HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I'm ringing in the new year with a wish that everyone will find more time for whatever makes you happiest and, of course, for making art. Has anyone made any resolutions for the year?

Time Flies

I can't believe it's been more than two weeks since I've blogged. The holidays have a way of sucking up the hours. My five grown children came home, along with one boyfriend, so we had a houseful along with some fun times. The last one left early this morning, so peace has once again descended here. I look forward to getting back into "the routine" and making more art. But that will have to wait a bit longer - first there's cleanup duty!

Disaster!

Oh no, I can't believe I did this! I made a soldered ornament for work's ornament exchange on Sunday. I had it all finished and was polishing it, when I dropped it on the counter and broke the glass on the back! This was an unusual size of glass and I only had two pieces. Plus, I'm working all day tomorrow and the party is Sunday afternoon! I am so bummed - the soldering even came out pretty well on this one. Have no idea what to do - due to the time I might just wrap it up as is and tell the recipient that I will redo it. That seems tacky, but I don't know what else to do now... Two morals to this story - don't wait til the last minute to do something and don't drop glass! Grrrrr!

And more...

I've finished the calendar and it's going in the mail tomorrow! Above are the last four months. Below is a photo of the front with a picture of our family. This is actually a picture frame with an easel which holds it upright. The second photo shows how the pages will flip over for each month.

More calendar pages

Four more months:

Calendar gift

I am working on a calendar for my mother-in-law for Christmas. The monthly pages are 7 1/2" x 8 1/2" using patterned papers, stamping, glitter and lots of embellishments. The support for the calendar will be an 8 1/2" x 10" "naked" chipboard frame that I will decorate and the pages will be attached with two binder rings at the top. I'm about finished with the pages and have the frame to do before putting it all together and getting it in the mail in time for Christmas. Here are the first four months.

Winter in TX

Thursday and Friday were super hot here. We had a record-breaking high of 84 degrees on Friday! So, while I was doing a little Christmas shopping, I just had to take some pictures of these beautiful store window displays, thinking that it might be the only way to experience winter!

The first is the window display of Anthropologie. Look at all those intricate snowflakes hung on invisible thread. This store location is on a corner and they had at least four large windows dressed like this. Lovely! And, they had the cutest little red knitted mittens for their gift cards.

And, right next door and not to be outdone, was the Apple store. Their two large windows sported these great snowballs. I think they were made of quilt batting. At least temporarily I could

feel like it was indeed the winter and holiday season.

More cards

Here's another card (above). I love this paper by Creative Imaginations. The stamp is from My Sentiments Exactly. I embossed it in black on red cardstock. The ornament is attached with pop dots. The sentiment is ribbon from Joann's. I made alot of this card below. The stamps are from Rubber Soul and this was a company sample I copied. The wreath and sentiment are stamped with SU Certainly Celery on cream cardstock. The berries were punched with 1/16 and 1/8 hole punches and the wreath was layered first on red cardstock, then green metallic. The card is much creamier and more elegant looking IRL than this scan shows.
And this one uses another of the SU tree image layered on a background (Just for Fun) stamped in red. Looks much different than the one posted yesterday stamped in blue!
I'm off to make more cards. I'm up to about 60 now!

Christmas Cards Galore

Every year I get an idea for a card and purchase a few stamps - but I can never stick to one design for long. 100 identical cards is just too boring, especially with all the great stamps on the market! So, here are a few of this year's Christmas cards which I'm trying to finish.



















The card on the above left uses a stamp from Stampers Anonymous. I dry-brushed gold acrylic paint on the back of acetate, then stamped on the front with Staz On. The card on the above right is similar to one I posted awhile back which I had done for a "make-n-take" at the store. I used alcohol inks on glossy cardstock, Twinkling H2Os for coloring in the images (sprinkled with glitter while wet) and a Stampendous clear stamp set.

The Santa stamp on the next card is by Inkadinkado. These colors didn't scan well, as the base card and background of stamped image are cream and the ink and layer are dark green. I threaded gold beads onto cream sheer ribbon before attaching to the layer. This was actually CASEd from somewhere on the web - sorry I can't remember where to give credit.

The blue card uses 3 stamps from Just for Fun. This is actually their "Project of the Month" card on their website. I love the little girl and her doll. The words are all one background stamp and the snowflakes a border. I added Stickles dots inside the snowflakes.

I'm working on more - will share tomorrow. So many stamps, so little time...

I'm back!

Arrived home this afternoon from a very quick trip to Chicago to see the flamenco dance recital of my daughter. When I left yesterday it was 74 degrees in Ft. Worth - today it was 21 degrees with a biting wind in Chicago! Even so, it was fun to be in the city at this time of year when lots of holiday decorations are up. And the lake sure looked different from summertime! But it's good to be home...

New header

Did you notice my new header? I have held off changing it until December 1st - just doesn't seem right to put up Christmas stuff until December. I'm so excited to share it with you - I love it! I have tried and tried to make my own, but finally was forced to get some hlep. This was made by the very talented Kris Hurst at Blissfull Elements (http://krislhurst.blogspot.com) - check out her wonderful art on her blog.

I'm off to Chicago again tomorrow for a few days. My oldest daughter is taking flamenco dance and will be in a studio recital tomorrow evening. Looking forward to that, plus getting to see three of my girls, but not the cold weather! It will seem even colder coming from the 70-degree weather the past few days here in Texas.