In With The New

Creating art is so much fun and can be very rewarding.
However, looking at a blank sheet of paper can be quite stressful until you are given a challenge for inspiration.
For several years I have looked forward to The Created Byhand Tuesday Challenges and would participate when time allowed.
This is the final Created by hand Tuesday challenge, so I had to dive into the stash and create something special. It began with some layered die shapes in solid colors and prints. After inking these pieces and layering them on the card, out came the stamps and the collage sheets. Several of these pieces were glued on to the ATC and embellished with Stickles. Color was added with pencils and a little ribbon with the tiniest bows finished the card.
I shall miss the Created Byhand Tuesday Challenges, however, I am sure Quitfire will have something new and inspiring to take us into the future.

Going Green

It seems that the buzzword for the new year is sustainability.
We have been talking about it in Girl Scouts for awhile now.
A few years ago the troop set out on the "Get Moving Journey", while on this journey we explored different types of energy and we touched on the subject of sustainability. We also began to think about recycling and giving new life to used objects or re-purposing. The girls decided that they wanted to learn to sew, so a simple project was planned. We headed for our closets to get our old T-shirts so we could remake them into tote bags! This is a wonderful project for the first time sewer, as it only requires one seam! (To make: 1. cut off the sleeves just before the seams 2. using a paper plate as a guide cut a half circle at the neck 3. turn inside out 4. sew the bottom seam with a reinforced stitch 5. turn)
This is such a great project for the girls, so we will be doing it on Friday Night at our Neighborhood Girl Scout Event!
For all of you who know me really well, I am a really girly girl, so of course I had to cut an extra strip from the bottom to create a bow on one of the handles!


If you want to create some fabulous fashions from used clothing there are several books which can give you a great start:

So clean out the closet, grab your sewing machine and get the girls together and "Resew"!

Happy New Year

Here's to making 2012 the best year in history!
I hope you join me in striving to fill each day with rewarding experiences to enrich the relationships within our communities, our families and among our friends.
My wish for you is to have an abundance of creative moments infused with love, joy and prosperity not only for the next twelve months, but forever.
Happy New Year!

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!