A Blessed Event!

Today was a day to celebrate!  A friend became a member of our church!  It was a long awaited event ~ 20 years in the making!  It was a beautiful service, called Chrismation, and afterwards we had a celebration with food and fellowship!  It is always a joy to see the Church family grow!

When I first started blogging, my focus was mainly on scrapbooking and cardmaking.  I am still actively doing both, although not as often as I would like.  So, here is the card I made for today's occasion.

I really love this new paper from Close To My Heart!  It is the Creative Basics Veranda Collection.  The cross was embossed on Vanilla Cream cardstock with clear embossing powder.  Then I used a sponge to add Juniper ink shading.  And I just can't use my Nestabilities die-cuts enough ~ LOVE 'em!

The card actually reminds me of vintage wallpaper!  And the ribbon a chair rail!  Of course I had to add distress ink along the edges to give it a bit of an aged look.

I hope you are having a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

Goodies for You!

I hope you are having a wonderful start to your weekend!  It is going to be a busy one for me, but busy with lots of good things!

I've heard through the grapevine of a few blogs with some giveaways going on...so I'm passing them along to you!

Karen at My Dessert Cottage is celebrating 500 followers ~ of which I am one!!!  Share in the celebration by commenting on her post:

And just look at this collection of goodies Robin's Egg Blues is giving away as she celebrates almost 400 followers!

Blue Creek Home is offering your choice of design of one of her beautiful pillows:

Brynwood Needleworks is offering this gathering of goodies, and MORE for her 300th post:

And last but not least, is Laura at 52 Flea who is celebrating 1 year of blogging!  352 posts in 365 days ~ AMAZING!  You really need to check it out!

ENJOY the rest of your weekend!

Treasure Hunting with Spring on the Mind

If I were a bird, I'd sing a song
And fly about the whole day long
And when the night comes, go to rest,
Up in my cozy little nest.
                        ~ by Jackie Silberg

White Wednesday

Every Wednesday, Kathleen at Faded Charm has what is called White Wednesday. I have seen lots of participants, and wanted to be one myself, but had a hard time finding white things in my home. I have lots of pink....lots of green...lots of flowers....but not much white.

Then ~~~ I walked into my bathroom ~~~ and there it was! All kinds of white! I don't know why I didn't see it before!

When we first moved into our home, the bathroom was my LEAST favorite room. The cabinets were brown, the tile was bright blue and gray, and the fixtures were country blue (they DID NOT match the tile). Not my idea of pretty! The only thing going for it was the white medicine cabinet mirror, which you will see shortly. Right away the cabinets were painted white with new knobs (oval shaped to match the mirror!). But I didn't know what to do about the tile....so it stayed bright blue and gray.

Eventually I got up the nerve to paint the tile. I've heard of people doing it before, but was scared to try it myself. Now I wish I had done it sooner! It will do, and do well, until we are able to make more permanent changes.

So, without further a-do, here are my White Wednesday photos.














Thanks for stopping in! I will try to open my eyes a little more and participate again!

Tags - I'll Give It a Whirl!

I have been inspired lately to make tags.  I have always thought that tags were interesting, and could be beautifully done, but just never stepped out & tried it myself.  I've poured over some tag tutorials, Dawn's at The Feathered Nest in particular, and decided it was time to try.  

I first started by soaking some regular shipping tags in a pot of hot water with dissolved instant coffee and let that sit for a bit.

Then I placed them on my cookie racks and sprinkled instant coffee grounds on top for some added distressing.  I put them over my heater vent in the kitchen to dry out.  It didn't take very long!

And here's one I finished just recently.  I want to make more in the near future...time permitting!  This is going to be an especially busy week, so I'm not sure how quick I will get to them...but it WILL happen!

It's kind of hard to see, but I stamped some French script on the tag in gold, and on the rose cut out in Vintage Paper distress ink.

For more inspiration, check out Diane Knott's Musings!  

How about you?  What have you done with tags that you're willing to share?  

I would LOVE to see what you have done with them!

This Magic Carpet Has Landed

Well, folks!  Here it is....The end of the One World One Heart 2010 Giveaway.  It has been a blast to travel around the world and take a peek into so many talented people's lives and interests!  I am hoping that I will be able to spend more time looking up more participants...there were SOOOOO MANY!  I didn't hit as many as I had hoped.  And honestly, I didn't anticipate more than 100 comments on mine....I was pleasantly surprised!


The lucky winner of my drawing is Char of PawsN2Stamp!  I will be contacting you soon, Char!


I'm looking forward to participating again!  And I hope you will join us, too!

Tapestries of Nature

I just found another really cool blog: Tapestries of Nature! She is having a give-away for her 150th post...but she's not posted it yet! When she gets to her 150th, she will be having a drawing for a tote full of handmade treasures. Every time you place a comment on her blog, your name will be entered into the drawing! Believe me, there's a lot of fun things there to comment on!

And...if you have a blog and post her drawing on your blog, your name will be entered 5 more times! You know, even if this were not the case, I would STILL pass this along to you ~ I'd just HAVE to! This is just too good not to!

Take a look at some of her work:





So go check it out!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great Thursday!

Forgotten Treasure

The other day, Taylor & I were in my craft room looking for sheet music she could use for a project she was working on when she stumbled upon this book.



It's a beautiful music book I bought, I believe it was last year, and put on my shelf ~ out of sight and out of mind! I can't believe I actually FORGOT that I had this! It is so beautiful!




I love the way the pages look, and the beautiful song titles...




And every now and then there is a picture, either of a composer or a vocalist. The back of the book even has biographical information on the composers and artists.




I just can't bring myself to take this book apart! Some day I will figure out how to scan pages from books to be used in projects. But until then, it will sit on our piano, where it belongs. Maybe someday my daughter will be able to play some of the songs for me...wouldn't that be a nice treat!



I did find, with the help of one of my favorite blog sites The Feathered Nest, a website that provides sheet music from all time periods. So if you are looking for sheet music to use in a project, this is much easier to use than precious treasures of the past! ~Click here ~ to check it out.

Give-Away Tuesday

I hope you are all having a great start to your day! We are expecting some snow here in the upper Midwest today - only about 6" in my neck of the woods. The southern portion of the state should see a lot more, but nothing compared to the DC area...my heart goes out to them!

I have found more fantastic give-aways for you to check out! Lots of them! Oh, & they are all full of all sorts of goodies!

First up, one of my fav blogs EVER! Dawn at The Feathered Nest is has this fantastic give-away going on:

And Lisa at Tarnished and Tattered is giving away this basket of goodies HERE:
Rebecca at Vintage Living is giving away this beautiful necklace she made HERE:
And finally, Trisha at A Vintage White is having a give-away for this georgous pillow HERE:

All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog with your e-mail info so they can contact you if you win. And you don't need to worry; when you leave your e-mail, you won't be added to any annoying lists and be harrassed by unsolicited e-mails. Blog owners usually do these give-aways as a thank you to their faithful followers, and to get to know new blogging friends. So go ahead....check them out! The worst that would happen is that you would find inspiration, and maybe even a kindred spirit! One cannot have too many, you know!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Vintage Candy Box Tutorial

If you are looking for my One World One Heart Giveaway, click here.



Ann over at The Tin Rabbit has a tutorial on how to make these beautiful vintage style candy boxes and paper rosettes! And she's also having a drawing for this box pictured and 5 rosettes. Just leave a comment on her tutorial post to be included in the drawing!

Finally Finished!

Last weekend I started another paper rose project and finally got it finished this week. I'm very happy with how my topiary turned out! My daughter who was visiting for the day yesterday actually thought that I had bought it from a local home decor shop here in town ~ quite the compliment! I will be posting this on Etsy soon, although it is awfully tempting to just keep it...

Rose Petals & Rust Give-Away

Stefanie of Rose Petals and Rust is offering this necklace as a give-away.....isn't it sweet! All you have to do is leave a comment on her blog post.

~~Click here to enter~~



Stephanie also has a shop full of pretties you can buy!
~~Check it out here!~~

Our daughter is coming to visit on Saturday afternoon! She only lives a couple hours away from us, but I haven't seen her since Christmas. Every time she planned on coming home, it would snow. So here's hoping the weather will cooperate this time! I miss her!

Remember how I said last week that I was looking forward to having a weekend with nothing but creating to be done? I did actually get some things made, but haven't gotten around to taking pics yet...but they are coming! Will be posting that soon, and placing more items on Etsy. So stay tuned!

I hope you have a fantastic Friday, and a restful weekend! Until next time...