Holiday at Who-ville

Happy New Year to all my friends and family.
I hope that this holiday season was extremely joyous for you!
As part of the tradition here, I was fortunate to attend The Grand Canyon Baha'i Conference at the Marriott Desert Ridge Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.
It was wonderful to see and visit many friends and family members
and make many new friends,
listen to fascinating talks and listen to amazing musical entertainment.
One of the major attractions for the holiday season at this resort every year is the Holiday Gingerbread Village on display in the lobby.
This year the pastry chefs were inspired to make a cookie version of Who-ville.
It was outstanding and as seen here, the children found it hard to keep their hands off the various cookies and candies that were within reach for their taking!

The top photograph was taken by my sister and it was hilarious taking her to see the cookie creation for the fist time, as it had been signed by this visitor who thought the cookie crumble should be a guestbook...

......however, she did not notice the autograph until it had been pointed out to her!

This house was so beautiful and big!
It was fascinating to see the train circle not only around this ornate building,
but the entire festive fantasy village!

Santa ready to visit all the children who live in the shoe!

A wonderful house complete with decorated trees!

And of course "The Cat In The Hat"!
If you look closely you can see the hand on the left side of the picture,
it's holding on to yummy candy canes for good girls and boys!

Thank you for visiting my blog today and through out the past year. I hope to have many wonderful adventures in the upcoming year that I can share with you! For more wonderful holiday cheer please visit Beverly for this wonderful holiday Pink Saturday!
Happy New Year!

Holiday Art

Trading art is so much fun that it's very difficult to turn down a swap, especially if it's a fun challenge with players whose art is wonderful!
When the call for a holiday tag swap was announced, I new I had to participate. The requirements were to alter six manila tags each with at least one Artchix image in a holiday theme! How fun it was to create these tags.
Images from 3 college sheets were used all from the Artchix holiday collection. They are so much fun to use- the images are so colorful!
To begin I selected the images that were needed for the six different tags. I used a variety. Girl's, Santa and and postage, all quite vintage looking. The images were then mixed with various holiday papers, some stamped images, a little coloring with markers, a little glitter and glue~voila the tags are completed.

For more fun holiday posts visit Beverly's Pink Saturday, where there is a mix of pink and holiday posts that are so delightful!
Please leave a comment about your holiday artistic creations, I would love to read them!

So Grateful

This is a wonderful time of year, a time when we spend time reflecting on what we are grateful and thankful for. These ATC's, created for a live swap held every month, are a brief, although important expression of the tremendous bounties in my life~ Faith, Family and Friends. There is so much to be grateful and thankful for an ATC could not hold it all.
On this special day to celebrate all that we have to be thankful for, I share with you a special quotation from The Bab:
"I give Thee thanks for all Thy goodly gifts and I render Thee thanksgiving for all Thy bounties." The Bab
May all my friends and family be united in loving thoughts as they give thanks for all the wonderful bounties we enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween Swapping

The month has passed us by so quickly.

It seems just a short time ago we were planning the Spooky Halloween activities,
tonight we celebrate!

I put on my costume and took my little poochon "Trick or Treating"

He loves to see all the children and get scared with their costumes!

The treat I received was the terrific haunted houses from the Artchix sister group.....and here they are:

Have a Haunting Halloween!

Ghosts, Goblins and Witches Delight

It's the witching hour and it's an exciting time to be part of the crafting community as most of us roll up our sleeves and enjoy creating spooky Halloween projects.

I am no exception, I always adore a Halloween swap.

This year I joined the Artchix sister group Haunted House swap. It is such a pleasure swapping with this wonderful and talented group of artists. Pictured below are the houses that were sent to the hostess for swapping. Artchix Halloween and paper doll collage sheets were used for the images, along with an old page a day calendar. I recycled tag from scratch pads for the houses and purchased some wonderful vintage crepe paper from my friend Jennifer at Mystic Paper in Downtown Mesa, AZ. The frilly crepe added the finishing touch along with the inked edges and the black stickles on the chimney's which added a little texture and dimension.

Jack'o'lanterns

Hocus Pocus

Pumpkin Pie

The littlest pumpkin

Sweet Pumpkin

Beheaded

Magic 8 Ball

Beyond the Shadow

Ghost

Enchanted

Sweet Appple

Head Games

For more Halloween trick or treats visit Beverly's Pink Saturday, at How Sweet The Sound. There you will meet some wonderful bloggers who share their terrific ideas for this splendid autumn.

Happy Saturday!

Soul Saturday & Sunday

Having a little more time on the weekend is a wonderful thing, so grateful for Saturday & Sunday! These are two days that we may be able to pause for a little devotion, prayer and reflection. Today I was thrilled to see two friends on the Oprah Show Super Soul Sunday.

Devon and Golriz share a little Peace on a Los Angeles Street.

The question is where do you find peace?
Please leave a comment on your thoughts......I would love to read them.

Find more wonderful things and pink on Beverly's Blog. The weekends are so much richer when you share a little Pink Saturday!

Have a wonderful day!

New Challenges

Creating is so much more fun when you have the opportunity to post the finished project to share with everyone! I am so thrilled to have created a new atc...and the inspiration was the pink card with the cat! Starting with bright color and black and white, I thought I would love to see a card with more simple shapes. The bright colors would create a great finished ATC, so I used this fabulous turquoise paper with the gold circles wrapped in white spots. The addition of a little texture by adding crepe paper and white gel pen and with a little ribbon for the collar and there is such a sweet card.
For more lovely Pink Saturday, head over to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Crafting with Purpose

It's been quite some time since my last post. I have a few issues remaining with the computer, one being the scanner-printer and the fact that the graphics card does not process the photos I send to my mail to post as .jpg files, which makes it extremely difficult to download pictures of my projects.
This is the reason for the dark photo of my latest apron project! The tea towel used is a wonderful shade of yellow with the prettiest paisley's in pink, blue and red. I choose the ruffles and trim for this apron to be light blue polka dots (can't resist dots) and pink baby gingham. The finishing touch for this apron is the pink ric-rak.
This pattern is so easy and the aprons look so pretty on!
Please leave a comment if you would like to make this apron with your email address and I will send the instruction sheet to you.

Computer Meltdown

Yes, this was me several weeks ago. I am so happy to be up and running now. There are still a few glitches and programs that need to be installed, however I am able to spend countless hours in front of the computer blog hopping! Oh what a happy day!
Before the crash I purchased a flash drive to download all the wonderful PDF template and patterns that I collected from the talented blogs that I follow, but I never opened it. The result is that I lost most of my wonderful template for paper crafts.
It will now be used when ever a print file is created, so I will have the option to print from the computer or the copy shop.

If this has happened to you, please share a comment, I would love to read your story!
For some Pink, please visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound!

Make Mine Pink

It's so amazing to me when it's time to turn off the computer on my work desk and lock up on Friday afternoon to go home for the weekend. The week passes by so very quickly, I have a hard time keeping up. There are so many things I would love to accomplish, but never seem to have enough time to get to those things.
I have been away from my home computer for the last couple of weeks and haven't been able to post for the past couple of Saturdays, so I will be sending out the Sewing package to Trish and catching up with Beverly at How Sweet the Sound and sharing a bit of Pink Saturday.I have made Pink Saturday a part of my weekend and enjoy ready so many pink posts, they always sweeten the weekend. I have met so many wonderful bloggers and look forward to seeing and sharing so many beautiful things every weekend!

This week, like last week I headed over to Mystic Paper after work. I love Jennifer's Vintage Scrapbooking Shop. She has so many wonderful things in the store, I always have something to add to my "have to create" list whenever I pay her a visit.

Last week she was so generous to let my girl scout troop meet in her new "Studio 32", so the sewing machines were set up with the ironing board and the girls made pillowcase bags to participate in the pillowcase project. In the three hours that we were there we made one dozen pillowcase bags made from the most fun printed fabrics!

Tonight, I went in to see what new things were happening there and I saw the most fun vintage inspired pin cushions, I had to share them for ink Saturday!! They are so pretty and Jennifer will be hosting a class to make these lovely beauties on July 9th! See the class schedule or give the store a call if you would like to sign up!

There are so many more cute projects displayed at Mystic Paper. If you happen to be in or near Mesa, you must plan a visit, especially if it's the 2nd Friday night of the month...when the entire street is open late and everyone is out for the night. It's a fun event and there is always a live ATC swap to participate in.... June's theme is......Sewing! So if you're in the mood to whip stitch some cards...come and join us!

Happy Pink Saturday!

Craft something beautiful!

Walking in Pink

Life has been extremely busy during the past few weeks, however I didn't want any more time to pass without posting for this weeks Pink Saturday! Life here in Mesa, Arizona can get too warm to go outside for an extended length of time, so while the temperature is not too high, I seize the opportunity to go outdoors. Last night was no exception. It was the 2nd Friday on Main and the theme of the evening was Rock! We traded Rock themed ATC's at Mystic Paper....

Jennifer's Beatles Card

Charlotte's GreenDay Card

My Survivor Card

A little later in the evening............

I ran into the Ghost Busters.

And the sweetest Lolita, cute bow on the waist of the skirt . Oh, I do so love the frilly lace.

If you look at this little Lolita she's wearing those cute Pink shoes!

There is always a little magic in those Friday nights, like Cinderella, I'm sad when It's time to go...but I must hurry before my coach turns into a pumpkin!

As life has been so busy for me the past week, I am going to extend the sewing package for another week, so please read on and post a comment if you would like to receive the extra loot bag from the Singer Sewing Party!

Please visit Beverly at "How Sweet the Sound" for more delightful Pink Saturday!

Mother's Day Sewing Party

What a wonderful day, and Happy Mother's Day to Mother's everywhere. It has been a fabulous Mother's Day weekend for me as I was one of the 815 Singer Sewing Party hostesses across the nation this weekend. I am so fortunate to have been chosen and thrilled to have my friend's be among the 9,635 participates of the is extraordinary event!

It has been an exciting event. Singer provided a Style Confidence sewing machine to each of the hostesses with an orientation class one week ago.

Another party hostess at the orientation class with the sewing teacher!

Along with the sewing machine to sew the party project, there was a loot bag for each of the guests filled with sewing favors!


Patterns, threads, measuring information, fabric, and coupons!

It was so enjoyable and great fun!

Each of the guests took turns sewing the party project which was provided by Singer and they so much fun to make!

I have one more set of patterns that I would love to giveaway, if you would like to receive them, please leave a comment and I will select a winner at random on May 15.

It's Pretty with Pink!

I have been having so much fun this Pink Saturday with an orientation class for the sewing machine Singer is has provided for the sewing party next week. It was so much fun taking this class with two other sewing party winners. We made the party project while we became familiar with the Singer Confidence Stylist sewing machine. It's a nice machine for the beginner or fashion sewer. Speaking of fashion, it's been fun sewing my first apron from the book "How to Make Aprons" published by Bramcoast Publications.

It was made from a square tablecloth because I thought it might be fun to wear a matching apron to complete the theme of the table! The pattern did not have ruffles, so I thought I would add at one neckline and on the pockets. Making the pattern was not as difficult as I had thought, so I know I will be making many more of the apron styles that are featured in this book. The pattern that I used is titled "pattern for the mature figure! I just liked it for the style, not the name!

This is the apron laying down....



And hanging up layered over clothes.

More vintage style aprons....

This cute apron is from Couture Cupcakes, vintage aprons that you can purchase if you desire a vintage inspired apron and don't want to sew!

For more super sweet pink posts visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound, featuring Aunt Snow of Doves Today! Have a fabulous Pink Saturday!