Last Card for 2011

Is it just me, or did this year seem to go by exceedingly fast? It really is difficult to think that a new year will begin in just a little over a day from now. Three years ago, on New Year's Eve, I said good-bye to my Mother as she slipped peacefully away in hospital. It seems, in many ways, as if it was only the other day but here it is, three years later. So many days have past.

So, we must look forward and not backwards as we anticipate another year. What will 2012 bring? There will be blessings and joy. There will be sadness. There will be laughter and also tears. It seems as if each year is the same in so many ways and entirely different in so many other ways. Yet, I look forward to a new year coming. I look forward to finding out what the new year will bring. I rejoice in the opportunities and challenges that await.

So enough "Auld Lang Syne" and melancholy. On to my last little card that I've made for 2011. This little card is for no particular reason except that I was in the mood to create and already had the LOTV image coloured up. Isn't she a cutie? She makes me want to throw caution to the wind and dance (and believe me, at my age, it would be throwing caution to the wind - ROFLOL). I have a sign up in my craft room that reminds me to "Dance as if no one is watching." Well let me assure you, it is best if I dance when no one is watching (LOL)!!

My image is coloured with Copic markers on X-Press card and cut into a rectangle shape. My base card is white (5.5x5.5 square) on which I've adhered blue card and then my patterned paper. I have this random stack of 8x8 paper that is not in a pad, and I don't know where I acquired it. I thought it was a gift from a friend, but it is card weight, and she tells me the paper she sent me was paper weight, not card. Consequently, I cannot tell you the manufacturer as it is not printed anywhere. I cut a strip of matching paper (also from that random stack) which I layered on the same blue card and adhered onto the top. The little flower border along the bottom is cut with a Martha Stewart border punch. I added some flowers (Wild Orchid Crafts), some pearly dots, some ribbon and a freebie "ticket" sentiment that I found on the web. (Again I have to apologize -- gosh, I've spent a lot of this entry apologizing -- but despite the fact that I try to save my freebies with the name of the designer, this one doesn't have it, so I cannot give credit where it is due.)

My idea for this little card was something fun and uplifting -- a joy to make and (hopefully) a joy to receive. As the new year approaches, may we all be blessed by God's Grace. May we enjoy each day to the fullest. May we "Work as if we don't need the money; Love as if we've never been hurt; Dance as if no one is watching." Happy New Year!

Anything Goes

I have to try to get it through my head that Thursday is Friday (LOL)! What? Have I gone completely off my rocker? No, I have to remind myself that the challenge blog for which I'm a DT posts new challenges on Australian time which is a day ahead of the US -- hence, it is already Friday in Australia even though it is several hours away from midnight here in the US. Since I'm "supposed" to post my card on my own blog in conjunction with the Card Crafter's Circle post, then I've got to get my wee brain regimented to remember that Thursday is Friday -- see, quite simple, right?

Anyway, after all that babbling, here are the details for this week's challenge -- simply make a card for any theme you'd like. Yes, this week's challenge is "ANYTHING GOES." Our generous sponsor this week is Daisy Doodles. The prize for our random winner this challenge is their choice of three (3) Daisy Doodles images!

For my card, I used Pip the Penguin (http://daisysdigidoodles.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=47&products_id=189). He is found under the Christmas section, but I don't think he looks so Christmasy. He looks as if he is just having a grand time hitting the slopes. I colored my little guy using Copic markers and cut him out in a circle using a Spellbinder die. I then took my scalloped circle Spellbinder die and cut another circle from red card. The blue snowflake paper (sorry I can't tell you the manufacturer) was sewn to a piece of solid blue card. The red snowflake piece is adhered over the blue and all are adhered to a white card base. The large snowflake is cut on the Cricut and the smaller ones are cut from a die. The large snowflake has a smaller pearlescent snowflake in the center, and then I place icey blue gems in the center of all the flakes. I used white satin ribbon (have to have ribbon on my cards - grin) and attached a silver snowflake charm to the bow. The inside of my card reads, "Snow what's up friend? I've been thinking about you."

There you have it. Do check out our sponsor's store at http://daisysdigidoodles.com/store/index.php?main_page= and do join us this week at Card Crafter's Circle challenge blog http://cardcrafterscircle.blogspot.com/ as we'd love to see your lovely art work.

Challenges entering:
http://www.4craftychicks.blogspot.com/
http://simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.com/
http://thepapershelter.blogspot.com/
http://stampinfortheweekend.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-23-anything-goes.html
http://meljensdesignsdt.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-90.html
http://cutedaisymay.blogspot.com/
http://littlemissmuffetchallenges.blogspot.com/

My Favorite Mo

The challenge for this last week over at Mo Manning's blog (http://mosdigitalchallenge.blogspot.com/2011/12/challenge-115-favorite-2011-mo-project.html) is simply to submit a favorite card using one of Mo's darling images. That, it seems, isn't as easy a task as it sounds. I looked through my cards, and it seems that everyone that I did using one of Mo's images was a favorite. It was just so easy to make a charming or pretty card. I would look at one image and think, "that's it" only to go to the next one and think, "no, that's the one." However, I kept coming back to a birthday card that I made for a special friend.

This image made me smile the very first time I saw it, and the simplicity of my card is appealing to me. My friend loved the card, adding more warm fuzzie feelings for me.

Other cards in contention include:

And also --

Miss Bossy, above, is one of my all time favorite images (notice I said "one of" as most of Mo's are my "favorite" at one time or another). This image has lent itself well to numerous sentiments (from thank you to get well). Using the "Listen Up" on the front, I've been able to personalize the inside to fit the occassion.

Well, I could go on and on, but most of my cards have already been viewed once on my blog, so won't do a repeat of them all.

I'll enter my little House Cleaning Fairy in the "favorites" challenge over at Mo's.

Ciao for now!

One Last Christmas Card

This will be the last Christmas card I'll post this year. This is my DT card for this week's challenge at Card Crafter's Circle. Our sponsor this week is very special to us. Mary Ellen, the wonderful owner and designer of Dearie Dolls images, also created the header and badges for our Card Crafter's Circle blog. The images at Dearie Dolls are adorable and so much fun to use. Do stop by her site, Dearie Dolls Digital Images (http://www.deariedollsdigistamps.com/) and have a look, and if you have a few minutes during this busy week, we'd love for you to enter our second challenge.

I used Pigtail Angel (http://www.digideariestamps.info:82/viewitem.php?productid=498) for my card this week. She is such a cutie and reminds me of my little granddaughter -- angel with a little impishness to her. I colored my image using Copic markers. I used one of my Spellbinder dies to cut the scalloped circle out of red card and adhered my image to the scallop. I used a patterned paper matted onto green and adhered to a white card base. I used a strip of the same green I'd used for matting to the front of the card across the patterned paper. The ribbon and bow is from some new ribbon I got this year at Michael's. I liked the way the stripes in the ribbon matched the stripes in the background paper but at a distinct slant, setting them off from the background. The white poinsettia at the top is from a pack of chipboard Christmas embellishments by K&Co. and the gold leaves were cut from a spring of glittery leaves that I picked up at Michael's.

Hope you enjoy my little angel, and hope you will join us at Card Crafter's Circle. May the blessings of the season be abundant for you; may the happiness of the season fill all of you; may the peace and goodness of the season reign for all of you all year through. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, God speed.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

http://craftingforallseasons.blogspot.com/
http://www.bellichallenge.blogspot.com/
http://digistamps4joy.blogspot.com/
http://inkyimpressionschallenges.blogspot.com/
http://littledarlingschallenges.blogspot.com/
http://www.charismacardz.blogspot.com/
http://tuesdaytaggers.blogspot.com/

3-2-1-Blast Off

Today is the first day of a brand new challenge blog, and I was asked to be one of the members of the design team. The new blog is called Card Crafter's Circle http://cardcrafterscircle.blogspot.com/ Each week we will have some fantastic sponsors. This week's sponsor is the wonderful Bugaboo Stamps http://www.bugaboostamps.com/  I think Bugaboo has some absolutely darling images, and I was thrilled to work with the above cutie called Scarlette Party. She can be found at http://www.bugaboostamps.com/Scarlette-party_p_258.html

For my card, I was thinking either New Year's Eve or my older daughter's up-coming birthday (1 Feb.). Either one is a wonderful celebration (which is this week's challenge theme). I printed Miss Scarlette on X-Press card and colored her with my Copic markers. I used silver and blue as my color scheme for this card and layered dark blue card onto a while card base. I then layered a soft silver patterned paper over the blue.The solid strip behind Scarlette (which isn't showing well) is a matte metalic silver. The border is cut from the dark blue using a Martha Stewart border punch.

I layered the colored image on the matte silver and then on the dark blue. The silver blue organza ribbon runs behnd the matte silver strip and the image. Lastly, to really "jazz" it up, I used a rhinestone swirl along the right side. Unfortunately, this is one of those cards that looks much better in real time because several of the elements didn't photograph well. I hope, though, you can see enough to get the general effect.

Thank you for stopping by, and do hop over to Card Crafter's Circle http://cardcrafterscircle.blogspot.com/ and have a look around. Even more so, if you can spare a little creative time during this hectic time of year, we'd love to have you join the challenge. You just might be the lucky winner of seven (yes, that's 7) wonderful Bugaboo images.

I've entered this card in the:
 "Anything Goes" challenge at http://delightfulsketches.blogspot.com/
"Blue, silver & white" challenge at http://colourcreatechallenge.blogspot.com/
"Photo inspiration" challenge at http://foryourinspirationchallenges.blogspot.com/
"Let's Celebrate" challenge at http://www.southerngirlschallenge.blogspot.com/

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl

My granddaughter, Claire Todd, turned 8 yesterday. She shares her birthday with her cousin (my oldest grandchild). Nicholas turned 18 yesterday. I only have four grandchildren, but I've been blessed with wonderful ones. They are all happy, bright, intelligent, and of course, handsome/beautiful children. Claire is the only granddaughter and is the youngest of my four -- can you say pampered?

She asked for an easel card for her birthday. I'd made her Mommy one in August, and Claire thought it was so very neat. Of course, Claire is quite the little crafter and artist herself, so she notices things such as easel cards with a special eye, and appreciates the workmanship that goes into making them.

Although I fussed and fumed for days trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the easel card, I finally came up with this one.  (I did report my Muses to Santa and asked he put them on the naughty list because they were definitely misbehaving and not helping me as they should.) The little image is a Magnolia stamp on Cryogen paper. I coloured it using my Copic markers and then fussy cut around. The background paper is from my stash, and I'm sorry I cannot tell you the manufacturer. The doily little Tilda is sitting upon is cut from a Spellbinder die. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The lace on the side is manufactured by Wright, but I don't know where I bought it.

You can't see them in the above photo, but there are small flowers on the circular sentiment, and I used teeny-tiny pearls for the centers, and I placed two larger pearls in the upper left corner of the strip above the ribbon. I also added a scallop of pearls on each corner of the bottom layer. The scallops of pearls are by Recollections and come on quite a substancial roll. I bought them at Michael's Crafts. They did finish off that lower part of the card quite nicely I think.  My birthday message to Claire is hidden in the area you can't see once the easel is standing.

So that's it. My little girl is no longer a baby. In fact, she informed her Mommy that she can now legally ride in the car without a  safety booster seat. Sigh! Another milestone passed (grin). 

No Post Today

Well, that isn't totally true as I am sharing a picture (and hopefully link) to a wonderfully fantastic opportunity to win some lovely blog candy. A very talented lady by the name of Julie Price is celebrating her six months blog-aversary and is offering the above package to one lucky person (drawing on 15 Dec. 2011).

Julie is a very talented artist. I think you will enjoy seeing all of her beautiful creations -- cards to decor -- so plan on being at Julie's site for some time (do take the time to look at all of her older posts as you won't want to miss ANYTHING). I plan to add the link to my sidebar for Julie's blogcandy, but just in case it doesn't work, here is the address: http://julieprice3.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/6-month-blog-candy/

Good luck!

So Much To Do -- So Little Time

My last post was titled "Beginning to look a lot like Christmas" but I didn't share anything Christmasy, so I thought I'd make up for it a little bit today. The month is fast filling up with projects I need to get done, baking that doesn't "need" to be done but would be sorely missed if I don't do it, school programs to watch, birthdays and lots more. I think I have finished off making enough Christmas cards, but of course, still need to get them addressed, little personal notes added and most importantly, off to the post office.

The above photos show a wee bit of our holiday decor. If you look closely at the tree, you  can catch a glimpse or two of some of the hand painted ornments I did. I also painted the two stockings some years back but didn't quite finish off the project. Had planned on adding a "cuff" to the top of each, and Father Christmas (the larger of the two stockings) never got his robe finished off. None-the-less, they hang on the mantle as they have for the past number of years.

We have cut down on the amount of decorating that we used to do. We used to put up a number of different "theme" trees (the one you see is all Santa ornaments, but also have enough snowmen ornaments and angel ornaments to do up similar sized trees). Also used to decorate every room in the house. We down sized our dwelling space significantly 11 years ago when we moved here to Georgia, so decorating also down sized. We still do enough to be festive and, as my husband says, to keep us from turning into old Scrooges (big grin)!

At any rate, sitting here posting isn't ticking anything off my list, so since I started this post bemoaning the number of things I need to get accomplished, I'd best sign off for now. Isn't the Christmas season truly wonderful?

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

OK, so the little card I'm sharing has nothing to do with Christmas; however, the hubby and I have spent the past two days putting up our decorations and getting ready for the holidays. Well, we did take time out yesterday to celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary with a nice date that included a lovely dinner and a movie. (I know, such a sedate celebration, but you know we ARE over 50, eh?) I also took time out today to make the above little card for a dear friend who recently had surgery.

I do so adore those little House Mouse images. I remember reading somewhere that the artist paid her way through college with those little images. So see, mice can be nice (grin). My younger daughter actually had quite a cute little rodant as a pet at one time. We also went through a number of hamsters (which are actually meaner) as well. Those days are past now, and I do think I much prefer the rubber stamp variety of mice at this stage in my life.

At any rate, this little card will go postal tomorrow (along with a gift for my oldest grandson who will soon be turning 18). I hope my friend will quicky and properly heal and that this little card will bring her a smile.