Winter's Butterfly

Finally, I'm taking time to post!  Been busy, busy, busy with various things for the holidays.  Finished our decorating but not before the very tip of our pre-lit tree blew out in a short power outage over the weekend!  Luckily, it's still under warranty and the company is sending us replacement bulbs. I'm praying they all work because about half the string are all black!

With that done, I also actually made it out to do a little shopping yesterday, not just to one mall, but two!  Then wound up coming home and ordering gifts online.  Thank goodness for free shipping!

Now, I've got about a week  left to get a lot of crafting finished.  Every year I always say I'm going to start Christmas crafting much earlier, and every year, it never happens.  LOL  There's always next year!

But I digress from the task at hand --- posting cards.  So, here is an elegant, shabby chic type card:

SPIES:

STAMPS:  Butterfly (Recollections); Digital Sentiment (TLC Creations).

PAPER: White and light blue cardstock; Vellum; DP - from stash.

INK: Versamark; Clear emboss powder.

EXTRAS: Medium butterfly punch (Martha Stewart); small butterfly punch (Fiskars); Label die (Taylored Expressions); Emboss folder (Spellbinders); Snowflake dies (Taylored Expressions); Flourish die (Sizzix); Decorative Dies - Renaissance Hearts, Contemporary Hearts & Fleur De Lis (Spellbinders); Stickles; blue gem dots.

My card started with the sentiment.  I just love that sentiment!  And so I had to combine snowflakes and butterflies.   I did alter the sentiment a bit by changing the color of "winter" to light blue instead of the basic black.   I made my snowflake with several different Spellbinders pendant dies as I don't have any large snowflake dies.  I cut one of each from vellum, white cardstock and patterned paper.  I have enough snowflakes now to make several more cards too.

I also realized I don't have any large butterfly die cuts either.  I used a butterfly stamp, stamped in Versamark, embossed clear and then added Diamond Stickles to them.  The smaller butterfly I punched out of vellum and then stickled. 

FOR FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:

Inspired By #  99

Your Next Stamp - December Photo Inspiration

Butterfly Blessings!

TPE #229 - A Recipe Challenge

Happy Monday to everyone on this cold, wintry day!  Hope everyone is staying warm and dry.

Being December, I am sure 

the U.S. and Canada 

are not the only places 

that are cold, snowy 

and just plain nasty outside today.

So, it's the perfect day 

to spend it crafting

with 

Ella and the entire design team

over at 

The Pink Elephant Challenge!

Today's challenge 

is a 

Recipe Challenge:

Recipe:  2 Pattern Papers, Ribbon & Sprinkle of Sparkle

Here's my card:

SPIES:

STAMPS: Digital Image & Sentiment - Lori Boyd Designs; Flowers (Taylored Expressions).

PAPER: Light olive green, Red & white cardstock; DP:  Be Merry (My Mind's Eye).

INK: Copics: Sepia, Light Walnut, Sand, Lightning Yellow, Ice Mint, Pale Olive, Begonia Pink, Shadow Pink, Pink, Rose Mist, Lipstick Red, Cadmium Red.

EXTRAS: Oval die cut (Spellbinders); Label Die cut (Spellbinders); Leaf die cut (Taylored Expressions); flower die cut (Taylored Expressions); Glossy Accents; Diamond Stickles; Pink satin ribbon; tiny gold gem dots; pop dots.

I chose a really cute digital stamp by Lori Boyd for my card. Those owls are just soooo adorable! After I colored them, I added some diamond Stickles for some sparkle on the big owl's hat and the little owl's ear muffs.  Then I added a little sparkle to some of the flowers too.

FOR FOLLOWING CHALLENGES:

The Deconstructed Sketch - #129

Stampin' For The Weekend - Use Some Red

Shopping Our Stash - Challenge #129 - Holiday or Winter 

Sister Act Card Challenge #35

Now, cozy up with a warm cup of coffee, tea or cocoa and join all of us

 at 

The Pink Elephant Challenge 

this week!

Don't forget 

to leave my fellow ladies on the design team 

some blog luv!

Happy "Owl-iday" Blessings!

A Vintage Christmas

Happy Thursday!  Central North Carolina seems to be in a bubble right now, as far as the weather goes, today and tomorrow. It is very warm and mild, not at all like much of the midwest to northeast is experiencing.  I hope everyone affected by current winter storms are staying safe and warm!  
The mountaineer girl in me wishes we would get even just a little bit of the snow.  But for now, I will have to settle for looking at my latest card here:

SPIES:

STAMPS: Image (Stampendous).

PAPER: Grey cardstock.

INK:Vintage Sepia (Versafine); Grayish Olive (Copics).

EXTRAS: Xmas Red Stickles. Snow White Dimensional Effect (DecoArt).

It's rare that the Hubs makes a suggestion on my stamp purchases but when he saw this holiday postcard stamp he bought it for me!  I'm so glad he did!  I love how this came out!

I bought the dimensional snow last year and hardly used it.  So I tried it on this card and love it.  It took me a bit to work it how I wanted.  It comes out somewhat fluffy but also wet. I applied it by using the tip like a pencil and then my finger to smear it around a bit.

It fits very well with the challenges at Just Us Girls , Papercraft Star and Sugar Creek Hollow.

FOR THE FOLLOWING CHALLENGES

Sugar Creek Hollow - #75 -Vintage Christmas

The Papercraft Star - Challenge #169

Vintage Christmas Blessings!

A Blessed Christmas

Hi All!

A country gingham card today with a little "jingly" to it!

SPIES:

STAMPS: Sentiment (Momenta).

PAPER: Kraft, white and red cardstock; Gingham DP from stash (it's so old)!

INK: Rocket Red (Dew Drop Brillance).

EXTRAS:  Fleur De Lis die square (Spellbinders); Emboss folder (Tim Holz); Triangle Framelits (Sizzix); Twine; wooden button; yellow flower brad; red mini bells.

FOR CHALLENGES:

The Friday Mashup - Challenge #137

Use Gingham, Kraft or Both

Wedding News --- Wedding Favors!

Our son got married on November 9, 2013.  Three weeks have already whizzed by since then!  Whew!  I haven't blogged much over the past month due to the wedding and being out of town.  Since I've been back, I've been busy catching up on everything and now trying to catch up on crafting and blogging.

The Hubs and I were in Oklahoma for ten days, which was a much needed break for him from work, a nice change of scenery for the both of us (did you know central Oklahoma is REALLY flat?), and to spend a little extra time with our son and his now wife, before the wedding.  

Oklahoma is now the farthest west I have traveled across the U.S.  And yes, being a mountain girl, I was surprised at how flat it really was!  

First, here is a photo of the happy newlyweds:

Mr. & Mrs. Patrick Salkeld

The wedding was small but beautiful in a tiny chapel on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma, where both Patrick and Helen are students.  Helen had her best friend as Maid of Honor and Patrick had his brother, Ben, as Best Man.  Helen's mom did all of the decorations for the chapel and they were beautiful! 

Pew Wreaths made by Bride's mother

As the Groom's parents, Dave and I were responsible for the rehearsal dinner.  And, I decided to make some favors for everyone.  The wedding party was just the bride and groom, a maid of honor and best man (our youngest son).  And since we had some extended family fly in for the wedding early we decided to invite them and the bride's siblings/spouses/children.  The total was about 21 people in all, so not really a large number.

Thus, months ago I began thinking and planning along with Helen and Patrick.  They had originally thought to have a small token of Oklahoma (where Helen is from) and a small token of West Virginia and North Carolina (where Patrick grew up).  However, it became difficult to find something inexpensive and small from each place.  

I had purchased handblown glass kisses from Tamarack back in the summer.  For those who may not know, Tamarack is a large handcraft shopping mall situated in Beckley, WV.   All of the vendors/crafters in Tamarack are exclusively West Virginians.  If you ever have the opportunity visit West Virginia, Tamarack is a must for wonderfully exquisite handcrafted souvenirs.  

And, it just so happened that the day the Hubs and I stopped by on our way back from visiting family and friends in WV, an old friend who also happens to be a glass blower, was working in the glass section of Tamarack.  They have a huge plate glass window from which behind various WV glass blowers come and work and blow glass for customers to watch glass being made right there.  We hadn't seen him since we moved ten years ago so it was truly a special treat.  He doesn't make the glass kisses I bought, but I did get a free glass ring holder he does make!  

 

The large kiss in the middle was a special kiss for the Bride and Groom.  All of the others were the clear crystal ones.  Please excuse the poor photo quality.  I took the photos with my IPhone in the hotel room after we had put them all together. 



I put each kiss in a muslin bag that I had stamped "Together Forever" on the front.  On the back side I stamped an "H", a heart, and a "P".  Of course I had to remark to both Patrick and Helen that it looked like "Harry Potter" initials.  LOL

Since we didn't find anything from OK or NC, I bought some glass favor jars and decorated the outside of them and then filled them with chocolate kisses.

Everything went down inside a decorated kraft style gift bag lined with pink tissue paper.  If you haven't realized already, the wedding colors were pink and brown with a kind of natural kind of theme.

I kept the bag decor simple using the same stamped monogram "S" as on the jars and burlap and added a pink embossed label behind all of it.  The monogram stamps had some crystal Stickles added to them for a little sparkle.

This was the bride and groom's bag with 2 roses.  Everyone else only got one rose.

It was a bit challenging putting these all together as I had to have my son buy the jars in OK so I wouldn't have to transport them on the plane.  I had also mailed all the glass kisses to them too.  And of course, I didn't have everything completed in order to just send it all over ahead of time and wound up carting three ziplock bags of labels and burlap and two packs of gift bags in my carry on with my dress for the wedding.  Wasn't any way I was going to check any of that!  LOL  So then, once I got to OKC I had to get supplies out there and put everything together.  I found the burlap did not stick to the jars so well without a glue gun.  And the paper label on top of the burlap would not stay wrapped around either without several pop dots.   For all I know, everyone now has label-less jars! LOL  At least they looked good that night!

Now for some more wedding photos ---

Patrick (Groom), Me, Ben (Best Man)

                               

Ben - Dave - Patrick

The Salkelds

  

The Salkelds & The Salkelds

It was a very special and memorable 10 days.  And while it was a wonderful day it's nice to settle back into routine and to feel blessed having expanded our family to include a daughter in law!

Irish Marriage Blessing

May God be with you and bless you.
May you see your children's children.
May you be poor in misfortunes
  and rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but
happiness from this day forward

{PIN}spirational Challenge #86

Happy Tuesday!

I have more exciting news!  I'm on another Design Team!

Today I am officially participating as one of the newest Design Team Members

At {PIN}spirational Challenges!

YEA!

With that said...

Here is this week's inspirational photo for

 {PIN}spirational Challenge #86

There is A LOT of inspiration in that pretty crystal bowl!  

We have 2 sponsors this week too:

Sassy Studio Designs

They are offering one lucky winner 
4 Digis 
of their choice!


And

Scribble and Scrap Shop

One lucky winner will get a

£15 voucher to their online store.

There's more to win too!

Want to win this whole lot of crafty goodies?

 This prize will go to some lucky participant this month. For every entry you post for this challenge and the next 2 challenges, your name will go into the draw.  You can enter up to 5 times per challenge so by the time DEC 23rd rolls around you could possibly have 15 entries and that means 15 times your name will go into the draw! WOW!  
AND --
Deanne will be adding more items as the weeks go by.

But for now here's a list of items so far...

 ~Keep Calm and Craft On clear stamp
~2 post-it note pads
~Black/White twine
~3 burlap tags
~1 package of 3D Dots
~Luka rubber stamp from La-La Land Crafts
~2 packages of crocheted hearts from Bella Blvd
~Daisy & Friends CD from Joanna Sheen (case opened but never used)
~Sweet Threads stickers from Basic Grey
~Best Wishes sentiment stickers (silver)
~Gold shape stickers
~Journal (great for altering!)
~Set of album refill sheets great for holding ATCs or small embellishments
~Package of 4 Sharpies-black,red,blue,green (not in photo)

Someone will win this on DECEMBER 24th, so be sure to play along all this month!!

Winner will be announced on the {PIN}spirational Challenge blog and on the Facebook page here.

Good luck!

Now, stop over at 

{PIN}spirational Challenges

and check out what 

all my new fellow Design Team members 

have created 

to help get your crafty mojo flowing!

Here is my card:

SPIES:

STAMPS: Digital Image (Whimsy Stamps); Digital Sentiment (Scribble & Scrap Shop).

PAPER: White cardstock; DP - Park Bench (Fancy Pants Designs).

INK: Copics: Skin white; Egg Shell; Prussian Blue; Coral Sea; Holiday Blue; Petroleum Blue; Light Suntan; Sand; Caribe Cocoa; Cadmium Yellow; Cool Gray 1 & 5; Special Black.

EXTRAS: Label die (Taylored Expressions); Prima flowers; brad; dark blue gems; crystal Stickles.

This is my first time doing a significant amount of coloring on a digital stamp.  I have to confess my Copics stash is slightly limited so it was a little challenging doing some shading.  And, towards the end I discovered my light gray pen dried up!  

At any rate, I like the outcome. However, note to self: Make sure you have the patterned paper all chosen before coloring!  I had to go with non-traditional Christmas colors 

in order to match up with my image. 

Don't forget to check out the rest of the DT cards, then get creative using this week's photo then link up your projects at {PIN}spirational Challenges.

Holiday Blessings!

Under The Mistletoe

Another post today.  I'm getting back into the regular swing now!  A very Christmasy card here using the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.

SPIES:

STAMPS: Sentiment (Momenta); Dress Form (Stampin Up).

PAPER: White cardstock; DP - Mary Engelbreit.

INK: Tuxedo Black (Memento); Versamark; Red emboss powder.

EXTRAS: Felt santa hat; Mistletoe 3D sticker (Jolees by you); Red pipe cleaner; gold ball; green polka dot ribbon; emboss folder (Sizzix).

Merry Kisses & Blessings!

TPE #228 - Winter Theme

Good Morning and Happy Holidays!  

It's December 2nd, can you believe that?  

2013 is almost history! 

But, before it goes there's still a lot of crafting for us to do!

And today is no exception, particularly at 

The Pink Elephant Challenge!  

This week we have another theme for you ---  

Winter Theme!

That's right, we want to see your winter projects --- snowmen, snowflakes, snowbirds, winter holidays, winter flowers, etc.  

Get those crafty hands going 

and 

make something festive and wintry!

To help get you in the mood, here is my sample:

STAMPS: Snowman Digital Image (Bugaboo Stamps); Digital Sentiment (TLC Creations).

PAPER: White, Gray Blue and Cotton Candy cardstock; DP-Merry Little Christmas (My Mind's Eye).

INK: Copics:  Shadow Pink (RV32), Pink (RV11), Lipstick Red (R29), Garnet (R39), Grayish Olive (G94), New Leaf (YG23).  Petal pink liquid pearls(on ear muff); Christmas Red Stickles (on hat and scarf) ;Frosted Lace Stickles (on ground).

EXTRAS: Snowflake dies (Taylored Expressions); Heart circle Nestie dies (Spellbinders); pink gem dot; pink brad; lime green baker's twine; pink shoe lace; pop dots.

I chose a pink shoe lace

I've never worn 

for the ribbon 

to emulate sweater material 

and 

I frayed the edges to emulate a scarf. 

I've just begun to use digital stamps more 

on my cards and 

I have purchased many Christmas ones.  

So, stop by everyday this month

to see which new stamp

I've used. 

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Retro Sketches Challenge #92

Stampin' Royalty - Challenge #204 - Winter

Now, drop by 

The Pink Elephant Challenge blog 

and see what 

Ella and the rest of the DT gals 

have done for more inspiration 

and don't forget 

to leave them some blog luv!

Winter Blessings!