this time, the "E" is for ♥EMMA♥!

Hello and welcome to my blog! Today is going to be especially special! As you know, there's a group of EAD Designs fans* who've been meeting up online once a month to inspire each other to use our goodies! This time, what all of our projects have in common is that we're all using EAD Goodies and our challenge theme is: Kid-Friendly!

But here's the very best part: all the cards from today's blog hop will be going to a special girl named ♥EMMA♥! Please read about the card drive hosted by Kelly Bertram, who we're so excited is joining our hop today. She chats about the card drive on this post which i hope you'll be sure to check out!

Here's how it inspired me:

(gnome, tree and mushroom stickerz by EAD designs; patterned paper: my mind's eye, crate paper, dcwv, creative imaginations, american crafts; "sweet" rub-on: fancy pants; red chipboard thickers: american crafts; kraft cardstock: core'dinations; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

For today's hop, did I mention there's some surprise blog candy?! The more comments you leave on the participating blogs, the better your odds to win! Want another chance for a prize, while doing something AWESOME?! We'd love for you to join in the card drive! Make a kid-friendly card for Emma, send it to Kelly** and link up over on Amy's blog! Commenting and card link up will be open until Monday, March 24th at 11:59 pm (pst). Winners posted on Amy's blog on Monday, March 31st.

♥Have fun hoppin' for this wonderful cause!!!♥ 

Amy  

Colleen

Julie Smith

Julie Tucker-Wolek

Katie Brooks

Kelly

Lauren Bergold (that's me!)  

Liz

Rose

Shannon

Stephanie 

Wendi 

*In case you don't remember, EAD Designs created the most awesome vinyl stickers and rub-ons; the company closed up shop about a year ago, and they are SORELY MISSED!!!

**The address to which you mail your kid-friendly cards for Emma is in this post of Kelly's; there are also a few important guidelines on what to include... and what NOT to include... so be sure to read the whole thing, ok? ♥♥♥

pillow talk*

it's been a heck of a week in these parts. long story short: my mom had "surprise" surgery, which thankfully turned out to be a lot less involved than anticipated**; she spent several days in the hospital; and will be recuperating here at the bergoldplex for a few days... or until we know for sure she's just skiving in order to get first class treatment, lol! :)

so today's a kind of catch-up post, because i found these pics the other day and realized that i never showed the pillows i crocheted for nieces lindsay and riley in the course of the last few months:

lindsay's favorite color is purple and i really really fell in love with both the background stitch of the pillow and the big dimensional flower!***

you can see that i'm still SERIOUSLY hooked**** on granny squares and flowers...

...luckily so is riley, who expressly asked for rainbow-colored ones, which i put on the back! now i bid you a fond adieu for the moment darlings, and wish you a wonderful weekend!!! ♥♥♥

*the rock hudson/doris day movie was on tcm the other night, but for some reason i am hearing mike meyers' voice, ala "kawfee tawk" with linda richman! :)

**can i just take one minute to say, if you or a loved one is coping with a long-term health crisis, whilst also keeping up with work, family, home, etc; you are NOT getting enough credit!!! please take two hugs outta petty cash, from me!!! ♥♥♥

***somewhere in my home there is another yellow and purple flower center thingy, which eluded a serious amount of searching the weekend before lindsay's birthday. neither jeff, myself, nor a specially trained team of yarn-sniffing dogs could find it. so i made another one realllllllllly fast, amidst much cursing. true story.

****for once, the crochet pun was unintentional, i swear!

sketchy double header

we're still rockin' stephanie's gorgeous sketch at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ let's just look at that thing again to refresh our memories:

the day before i sat down to make my card i saw this amazing layout by marcy penner, and immediately thought that i could make it into a great version of our sketch; assuming i rotated the sketch 90 degrees counter-clockwise. i was proven correct, but not before i first made a card that really just DOES NOT WORK. liiiiiiiiike... at all. in the interests of full disclosure, i feel i need to show it to you, if only so you'll be impressed when i reveal version two, the one i *do* like. but first, the "misfire":

(vintage: santa scanned, flipper, made smaller, and printed on matte cardstock + buttons from my mom's sewing room; patterned paper: october afternoon, basic grey, and scraps of studio calico, dcwv, echo park, etc; snowflake punches: martha stewart; stickers: creative imaginations, making memories, fancy pants, dcwv; twine: doodlebug; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

yeah. it's got all the good stuff from the original layout, it follows the sketch quite faithfully, and it has the awesome vintage santa that i scanned from one of my beloved vintage holiday books so that i could re-size it. i'm not sure *WHY* everything doesn't mesh. i think it has to do with contrast? there's not enough color differential between the "clothesline" elements, but too much with the red background, maybe? whatever. i just know i really don't care for it. so contrary to my usual modus operandi, i decided to have another go. this one worked out quite a bit better, imo:

(vintage: santa scanned, made smaller, and printed on matte cardstock; patterned paper: my mind's eye, studio calico, and scraps of dcwv, my mind's eye, love elsie, basic grey, etc; snowflake stickers: martha stewart; rub-ons creative imaginations + tpc; gems: recollections; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

phew. that's better! it's got a lot of the same ingredients, but i've paired down more, and scaled back to a smaller size, and somehow it just came together. ok, granted, i had to put the santa on the wrong side, because i forgot to flip the image before printing. (duh!) i'm really pleased i let myself make the second card. so what will i do with the first one? i'll still send it to somebody! i mean, heck, it's a handmade holiday card, and that's NEVER a bad thing for anyone to find in their mailbox, is it? even the "ugly ducklings" find a happy home somewhere, and i trust this one will, too.

a place there are NO ugly ducklings whatsoever is over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ where both stephanie's card and our readers' gallery are well worth a few moments of your time. meet you over there, k, darlings?!

monkey business!

that's the name of this week's challenge at collage obsession. of course your collage doesn't have to have *LITERAL* monkeys... but it can, if you want! mine does. see?

i was actually going in a completely different direction, but then i found those cuuuuuuute little guys and that was IT! i'm slightly afraid my inky, hand-cut, machine-stitched, dictionary paper jungle leaves might be a little overpowering to the small scale of the illustration, but i really like those, too, so hopefully they aren't "too much". bottom line: i had a lot of fun making this, and i never would've done so if it hadn't been for this fun prompt!

SOS141: 3...2...1

nope, we're not counting down at shopping our stash this week, more like tallying up! this challenge is a liiiiiitle tricky; ok, not really, it just requires a pause to consider the ingredients you're going to use. because we want to see 3 of something + 2 of something else + 1 of another thing. does that make sense? here's an example based on my lovely fellow DT jessi's totally FAB card: she used 3 colorful brads + 2 adorable stamps + 1 patterned paper. i had to put on my thinking cap for this one. because, as you know, i'm not really a "less is more" kinda gal; but i LOVE a challenge! so here's my card, on which i've used 3 patterned papers + 2 rosette embellishment thingies + 1 cute vintage style flash card:

(patterned paper: american crafts, echo park, crate paper; rosette thingies: american crafts; vintage style birthday flash card: october afternoon; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

does it seem like i cheated? because of the banners, i mean? i didn't, actually, and i'm sort of proud of my cleverness (or sneakiness?) on that point because i wanted a banner, but couldn't figure out how to make one that wasn't all ONE PATTERN (which, to a maximalist like myself would be far too dull, lol) ...until... i found this piece of patterned paper from echo park's sweet day line, with multicolored banners printed right on it! score!!! :)

i cut them very close indeed, tacked only the very very tops of the triangles with my gluetape runner, then stitched them onto my card so the little triangles would still have some dimension. i really like how they came out:

then i was a bit stymied as to how i could double-mat the (smallish) "c is for candles" card, since i only had two patterns left in play. ordinarily i wouldn't have thought to use the soft pink music paper twice, but i think it works. which illustrates what i love most about "tricky" challenges... they really make you STRETCH!

if you'd like to see more examples of how to make the 3-2-1 formula work, hop on over to SOS where, coincidentally, ALL of the dt cards are made to that specification, and WOW, they ♥ROCK♥!!!

happiness is...

...loads of vintage paper, scissors, gluestick, stencils, spray inks, a sewing machine and-- especially-- using all of the above to make a freeform collage for this week's collage obsession prompt which just happens to be called, "happiness is..."! so here's what i made:

i had a blast with this one, though i confess that it took me (parts of) more than one evening to get where i wanted to be. i had the buddha and the random background the first night. the arch (from the second night) changed everything and got me in the ballpark. but the butterflies saved the day: punched ones from a hindi language newspaper, digital brush ones that i had printed out on clear labels but never used, and finally masked and sprayed ones. the tiny flowers were the very last thing i added, and they are the one truly premeditated element... i realized quite close to the end that i needed to pull the brown and gold colors from the buddha out into the frame area.

now i can't wait to check out the "happiness is..." gallery at collage obsession. wanna come, too?!

sketching around the xmas tree!

this might be my favorite week at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ of the year so far, because:

A. it's the first sketch challenge of the year

B. the sketch was drawn by the amazing stephanie

and

C. it's totally, TOTALLY, awesome! see?!

told ya so!!! with such a sketch in hand, who could possibly fail to make one of their easiest, quickest, and (if i do say so myself) (which, apparently, i do, lol!) cutest cards of 2014?! not me, that's for sure!

(patterned paper: my mind's eye, basic grey; bingo card: jenni bowlin; snowglobe diecut: crate paper; chipboard heart: basic grey; twine: doodlebug; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i hate to say "told ya so!" twice in one post, but i'm pretty pleased with this card AND it was seriously the most enjoyable make of my year so far! because the shapes in the sketch are soooooo easily replicated, and the proportions are perfect. i seriously think you could do absolutely ANYTHING with this and it'd turn out brilliantly.

so now you really really have to dash over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and see stephanie's card, then grab up that sketch and get busy! you can thank me later, darlings! :)