Fall Garage Sale Finds

Last Saturday was the fall garage sale at the reformed church down the road.  I like these sales because they always have a lot of merchandise priced very reasonably.  I've never come away empty-handed and this time was no different.  HWNSNBP actually picked out the cut glass bowl  - we were looking for a nice glass bowl to float some of the large dahlia's in the week before and didn't seem to have anything suitable except a decorative stemmed glass.  This was a bargain for a buck!  The clear glass canisters were 50 and 25 cents and they'll join the small collection I've started of clear glass canisters.  I couldn't resist the small all- white teapot - it will join the other all- white teapots I've picked up at previous sales.  It wasn't priced but I didn't flinch when they said $2 because I really wanted it.  

These appear to be small candle holders.  They had such a sweet little blue flowered pattern on them.  Not sure what to do with them yet, but I'll have to put them somewhere where I won't forget about them for next spring.

This crafty stuff was all bargain priced.  Three rolls of floral tape for $1, some upholstery tacks also for $1.  Four packages of shoelaces for 25 cents.  A rubber stamp for 10 cents.  A stylus and brass stencil for 25 cents and on the lower left you can barely see three small wood and wire sleds priced at 25 cents each.  

Some doilies and napkins for 25/50 cents.  I also picked up a large white eyelet tablecloth for $3  that did have a hole in it, but we can "embellish" around that.

And it seems that I just can't pass up these balls of cotton thread any time I see them, especially when they're priced at 25 cents.  

Thankfully I had my "boxman" with me.  It was a chilly morning but having him with me meant less time spent out in the cold.  He drops me off while he parks the car and while I start perusing the tables he finds a box he knows I probably will fill - and it all did fit nicely into that one box.

Saying Good-Bye to Summer

Just a few pictures of the dahlias before everything froze last Friday night.  It was chilly as we picked as many as we could and brought them in.  It was a good thing we paid attention to the forecast because few of the annuals survived the night.  

Getting Back to Creativity

I must admit that it has been a little difficult getting back into the swing of creating, well actually doing anything much after work these days.  I guess I've been so charged up over the wedding while trying to keep the stress out of work that it's taking me more time to rebound.  It didn't help that I had that cold the week before the wedding either.  Our office still sounds like a sick ward with all the coughing going on.  

But, slowly I have been trying to hack away at the list of cards and projects that I want to accomplish this month. 

The card above is a thank you to a dear friend who brought me a special gift and was really supportive of me during this whole wedding process.  I was literally driving myself crazy trying to find my diagonal plate to do the scoring on the wedding card (in another post) before the wedding, but last week I was able to put my hands on it and I also found the punch that I thought that I had lost.  Yippee!  

The card above uses the fancy doily die and I tried a little trick that I found on Pinterest - to put clear packing tape on the cutting side of the die so it is much easier to get those intricate cuts and pieces out.  

One of Rachel's college roommates is expecting and she wanted me to make a card for the shower. Admittedly, baby cards seem to be out of my comfort zone and I don't have very many images that I feel are usable.  So I went to the stand-by onesie stamp and stamped it onto dsp, cut it out and used some mini clothespins to hang it on some pink cotton thread over the embossed panel.  In the background is the lattice die framing the onesie panel.  Some punched paper lace at the bottom, ribbon and bow and we're done.  

The stamped image above is Tweet Leaves from the SU Holiday mini catty.  I do not yet have the leaf die that it's made for so I lightly sketched out a leaf shape of my own.  I adhered that image to a piece of More Mustard and then trimmed that to frame the leaf image.  The card base is Summer Starfruit and the other pieces are of Early Espresso, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, and I believe Cherry Cobbler.  Much like the marker colors used on the image.  This is going to a friend who just had some pretty serious surgery.  Hoping it will brighten her day.

The next two cards were inspired by Monday's Try a New Technique on Splitcoast - Acrylic Block Collage.  You basically take one of your acrylic blocks and add ink to it by swiping, daubing, sponging - however you want - spritz it with water (go lightly with the spritzing!)  and press it onto your paper.  

Let it dry and then mask around the edges with some post-its.  You can then stamp your image(s) over the background that you have created.  Thus creating a one-layer card.  But you will see from both of mine that there is an additional layer and that is due to the fact that I used too much water and things looked a little messy.  Fixing messy is sometimes easier than you think.

In this case I added the circle pieces on the first card on either side and on the second I stamped the leaves onto some colored cardstock and cut them out.  

The bird image is from Serene Silhouettes and the feathers are from Fine Feathers.  The sentiment is from the retired set Warmest Regards - another one of my stand-bys.

I still have a few things to catch up on and then there's also Halloween at the end of the month.  Oh, my and two birthdays I nearly forgot!  It feels good to be getting inky again!

Wedding - Part 4

These are the table decorations that I made for the rehearsal dinner.  I wanted to personalize it a little for Chris and Michelle and took some of their engagement photos and few of the favorite pictures my son provided and printed them out to fit these 3.5 x 5 frames.  I found out the hard way that although you can readily buy 3.5 x 5 frames in most places that print photos, you cannot print photos that size.   Luckily I was able to print them out from my computer.  Each of the glass blocks held two photos back-to-back.  I replaced the back easel part with plain cardboard and glued them together at the sides and the top, leaving the bottom open.

In the bottom of the glass block (the opening is on the top hidden by the decos) I put a layer of sand.  I then took a tongue depressor that I snapped in half and pushed that into the sand so I could  slide the frames onto it so they would wobble around.  The hardest part was adding the shells afterwards.  It took a variety of "tools" to get them placed just the way I wanted them.  My intention was to keep it simple on the inside with the decorations so you would be drawn to the pictures.

I used the paper that I had leftover from making the invitations to decorate the outside.  You can barely see it in the photo, but there was a band of Bermuda Bay completely around the outside of the block.  I had used the same shell embossing plate to emboss that.  On the top I added two of the Apothecary Accents framelits as a base for the Pool Party flower that I created using dies and punches with a crystal brad center on each.  Then I hot glued the tulle ribbon in layers like a bow.  Die cut leaves in Sahara Sand and a few shells on the top finished them off.  

The real challenge was transporting them without having the pictures fall over, but thankfully it worked out fine.  I only made 4 of these and they went relatively fast once I figured out the picture problem.   (Side note:  the best price for these glass blocks was definitely AC Moore).

I wanted to keep the card that I made for them simple but a little elegant.  I stuck with the Sahara Sand, White, and Very Vanilla color scheme.  I was driving myself crazy trying to find my diagonal scoring plate and gave up on that and used one of the texture plates instead.  The texture was much more visible IRL.  I added sticky pearls where there were little circles in the texture plus a few more.  There's a Delicate Doily sizzlet there and a Very Vanilla flower made from various punches. 

I embossed the sentiment with pewter EB and framed it with one of the frames in the SU Holiday Mini.  Since I popped it up with dimensionals, I covered the holes on the sides with sticky pearls and added a sticky rhinestone above the sentiment. 

Luckily I still have a partial box of off-white envelopes that were a bit larger than this card so the flower did not get crushed. 

These are a few of the cupcakes that were leftover from the reception.  Instead of a cake, they had a cupcake tower with a small cake topper.  These were delicious - red velvet with edible chocolate shells, starfish, and sand dollars.  Yum!  All the food was delicious from the cocktail hour appetizers to the expansive buffet dinner.  Besides the cupcakes they also had an assortment of desserts and a coffee bar.  

And here we are with our gang at Ship Bottom AKA Table 7.  A bit fuzzy, sorry it must have been the photographer!  That's us on the right side.  I loved my dress and thank my daughter for shopping with me and picking it out.  HWNSNBP looked very hot smart in his navy blue suit.  

My hip posed little problem while I danced that night and dance I did.  It might have just been the high of the evening keeping me going although it did take me quite a long time to find a comfortable position to get to sleep that evening.  It was all well worth it though.  

And lastly, some pictures from the Photo Booth.  (The Looking Glass is Michelle's sister Julie's business.)  Keep in mind that we were meaning to "ham it up" a bit!  

Thanks for bearing with my absence in posting this last month or so.  Things should get back to normal soon.  Actually it will be a new normal now that we have a new family member.  My son is very lucky to have found such a beautiful, kind, caring, creative, thoughtful, bride.  And we are so proud to have her join our family.  

Wedding - Part 3

Michelle decorated these lanterns with shells and candles and hung starfish on raffia from them.  Here you see one of them on the patio floor before everything was moved back onto the beach where they were hung from shepherd's hooks and lined the pathway to the ceremonial arbor. 

This is Rachel and Brendan coming down the aisle - notice the lanterns on each side.  They moved them inside the reception room after the ceremony and placed them across the bar (sorry no pics).

While the guys (and girls) word flip flops on the beach, they changed into sneakers to match the girls' dresses for the reception.  

There was a beautiful rustic box set up on a side table that was filled with sand and embedded in the sand were our placecards.  The second tag you can't see in this picture had our table on it - they named all the tables after beaches in New Jersey.

On each table was a giant starfish with a tag that had the beach names on them.  

Michelle decorated the tables with beautiful glassware that held candles - some of them immersed in sand or sea glass and sea glass was strewn about the tables.   It looked so pretty IRL.

Her mother had come across these beautiful shell shaped dishes that had a mother-of-pearl finish.  Each of these dishes held the favors that her mom had made.  (I know, I should have moved the S&P shakers for the picture.)  She filled little organza bags with M&M's in the wedding colors that had the date, their names, and thank you printed on them, along with some candy kisses.  Each bag also had a beach badge pinned on it that was a smaller version of the Save The Date magnets they had sent out a year ago, except these said THANK YOU.

What I didn't get a picture of was the beautiful paper lanterns in the wedding colors that were suspended from the ceiling above the dance floor.  They really made it look beautiful.  Michelle really did a wonderful job keeping with this theme.  

The brick wall that you see in the picture above had a ledge on it that also held more candles in beautiful holders and had starfish and sand dollars and shells around them.  It was beautiful.  

One more installment to come.  

Jingle Belles 12:21 - Pink Christmas

A favorite October prompt for this challenge - Pink Christmas.  

This card is a case of a lovely card that I saw recently but my brain is not allowing me to remember exactly where so I can give credit to the original.  When I find it I will come back and add the link, however, the one I remember seeing wasn't in pink.  I couldn't resist dressing this little girl up in a pink coat, scarf, mittens, and tights.  There are rhinestones and pearls in the centers of the snowflakes giving it some sparkle.  The panel itself is of shimmer cardstock which was quite by accident, but worked to my advantage.  And while I was coloring the image I added pearl shimmer paint for her fur trim, gold shimmer on the tree, and silver on her pathway.  

Edited to add:  Well I went on a search this evening and I found a similar card, but it turns out that that card was based on a card on pg. 14 of the SU catalog.  I also figured out how to add a sentiment to this, but I would rather not have it going side-to-side.  Now I will be searching my stash for a sentiment that goes up and down fairly thinly to add a banner on the left side hanging from the top.

The Wedding - Part 2

The guys - can you tell they are Giants fans?  They were tossing around the football on the beach, hamming it up for the camera.

The girls - our daughter Rachel is second from the left.  Michelle's sister Lindsay, second from the right, surprised almost everyone (her parents were in on it) by arriving from Afghanistan on Saturday afternoon, shortly before the rehearsal.  The bridal salon where the girls got their dresses had ordered her dress and were going to take it back and refund the money if she didn't make the wedding - something that is not normally done.  How strange was it also that the other three girls' dresses were all too big and had to be altered, but Lindsay's was a perfect fit.  Just like it was written in the stars.  Once Michelle saw Lindsay, she didn't care about the weather as much.   But the weather came through too and as you can see, they were able to have the ceremony on the beach.  (All of them in flip flops!)

A friend of Chris and Michelle's presided over the ceremony and did a wonderful job.  The girls in the bridal party were the three sisters - Michelle's sisters Julie and Lindsay and Chris' sister Rachel, and Michelle's cousin Liz.  The groomsmen were three of Chris' best buds.  Frank, whom he has known since he was 6 and Brendan and Ray.  They've been friends since high school.  

He looks like he's about to burst with joy.  And so were we.  

I'll have more of the decorative details coming soon.  

The Wedding - Part 1

Our son Christopher and his bride Michelle, Saturday, October 7, 2012.

This is how the day started looking out our balcony over the Atlantic Ocean.   The weather took a turn and it started to drizzle around 10 a.m. but just as they were starting to take their pictures about an hour and a half before the ceremony, the rain stopped.   

This was our view from the balcony as they took their pictures on the beach.  

More to come......

September End - Photos

The full moon of last weekend sitting in a cushion of clouds.  

Are there any bluefish out there?  Fish were jumping and one monster got away, but the other, measuring 13" was the last catch of September.  

The full moon was still visible at sunrise and looked very much like a sunset.  In fact, it was setting in about the same spot that the sun sets.  I think those were blackbirds that were swarming.

Click on any of these pictures to make them bigger.  In the one below I was tickled to get so many textures, though that was not planned.  I just saw this yellow glow on the tree at the top of the hill and had to investigate.

I don't know what you call these.  I wonder however, if they can be used for anything?  Rachel has (or had) a purse that my mother-in-law brought back from a visit to Hungary that is made out of mushrooms - or at least that's what she told us.  And I do know that they make little floral pick birds out of mushrooms.  Just wondering.  

Butterfly Birthday

My mother's birthday was last month and she loves butterflies.  I had picked up a Martha Stewart metal stencil that I intended to try as an embosser rather than just picking a butterfly and stenciling it.  I'm not sure you can tell from the picture that I brayered on some Pretty in Pink ink first and then ran it through the Big Shot.  The first time it didn't have such great results - the ink was really blotchy.  The brayer caused large drops of ink to form on the stencil.  So the second time, after I brayered the ink, I rubbed it around with my finger and the ink droplets became more uniform in size.

SU has a new butterfly punch and stamp set.  I picked out the butterfly from the set that matches the punch and colored it with my markers before punching out.  Then I daubered the edges with the Rose Red ink.  The head is a sticky pearl and the abdomen two rhinestones.  

Yes, this did not photograph very well, but IRL it looks much prettier.  

September Sympathy

Oops, it is now October isn't it.  Where did September go?  Between the start of school and preparing for my son's wedding, it's been pretty busy.  I did find time to put together this sympathy card for my cousin and her husband who lost their mother after a long battle with cancer.  

I had not yet inked my Papaya Collage stamp set so it was time.  The rose is popped up within the frame.  I used a strip of torn paper as opposed to a ribbon. 

I was going to write a little more but my pillow is calling to me.  I am so annoyed right now because I think I'm coming down with a cold and the wedding is this weekend.  Hopefully it will be a 3-day cold as opposed to a 2 day deal.  (Edited:  Wow! I really must be sick - I meant a 5-day deal.)