Creative Journey

Thought of You Today...and smiled {Mojo Monday 281 | Shabby Tea Room Week 154}

Hello everyone!

It has been a while since my last post mostly because I have been focusing on my "one little word" for this year: RENEW.

I have asked God to reveal to me the areas in my life which need renewal...relationships (with Him, my family, my loved ones, and friends), my heart and spirit, the use of the gifts and talents He has given to me, and so much more! To think of them all at once becomes quite overwhelming, but I am so thankful that He is gracious enough to reveal to me only one area at a time and to focus on only one thing at a time. Each moment becomes an opportunity to change, and it has been a blessing (and challenge!) to be able to see and experience changes within myself and the way I think that creates a renewed perspective and outlook on my life.

Yesterday I had the blessing of a few moments to get my creative juices goin'! How excited I was to finally have some time to be inspired and to focus on creating something with all of you in mind. When I think about the privilege of sharing a project with you, I feel so warm and happy inside! So I just wanted say thank you for taking the time to visit right now! I love the thought that you are here, and I truly hope that you may be inspired to join in on the challenges that I am sharing with you today!

For this project, I was inspired by this week's sketch #281 over at Mojo Monday. Those of you who know me know that I love using sketches as a springboard for the projects I create, and the Mojo Monday sketch blog is a great source of inspiration every week!  Here's this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

The following is my take on the sketch. I chose to use hearts in place of the circle elements in the sketch and this is what resulted:

Another place I often go to for inspiration is The Shabby Tea Room, and the challenge this week was to use the colors aqua and brown with a silver embellishment. For this project, I used silver glass glitter as a border around the hearts. I just love the shimmer and bling glitter adds to this project! :)

Supplies used: Paper (Prima, Recollections cardstock), crystal swirls and ivory flowers (Prima), doily, lace, ribbon and rose (craft store)

Please take a moment to check out the following challenge blogs that are hosting some wonderfully inspiring challenges as well:

• Ooh La La Creations Challenges - shimmer and shine challenge
• Dream Valley Challenges - ribbon and bling
• Stampavie and More - lots of layers
• The Ribbon Girl Blog - February colour challenge
• The Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - pretty pastels

I plan to add these to the list of challenge blogs I will visit for inspiration, too!

So will you join me this week and create something pretty with either the sketch or the challenges I shared? I hope so! If you do, please feel free to comment and leave a link to your project! I would love to see your creations!

 

Birthday Wishes - Mojo Monday #271 - 'Shabby Chic Holiday' #144

Hello dear friends!

It has been a long time since I have had an opportunity to post on my blog, and it's high time that I've done anything creative!  I have forgotten how much I enjoy paper crafting, and today has been a day during which I made a wonderful creative mess all over the house! I have left scraps, glitter, embossing powder, and ink in three different rooms of our home in order to create just one card that I will be sharing with you today.

Today's project is inspired by the Shabby Chic Holiday challenge over at the Shabby Tea Room. When I saw the inspiration photo, it really got my creative juices flowing. This week's Mojo Monday sketch also made it simple for me to put what I had in mind together to create the following card. I actually took the sketch and turned it upside down...

I embossed the aqua panel using a folder from Couture Creations and then layered a die cut arch from the layered elegant swirl set by Heartfelt Creations and cut from silver glitter paper on top of it.  The floral patterned paper is mounted on more glitter paper and layered with cream and aqua lace.

The flower was made using the Spellbinders Rose Creations dies and then painted with pink glimmer mist and a layer of diamond stickles. It rests on top of a die cut element from the Spellbinders vintage lace motifs set and is embellished with silver leaves.

The sentiment is bordered with a glittered name plate from Making Memories, and the card is completed with a Prima crystal swirl.

My dear husband blessed me with an early Christmas present, and I was able to choose my gift this year. I do believe that he is weary of trying to figure out what I would like to receive, and I didn't make it any easier because I delayed in giving him any form of wish list (I really didn't know what to ask for since I already had everything that I needed and wanted already!).  Well, the dies and embossing folder used in this project were part of his gift to me, and I am so grateful that I was able to put them to good use today!

Here are the two images that inspired this project. I hope that you are inspired to be creative this week! If so, please leave a comment or link to your project below, and it would be my pleasure to see what you've created as well!

 

 

 

 

My Whole Heart...TSTR Week #99 - 'Love is in the Air'

Hello Friends!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! As I mentioned earlier, we welcomed a new visitor to our family, and we have been enjoying the time with her immensely! We were able to take her to two different parties this weekend, and we have had such a great time with her! We are sending her off for a camping retreat tomorrow, and we are already missing her just thinking about the two days that we will not see her. However, we hope to be able to get together with her again at the campsite this Friday, and our family is really looking forward to it!

Well, today I have a card inspired by the Show Us Your Style Challenge at Stampin' Sisters in Christ,  the Ribbon Challenge at the Secret Crafters Saturday Challenges,  the Lovely Lace Challenge at Paper Play Challenges, the Diamonds or Pearls Challenge at Stamptacular Sunday and this week's Shabby Tea Room challenge #99 which includes this inspiration photo:

and calls for a VALENTINE'S DAY card or project inspired by the COLORS IN THE INSPIRATION PHOTO and WITH A MAIL OR POSTAGE ELEMENT.

Here's my card:

The background paper is from Martha Stewart, and I embossed it with a Cuttlebug folder, being careful not to emboss the postage stamp on the corner.

I layered a heart shaped doily with a length of lace and seam binding ribbon and a journaling card from Daisy D's. A single rhinestone marks the box "whole heart" on the journaling card. Finally, I embellished the card with silk flowers, Recollections pearl and rhinestone swirls, and pearl brads on the flowers and along the ribbon. If I were to choose between diamonds and pearls as an embellishment, I would pick pearls. However, I'm partial to diamonds for jewelry! ;D

I enjoyed creating this card so much, and The Shabby Tea Room happens to be such a wonderful source of inspiration for me! I hope that you all take the opportunity to create something for this week's challenge, and if you do, please let me know! Post a link to your project so I can take a peek at it as well! I would love to hear from you! :)

I also wanted to mention that my project was chosen as one of the Top 3 for the Shabby Tea Room 'Gorgeous Gateaux' Challenge #97...

and my gift box and card set was picked as the winner for the Shabby Tea Room 'Sparkly and Bright' Challenge #98!

Eeek! I was so excited and happy to hear about that! What an honor to be able to share this with you all!

Now it's time for me to help our exchange student get ready for tomorrow's camping trip! Thanks so much for visiting, and I hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow!

Cherish the Moments...TSTR Week #98 - 'Sparkly & Bright'

Hello! It's been a crazy week here, and I can't believe it's almost Friday already! Whew! The time has sure flown by, and we have been working hard to prepare our home for a visitor from China tomorrow! She will be staying with us for three weeks and will be studying with other students at our church and a sister church in Riverside County to increase their knowledge and their faith in Christ while visiting America. Lord willing, we can be a blessing and encouragement to her during her stay, and we look forward to her arrival tomorrow evening!

Well, now that you have an idea why it's been a while since my last post, I can share with you all a gift box and card for someone special that I happened to have a bit of time to put together. These projects were inspired by the Anything Goes Challenge at Simon Says Stamp, the Pretty in Pink Challenge at Charisma Cardz, the Anything Goes Challenge at Creative Inspirations, and The Shabby Tea Room's Sparkly & Bright challenge this week which included this inspiration photo:

Aren't the colors just gorgeous? I love it! The challenge called for projects with the colors white or cream, silver, and a dash of pink.

Here's my take on this challenge...

I used this week's Sketch 252 at Card Positioning Systems for my card:

This card started with pink Bazzill cardstock which I embossed using my Scor-Pal. I usually like to use patterned paper for my backgrounds, but I really like the look of the embossed rectangles!

I used pieces of a Making Memories metal border (that I've been hoarding for a LONG time! I love those metal borders! :D ), and a Prima die cut felt border along the center of the card. Layered on top of the doily is a journaling card from Daisy D's (yes, I confess, that's another thing I've been hoarding all these years in my stash! Heehee!).  To complete the card, I embellished the journaling card with Prima flowers, a Making Memories metal heart tag, and a jewelled center which I believe is from one of Teresa Collins's collections.

For the gift box, I painted a paper mache box with white and cream paints then added a covering of Fancy Pants pink glittered paper. I then embellished the top with a doily, layered a Martha Stewart die cut, and a vellum sentiment. To finish off the top, I added lace along the border and seam binding gathered with Prima flowers and a vintage-looking silver and pearl center (this was actually a small piece taken from a long Christmas ornament). The bottom of the box was embellished with a Paper Trey Ink die cut border and pearls.

Well, that's all from me tonight! I need to finish boxing up some of my supplies and cleaning off the mess I've made in my creative corner (a.k.a. the dining room)! I hope that all of you have a wonderful Friday and a blessed weekend!

Beautiful Friendship...

Hello Friends!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week and are as ready for the weekend as I am! I was able to spend a day with my best friend (my husband) at Disneyland, and we had a great time there celebrating our 21st wedding anniversary! The longest wait for a ride was only 15 minutes, and we were able to go on all the ones that we wanted right away. We went shopping afterwards, and I can't wait to dig into the stuff I brought home! Hopefully, I'll be able to work on a couple of new projects I had in mind for them and share them with you all next week!

In the meantime, I will share a few cards I made today. The first one was inspired by challenge #97 at the Shabby Tea Room. Here's the inspiration photo:

The challenge calls for a project using the colors GRAY (or silver), LILAC, PEACH & PINK PLUS LACE (paper or fabric) AND A METAL EMBELLISHMENT.

And here's my card:

The patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye, and the sentiment and swan stickers are from K & Company. The card is embellished with a Tim Holtz ornate name plate, Prima flowers, a doily colored with Ballet Slipper Shimmerz Pearlz, and seam binding and lace.

The next card was inspired by this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger photo:

I loved the soft, pastel colors so I went with that as my inspiration. Here's my card:

The background paper is actually the backing from a package of K & Company die cuts. It was too pretty to discard so I used it on this card. The sticker and sentiment are from K & Company as well. A heart-shaped doily, Prima flower, Recollection swirls, and a Making Memories metal border complete this card.

That friendship card then inspired me to create another one:

The patterned papers are from My Mind's Eye and K & Company. The sentiment sticker and green vellum corners are from K & Company, and the flowers, swirls, and felt die cut are from Prima. The card is made complete with a length of lace and aqua seam binding.

Well, that's all for today! I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend!

Cherish...

Hello Friends!

We have been enjoying some unusually warm days in Southern California this week, and it almost seems like spring/early summer rather than the wintertime here! It has been wonderful, and I truly cherish days like this when our family can go out together and enjoy each other's company.

I suppose the weather has influenced the card that I've created recently, and I have to mention that the current challenge over at The Shabby Tea Room greatly inspired it as well. Here's the inspiration photo for the challenge:

We were also asked to created a project that included something with wings. Using  sketch #46 from Cardabilities:

This is what I created:

I used a couple of Martha Stewart butterfly punches to create the butterflies and embellished them with tiny pearls. The printed paper is actually a journaling sheet from Prima, the large flower is from Prima as well, and the rhinestone swirls and turquoise trim is from Recollections. The sentiment was die cut with a Spellbinders Labels Eighteen die from an old sheet of Making Memories definitions that I had in my stash, and the doily is from Wilton.

I hope you're enjoying the weather wherever you are, and want to thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit today!

Blessings,

Christine

Finally catching up...and a RAK!

Hello, dear friends! I can't believe how much time has passed already! We're close to the end of the month, and I haven't had a chance to post until now. Actually, I should say that I haven't been feeling well enough until today.  :)  I was getting better  until my husband got sick, and then I had a re-lapse which resulted in my having to go to the doctor because I had an ear infection. This is the second one in my entire adult life, and it wasn't pleasant. So, I'm on a week-long antibiotic regime along with cough medicine. Hopefully, this will all clear up before next Tuesday when we leave for our vacation!

Thankfully, I'm up today and just finished a few projects that I wanted to share  with you. The first one is for last week's "It's Hip to be Square" challenge at the Shabby Tea Room and this week's Crafty Creations challenge #64 - distressing: 

 

The patterned papers, chipboard sentiment, and flower are from Prima. I also used my Scor-Pal to create the embossed lines on the raspberry cardstock from Stampin' Up. Layered underneath the pieces of patterned paper is a scrap of burlap...love the texture of it! Finally, I used some aqua and cream vintage seam binding to finish it off. Oh yes...I also used my new Zutter Distrezz-It-All for the edges on this card. That little gizmo is a lot of fun to use, but it makes quite a bit of noise so I'll only be using is during the daytime hours!

The next card is for this week's "sketch this" challenge at the Shabby Tea Room, the "no people" challenge  #14 at the Paper Sundaes challenge blog, texture challenge #108 at the Cute Card challenge blog, and the flowers challenge at the Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge blog:

I used a border punch from EK Success for the scalloped border. The patterned paper is from Basic Grey, and this is the first time I've made some rolled paper flowers for myself using the pink paper. I scalloped the edges a bit and gave it a little roughing up for a nice distressed look that I was aiming for. It was fun creating these flowers, and I think I'll try and make more! Finally, I added some crocheted lace, Prima pearl swirls, aqua crinkled seam binding, and a sentiment sticker from K & Company and finished off with some white acrylic paint.

Finally, the following card was inspired by Laura's sketch this week over at 2 Sketches 4 You:

The patterned paper, die cut felt, and flower are from Prima. The chipboard is from Tattered Angels, and the felt and chipboard were sprayed with Shimmerz Eucalyptus Spritz. The sentiment stamp is from Stampin' Up. Finally, I stitched the seam binding to the card and added a length of crocheted lace to finish it off.

Now, for my long-promised RAK giveaway! Here's what I'm going to be giving away:

 

- Pink Paislee Queen Bee 6x6 paper pad (the entire pad of 30 sheets will be included...only a few of the papers are shown here).

- Studio G clear stamps

- Creative Imaginations printed ribbon

- Basic Grey key plate chipboard album

- My Mind's Eye rhinestones

- Making Memories buttons

- Coordinating Prima flowers and burlap flowers

- Glitter

- 3 yards of crinkled cream seam binding

To have your name added to the drawing, simply leave a comment on this post by this Saturday, April 24th. I will announce the winner on Sunday, April 25th!

Thanks so much for visiting today!

Special to Me

Well, another week has passed, and I'm still trying to deal with this "bug"...sigh...a couple of our kids are feeling under the weather as well, and it's so disappointing when the weather outside is absolutely beautiful! I will have to make a run to the store today for a few things to comfort them.

Because I haven't felt completely well lately, it's been difficult trying to get inspired to create anything. I had to push myself to create the following project this morning. Thankfully, this week's "Embrace the White" challenge at the Shabby Tea Room was so inspiring! :)

 

I used a piece of burlap for the background...I love the texture it brings to this project! I also painted the doily with some Angel Wings Shimmerz paint. The chipboard frame, flower, and pearl swirls are from Prima. The alphabet stickers are from Making Memories and Pink Paislee. I added some raspberry colored ribbon for a little extra "pop" and finished it all off with some pink stitching.

I hope you're all doing well, and thank you for stopping by today! I'll be back again this Friday for another Freebie Friday blog giveaway (yes, I'm a week late...so sorry!) so I hope you'll be back then for another visit! Until then, may you all....

Easter Greetings

My how this week has flown by! I've been under the weather since last week, and I'm finally recovering from this bug that I happened to catch from one of my kiddos. I've been itching to create, but simply haven't been feeling well enough to do so lately.

However, with Easter coming this weekend, I was lucky enough to find a wonderful vintage image from the Graphic Fairy and decided to create this card inspired by the Shabby Tea  Room's "Let's Get Scrappy" challenge and the Pink Elephant's color challenge:

 

Easter Greetings Card
Cardstock: Bazzill
Patterned papers: K & Company
Flowers, crystal swirls: Prima
Pearls: Recollections
Flower die: Sizzix
Paint: Shimmerz Pearlz
Border punch: Martha Stewart
Embossing folder: Provo Craft Cuttlebug
Vintage image: The Graphics Fairy
Other: sewing machine stitching, ribbon, tissue paper (for die cut flowers)

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thank you so much for stopping by!

Vintage Spring Card

Just a quick post today to share this card that was inspired by the Just Us Girls spring color challenge and the spring inspired with stitching challenge at the Shabby Tea Room for this week. Here's the color palette from the Just Us Girls challenge blog:

And this is the project that I created:

 

Vintage Spring Card

Cardstock: Bazzill

Card base: Recollections (Michaels)

Patterned papers: DCWV

Glitter: Martha Stewart

Flowers, leaves: Prima

Shimmer spray: Shimmerz Baby's Breath Spritz (on flowers and leaves)

Vintage image: The Graphic Fairy

Other: sewing machine stitching, pearls

Thanks for stopping by!