On sale through Dec. 31st, 2022
For a limited time get a free bonus book, signed by Lora Irish with your
Thumb Drive order at ArtDesignsStudio.com
This week’s book is the Great Book of Wood Burning – Edition 2, a $22 value.
Santa comes in all flavors of the rainbow from vanilla through dark chocolate. Worked in either basswood or high density foam they make great additions to your holiday decorations.
So let’s have some free fun! Click here – Santa Ornament patterns.
I will be adding new Santa patterns over the next few days, so please bookmark my website.
Today’s free patterns were carved using high-density foam. This makes the ornaments easy to carve, and extremely light weight. So you can super-size your ornaments while keeping them light enough to decorate your Christmas tree.
Free Santa Ornament Patterns for Wood Carving and High Density Foam Carving Read More »
| New Free Tutorial High Density Foam Cane Topper Carving | |
 | Includes what High Density Foam is why it’s great for wood carvers how to use it in your cane topper carving a free wood spirit pattern shown left. |
48 page PDF with full, step-by-step instructions.
Two pumpkin patterns.
Ready to Download!
On Sale $3.95
 Learn how to carve! |  Learn how to paint! |  Learn how to decorate! |
| Available only on our Pattern Website, ArtDesignsStudio.com | ||
It’s almost Halloween and time to have a little fun! So let’s begin.
Halloween Bats Curtain Critters Mini-Pack Patterns
You will need some
stiff craft felt – Get a package of assorted colors
fine point embroidery scissors for easy cutting
spray adhesive – follow the can directions for use
black spider web – to hang on your front window
computer printing paper
digital Curtain Critter patterns.
Paste Glue – low water content that won’t buckle your paper
Each pattern pack includes 5 Halloween patterns, 1 bonus pattern, and a full PDF file of instructions, for only $1.95 USD. Availble through Lora Irish’s pattern website, ArtDesignsStudio.com.
1. Chose your favorite Halloween Curtain Critter pattern pack, or chose all six!
2. Open the PDF instruction file. Print the page for the pattern that you want to use onto regular printer paper.
3. Use either spray adhesive or low water content paste glue as Yes! to coat the back of the printed pattern.
4. Center the pattern on your stiff craft felt sheet. Press firmly in place and let dry for several minutes.
5. With fine point embroidery scissors, cut out your shape.
6. Open your sheer curtains and secure your spider webbing to the inside of your front window.
7. Lay, tape, or pin your felt Curtain Critter cut out onto the webbing. Close your sheer curtains.
8. Turn on your indoor table lamp, and turn off your porch light. The light from inside the house will show you cut outs as black silhouette.
Indoor View
Outdoor View
Halloween Curtain Critter Mini-Packs are available in Haunted Houses, Bats, Rats, Cats, Pumpkins, and Spiders.
As our Halloween treat for you they prices at only $1.95 USD.
ArtDesignsStudio.com and LSIrish.com are affiliates of Amazon.com. These links help us keep this website free to you.
I was 17 years old in the autumn of 1970; my bags were sitting on the floor next to me, my hand was on the back door handle. I was going to college! I had the top grades for my class in high school, I had been voted by my classmates as the person most likely to succeed, and I had a full scholarship to the University of Maryland.
At that moment my dad says to me, “You don’t have to do this, I can pull some strings, makes some calls, and get you into a nice secretarial school where you belong”.
[Quick note here … “Hey, Dad! I’m not going to college to get my MRS. degree!”]
Because I was growing up during the era of Martin Luther King; John, Bobbie, and Teddy Kennedy; Lyndon Johnson, Gloria Steinam, and Barbara Milulski, I knew I had a choice – a choice over my life, my goals, my desires, my achievements, and especially on what road I wanted to travel through life.
I picked up my bags, opened the door and walked out.
I had already spent my lifetime listening to teachers tell me, “That’s very good … FOR A GIRL!”
I had a school principal question why I would want to take certain classes when, “you won’t need them when you are a WIFE AND MOTHER!”
I grew up having heard the old Coal country joke of How do you keep a wife? You keep her barefoot and pregnant. That way she can’t run very far, and she can’t run very fast!
I listened in the background while people asked my brothers what they were going to be when they grew up … it was a question I was never asked because it was assumed that I would be a ‘good girl’ and get married right after high school.
As I pursued my fine arts degree, I learned quickly that no art gallery would take on a woman artist. The reason is that they did not want to invest advertising in someone who was only ‘going to get married and have children and therefore give up their art’.
But what does any of this have to do with you? Great question!!!!
I like to think that I have had a little influence over your joy of the arts, especially the wood arts. I like to think that my 27 years of teaching, through books and the internet, may have made your journey into the crafts more rewarding. I like to think that somewhere out there is someone who never thought they could do what they are doing today in wood art had they not read one of my tutorials.
I like to think that maybe there are so many great, fantastic women artists and teachers in our craft today because of me and those that were there when I started … Sue Walters, Cheryl Dow, Nedra Dennison, Nora Hall… great women who stood up and said, “Yes! We can do this!”
So, I just wonder. Would your life have been ‘limited or less than’ if I had listened to those people that wanted to make my choices over my life? Would you have lost something that you take for granted today if I had accepted that as a woman I could/should only aspire to being a wife and mother?
Would you have that bench knife or burning pen in your hand today if I had ‘gone to secretarial school, like a good little girl”?
Choice matters! When you limit another person’s life choices you may be denying yourself fulfillment !!!!
