A Swap For All Seasons-February, Part II-what I sent to Marti

Marti was my "mail-to" person this month and I was a little bit intimidated at first..

Marti is a Class A paper artist...she does beautiful work and teaches at Paper Tales, in San Diego, which is wonderful shop known for it's great assortment of paper goods and renowned group of instructors. Marti's blog is called Artful Curiosities and you really should take a bit of time to visit.

I always like to snoop around visit the blog of the person I am creating for, it gives me an idea of what they might like. When I visited at Marti's blog I discovered that she is a Marie Antoinette lover! There are several different Marie swap groups around and she participates regularly in those.

I hunted around for some appropriate images and this is what I came up with...

a chipboard hanging tag with paper, a doily and some digital embellishment..

The tag is digital but the button is real. Can you read the sentiment on the tag?
My attempt at a little Marie humor!

On the back of the tag, I added a little unknown to me fact....

On the card I used another image of Marie...very ornate...

The card and tag were fun to make. I liked the little challenge of finding something Marti might find appealing. Then there was the destash...I have lots of red!

I think we are all enjoying these monthly swaps. Each month there are some new swappers joining in and maybe some regulars taking a break. You can come and go with this one. The assignemnts are already given for March, but if you go to A Swap For All Seasons, on March 1, you can sign up for the April Swap. Our darling leader, Linda, gives us lots of inspiration almost every day and on the 15th of the month, there is a drawing for some free treats!

Have a great weekend everyone...hope it's sunny where you are!

xoxo

Joyce

A Swap For All Seasons...December...Green

I am participating in a fun, monthly swap that started in October of this year.

A Swap For All Seasons

is a swapping blog, designed and maintained by Linda Smith...hostess extraordinaire!

Each month we are assigned someone to design a card and a tag for and also send one destash item.

Likewise, someone (not the person you are sending to) will be making and sending items to you. It's easy and lots of fun and I'm meeting some really talented women.

The interesting part is that there is a theme and a color each month to make it challenging . If you were ever interested in getting your feet wet with a swap,this is the one to start with. Hop on over to the blog and read about it. All of the guidelines are there. Just click on the link in my first paragraph.

The next sign-up is December 1st (and just for that day!) and  the theme will be

 Thinking of You and the color...my favorite...blue.

The Theme for December was Happy Holidays and the color was green.

My partner was the sweet and crafty (in a good way)

Susie Alles of  South City Hues. Susie has been my partner before and I loved creating for her.

The card I made...

.

Susie's favorite color is green...made it easy!

The tag...

Ice skate image, cut twice and used to make the skates and some of the holly leaves dimensional.

Except for the background papers, all of the elements of the card and the tag were digital. Of course, glitter was involved and a little paper rose on the card...

For the destash, I sent a big bunch of lovely dark green vintage seam binding and some other papers that I failed to photograph. All wrapped and ready to go...

(lunch bag, doilies and green garden twine from Home Depot!

Every month...so much fun...love this swap!

xoxo

Joyce

Random Acts of Kindness

I have spoken many times about wonderful women I've become friends with through blogging. Some have been swap partners and some have been people whose work I've admired and in writing back and forth friendships were formed. My oldest (not in terms of age but length of time we've been friends) and dearest friend is Marie, of Spun By Me. Marie is truly one of the sweetest and thoughtful women I know (but have never met in person)

Another friend I have long admired is Dee. I first became familiar with her through Flickr. Her Flickr ID is Lulu at Home and she used to post wonderful vintage pictures, many from children's books. In 2009, Dee wrote and asked me what a swap was because she had seen photos I had posted on Flickr of swap items I had received or given. We decided to do a little swap and asked Rebekah of Full of Bliss to join us. I wrote about that swap here. I reconnected with Dee when I discovered that she had opened an Etsy Shop.
This is the link to her shop, Skip Along Designs, although she's on hiatus right now. I also nagged her into suggested joining Pinterest and now we follow each other on Pinterest. She uses the ID Duchess Annie on Pinterest. So anyway, Dee's birthday was in April and I wanted to send her a little something. I made a 5X7 inch heavy chipboard tag.

Dee loves vintage things (as you can easily see by her Pinterest boards). She has a magnificent collection of old button cards and she also collects vintage images. I used the Tim Holtz dressform die and My Mind's Eye papers on this tag.

The flower was punched using many layers of vintage sewing pattern tissue with a button for the center. Some vintage lace and a pleated ruffle were added to the bottom of the tag.

A friendship tag was added to complete the tag. I sent a few other things I thought Dee would enjoy but I didn't take pictures of them.

Last week in the mail a package came for me...

If you have peeked in her Etsy Shop (you can see the sold things), you will discover that Dee specializes in digital images...cute animals and nursery rhyme characters and paper dolls and paper for scrapbooking or card making...

Polly the Paper Dolly

A sweet little cupid garland for Valentine's Day

Little Bo Peep papers in various colors...(yes, she made these, too)

These are the backs of the papers!

 Dee also included some bird-themed embellishments and little gummed tags...

The grand prize in the package was a button card from her personal collection

Isn't it dear?

All of the treats are wonderful and will be cherished but none more than the card that Dee tucked in the package.

Isn't she just the happiest little girl? She made me happy!

I have saved every card sent to me from blogging friends. Handmade or just hand-signed...they are all treasured. Thank you my friend..I loved our little swap.

xoxo

joyce

A Little Treat for the Book Group

I belong to a book group.
Most, but not all of the women are from our church.
We meet on the second Thursday of the month at each other's homes...
rotating every month. We discuss the book we've read for
that month and we have lunch provided by the hostess.
In August David & I host a cook-out for all of the Book Groupettes,
as my friend Anne refers to us, and our spouses.

Last week was the last get-together of our Book Group until September.

We are a fun-loving bunch of women (15 now!) 

I took my camera with me last week to snap some pictures and ended up having so much fun that the camera never came out of my bag. Oh my!

Over the summer, we don't have an assigned book to read, we just read for pleasure and then when we gather in September, we can each suggest a book for the coming year.

I love this group!

We have a good time, sure, but it's so much more than that.

We are like sisters, laughing together, praying for each other and sharing Christ-centered  fellowship.

I decided to make a book marker for each of the ladies. They can use it over the summer and then put the list of books we decide on for next year on the back.

I used all layered digital elements...playing with digital images is a lot of fun!

Our book for June was the one pictured, Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B Ross.

It is the first of a series and we all enjoyed it very much.

I already ordered the next few in the series from my favorite source

found HERE.

Half.com is a great place to show for used and sometimes new books.

Getting together once a month gives us a chance to share information

that is useful or fun. This is what I learned last week from Lois.

When you buy fresh berries (I had cherries), rinse them off and then

fill a large bowl with cold water and a small amount of vinegar.

(I used 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar)

Pour the fruit into the bowl and let it soak for a while.

Drain the fruit in a colander but don't rinse.

Line another bowl with a paper towel and dump the drained fruit

in the bowl. Refrigerate.

Doing this will keep the fruit about 3 times fresher than

just washing the fruit. Try it. The fruit does not have any taste

of vinegar, either.

Now I have a question for you. Do you take your own picture for your blog profile and Facebook?

My daughter-in-law is an expert at that

 hold-the-camera-away-from-you-and-take-your-own-picture thing.

I spent waaaay more time than I should have working on that today. I finally got so tired of looking at my own double chin and crow's feet that I gave up.

Maybe that's the trick...that 20+ year difference in our ages!!

Now if you really want to see some cute pictures...how 'bout these 2?

Charlie is 4 1/2 and Miles is 19 months.

We miss them lots!

xoxo

Joyce

Finishing up some Valentines using Rhonna Farrer's art!

I'm trying to finish up some Valentine projects.

This is what my work table looks like...

(Notice that these are very tight shots..the rest of the room looks equally chaotic)

In the first picture, you can see a sheet of Valentine tags printed out and ready to use.

They came from a digital kit from this amazing artist

Rhonna Farrer

Rhonna creates and sells the most beautiful Digital artwork.

When I saw some things that were created with this set

the Kiss Me Bundle

I fell in love...((sigh))

If you visit Rhonna's blogposts for the past several weeks, she has featured items made by different crafters and herself , using her images. Some of the images are free downloads, too.

This is my favorite part of the kit...

The Garland!!! The picture above is from Rhonna's blog.

I haven't had time to play with all of the elements yet but I did use one of

the digital papers and a border to make the Valentines for my work pals.

I own Photoshop Elements 10 and I wish I could tell you that I've installed it and I'm using it but truth be told, I'm still using the Fred Flinstone Publishing program that I've used for 6 years.

Anyway, I'm no master at digital but I do love layering the elements to make cool designs.

I added the text...yes, Beatles lyrics....using the

Chopin Script font...I love the swirly fonts!

OK...that's all I can show you right now.

If you love Rhonna Farrer, she has designed two paper lines

My Mind's Eye, called Follow Your Heart

Click here to see all of the papers.

I pre-ordered some of the papers and they arrived this past week

(click on any picture to enlarge)

There are 12x12 sheets...the detail is unbelievable

and there are 6x6 books...

Both sizes work for me...

OK-back to work now.

Tomorrow, I'll show you what this...

has been transformed into!

 

XOXO

Joyce