Well, I think I can officially say, "Merry Christmas, everyone!!" since it's Christmas Eve. Wanted to share a few projects with my "glad tidings" today...

This scrapbook layout is one that didn't quite get finished in time for the Embellish challenge of using creme, brown and a color of your choice in a scrapbook layout--a first for me since I've been blogging. I know it needs improvement--but I'm fine with it and am so happy to see this favorite photo of my family in a completed layout.

This next project is a little Christmas cash holder made with a Spellbinder label (is it #4?). The number has rubbed off my case.

Finally, two Christmas cards in some favorite Christmas colors for me...

...this one being my favorite with this sweet vintage K & Co. image.

I pray everyone enjoys a Christmas full of the sweetest Christmas blessings!! I am thankful for each and every blogging friend I've met in the last year!! You've all provided me with such sweet inspiration and one-of-a-kind friendship!

Glad Tidings to you!!!

Ahh...I love clicking away at a new post!! Especially this one...my first post with my "new look"!! If you're a return visitor...what do you think?!? I love, love, LOVE it and, as I type, I can't wait to get to the "Publish Post" button to see how this finished project looks surrounded by the lovely, soft colors and images my wonderful new friend, Viola, has given my blog. If you have never met her, you must go visit her NOW! Well...do me a favor and take a quick look at MY card first...once you get to her blog...you won't want to leave!! (Love you, Viola!!)

O.K...moving on...gotta pick up the critters shortly...The Embellish challenge is to use the colors below on a holiday project. I didn't have time to get super creative, so mine is JUST a card. (Sorry to disappoint.) But this IS one of my favorite color combo's...

I couldn't help but envision pretty, lush patterns in pretty, lush layers...

with a classic sentiment...
Thus, the finished product...

I admit, I'm just a sucker for scallops! So I used Paper Studio's "Mirabelle", and My Minds Eye's "Bella Rose" papers and layered them, one on top of the other. The bottom scallop is stamped from PTI's original Guide Lines set. I just can't seem to put away the Tattered Angels chipboard frames either. The bow is made from another favorite--ribbon from MemrieMare at Etsy.

Sure would have liked to have made another card with these colors, but I'm in the middle of preparing the kids' program at church. Little extra time for at least a week!

I hope you're having a great day! Please know that I appreciate each and every visit!!

Thank you again, Viola!!

Geri

The Shabby Tea Room has a wonderful challenge up (and at this point, it's almost over!)..."What Are You Thankful For?" Let me say, for starters, I'm thankful for this challenge blog! It gave me my start in "challenge blogging" and something that has been such a wonderful creative outlet for me. Just last week, I was looking back at old posts (like I had nothing else to do!!!) and reading old comments on past projects. I met so many wonderful people in the Tea Room, and was so encouraged by the feedback I received there! And I was so pleased to see that their current challenge fit perfectly with a project I needed to complete this week. (Actually, I should have completed it 2 weeks ago, but let's not go there, shall we NOT?)

My dear sweet sister has a late October birthday and I really wanted to give her something handmade. She has been working feverishly preparing her home, not only for the normal Thanksgiving crowd, but for some extra-special guests from Guatemala who will be visiting through the holiday. Since she has been working so hard to have her home ready and comfortable for everyone, I wanted her gift from me to be something special she could display for the Thanksgiving holiday, and something that would remind her of this extra-special Thanksgiving for years to come.I bought some pretty gold glittered K & Co. sentiment stickers and found a $1.99 whitewashed frame at JoAnn's last week to alter and embellish for her. I also used my very most favorite K & Co. rub-ons and my PTI Leaf Prints stamps and dies. The leaves are cut from burlap, felt and watercolor paper. I have used a variety of Tim Holtz distress inks EVERYWHERE for soft color, and used some on just a bit of a paper doily to add to the top of my tag. I also added part of an old screw-back earring to embellish the tag and ribbon. The outside dimensions are about 8" x 8", and I think she'll like it. Her biggest problem, with 4 grown children and little Maria and Nola, will be deciding which small picture to put in it. Oh, well...I better figure out how to pack it up for next-day delivery mail tomorrow. I would love to be there when she gets it out of her mailbox! Her company arrives tomorrow and I am counting on her being too busy to be checking on my blog.

Thanks so much for stopping!

I pray that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving surrounded by those you love!!

Geri

Barely getting another card wrapped up in time! (Story of my life!) This one is for the Embellish challenge: using rust, yellow, green and VINTAGE styling.

For someone who loves "vintage", I sure did struggle with this card. I didn't want to use a flower though...I guess I figured it would look like everyone else's flower, ya know. Flowers come natural for me though, so doing without just caused me a lot of grief!! I went with leaves instead. I do love my PTI leaves! And it's such a short season that I get to use them! I like to cut them out of lots of different things, and on this card I used watercolor paper, felt and burlap...I also incorporated a seam binding bow and embellished it with a vintage earring. I used some K & Co. paper, and Tim Holtz grungeboard and distress inks to give the card an aged style. Everything got inked...from head to toe! I also used a couple die cut Journaling Frames from Creative Imaginations. Lots of pretty shapes in this package!

You know how lighting varies the colors in photos...so I'm sharing two. This one, outside...

And this one, inside... Thanks to the Design Team for their one of a kind inspiration and the chance to play again!

Have a great day, and thanks so much for stopping!

Geri

This challenge has been so much fun. I can't say that I'm happy with all my cards...but I certainly did have fun...shopping for my treasures...and creating with them. Betsy Veldman's challenge was to incorporate some vintage items in our projects. All I really had was some jewelry and trims...not really any paper or fabric items. In a local shop I found these two cards. Loved the embossed and chalked look of this one printed in Germany...

And I loved this little verse inside this sweet little card...

I clipped out and arranged the flowers and wove some seam binding through them...cut the verse with a Spellbinder die, and used some of my favorite Papertrey cardstock and inks to put it all together...

The earring is an oldie, too, along with the tiny metal flowers I clipped off an old pin.

My next treasure was this old greeting card.
I really loved the colors in this one...

This old hanky had similar colors and I thought the leaves looked festive. I did some tea staining with it...

Again, I used my favorite Papertrey cardstocks, one of my favorite Cuttlebug embossing folders and some pretty inks to bring out the colors in the card. The Tattered Angels chipboard framed in my favorite image from the original card...the pretty carriage...

You can see the border of the hanky I used. I cut a tag and some holly from paper left from the original card (the card had lots of small holly accents in the plum colors). I thought the vintage earring brought out the blues I could see in the background of the card, and the seam binding Etsy - Memriemare) worked well with the other colors. I added some glitter to the carriage and the chipboard frame...hard to see in the photo.

For my final card I used an image found just inside the cover of this book, The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls. I hate to think about it as vintage, as it was printed the year before I was born, 1963. I am so excited about pulling more images from this book for future projects!

I used my Tim Holts Distress Inks on the edges of the focal image. Added some Papertrey paper and carstock, trim (not so vintage), twill ribbon, and a flower made with tissue, Glimmer Mist, and a vintage button...I love making my own flowers, but I am going to have to practice with these tissue ones a little more. I loved Betsy's inspration for that, though!

There just weren't enough hours in the week for this challenge, once I started looking and imagining how all these lovely images and fabrics might be used. Thanks so much to one of my favorite artists in the whole world, Betsy Veldman, for putting it out there for us!!

I have always wanted to play along on one of her challenges, but this is the first time my schedule cooperated. Fun, fun, FUN!!!

Thank you so much for visiting me today!

Hope your weekend is WONDERFUL!!

Geri

Hello, Friends!! I'm back with an Embellish Challenge card today! This was a fun challenge but was truly a challenge for me. With the required felt I had on hand, the colors and the card seemed to come together in a style different from what I normally go for...more cute-sie and quirky. I always learn from trying new things, though...that's why I love these challenges!

My card was delivered this evening. As I began to see the style coming together, I thought,"This would be a cute card for a little girl!" We were in need of one of those as we needed to deliver a belated birthday gift to one of my daughter's sweet neighbor friends after school. (Happy Birthday, Halle!!) It turned out to be a cheery little thing...and she really loved it!!

I was inspired by the adorable rolled flowers some of the DT gals embellished their cards with using MFT's die made just for that. (How wonderful would that be!?!)They were especially cute with this bold color combo, but they were also especially PERFECT!! I knew I couldn't duplicate that and decided to come up with another felt flower...something super simple. I did that with my Spellbinder circle dies by cutting and layering the circles in an off-centered manner. Layered a couple buttons on top of that and added the Kraft leaves.

The finished product is pretty self-explanatory...

I pulled it all together with some paper from My Mind's Eye, more PTI cardstock, dies, felt, twine and the "smile" sentiment (stamped on the felt with StazOn), Spellbinder dies and some stitching.
Like I said...not my usual style...but I am happy with it.
Hope it makes you "smile"!!
Thanks so much for stopping!
Geri

Happy Friday, and Happy Fall, everyone! Hope you don't tire of my Fall cards and Fall leaves, but, it's a short-lived season, and I want to enjoy and celebrate every beautiful moment of it!!

Like this one...in a field that borders the subdivision right behind us. I could see between the rooftops that these trees looked like they were on fire, with the dark clouds that had passed behind them and the sun that was setting very low still shining on them. Jillian and I grabbed the camera and our bikes to try to snatch a shot before the sun got too low. Sadly, we were too late for the view I was seeing from our house, but...if you look closely, you can see the rainbow that was starting over on the right. Ya don't see too many of those in the Fall, now, do ya?! Such a pretty evening!!

So, needless to say, Fall is still my inspiration for card making. I used this sketch from Card Patterns for my card. I was also inspired by a post from Agata's (Card Patterns DT member)blog where she had tried some techniques from a Jennifer McGuire class on Distress Inks. I love Jennifer McGuire, and the Distress Inks and Agata's finished products, so I checked out the videos and incorporated some of what was taught in my card.

I used three different colors of DI's on my large Leaf Print (PTI) image, then misted the stamp with water before stamping on my leaf (die cut from watercolor paper). I did the same thing with the leafy images I used on the watercolor paper circle die cut, although I didn't get as much water on those so they stayed a little crisper. I got a nice water color effect on the leaf, though, and I liked how the colors muddled together. I didn't use any misting with the leaf vein stamp, or the sentiment. Then I just warmed up the circle with more distress inks.

I hated to rely on doilies again for the side half-circle shapes, I just couldn't dig up anything else that I thought worked better. Anyway, I am pleased with the card and colors. And I am definitely going to keep experimenting with the new DI techniques. It's really alot of fun, and it turns out differently every time!!

Thanks so much for visiting!!

Autumn Blessings to you, dear friends and family!!

Geri

It's Fall Break here in Clay Co., Indiana and we've had a fun and busy long weekend! Now that things are winding down and the boredom is starting to set in...the critters thought a little crafting was in order. Jillian and friend dug in first and moved on. But Caleb and Jonah thought it was high time for their blog debut...

Here's Jonah ( 7) and his

CREEPY creation.

Nicely done, don't ya think?

And here's Caleb's (11)...

He even embossed!! So what if that ugly carpet in the basement is a little stiff where he was working with the heat tool!! It was all in the name of good crafty love!!

I'm so thankful for my crafty critters!! We've had a great weekend! Hope you have, too!!

If you have any comments for the boys, they would love to hear from you!!

Geri

Well, what do you think of these pretty little leaves?! I just love 'em. Just got them (Leaf Prints and dies) from Papertrey Ink and couldn't wait to try them out with this pretty Card Patterns sketch. I also couldn't wait to try cutting things other than cardstock...like this Harvest Gold felt (PTI) and especially the burlap. I love the burlap look!! I just put a layer of Mod Podge on one side, and that kept it from fraying out once cut. I stamped them both and edged them with SU's Ruby Red. It doesn't show much in this photo but looks really pretty in person.

I stamped some smaller leaf images and embossed the largest flourish from Fancy Flourishes (PTI) as a background on some Paper Studio paper. My sentiment is on one of the Fillable Frames...

The bottom portion is a pretty Colorbok paper that I used my EK Success Bracket edger on. I used lots of Ranger Distress Inks up top to add to an aged Fall look. I'm pleased with how this final product turned out (after LOTS of experimenting)! Can't wait to play with these leaves more...all kinds of possibilities!!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you're enjoying this early Fall season! (It's beautiful here in Indiana today!!)

Geri

Barely squeaking out a card for the current Embellish challenge...which is to use background stamping with the above colors. At first glance I thought, "These colors just aren't for me". But as I scrolled down through the DT inspiration pieces...I fell in love. Gorgeous work, I tell ya, that made these colors look like they were DESTINED to be together. I used the images below for my background. The butterfly is from Butterfly Dreams (PTI) and the other images are from the first set I ever purchased from Papertrey Ink, Boxes, Bags and Tags. (I love this little set and think it makes the prettiest background pattern!)

The DT used lots of tone-on-tone looks which I loved. And they used butterflies, too. I couldn't help but go with that.

My card has a mixture of embossing and straight stamping. I used some alchohol inks to die some creme seam binding to make it match. I think it did o.k. The really BLACK paper is Black Suede from Hot Off the Press. I love that stuff!!

Hope you like it!!

Gotta go...it's time to get the critters!!

Thanks for stopping!!

Geri

The LAST thing I should have been doing today was making a card...But challenge sketch #83 over at Card Patterns was screaming..."Play me!! Play me!!", and I finally HAD to give in. The end result was nothing to boast about, but it was fun to make. (I know, I need to work on my "fun" style!). Everything about this card is SO last year--Heidi Grace stamps, paper from DCWV, Paper Studio, Paper Pizzazz and one other unknown scrap. Oh, the EK Success Bracket punch isn't old--it's fairly new so I'm using it all the time. It is difficult to see, but the spider is done in purple glitter. Hope you can find a little somethin' you like! Thanks for stopping! (Gotta get this posted before time runs out!!)

Geri

We celebrated Jillian's birthday last week--what a whirlwind week! She's been marking the days off on her calendar since the first day of the month, and I don't think she was a bit disappointed...

We didn't do a big "friend party" thing, but she did have neighbor friends over to play for the evening and to witness the blowing of the candles on the cake...which I DIDN'T MAKE!! I won't say which grocery store did...but I will say...I KNOW my mother, who was a cake decorator for as long as I can remember, was looking down down from Heaven saying, "Don't you dare buy that cake!! DON'T DO IT!!"

I was cringing myself...but the girls didn't care!

And we can't forget the DQ ice cream cake with more friends and family! (Darn those leftovers!)

I made these little treats for the friends who visited on the special day ...

They were made with MME Quite Contrary papers that I picked up a CHA. I also made my FIRST (don't laugh) trip to Archivers (Yes, you're right, I don't get out much.) a couple weeks ago. It was DREAMY, and I got these chipboard frames with alphabet letters from Tattered Angels that I've been seeing on everyone's projects on the internet. I didn't realize they came with letters, which I really didn't care about. And, obviously, there were way more in the package than I would have expected or needed...but I bought 'em anyway!! (They were on my "must have" list.) They ended up being the perfect way to personalize these little mini composition books from Walmart.
The girls were very pleased to have a pretty little somethin' to take home. Lots of happy campers...including my little Jilli-bean!!

Thanks for stopping by to visit!

Have a great day!

Geri