A Late Little Valentine Project

Hello, all!  Welcome to you all on this snowy morning in the Mid-Atlantic!  Boston and New England have gotten most of the snow this year but last night and today it was our turn.  Of course, ours wasn't anything like what Boston has endured this year but we can't handle snow the way New England can.  If we ever got 90 inches of snow in a season we'd never dig out!!  Anyway, I don't mind snow if I don't have to drive in it and it certainly is pretty out my window!

Today I want to share another Zentangle project.  My friend, Patti, designed a pretty Valentine Zentangle project and showed a group of us how to make one.  It's a cornet or a tussy-mussy holder.  Here's what it looks like.

 

 

 

Patti supplied the holder and the paper, we chose the tangles we wanted to use.  I added a pop of red throughout because I've come to like the black and white and one bright color in my Zentangles.   I didn't finish it until the day after Valentine's Day but next year I'm going to fill it with chocolates. 

 

 

Here are some details.  The photos aren't very good because the weather hasn't been very cooperative with the light!

 

 

 

As you can see, I've lined it with red card stock and used a red satin ribbon for the handle and the tassel at the bottom.  I'm really pleased with how it turned out. 

Well, that's it for today.  I hope you have a wonderful day.  I'm hoping to do some beading for a change!  Thank you so much for visiting with me and leaving your wonderful comments.  I really appreciate it. 

 





It's almost Valentine's Day!

Hi all!  I'm happy to have you visit.  Well, I'm over winter now and I'm so happy that it's the first week of February.   To me that means that March is that much closer!  And, happy day, my crocuses and daffodils are showing their green!!  Crocuses are my favorite flowers because they are the first ones I see in the late winter and early spring.  Of course, February also means Valentine's Day is right around the corner.  I've been thinking of what I'm going to make for dinner that night and what yummy heart shaped dessert I'll serve.  I always have made a special dinner and dessert for my family on Valentine's Day.  I spend the beginning of February planning and making things to celebrate this pretty bright day in the middle of a dull winter.  This year, there are still cards to be made and dinner to be planned but I took some time to make a Valentine card to put on the table in the family room.  Since the Frilly and Funkie blog has as their challenge theme "Be My Valen-twine"for the next few days I thought I would enter it in the challenge too. The "twine" is the requirement to use twine in whatever you make.  Here is what it looks like.

 I started with a piece of kraft card stock and used Wendy Vecchi's embossing paste and a new Memory Box stencil to make the background.  I tried a new-to-me technique I found on the very talented Astrid's blog.  While the embossing paste was still wet I sprinkled some of it with gold embossing powder and the rest with red glitter embossing powder and heated them.  I love the way the embossing paste bubbled and puffed.  I let the gold spill onto the red so I had a two toned embossing.   I cut a piece of red CS with the TH trellis die and used my finger to rub some gold Gilders' Paste on it.  I also rubbed Gilders Paste on the edge of the CS. I had the vintage Valentine clown image in my stash.  I wrapped the card with gold wrapped bakers' twine.  I glued the kraft CS to a striped paper that I had distressed and rubbed with Vintage Photo DI on the edge.  That was glued to a piece of red embossed CS which I rubbed with Gilders Paste.  Here are some details.

 

 

 



 So, there is my first Valentine for this year!  It looks great on the table. 

I have continued on with the #28patterns challenge which I talked about in this post. 

Here are two of the Zentangles I've posted the last couple of days.  

My initial done in Joanne Fink's Zenspirations style.

 

 

 

 

 

So, that's what I've been doing the last few days.  I think the Muse is beginning to wake up!  Must be seeing those crocus and daffodil leaves!!

 

 

Thank you so much for visiting with me today.  I hope you have a wonderful and creative day!





A little bright spot

Hi, everyone!  Welcome!  I'm so happy to have you visit today.  I'm sure you're wondering what the bright spot is.  Well, for me it's Valentine's Day.  Winter is cold and it's often gloomy and since I was a child I've always thought that Valentine's Day was a fun bit of brightness, what with all the red and pink and lace, in the middle of a dull winter.  By now everyone is tired of the harsh weather so we all need a little pick me up!  And, of course, I love to make things for Valentine's Day.  This year I'm making some cards but I also wanted to make something to put on a table in my living room.  Here's what I came up with.

 

 

 

It's a tag, but not a tag!  I used one of the large tags and covered it with Authentique's Valentine paper for this year.  I always love their holiday themed collections. I inked the edges with Vintage Photo DI.  The banner was part of the paper's design.  I cut out one of the vintage images from another sheet of the paper and cut a slit above the banner so I could tuck the corner of the image in.  The background is a 6x6 inch piece of red paper.  I cut a Tattered Doily out of white cardstock using the On the Edge die from Tim Holtz.  After sponging it with Vintage Photo DI I put it down on the background paper and glued the tag over it.  I created a bow from shear ribbon from my ribbon stash and attached that to the top along with two crystal "hat pins".  Using Kaiser Craft Sparkles I tacked down the ribbon streamers and "sprinkled" them around the tag and background.  A little "Forever" sticker fills in the corner.  I cut an easel with the easel die from TH and attached it to the back so it's free standing.   Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





 

 You may notice that there are no hearts in this Valentine project!  Well, that's because I wanted to enter it in the latest challenge over at Frilly and Funkie.  This challenge is to make something for Valentine's Day using the traditional red, pink and white but NO hearts!  That was a challenge I couldn't pass up.  All that red and pink and Valentine sentiment but no hearts. 

 

 

Well, I hope this post is putting some bright color into your day.  Thank you so much for visiting me and for all the wonderful comments you leave for me.  Have a wonderful day.

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

 

Anyone who has followed me for a while knows that I love Valentine's Day.  I've loved it since I was a child.  It's a beautiful, bright red day in the middle of winter!  It comes along just when the serene palette of winter has grown old.  When a burst of red and frilly things seems perfect! 

 

I made several tags this year, the one above it one of my favorites.  I also made some jewelry last year which I never shared.  So, I thought I would do that now.

 

Here is a necklace I made a few years ago, didn't like and remade last year.

 

 

 

I love soldering charms even though I don't do a lot of it.  But, I love vintage images and I love making them into charms to use as pendants or Christmas tree ornaments.  I have several ornaments and I've made some pendants.  Originally I had strung this on a velvet ribbon.  I didn't like the way it hung on the ribbon so I decided to do something else with it.  The necklace you see is the result.  I even took some of the ribbon and tied it to the chain.  It was such a pretty red velvet that I still wanted it as part of the design.  After remaking the necklace I decided to jump on the bandwagon that is the wrap bracelet.   I really like wrap bracelets but I hadn't made one.  Then, last year I saw this great button on the Fusion Beads site.  So, I decided to use it to make a wrap bracelet.   Actually, I made two, one for me and one for my daughter. 

 

 

And, here's that cute button!

 

 

Well, thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day.







 







A Valentine Challenge

Michelle Mach has been embossing plain white cards and envelopes for a few months.  She says it's a nice change from beading and jewelry.  Sometimes you just need to get away from creating with the same materials and get involved in something entirely different to renew your muse.  Well, she decided to have a challenge, offering one card to each ofthe first 25 people who expressed an interest.  The cards are lovely and we had our choice of one out of three different designs.  I decided to ask to be included and I chose the card that was embossed with leaves.  As soon as I saw that card I knew what I wanted to do with it.  Or at least I knew what one part of it would look like. 

I love red and white in the wintertime.  It's cheery and slightly retro, which is why I love Valentine's Day.  It's a bright spot of red in what is sometimes a very dreary time of year.  When I saw the embossed leaves on the card I knew I wanted to put tiny little red hearts in among them.  Which is what I did along with a red label in the center just saying LOVE!  I used small red rhinestone stick-on hearts from Michael's. The envelope flap was also embossed and I added some red hearts to the flap also.  My dear husband will be getting this card this evening along with a special dinner!

Here's a picture of the card.  Go on over to Michelle's blog to check out the other entries.  She has them all posted.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Time to Think of Hearts

This time of year, late January, when everything outside is wearing it's subtle winter colors, I start to think of Valentine's Day with it's bright happy red hearts and flowers!  I've loved Valentine's Day since I was a child because it injected a bright spot just when I thought the sun was gone forever!  My mom always made my cousin and me heart shaped cakes and gave us little gifts with hearts on them!  I've continued that tradition with my family. 

This year Michelle Mach has a challenge going on her blog.  She has been embossing cards and offered 25 people the oportunity to receive one of them and then alter it for Valentine's Day.  She'll post pictures of all the cards on her blog on Valentine's Day.  Since I've decided to finally act on my love of paper arts I decided to ask Michelle for one of the cards.  Everyone had a choice of 3 different cards and I chose the one with the embossed leaves. 

It's so pretty and I had an idea for what I wanted to do with it as soon as I saw it.  This just a tease.  The card will be revealed on Valentine's Day.  So, stay tuned.  I've got some other Valentine projects in the works as well.

Not much bead jewelry going on right now.  I've been doing some wirework and I'll post my latest pendant in a few days, once I have it completed.  I've also been working on a knitted birthday present for a friend.  So, can't post that until after she gets it!  Just in case she decides to check out the blog!  But, I have to get started on the Beading Babes project soon.  So, lots to come. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you have a wonderful day and that you get to create something you love.



Blog Partner

I'm so pleased to say that I've become a member of Artbeads.com Design Partner Program.  I know a lot of bloggers are members of the team and it's an honor to be included with these bead artists.  I was just accepted into the program, but I was still able to participate in the current "Winter Enchantment".  The idea behind the theme is what you find inspirational about winter.  I have to say that winter isn't my favorite time of year.  Once the glitter of Christmas is stored away for another year, I tend to huddle in the house as much as I can.  But, since I was a young girl the bright spot of winter was Valentine's Day.  It's not because I'm  an extreme romantic, although I do like soft pretty things, but because it was a touch of bright red and cheeriness in the midst of the gray of February, when everyone had enough of gray skies and gloomy, snowy weather.  It was a chance to make things with the color red, to enjoy pretty things like hearts and flowers and to eat fun things like heart shaped cakes iced with pink icing.  Yes, my mother always made me and my cousin a chocolate heart shaped cake with pink icing.  I still have her heart shaped pans!  So, when I found out that the theme of this installment was Winter Enchantment I knew immediately what I was going to chose.

These were the items I ordered for my project.  I love the Crystal Red Magma heart and I love that color with copper. So, copper chain was an obvious choice. I, also chose the copper heart leaf pendant because I've been wanting to use one of those copper leaves in some project. This one was so pretty and perfect for my idea that I was thrilled to find it.  So, as I ordered my pieces I designed my project.  I don't ever do that, but this idea presented itself almost as a whole as I began chosing components!  Wish that would happen more often!

This is the finished necklace.  It came together almost as I had envisioned it.  Again, very unusual for me since most of the time I don't start with a clear idea of what I'm going to end up with!



And, here's a close up.

 

I used the copper pendant as a closure, making the hook out of 16 gauge copper wire.  A nice feature of the design is that I can use the hook in one of the links of chain and have the copper heart hang free.  That was something I hadn't anticipated but I like the option of having a long necklace, or a shorter one depending on what I'm wearing it with or my mood!

Well, I hope you all have a restful Sunday.  The weather in my part of the world is gloomy and rainy, a perfect studio day!

To comply with FTC regulations I must tell you that I review products for Artbeads.com free of charge.  My statements are an honest assessment of the products and I receive no compensation from Artbeads.com for my endorsement. 





Happy Heart's Day!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!



Happy Hearts' Day!

I've  loved Valentine's Day since I was a child.  I love the prettiness of the hearts and lace.  I love the bright red in the middle of a dreary month.   Hope you have a wonderful day.