Phoebes Celebrated Our 32nd Anniversary with Annual Potluck and Gift Exchange

This month the Phoebes celebrated 32 years of creativity and fellowship with a day of sharing—sharing wonderful potluck food and exchanging gifts that we had made for each other. It also included sharing our ideas and recent creations and beloved collections during show and tell. What a wonderful day! Above is one of Sharon's collage canvases featuring little houses all in a row. See more examples in the Show and Tell section of this post.

Calendar of Events 

October 26, (Saturday), 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., FabMo Arts Boutique, First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Rd, Palo Alto.

November 9, (Saturday), 1 to 4 P.M., Phoebe Meeting at Marcella's.

December—No meeting. Merry Christmas to all!

Gift Exchange

Donna was absolutely thrilled to receive this lovely spoon doll from Sue.

Linda created this magical fairy doll especially for our "Butterfly Lady" Harlene. 

For Caroline's gift, Kathy used copper wire to make this tiny and very cute doll.

For Daisy's gift, Harlene considered Daisy's love for birds and gave her a pin cushion embellished with an adorable little owl.

Bonnie, our "Queen of Flat Dolls" made this wonderful blue fabric one for Kathy, who liked it so much she hung it around her neck and wore it for the remainder of the day.

Donna, who has made many different types of jewelry featuring fabric yoyos over the past few years, gave this yoyo necklace to President Jennifer. 

Jo is our "Quilting Queen" and she created a special fabric nametag just for Zanaib.

Zanaib is the "Card and Stuffed Envelope Queen" and she gave Marcella three packages of her beautiful one-of-a-kind greeting cards.

Paying homage to Jo's enjoyable "Nasty Woman" quilted square workshop, Marcella quilted a themed potholder for Jo.

Linda is one of our "Miniature Queens" and she created this tiny pitcher and sweet little mouse just for Daisy.

Geri also loves to make miniatures and shows her skill at it with this wee doll pin she created for Sue.

Jennifer put a lot of thought into her gift to Bonnie. First she made a necklace out of lettered Scrabble tiles, but she added touching photos of Bonnie's late husband on the back of each one. Then, she made a fabulous draw-string bag to put it in. Bonnie was so moved by Jennifer's gift.

Caroline made two cute little dolls from felt and then fashioned a tiny sleigh to put them in and gave them to Geri, whom as you remember, loves tiny dolls.

Show and Tell

Show and tell revealed even more wonderous things! Christofer colorfully dressed two dolls and seated them on a pair of amazing Lucite shoes with extremely high heels. They were made for the doll/shoe challenge last month but she wasn't able to attend the meeting.

Colleen is continuing to make amazing things from blown, melted and fused glass in her kiln. This looks like her new direction—a creative adventure in all things glass!

Daisy is still getting a great deal of pleasure making whimsical birds like this one, which features found items like the driftwood from her recent beachcombing adventure.

Anne's tin doll tutorial last month inspired Daisy to make this one with great graphics in an African theme. 

 During the meeting Geri was seen working on some of her miniature dolls. She uses shoe polish to achieve a vintage look.

 Marcella found these great little skeleton figures at the dollar store recently and has been busy costuming them for Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations. It's a wonderful project for using up some of those bits and pieces of things we all love to save. 

 And, Marcella continues to put her heart and soul into making quilted blankets for the packages of dolls, clothes and accessories that go to "Stitch'n for Kids" for children in long-term care in hospitals. This one is made from the little fabric samples we used to receive from suppliers when we ordered fabrics. 

 Sally shared a doll from her collections made by Susie Robbins—an angel with "bling."

Some of us visited Laurie in Portola recently and Sharon was so inspired with Laurie's polymer shrines she ended up making three. Two of them are shown above. Thank you, Laurie, for sharing your new craft room and generous supplies with us. It was so much fun!

Here are two more examples of Sharon's "little houses" series. She loves to make them and she plans to definitely make even more.

Kathy had a great time with her granddaughters making tiny faries. Really adorable, especially with those sparkly wings!