all three meals and all three snacks throughout the day, then I printed out enough pages for four months. I began keeping track on May 16th. Now, three weeks later, I am still keeping up with it. I cut out all pasta and almost all breads. I also started eating a lot more fruits and vegetables. And you better believe I am searching the aisles for all kinds of sugar-free items……Just a note: I have found that sugar-free cool whip, sugar-free chocolate mint cookies, sugar-free vanilla wafers,  and the no sugar added chocolate quik are delicious……I don’t much care for the no sugar added ice creams or the Light and Fit low sugar strawberry yogurt.

Anyway, so far so good. Since I have begun to watch what I eat and take my medicines regularly, I have gotten my blood sugar down from the mid-300′s to an astounding 180-200. It has not been over 200 for the last five days. For me, that’s amazing! I will admit that I have faultered a few times and went off the eating plan. Those are the days that my sugar was over 190, but I will just mark those off as cheat days and leave it at that. As for my weight, I’ve only lost about three pounds, but at least my blood sugar is going down and that is the main thing I am worried about at this moment. I figure as long as I keep this up, the weight will begin to go down eventually.

The biggest influence for all this is my kids. They are getting older and their lives are changing. So if I want to be here to see their lives change and grow, I need to make some big changes in mine. Life is also beginning to come together for me as well, and honestly, I would really like to be around to see what happens.