The Secret Is Out!

Ok! Ok! now that I have peaked your curiosity I cannot keep the secret any longer! The exciting news that I teased about in the previous post is some holiday fun for YOU! Remember last year when there was this wonderful, glittery online event called Joli Paquet? Well, it's happening again THIS year and it's going to be better than ever! My sweet friend Cerri has organized a terrific group of artists to share tutorials, recipes, giveaways, holiday tips, decorating ideas, and more with you on the special Joli Paquet Blog. And the best part is that anyone will be able to access the blog throughout the entire month of November for FREE - our gift to you!

Just like last year, Joli Paquet will also hold a Holiday Kit Event during the weekend November 14-15th! Each of the artists listed below are putting together some fabulous holiday themed kits for you to purchase and create with.

Cerri Campbell - Little Pink Studio

Cindy Gilstrap - Junque Art

Beth Quinn - Beth Quinn Designs

Donna Layton - Under The Red Roof

Brandy Faulkner - Brandywine Boutique

Lori Karla - Faerie Window

and me!

So feel free to add the Joli-Paquet button below to your blog with a link to the website and help us spread the word! Remember, the fun begins November 1st!

Coming Soon. . .

Hello There!

How's everyone doing today? It is an absolutely beautiful day here in the midwest - Sunny and the temperatures are just below 80 degrees so I have a huge smile on my face :)

I made great progress (on schedule, I might add) on buying the dreaded "mother of the bride" dress this week. I have two of them here at home (and another one on it's way) for my daughter and DH to pass approval on. Of course if I don't like which one they choose, I reserve the perogative to have the final say so. I like all three of them, so I don't think it will be a huge problem.


I added the necklace shown above to my Etsy shop. I whipped up a couple of these this morning in an attempt to try and clear some of the clutter off of my diningroom table. I misplaced these pendants several times and when I finally found them peeking out underneath a pile of Halloween papers, I thought I'd better finish making them right then and there, get them listed and be done with it once and for all!

I've been meaning to show you this awesome collage I purchased from Lisa Kaus. As soon as I saw this one, I just knew it had to be mine! Can you guess why???? She has lots of other wonderful and whimsical collage hangings like this one which you can check out in her shop here. Oh and before I go, be sure to check back here in the next day or two for an EXCITING announcement COMING SOON!

Finally!!!

Yes the shop has finally been updated with lots of frightful and delightful Halloween goodies. Check it out HERE.

Weekend Wedding

We went to a lovely outdoor wedding over the weekend at the Ryerson Conservation Area. Everything from the weather to the venue to the flowers to the music was perfection! I was fortunate enough to bring home one of the centerpieces from the tables. Picture this arrangement on a pale sage green tablecloth...so lovely!

Winners!

Last week I posted about a little giveaway I was having here on my blog. And now it's time to announce the winners. . . . .drum roll please!
The winner of this stitching rubber stamp by Hero Arts is Cindy!
The Sept/Oct issue of Cloth Paper Scissor magazine goes to Jessica.
And the wonderful chandelier clear stamp by Heidi Swapp goes to Suzan!

Congratulations ladies!!! Please email me your addresses so I can send your goodies out to you all. And thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway and lend such wonderful support to my blog. You truly are all an inspiration to me!

Summer. . . One More Time

Sweet Alyanna created this lovely summertime Treasury on Etsy and was nice enough to feature one of the items from my shop (see bottom left-hand corner). Oooh, what a lovely color scheme she chose. Thanks for the shout-out Alyanna!

Keeping The Home Fires Burning

This is a collage I was commissioned to make by Jennie. She bought this collage here and wanted a companion piece to hang with it. What fun it was to make it for her. I love the rich autumn colors. And yes, fall is right around the corner folks!

If you haven't signed up for my giveaway - more information about it here - then be sure you do. I'll be drawing the winning names on Friday, September 19th. I'm also hoping to launch my Boo-tique update in my Etsy shop that same day.

Wet & Wild

The BellaWeen E-Zine starts today. It's not too late to sign up and join in on all the fun! I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of ghoulish treats Teresa has cooked up for us!
It's been a wet and wild couple of days around here, although nothing close to what was happening in Texas over the weekend. This photo was taken of the street in front of my friend's house, but our backyard looked quite similar to this. Our next door neighbor's back yard usually fills up with water from the creek everytime we have torrential rains, {They don't know it, but their lot was a swamp before the house was built two owners ago.} and when it's really bad the water overflows into our yard as well. Here in the Midwest we have been experiencing the remains of hurricane IKE as well as a storm coming off the Pacific all at the same time. Personally, our home was not effected since our house sits atop a slight hill. But roads have been washed out all over the place and basements have been flooding all over the area. {In times like this, I am grateful we don't have a basement} We drove to Home Depot to pick up some replacement drawer pulls for a project we are working on and everyone in the check-out lanes had sump pumps, downspouts and generators in their carts. Hopefully we will get some sunshine in the next couple of days to help dry everything out a little. If not, I am going to start crafting an ark!

Don't forget to sign up for my GIVEAWAY here, if you haven't done so already! I'll be picking the winners later in the week.

A Giveaway!

Woo-hoo....My complete and utter ditzyness can be your gain! All three of the fabulous items pictured above are things I bought and later discovered I already own! Have you ever done that? {Please say you have.} Well, magazines cannot be returned and it's just too much trouble to drive back to the store to return the stamps {and run the risk of purchasing more items I already have}, sooooooo. . . . .how about a GIVEAWAY??? Just leave a comment on this post and next week I will choose 3 names to send one of these three lovely prizes! Good luck!!!

7 Years Ago. . . .

ALWAYS REMEMBER

Today Is My Birthday!

How can it possibly be? Hard to believe that another year has gone by, which means that I am another year older already! Yikes!!! Life is passing me by so quickly...my grandmother used to say that is a sign of old age. Remember when we were kids, the year between birthdays seem to take forever to pass? Life has surely changed!

Speaking of old age, my DH had gotten tickets through work for a production of The Boys From Syracuse for last night. He picked up the tickets at his office and never opened the envelope, until last night when we were all dressed and ready to go. Good thing he opened them before we drove all the way to the theater because the tickets were for last Thursday night's performance! Wouldn't we have been red-faced if we showed those tickets to the usher. That happened to someone else one other time we went to that theater and we wondered how anyone could be so dumb to go on the wrong night! Well, HELLO!! We are now like those people!!! We decided to go drown our sorrows and celebrate our stupidity by having dinner at The Cheesecake Factory instead and topped the meal off with a huge slice of tiramisu cheesecake (which I highly recommend). Yum!

In other news, I've been working on some Halloween goodies to add to my Etsy "Bootique", so be sure to check back here later in the week for the update.

Summer Greeting Card Swap

Can you believe it's September already? It's incredible how fast this summer flew by. I'm trying to think back on what I accomplished this summer and I seem to be coming up short. Well, I thought I'd better post my pics from Heather's Summer Greeting Card Swap before summer completely passes us all by. The darling card above is from our swap hostess herself, Heather Bluhm. I love the pensive look on the little girl's face and the soft colors Heather chose to use. Lots of layers of stitching and vintage papers grace this card. And that snippet of oxox ribbon adds just the right touch! This next sweet card, also with an image of a sweet little girl is from Ellen at One Ripe Peach. She makes the dearest little creations with a retro feel (and lots of polka dots) that always seem to make me smile. Isn't that pleated trim she used to die for? Wish I had some of that.
This adorable NEST card was made by Maija Lepore. She also used a delicate palette of soft pinks and rich browns. Yum! Don't you love her usage of vintage book pages, flocked wallpaper, and crepe paper? Of course anything with the word NEST is always a hit with me.
Martha Brown created this lovely card. Martha is such a talented lady. I've been in other swaps with her and have received the most beautiful pieces of art. A paper lace doily, vintage book text and ephemera are all embellished with real machine stitching for added texture.
This lovely mademoiselle, who looks like she is straight out of the 1920's, graces this card made by Vivian Peters. Vivian used another soft color combination of pink and green. She added touches of glitter here and there, in just the right amounts, to add some glitz to this belle dame.
And this scrumptious card is the "mystery card" of the stash. I always seem to get at least one of these in every swap. The yummy minty color, vintage millinery, and scalloped & pinked edges gives it the feeling of simple perfection. If anyone knows who's card this is, please let me know, as I would love to thank her and see more of her work.
EDITED: I just found out this card was created by none other than the lovely and talented Holly Abston ~ I should have known cause it has her fabulous style all over it!

Newsflash. . .

The wedding invitations are finished.....yipee! I am glad that task is behind me and I can move on to something different. Like the favors for the tables. Speaking of which, this box over-flowing with aqua posies arrived on Saturday from Cerri at Little Pink Studio. She ordered and sent them too me right in the middle of being rushed to the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery! I can't believe that girl!!! Anyway, the posies are part of the decoration for the favors. That's as much as I will tell you now, but I promise to post photos when I am finished. Right now it's all just a dream in my head, so I'm hoping it will turn out the way I envision them when I start putting it all together.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few hours of their Labor Day weekend. We've been keeping our eyes fixed on hurricane Gustav down in Louisiana and praying for everyone in that area. I can't even imagine what that would be like to have another horrible hurricane come again so soon just as you are starting to rebuild you life. But it looks as though a lot of important lessons were learned in dealing with hurricanes in the three years since Katrina, so that is very good.

New Things

Look what I have hanging in the window of my studio. This sweet little birdie is from Emilie Friday's etsy shop. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it and thought he/she would look pretty nifty hanging in front of my desk while I create. I love her use of felted wool, which is something I have on my "Things to Try Someday" list.- Picture courtesy of Emilie Friday -

Here's a better photo of it taken by Emilie. It is so full of whimsey.....It just makes me smile!

The card pictured above I made for my cousin, whose darling little Yorkshire Terrier Lily passed away last week. For such a tiny dog, she had a heart as big as the sky and she really helped my cousin through some rough times. I know all you pet lovers out there know what I mean.

The image on the card is actually from an American Greetings birthday card that I planned to give my cousin on her birthday in April. Didn't think that would be such a good idea not, so I repurposed the image onto a new card with paper lace, glitter and leftover scraps from the wedding invitations I am making. Inside the greeting says,

"May you find comfort in your loving memories."

Be watching here for pics of the cards I received in Heather's Greeting Card Swap. They really are beautiful and I can't wait to share them with you.

Remember This?

Quite a while ago I showed you these sneak peeks of a "special project" I was working on with a group of very talented ladies. It was all hush-hush back then (and still is... sort of) but if you click here you can see a little peek of one of the books that we all worked in. We are all over-the-moon with excitement as you can imagine!

My sweet friend Cerri had to be rushed to the hospital for some emergency surgery the other day. She is back home now and on the mend but if you have a minute, please stop by her blog and send her some good wishes to help cheer her up!

Nothing much new around here. I am going through artistic withdrawal lately as I haven't stepped foot inside my art room for quite some time. All my focus has been on wedding details and although much of those have been creative projects, I really miss playing with my papers, trims and ephemera. I am going to have to carve out some time for myself to create something soon. Of course my head is just swimming with ideas and there's been no time to run with any of them. Isn't that always the way? I'd better start writing and sketching those inspirations down in my art journal before they slip through my feeble mind into oblivion!

Happy Monday Everyone!

Yes, I'm Still Alive!

I've been a bad blogger lately ~ sorry about that. Lately I've been buried in wedding details. Boring for you all I know, but it's my life right now. I've been working on making the invitations and my old HP printer was giving me tons of flack. Yesterday there were lots of expletives flying through the house as I tried to print the address on the envelopes which are slightly too wide for my printer tray. {Thanks Paper Source for creating an envelope incompatible to computer printers.} After switching the orientation and fiddling with the margins, etc., the printer decided that it was not going to feed the envelopes through the rollers and so I had to take a break and call a friend just to "vent." It was either that or pour myself a stiff drink and since it was only 9:00 a.m. and I had lots to accomplish, I didn't think that would be a very good idea. I'm sure my friend was thrilled to listen to me tell my tale of woe, but I felt much better afterwards and was ready to try to tackle the beast again.

This time I switched to my daughter's Epson printer, which feeds the paper in a different way. But first I had to rummage around to find the printer driver disc to install on my computer which I feared would blow up since I already have so much loaded onto it. Another entry on my endless "to-do" list is transferring all my photos onto an external hard drive before I lose all of them. Well, to make a long story short, after more fiddling and playing with the positioning of the text I finally was successful at getting the envelopes printed out. Whew! Check that item off the list.

My daughter and I went to the seamstress to have two bridesmaid dresses altered. To add to the craziness of these pre-wedding weeks, she is standing up to two friend's weddings. So everything she has to do is tripled between fittings, showers, bachelorette parties, rehearsal dinners, etc., etc. Anyway, the two dresses came in and were about 5 sizes too big for my daughter....who takes these measurements anyway? I couldn't believe after the outrageous cost of these dresses that they can't make them closer to the girl's sizes. But then I had a friend tell me that these dress shops purposely order the dresses larger, telling the girls that they might gain a few pounds before the wedding, just so they can sock them with an additional expense of alterations. What a racket!! We fooled them though and took her dresses to a seamstress who does alterations as a side business. It still is very expensive, but I'd rather support a local craftswoman than a corporation who is trying to rip us off. Besides, if they can't measure correctly in the first place what makes me think that they could alter the dress correctly? It was amazing to watch this seamstress do her thing on the two dresses. She was quick with her pinning and even with all those pins sticking out, the dresses looked 1000 times better being fitted properly.

Ok, I'd say that is enough ranting and raving for me this time. You don't need {or want} to listen to all my trials and tribulations of being the mother of the bride. Afterall there will be plenty more to rant about when I go shopping for my dress {ugh!} and as it gets closer to the BIG DAY and I start evolving into "Mother-of-the-bride-zilla!"

Have a great weekend everyone!

The Shower

Our exciting weekend of my daughter's bridal shower is over. All the planning and preparations and then ~ woosh ~ it's over before you know it! What a lovely day it was though. The weather was perfect....sunny, but not too hot which allowed everyone to sit outside on the deck for the entire party. Of course after it was all over I realized that I didn't take nearly enough photos. That made me sad because this is a once in a lifetime experience. It's hard to take pictures and still make the rounds to talk to everyone. I hear it will be even worse at the wedding. I guess I will have to work on my mingling technique before the big day. Of course there will be a photographer there, so I don't have to worry about that part of it. There will be plenty of other things to attend to I'm sure. Pictured above is the darling cake and my sister-in-law also had a huge cheesecake, an endless variety of homemade cookies, and lots of fresh fruit, nuts, chocolates, etc...and that was just the dessert course! She is a gem and I refer to her as "the entertainer" of the family because she does it with such ease and grace. What a wonderful array of gifts my daughter received. I couldn't believe how generous everyone was. And we all agreed that we wish we could have our own showers again after seeing all the lovely things she got. One of the highlights of the day was when I over-heard a friend of mine telling my daughter that she has such good taste and I choked up when my daughter replied that she gets her good taste from me! (Sigh) Right now our living room is a sea of gift boxes ~ actually it looks like a Crate and Barrel stockroom! I don't have a clue as to where we are going to put all of it for the next couple of months until the wedding. I wonder if my daughter would notice if I slipped a few of the things into my own kitchen!

For The Bride

I made this little card for my daughter. We are going to another shower given in her honor on Saturday. I'm so pleased with how it turned out. The image is a vintage wedding cake topper and the greeting is from a vintage bridal shower card. I used a page from a 1926 Danish songbook - this particular song is about LOVE. And the book text on the crepe paper rosette is from an old French novel. Our side of the family has Danish roots and the groom's family has French ancestry, so I was so thrilled to be able to use these two elements together.Of course I couldn't resist using lots of glitter - both clear and silver glass glitter. Dresen dye-cut love birds and vintage lace complete the card.
This sweet little procelain couple is actually a bell by Lefton, circa 1953. I found this on one of my antiquing trips and their heart-shaped mouths and the bride's aqua bouquet told me they were definitely coming home with me!

Checking-In

I can't believe it's almost been a week since my last post. I wonder where the time goes? Thank you for all the sweet comments about my retro-inspired greeting cards. It's fun to play with new color combinations to keep the creative juices going.

I've been updating my etsy shop, made some price changes and added the pink posies pictured above. It's been quiet around here and that has enabled me to get some things accomplished here at the house that have been needing attention for quite a while. It feels good to check things off my list.

I heard about a couple of exciting things the other day, but I am going to wait to share them with you until I know they're a "for sure thing." I certainly don't want to jinx anything by shooting my mouth off prematurely.

In other exciting news, I signed up to be a vendor at Sadie Lou's new website called LolliShops.
Don't you just love the name? I'm very excited about this new outlet for all things frou-frou. Sadie always throws herself 100% into anything she does so you know it will be a top-notch site. Be sure to check back here and I'll keep you posted on when things are up and running.


I am anxiously waiting for two new books which are due out early next month. Mixed-Media artist Kelly Rae Roberts has a new book here and Kaari Meng of French General has a new sewing project book here. Both books look fantastic and full of fabulous inspiration.

Well, I'm off on a Post Office run and to take care of a few other unexciting errands. I may just swing by Barnes & Noble while I'm out and treat myself to a leisurely cup of hazelnut latte. I really should be working on wedding invitations, but there is always manana.