Winter Wonderland

Hi everyone!  I'm so happy to have you join me today.  We are in the midst of another cold snap here in the Mid-Atlantic so I thought the title of this post was appropriate.  It's been a cold winter with some snow which is sticking around because of the frigid temperatures.  That all has me spending lots of time organizing and creating.  And, a lot of my ideas are centering around winter and all it's glories!  Surprising, I know!  But, I finished a little wall hanging yesterday and I wanted to share it with you.  Here it is.  Oh, and by the way, I'm calling it "Hot Chocolate"!

 

 

 

I had this clip board for ages and I decided to use it for a winter themed wall hanging.  I just love this year's Authentique winter set of papers and I wanted to use them for something that was vintage looking. The clip board seemed to fit.  It really wasn't very vintage but I helped it along a little bit ;)!  I started out "rusting" the clip.  I used Ranger's Vintaj metal colors in Clay, Rust and Cinnabar. I painted them on randomly and then dry brushed some Silks Nutmeg over the clip along with some Black Soot Distress Paint. I painted the board, both back and front, with Antique Linen Distress  Paint.   For the paper I embossed the first layer with a Spellbinders embossing folder.  You really can't see much of the embossing but it's been gone over lightly with some German Silver Gilders' Paste to bring out the embossing.  I then layered one of the papers that had the word Chocolate in the corner and distressed the edges sponging some Vintage Photo DI on them.  The text is actually from the Louisa May Alcott book Little Women!  I thought that was a great touch.  It appeals to the booklover in me!  And, I love reading on a cold winter night.  I cut the scene from another paper in the collection and distressed this too, using Black Soot DI on the edges.  Once all the papers were layered together I lightly rubbed the German Silver on them.  I love the German Silver Gilders' Paste because it gives a tarnished vintage look to what ever it's used on. 

 

For embellishment I used a little tag that expresses how I like to spend my winter nights!  Cozy blankets and hot chocolate sound like the perfect antidote to the frigid temperatures we've been having.  I used a dark tan velvet ribbon for the bow and some glittered chip board snowflakes to dress up the hanging. 

 

Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had fun putting this together .  It really summarizes my ideas of the best way to spend a winter day.  A great book,  soft blankets and hot chocolate!  What more can you ask for!

 

I'm entering this in the Frilly and Funkie challenge which is The Warmth of Winter. 

 

Thank you so much for spending your time with me today.  I really appreciate it so much.  I hope you have a wonderful day and that you stay warm and safe!





Time to Stitch 4 Blog Hop



Hi everyone!  It's been really quiet here on the blog the last week or so.  After putting away all the Christmas decorations I went on a much needed clearing out/organizing binge.  I'm not finished yet, I've made a lot of progress and things are looking better already!  But, today I'm participating in the blog hop put on by Therese and Christine.  These two great ladies have done this hop for a few years now and it's always great fun.  The idea is to urge beaders to try new stitches, or to revisit stitches they may have used once and not used again.  This time around the stitch that was the focus of the hop was netting.  Then we all had the opportunity to vote on another stitch we would like to work with as an extra.  The winner was spiral rope!  That's one of my favorite stitches so I was very happy.  Here are my two necklaces.

 

 First is the netted stitched lariat.  I love lariats and I wanted to stitch one using the netting stitch.  The beaded beads that are part of the fringe were the color inspiration for the beads I used.  The netting was done with size 15 seed beads in bronze and aqua.  The fringe was stitched using bronze and aqua crystals, daggers, and bronze flower end caps.  The beaded beads were done a few years ago and I wanted to use them in this lariat fringe.  Here are some close up details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The spiral rope necklace I made is actually a variation of spiral rope created by my good friend Kathy, the owner of the bead store, Bead Soup.  She used the new Rula beads as part of the spiral.  Rula beads are another of the new two hole beads that are coming out now.  Here is my version.

 

 



 

 

 

 

I used a pretty soft pink size 8 bead for the core and bronze 15s along with the Rulas for the spiral.  The Rulas were a beautiful iris finished bead and the pink core picks up some of the pink tones in the finish.  It was very hard to capture that in the pictures.  Here are the  details.

 

 

 

 



 

So, there you have my entries in this challenge. I want to thank Therese and Christine for hosting this hop.  They are two very wonderful people I've gotten to know because of this blog.  Thank you so much for visiting me. 

 

Here's a list of the other participants and   I hope you visit their blogs and see what they came up with. 

 

 

1.  Amy Severino

2.  Janet Bocciardi

3.  Cynthia Machata

4.  Alicia Marinache

5.  Paula Kramer

6.  Kim Hora

7.  Dee Alcalde

8.  Dagi (Kokopelli)

9   Maryanne Gross

10. LizE

11. Sally Russick

12. Becky Pancake

13. Jasvanti Patel

14. Karin Slaton

15. Alenka

16. Sarah Sequins

17. Tanya Goodwin

18. Debbie Rasmussen

19. Shirley Moore

20. Crystie Willard



21. Nelly May

 22. Ana Cravidao





Thank you #2 and the end of the challenge

Hi everyone!  I'm happy to have you visit.  Today I'm going to share the last tag of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique.   I'm sure by now you all know that Linda extended the challenge so that we have until January 8th to post all our entries.  The last two tags which made up the extension were to be thank you notes.  That way we all got a head start on the holiday thank you notes!  All the rules of the challenge can be found here.  And, Linda's second bonus tag can be seen here.   One of the things I liked about Linda's tag is the way she folded it.   I like the matchbook folded note and I hadn't done one in a long time.  Here is a picture of my tag.

 

 

While my tag is much different than Linda's I did take inspiration from what she did. I loved her  wintery theme and  I used her fold idea.  I also used another of the Clearly for Art foliage from Tim Holtz' December tag technique.  Linda cut a snowflake border, which I want to try sometime.  I love the almost icy look you get from using the frosted film over the clear Clearly for Art.  By the way, that's a product from Wendy Vecchi which you can find in Linda's boutique.  Anyway, on to the details of the tag.  I used Bundled Sage, Picket Fence, and Brushed Pewter Distress Paint to color the background using the marbling method.  I dried it and then spritzed it with Perfect Pearls mist.  Once I had it folded I used clear embossing ink on the edges and embossed it with silver EP.  A cut apart from Authentique's new winter collection seemed perfect to add to the front of the note.  I used Kaiser Kraft Sparkles on the tabs.  I added a larger Sparkles dot to the hole at the top of the tag with the foliage under it.  The gem topped paper clip keeps it closed.

 

 



 

 

For the inside of the tag I stamped the thank you using TH Simple Sayings set and the label stamp that comes with it.  I embossed it with silver EP and cut it out, leaving enough space on one end to punch a hole and thread some vintage look tinsel through it. 

 

I really like the color combination I used for this tag.  I wanted something wintery but I've gotten tired of using blues and silver.   Here are some close ups.

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

So, that's it.  I have loved this challenge and I want to say thank you to Linda for hosting it.  I'm looking forward to next year.  And, I want to thank all of you who have stopped by to see what I did and left such wonderful and encouraging comments.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! 

 

I hope you have a wonderful week and for those of you enduring unusually cold temperatures in the US take care and stay as warm as possible.  Thanks for stopping by!

 







Happy New Year and a little more!

Happy New Year to all my blog friends!  I hope you have a wonderful, creative 2014.  I can't thank you enough for all the kind comments and support you all have given me this year.  Reading your blogs and seeing all the fabulously creative projects you've made has been a real joy. 

The "little more" in the title of this post is the first extension in Linda's 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style.  I was so happy when she decided to extend the challenge.  The rules are the same, take inspiration from Linda's project and create you're own version.  The difference for this extension was that the tags were "thank you" tags.  That served the purpose of getting a head start on thank you notes!  Here is what Linda's tag looks like.   And, here is my tag.

 

 

 

Linda used the technique Tim Holtz demoed for his December 12 Tags of 2013 to make her holly cluster.  I decided to use the poinsettia, as Tim did, because I wanted to use this card stock for the tag.  I had wanted to try making the poinsettia before Christmas but didn't have time.  So, this gave me the opportunity.  It's a fun thing to have in your bag of tricks.  If you check out the link above you'll be able to find out how to do it.  As I said, I wanted to use this card stock and feature the poinsettias so I traced a number 10 tag on it and cut it out.  After punching the hole in the top I folded it into thirds.  I used Tarnished Brass DP along the edges and taped the ribbon around the card bringing it up through the hole and knotting it on the front.  The poinsettia was attached using Glossy Accents.  Here is the inside.

 

 

 

 

The message was stamped on a kraft paper ATC using an old Hero Arts stamp and gold ink.  It was embossed using gold embossing powder.  I used some word stickers from Authentique on the flap. 

 

 

Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, one more to go and then we will be finished for this year.  Linda's wonderful shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique, is the sponsor of this challenge.  You should check it out because there are wonderful products at great prices. 

 

 

Thank you so much for visiting with me today.  I hope you are having a great day and that you get to spend some time creating!  See you soon.

 





 



As the season comes to a close

Hi everyone!  I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas season.  Ours has been busy and so wonderful, filled with family and friends.  Tonight we'll gather with a few close friends at our house to spend New Year's Eve quietly.  It's a tradition we all look forward to.  Some of you have asked to see pictures of our tree.  It's a very special part of Christmas to me and my family. It's filled with ornaments that I've made over the course of 41 years.  But, it also has memories of friends and travels.  Now my daughter has started the tradition of making her own gift tags that are beautiful little works of art.  I gather them all up after the packages are unwrapped and hang them on the tree.  They've become a memorable addition to the other decoration.  So, this will be a post with several photos but not much talk.  I'll be back tomorrow with the first of two tags for the finale of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year's Eve!  See you tomorrow!



And, to finish up...

...an Art Deco Christmas!  Welcome everyone!  Three days from now it will be Christmas Day and I'm sure you all are swamped with things to do.  I really appreciate you taking the time to visit with me.  Today I'm going to show you my last tag for the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie style.  It's not really the end because Linda has extended the deadline, and added two "thank you" tags to the challenge.  The deadline is now January 8th.  So, I guess you can say that it's the last tag for the original challenge!  But, I think it's my favorite!  Linda's tag, which you can see here, is Art Deco themed.  I love Art Deco!  I grew up in a house that was built in 1927 and had a lot of Art Deco elements to it.  I have some of the decorative items from the house, including a stained glass panel from the front door.  Anyway, back to the tag.  As you can see from Linda's tag she used the Deco Christmas stamp set from Tim Holtz.  I bought that set as soon as it was available and wanted to do something with it.  I never got around to it until this tag.  It was the easiest to design because I had been thinking of how to use the stamps for a while.  Then Graphic45 came out with their newest collection the beginning of December.  It's called Couture and most of the images are 1920s inspired.  Of course, I had to have the papers and the stamp sets.  So, I combined the TH stamps and the Couture stamps the tag.  Here it is.

 

 

 

I started with a size 10 tag and used Antique Linen, Tea Dye and Vintage Photo DI to ink the background.  The border is another Graphic45 stamp, from their Travelogue set I believe.  I stamped that with Sepia archival ink.  I used Tea Dye ink for the gentleman and the poinsettias from the TH stamps.  Then I took the elegantly dressed lady from the Graphic45 Couture set and stamped her with Sepia archival ink on watercolor paper and used Distress Markers to color her in.  She's wearing a lovely green dress done in Mowed Lawn.  It has dark red rhinestones embellishing it.  Her shoes and her feathered fan are done in Festive Berries and in her hair she has a circle of red rhinestones!  The beads wrapped around her one arm are red and the bracelets on her other arm are done in gold.  A golden tassel hangs from her fan.  I think she's found some quiet time before the festivities begin, don't you?   The Christmas greeting is from the TH set and is stamped on manila CS with the same inks as the background with Sepia used for the stamping.  A few tea colored rhinestones give the poinsettias some dimension.  Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tag is not as embellished as some but I love it.  And, I realized when I finished it that I had used the poinsettia stamp and another of the greeting stamps from the TH set for my first tag of the challenge!  That probably says something but I don't have time to figure out what!! 

 

I hope you'll visit Linda's shop, The Funkie Junkie Boutique, which is sponsoring the challenge.  She has a great selection of merchandise at great prices. 

 

Thank you so much for taking time to visit me.  I also want to thank you for all the support and wonderful comments you've given me this year.  I really appreciate them so much.   I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas! 





The Snow is Flying-Tag Number 11

Hello, everyone!  I'm so pleased to have you join me as we get ever closer to Christmas Day.  I can't believe we're five days away.  But, I wanted to share my tag number 11 in the  12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style. The challenge is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie Boutique. I've managed to get all 12 tags finished before the original deadline!  Linda has extended the challenge and we will have two more of her beautiful tags to be inspired by.  That's the idea behind the challenge, to be inspired by Linda's tags and take that inspiration and create something of your own.  Here is Linda's tag.  It's a beautiful tag and what really inspired me was the colors she used and that fabulous glittered snowflake border.  So, this is what I came up with.

 

 

I started with the colors.  Distress Paint in Bundled Sage, Peeled Paint, and Crushed Olive is what I used to do the background.  I did the wrinkle-free technique with the paints and then dried them.  The tag was covered with Rock Candy Crackle Paint and I sprinkled Rock Candy Distress Glitter on the tag.  I used a new stamp from Crafty Individuals.  I've never used their stamps before but Barbara at Joggles got them in and I just fell in love with all their designs.  They are really beautiful.  I thought this one with the deer in the snowy woods was so appropriate for the idea I had for this tag, snow flying, which is where the name of the post comes from.  I stamped it on watercolor paper with Chipped Sapphire DI. I embossed it with Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder.   After cutting it out I attached it to the tag. 

 

The snowflake border was cut with the Snowflurries on the edge die.  I used white glitter card stock.  I decided to attach it under the edge of the tag and have it extending out from the tag.  I did that once before with an on the edge die and really like that effect.  I cut some other snowflakes with the same paper and attached them.  Some clear rhinestones and a border of rhinestones finishes the tag.

 

Here are some details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like this tag.  The background color is one of my favorites and a little variation on the seasonal colors. 

 

Thank you so much for stopping by today.  I hope you are enjoying the season and have all your preparations under control.  I'll be back in a day or two with tag number 12, which just happens to be one of my very favorite of the tags I've made this year!  Have a great day!