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.)

September Anniversaries

We have a couple of friends with anniversaries this month.  My cousin and her husband celebrated their 35th.  I took my inspiration for their card from the element(s) assigned to the 35th anniversary - coral and/or jade.  

Calypso Coral and Gumball Green were my color choices.  The cutwork piece that you see is actually an earring that I found earlier this summer at a flea market.  It was a hideous neon orange so I first smushed it into my VersaMark pad and then into the Calypso Coral pad to make it the coral color that I wanted.  I wound up doing this twice.  

I was trying to get the background green piece to look like jade by sponging the green ink onto the die cut shape.  I did the same with the round stamped image.  I added a Calypso Coral bow.  

Our other friends had their 34th anniversary, which doesn't have any traditional elements that I could find so I went another way with this one.  The silhouette image that you see has 4 birds on the stamp but I only wanted the two birds who seemed to be speaking with one another so I inked the image with my marker carefully avoiding the other two birds.  After I stamped it, I went back with the pointed tip of the marker to add in the branches that those missing birds would have covered.  

I brayered Bashful Blue ink onto the embossing folder before I embossed it so that the ink would be in the recesses of the embossing.  And, when I die cut the image I left it in the die and then used a dauber to add the blue shading so you see the think white frame around the edge.  The navy layer  was not die cut (nor was the Calypso Coral one in the card above).  I turned the die over and traced around it to get my frame.  This die is not that intricate and it didn't take that long. 

I had to add the green to this card because that was one of their wedding colors.   The little hearts were a last minute decision that I was pleased with.  

I'm headed out on some errands today as I have the day off.  My cousin told me that they opened a Hobby Lobby not too far away.  We don't, or didn't have Hobby Lobby in NJ.  At least not close by that I know of, and I'm anxious to see what it's all about!

Birthday Past - July, Oh My!

It's really not that I forgot about this, it's that I just was able to finally deliver it with a gift to my lovely cousin who was quarantined this summer with a bad case of the shingles and then August just blew by us.  But anyhoo, here's the card that I made her - she loves pink!

I used some new and old products and tools on this.  The scalloped edge was created using the Adorning Accents edgelits from SU.  Then I used markers to color the viney stamp from Flowering Flourishes and stamped it twice connecting the vines at the left.  The green marker I used on the stamp was a lighter one so I took a darker green and added in highlights.  You can see that I did this with the large "berries" also.

Into the centers of the flowers went some sticky pearls.  And then I punched out some ferny looking leaves in various scraps of neutrals to make the bird's nest.  

I stamped one of the images from Floral Fillers and colored some of the leaves and flowers with markers and then used the bird punch to punch out the bird's body and wing.  Before I popped up that wing I took a dauber and some green ink and swiped the edges of the bird to define the shape some more.  

Hmmm, this bird and nest might make a cute pin.........

After a very trying first week of school, we were able to meet at our favorite tea room and had we not been so engrossed in catching up, I would have taken pictures of the food presentation which is always perfect.  Well, trust me to say that it was delicious and the company was wonderful!

MMTPT215 - Happy 110th

This week's Teapot Challenge destination is none other than Mrs. Eula Cousins.  Mrs. Cousins is a very good friend of my friend Jackie and Eula is celebrating her 110th birthday this week.

She has had "An Extraordinary Life - Well Lived".  In addition to our teapot challenge, Mrs. Cousins is having a special b'day complete with a visit from the Philadelphia mayor and possibly a call from Mrs. Obama.

Our party is a traditional birthday party this week and our cards are to depict a birthday or our memory(ies) of a memorable birthday.  We were also asked to include a note, if possible, sharing our memories with Mrs. Cousins.

In my card I wrote - 

Dear Mrs. Cousins,

Happy 110th Birthday!

We asked the ladies to share their most memorable birthdays with you and I have combined two of mine in the creation of this card.

On my 21st birthday I was still living in my parents' house.  It was a two-story red brick building and we lived upstairs from my grandparents.  I remember waiting and waiting for my then boyfriend to come and take me to dinner. He was late and I was anxious and kept going to the window to watch for his car coming down the street.  Finally he arrived and I ran down the stairs and jumped into the car.  I was a bit annoyed that he was so late and asked him what took him so long.  He smiled, fumbled around for something and pulled out a tiny box.  I don't even think it was wrapped.  My annoyance quickly gave way to joy as he proposed to me.  The date was March 31, 1976.  We will be celebrating our 35th anniversary on Sept. 24th.

The second most memorable birthday was when I turned 50, seven years ago.  I gave myself a "tea party" - a real tea party and invited 12 of my lady friends (mother & sister too!) to celebrate with me.  The theme was "I'm not an old bag!" and we ate finger sandwiches, scones, pastries, etc.   We drank hot and cold tea and then we sat at my dining room table and did a couple of "craft" projects I had planned.  We were having so much fun that no one wanted to leave. 

I hope you will be having fun reading the birthday memories from my stamping friends.  You are an inspiration to all of us!  Happy Birthday!

So here is my brick house (though we did not have shutters) and you can see through the window the tea service all set up and waiting for guests.  

The image in the window comes from a Stamps Happen stamp - Tea Party Teddy.  I used my Memory Box Grand Madison Window and shutters dies.  The brick background was embossed onto a piece of Naturals White cs using a Tim Holtz embossing folder.  Then I brayered Riding Hood Red ink across it to pop the bricks.  The curtain inside the window is a small piece of Twitterpated fabric just folded in half and given a quick little running stitch to gather it.  Red line tape was used to adhere the curtain to the inside of the window.  The window itself uses a small piece of acetate.  

I colored my image with markers and Prismacolor pencils.  

If you'd like to help celebrate "An Extraordinary Life ~ Well Lived" leave a comment and I'll share Mrs. Cousins' address with you.  I'm sure she'd love to hear from you too!  And it doesn't have to be a handmade card either.

If you'd like to see the written story that goes along with the challenge, click here.  Cindy did such a wonderful job with this challenge!

The Most Wonderful TIme of the Year?

There are those TV commercials from one of the office supply chains that shows parents dancing through the aisles, happily purchasing notebooks, pencils, and basketloads of school supplies for their children all the while the background music playing "it's the most wonderful time of the year."  Their faces are contorted with silly grins while their children frown and pout.

The weatherforecasters have deemed Labor Day weekend as the unofficial end to the summer.  All day Saturday I heard this not just from the Weather Channel, but on regular newscasts also.  

They had to point out that the sun is setting earlier and earlier.   Summer is over, summer is over.  Let's make sure everyone knows.

Yes, fall is on the way.  And today our staff reported back to work.  While some were happy to be back there were those that lamented the fact that summer was over.  They were definitely not singing "it's the most wonderful time of the year."  

I would be singing a little different tune.  Namely, "it's the busiest time of the year."  I would put last week and this week ahead of the Christmas rush even.   It's not as though I wasn't working all summer because we do work in the office.  But there are some things that just cannot be done until just before the start of school.  And one can never count on things like....... 7 new students registering last week.  

So while we did go on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I've also had a bit of self-imposed vacation from this blog.  Things should settle down in another week or so and I hope to be getting back into a more "creative" schedule.  

Until then, here are some more pictures of those wonderful birds we were privileged to get close to while we were away.

When I looked back at all the pictures of this bird I thought it really must be one-legged....

The he got an itch and the second leg appeared.

This one seemed to be dancing with it's reflection.  First to the left.....

Then to the right.

Just look at those green legs!

One never knows what you will find by the side of the road.  Like this group of young female mallards.  

We were literally just about 6 feet from them.

Cheating and Sharing

I can't stop myself from checking out the $1.50 bins at Mike's when I go there.  Though I wish they had kept the price to $1.00, but I think that they found that it was a gold mine of snatch and grabs on the way out of the store that they knew they would be able to raise the price and still get their sales.  And their marketers think they're so smart adding signs 2/$3.00.  Well, duh (and I hate that word), isn't 2 x $1.50 three dollars anyway.  Like you need a sign!  They're probably the same people that thought up the 10/$10.00 signs they used to have when the items were priced at $1.00 a piece.  This is why I prefer to wait for sales of percentages off your total purchase, just to get these things for a little less, but sometimes, especially when they put new stuff out, I splurge and spend the complete $1.50 on the item for fear that they will not have any of what I want when I next return.

In this instance, it was these notecards...... again.  I just loved the strawberry print.  But they looked like they could use a little pizzazz so I added some ribbon and a big white die cut daisy.

Here's a close up of the daisy where you can see the dimension I added to the center by chopping up, very finely, some of the cs and then using Tombow glue to adhere it.

But wait!  There's a double cheat on this card.  I actually was going to make four of them but I did not have enough ribbon for four cards to go completely around the top.  Just enough to get around to the back.  But that doesn't look finished and is pretty messy looking.

So I punched out a circle of plain white cs, slit that in half and glued it over the raw ends of the ribbon which had already been taped down.

It's a little bit of camouflage and it looks a lot neater and stretches your ribbon.

So while I am sharing, I thought I would also share some of the tools that I find help me a lot when I'm doing my projects.  

I'm getting old(er) - no surprise, aren't we all - and my eyes are not what they used to be.  So in addition to my normal cheaters, I have a pair of 350 magnifiers that I find very useful when doing close-up work.  I bought this purple pair so I could differentiate between those and my everyday ones that are not so, shall we say, cheerful.  

I also have found that Tombow Multi glue can be counted on to dry fast and stays glued.  I keep this straight pin tucked into the plastic around the label so I can use it to unplug any stoppages in the tip.  This way I don't have to search all over for the darn pin when I need it because there's creativity going on which usually means chaos on my work table.

I have several pairs of these pointy tweezers that I have picked up at flea markets.  They are the best for peeling off the backing on pop dots and red line tape, and they are wonderful helping to place things on my projects.  

If you're going to use the red line tape, you might want to invest in a pair of teflon coated scissors, or at least have a dedicated pair of scissors for cutting this as it will gum them up.  Also, invest in a box of alcohol wipes  (you can get them at your pharmacy) to clean the adhesive residue off your scissors now and then.  Just be careful when swiping them across the blades because you can cut yourself and it will be ever so more painful with the alcohol!

And recently I picked up a couple of these letter size cardboard trays at Target's Dollar Spot.  They are perfect for gathering the things I need for a specific project, should I want to work on it some place besides my stamp cave or if I have multiple projects going on at the same time they help to keep things together.  And when not in use, you can just stack them or use them for storage in your crafting space.

JB12:17 - Oh Christmas Sketch

This is the sketch that the lovely Stephanie put together for this challenge.  Pretty cool, eh!  Oh, the possibilities!

Well, I just got a new Cottage Cutz die that I fell in love with when I saw a creation by Pat Smethers recently.  The trees with the woven trunks are what I really wanted and paired with this Christmas Tree paper I think it works pretty well.

I also used the log and the bunny that came with the die. 

I know, no sentiment, but doesn't it say Merry Christmas with all those trees?