WISHING YOU A CHRISTMAS FILLED WITH PEACE AND JOY

Just want to wish you all a wonderful, peaceful, joyful Christmas and new year 2008.

This is my last post for 2007. We will be going on a Christmas trip to Disneyland, leaving on the 26th. This is a surprise trip for our kids. As I may have mentioned before, this has become kind of a tradition. For the last 3 years we have gone to Mexico to spend Christmas with our family, and our trip back, we would stop in
Disneyland for a day or 2. Since we are not going to Mexico this year, this is an extra thing we are doing. My dh has had a very stressful year at work, so to be able to really get away from it and spend some time with family, this is our solution.

This frame is a one of 3 that I made as a present for my aunts.


See you in 2008!

AUG 3, 1996 - AUG 3 2007 11 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Yesterday was my DH and my 11th wedding anniversary. We did not do much to celebrate yesterday. My DH had worked till 4am the previous morning and he was dead tired. He did ask me to see if I could get a babysitter for the kids, but she was not available and also my little Matthew got sick in the afternoon. So, we just had a relaxing evening at home.
As a gift for "us", I made this picture frame with one of our wedding pictures.

I was not sure what to give John as a present. I had bought the heart charm on Sunday when we were in Victoria. It says "God blessed me with you". But I was not sure what he would do with the heart. All of a sudden I got inspired and decided to add it to a picture frame - Micheals $1.5. I used the retired RECOLLECTIONS SU DP. First I sponged some Antiquing medium on the frame. I used ModgePodge to adhere the paper. I sponged onto the frame over the paper too. I tied the charm with ribbon and added some more ribbon and gold cord for accent. The little tags in the bottom read LIFE LOVE & FOREVER. I had received these as a present from my Secret Sister on SCS. Just perfect. I really like how it turned out and John liked it too! It is hanging on our wall already!

Don't miss out on my Blog Snack further down!

FAUX CLOISONNE INSPIRED

I have been wanting to make this altered frame as a gift to my niece for her graduation. So What I had in mind is to use the frase "FOLLOW YOUR DREAM" and the use of a flying butterfly came to mind. So obviously I had to use WINGED THINGS and as I seem to not be able to make anything without flowers, I had to use IN FULL BLOOM which is a close relative to WINGED THINGS. I had asked my niece which colors she likes and she said Orange, Green and Blue. I found this great package of dp in COSTCO which has a few sheets of Burnt Orange colored papers. So I used those to modgepodged the frame. Now as for how I was inspired with the faux cloisonne, I thought I could do this technique for the butterfly and the flowers, but faux cloisonne calls for glossy magazine paper. I wanted to use the same dp I used for the frame, but as it is not glossy I just stamped with Basic Black and used a staszon maker to deepen the color of the edges. I guess it would have been a closer Faux cloisonne if I would have gold embossed the image, but that was not quite the look I was going for. I modgepodged the images to stiffen them a bit. The background is Mellow Moss sponged with close to cocoa and Marigold Morning. The sentiment is on Marigold Morning sponged with Close to Cocoa.

Sorry, I do have to say that it looks better IRL. It is really bugging me that I cannot get the images to look as good as I see them IRL.

Now I am off the school to my dd Vanessa's Puppet Show. She is the narrator and she is all excited about it.

EDITED: ADDED THIS BETTER PICTURE OF MY FRAME. I WORKED ALL AFTERNOON TO GET A GOOD PHOTO AND F I N A L L Y!!!

GREAT - LITTLE CALENDAR

I had fun making this little calendar with an acrylic picture holder. I have seen this idea from several of the creative ladies on SCS and had to try it. It is a present for my daugther Vanessa's student teacher who is having a birthday next Sunday. I thought it would be nice for Vanessa to have a small present for her.

As I am having trouble with my camera, I was not able to take a picture of it and scanned it, so it definitely looks better IRL.

Items used:

Perfect Plum, Pale Plum cardstock as well as ink. I embossed the flowers with iridescent ice. I used the Delight in Life and itty bitty backgrounds stamp sets.

(Have to work on the camera thing so that I can share my projects better!)