double BINGO!!!

not to be braggy (ok, mebbe just little bit!) but this is one of my favorite christmas cards i've made all year!

(vintage: velvet ribbon and doily; patterned paper: basic grey, kaiser craft, cosmo cricket, prima; floral and leaf: prima; letters: american crafts (altered with distress inks and a glitz stamp; also used on the label shaped panel; snowflake embossing folder and distress inks: tim holtz;  tree die: sizzix; label dies: nestabilities; chalks: pebbles; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine)

on second thought i don't think it really is being braggy, because the thing that's cool about this card is that i was inspired by various challenges in almost ever respect! first i took some elements from this fortnight's holiday bingo challenge over at jingle belles; i used the bottom horizontal row, but realized afterwards that i also have everything for the middle vertical column, as well:

then i swooned over the elegance  of this week's shabby tea room inspiration, which is called summer cottage (i also added distressing and a prominent sentiment for the same reason):

as it turns the gorgeous colors of the photo above is echoed by this week's challenge at simon says stamp and show, for which one can draw inspiration-- either individually or as a palette-- from tim holtz's new summer distress inks. i added subtle background stamping to my letters and the label panel for that one:

here's a close-up of the collagey panel, so you can see the details a bit better:

finally, for my positioning, i used this week's scrumptious sketch from retro sketches:

and you know i love to share my holiday cards with miss patrice via 52 card pick-up, so i'm linking up there, as well as christmas in summer at challenge up your life!

we ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ hope that you will link up with us between now and next wednesday, because we love seeing whatever everyone's been doing with this fun BINGO game! :)

we're playing ♥FAVORITES♥...

...at shopping our stash this week; or rather we want YOU to play favorites, by making a card or project that features your favorite things. that could mean brads, pretty paper, ribbon, a certain shape, stickers, rub-ons... anything you love to put on a card! make sure to tell us what faves you've chosen, and if you've accomplished any stunning feats of stash usage, because you know we always admire that!!! :)

i tried to work in a few favorite things i've not used in a while: for one thing i've got some of my beloved anahata katkin glossy clipart images; i was sad when she stopped selling those a few years ago and wish i'd known beforehand so i could have stocked up; but alas, i love the ones i still have more than ever! in this case they are the bird, the tag and "ribbon" on which he (or she? i'm thinking he with the bright yellow!) sits, and the "shine" banner. the paper is an indian-inspired prima one i've been saving for "just the right thing". then there's a bit of a pearl flourish, a pink one that i realy like. and finally i've got some hindi newspaper, a big biiiiiiiiiig fave since you know i love both foreign text and newsprint; a bit of this page was tinted pink, which of course made me even happier! finally i've got my current obsession: deco tape; this particular kind had an adhesive backing strip thingie, so i was able to use a border punch on it, which i think is a fun look! ♥

(glossy clip art: anahata katkin, in her pre-papaya days; hindi newspaper from a shop in jackson heights, ny; patterned paper and pearl flourish: prima; tape: 7 gypsies; border punch: recollections; adhesives: scotch gluestick, staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

for my layout design i used this super-fun sketch from the sweet stop (#173); of course i rotated and somewhat condensed it (like ya do, lol!) but i think you can still see it pretty clearly:

i also found a cool new (to me!) challenge site called totally paper crafts; they have a new theme every friday and this week it's "zesty summer colors" so i felt right at home with this super-saturated card! 

i hope you'll check out both of these cool challenges, and finish up by stopping over at SOS to admire my fellow DT members' stunning creations! happy tuesday, darlings! ♥

now with extra mandalas!!!

we're coming to the end of the month-long banquet of daily paper prompts miss tammy has so thoughtfully been feeding us throughout the month of august on her inspiring daisy yellow art blog. of course i'm sad that they'll be ending, but after three full months of getting back into a regular art journal practice (first via ICAD and now DPP) i feel like it's back to being a habit and i have more confidence that i will stick to doing it on my own! anyway, here are a few more pages for ya:

 DPP#20: stitched and dripped

i randomly glued a few paper scraps to my cardstock before i started, and instead of watercolor paints i used an eye dropper with spray inks and re-inkers; but other than that i actually followed the prompt right down the line! btw, i LOVED making this, and i love looking at it now it's done. in fact, i really just want to go get a lot of colors out and make more of these... which i might do, in a minute! :)

 DPP#21: stamp a mandala

there was a point, midway through making this, that it was PERFECT and i was in love with it. but the purpose of journaling (for me) is process rather than outcome, and thus i am seriously, totally, inordinately proud that i kept going and "wrecked" this page!!!!!

 DPP#22: draw a mandala

another one in which i went boldly and recklessly past the point of "awesome" and i'm totally fine with that. i sort of combined the "zentangling" ethos (which is actually based a bit on the religious/spiritual aspect of mandala making as an aid to meditation) with a bit broader of a doodling theme. i've discovered that there are few things more soothing than to just sit and randomly draw shapes and lines for 20 minutes before bed time. highly recommended if, like me, you ever have difficulty "transitioning" from working time to resting time! ♥

DPP#23: mail art

i started out with the intention of making this a real piece of mail art that i'd send through the post, (hence the cool vintage envelope as foundation!) but at some point, it became a collage instead. go figure.

DPP#24-circus tent (from prompt list)
this is one of the silliest things i've ever made, and i'm pretty sure no one else will think it's even remotely funny, so of course i love it all the more! the ticket for the preview to the upcoming warhol retrospective at the met just happened to be sitting on my desk next to a page from a children's book which had that cute lion on it; so OF COURSE i thought they'd be perfect together, lol. since i actually need both bits, i made copies of each, and resized them just a little smaller while i was at it. my favorite part is the caption which is hard to see in the double photo, but reads, "the warhol brothers' circus was *EXCITING* but ultimately short-lived".  yeah, i'm weird, what can i tell ya?! :) :) :)

why not hop over to daisy yellow and check out what miss tammy is up to, or hit the flickr group for some serious eye candy, then repair to your own journal (or sketch book, or piece of scrap paper) and make something random, beautiful or funny... just for ♥YOURSELF♥! (because you are WORTH IT, darlings!!!)  ♥

a "three-fer" that will most likely be disqualified THREE times, lol! :)

the city crafter challenge blog is always one of my favorite places to play, just because they have really creative prompts to get me thinking and one of the best and most inspiring teams around to give me a "hint" if i get stuck! either of those two factors would be enough, really, to keep me coming back, but the combination is exponentially more AWESOME! this week's challenge is called "wishi washi 2" and it's harder than it sounds at first; because-- as you may have guessed-- we're incorporating washi tape (or any deco tape, really!) but here's the trick: apart from tape, you can only have TWO other items!  YIKES!!!  i chose basic grey paper and brads, and came up with this:

(patterned paper and brads: basic grey; decorative tape (paper, plastic, and fabric varieties): love my tapes, heidi swapp, 7 gypsies; ink: colorbox; pencil: prismacolor; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots) 

ok,  so, first possible disqualification: i realized as i was typing my supply list that i just *assumed* we could have basic things like tools, inks, pens, adhesives and white cardstock as a "gimmee"! if those count as extra items-- which they might!-- i have blown this in a biiiiiiiiig way, and humbly remove myself from play at city crafter, sorry guys!!! i cannot be sorry in any other way, though, because i really like this card and would not have made it without ya! :)

do i even have to tell you that my favorite part of this is the tape+paper pinwheels*??! and the thing is, they were a total fluke, they just happened to be part of the illustration for this week's basic grey sketch, see?

but of course i was looking for an embellishment that would add a little texture and dimension without taking me "over my limit" and they just seemed PERFECT! but here's my second probable disqualification: when i went back to the BG blog to link up, i realized they are specifically asking for LAYOUTS this week; something i have only just noticed (because i tend to use all sketches interchangeably!) is that they have designated card and LO sketches. so again, sorry BG, but isn't it nice to know how FLEXIBLE these things are??! :)

my third almost certainly ineligble challenge the august one at love my tapes, in which they want us to think up creative ways to make flowers from tape. you can see the problem for this one already, can't you? yeah. technically these are not EXACTLY flowers, are they? but go with me a second: they're a similar shape/profile... they sort of function in the same way on my card... they're in a context of pink and green and "gardeny" prints, and i've given them some washi tape leaves to make them a little more "floral", lol.  ok, mebbe not. but i do think they are kind of clever, and they're most definitely made from tape (backed with paper); but again, i will not be shocked or insulted if i am disqualified from play! :) 

here's a closer photo, so you can see them better: 

right, so the bottom line for me here: i apologize if anyone from the challenges involved feels i have wasted their time or flouted their rules, because that was certainly not my intention! but i LOVED making this card, and i also love how it turned out; and the fact is, it would not even exist but for the triple inspiration, for which i am most sincerely grateful! thank you!♥♥♥

*there's a little mini photo tutorial in the post below this one, if you want to see exactly what i did; it's not complicated, though, lol! 

STEP-BY-STEP: paper + tape pinwheels

what you'll need: 

lightweight paper scraps, decorative tape, brads, scissors, paper trimmer, mini glue dots or other dry adhesive

note: each pinwheel starts with a square, 

the size of which will determine the size of your finished pinwheel

1. cover 

the back of your paper with strips of tape

2. trim 

tape-covered paper into a square

  

 3. fold 

the square corner-to-corner into a triangle and crease; unfold that side and fold the square corner-to-corner the other way and crease; unfold again

4. snip 

with scissors 2/3 of the way down each fold line towards the center point; poke a hole in the center point big enough to get a brad into

5. curl 

every other triangle point in towards the center WITHOUT folding or creasing them (note that whichever side is facing up is what will show the most!)

6. secure

 the ends in the center with a brad. this is the fiddly bit, it's also where you might want a gluedot or a teeny bit of adhesive to secure the points under your brad; the larger ones seem to stay pretty well without; but once you are under an inch you do need SOMETHING to hold them! 

7. bonus ninja points

curl up the edges of the "untucked" points; 

draw a "pole" or make one out of tape or even a toothpick; 

stack them together; 

add leaves or other embellishments; 

sew them into a garland (using stickers for centers); 

make lots more and show them off!!! 

♥♥♥

bingo belles? surely not...

...there's got to be a much better-- but still quick-- way to say, "we're having a bingo challenge at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this fortnight!" or maybe there's not; but either way, we ARE, in fact, having a bingo challenge at jingle belles this fortnight, and we'd looooooove for you to come along and make a card with us. all you need is a little holiday mojo, a few xmassy papers, and this bingo card:

you can choose any row, column, or diagonal, and then you just have to incorporate all three consecutive elements into your card! it's actually quite easy, and totally fun; i had a blast making my own card, want to see it?

 (vintage: seam binding; digital patterned paper: damask tonals by katie pertiet, designer digitals; patterned paper: pink paislee; border sticker and dove chipboard: basic grey; chipboard ornament: k and co; florals: petaloo; bling frame: want2scrap; snowflakes: recollections, jolee's; distress inks: ranger; adhesives: staples brand glue tape runner, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine)

i used the diagonal that runs from top right to bottom left, thus i needed to work in: bling, flowers, and dry or heat embossing. easy peasy, right? i know you can see the first two pretty easily, and i've used one of cuttlebug's little 1/2" wide strip embossing folders to pop up the snowflakes on that pretty sticker strip across the bottom of the card; the folder actually has little star-shaped flowers, but they look enough like snowflakes to work, and although it's hard to see in the photo, in real life it adds a lot of lovely texture!

once i realized the direction my card was going-- with flowers and rhinestones and embossed pink snowflakes-- it occurred to me that i could probably combine challenges and get in on the current inspiration at the shabby tearoom, for which we're instructed to use the colors of the photo, plus flowers and some damask; since i was VERY thrilled this week to have been chosen as winner of their "for the love of books" challenge* with my "dress of paris" card, of course i was excited to thank them, and play along again ASAP! and just look at the inspo pic, for "shabby patterns" it's SOOOOOOO me, dontcha think?!

something else that's very inspiring is this week's offering from unscripted sketches (#172); which i accidentally flipped upside down whilst making my card; of course the thing about a really GREAT sketch, is that tends to look good in any direction, right?!

speaking of excitement, i was totally honored to have received a shout out there last week for my dear mr. deer card, thank you lovely ladies! one of these days i'm going to actually DO the cool "piggyback" challenge when they have it... but sadly... it's not this time, because the lure of pink + damask was JUST. TOO. STRONG! :)

finally, you know i always love to show off my xmas cards in miss patrice's 52 card pickup linkie; plus, this week at simon says stamp and show, there are NO RULES, so you can enter anything at all you'd like... and i quite like this card, so there!

and now why not c'mon over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and try your luck at the bingo game in which everyone is guaranteed to win... the inspiration for one fabulous holiday card!

*not only did i win some lovely digi-stuffs from my time made easy, that i cannot wait to use; i've also been invited to guest design with the shabby girls in november, and i'm super-excited about that!!! ♥

is there a 12-step program for zentangling?

or perhaps i should say zen DE-tangling? ok, maybe not, that just sounds like one of miss clairol's lesser known products, doesn't it?! but holy moly those things are *SERIOUSLY* addictive; i can see why making them is all the rage! here's my very first one, along with a few other daily paper prompt pages made with the inspiration of tammy's brilliant ideas on the daisy yellow art blog:

DPP#16: zen tangling (from the prompt list)

i was familiar with the concept, and always wanted to try my hand at one of these; but i did not realize how many firm "rules" there are as to size, paper type, what pen to use, preferred shapes, etc. mine does not follow in every particular (for example, you're not supposed to use dots, apparently, only lines) but is a 3.5" square that's black ink only and was made in the spirit of the art form, after a bit of research on the official website! i can totally see how it's possible to become obsessed with these, they do induce an almost trance-like state whilst one works!

DPP#17: chandelier

the chandelier is a digital brush, from scrap-n-fonts, during a dollar sale! when i print things on inkjet transparency, i rarely need the full sheet, but i hate to waste the leftover bits as they are pricey; usually i fill in with some random brushes-- like chandeliers or eiffel towers or whatever-- and throw those into the collage file to be used later. the rest is magazine bits, some inky leftovers, and a bit of tissue paper with chinese characters.

 DPP#18: three variations on a pattern

my "variations" were basically to do each section in a different medium; from left to right prismacolor pencils, copic markers, and watercolors. i think you can see that on this particular night i was tired and did not come up with any interesting insight or twist of my own; but it was fun, anyway.

DPP#19: palm trees  (from the prompt list)

i can only draw about 4 things-- and they're all more like cartoons than proper drawings-- but one of them happens to be a palm tree, and i enjoy doodling them! this one is done in copics and watercolors on top of a patchwork of glossy foreign text papers.

tomorrow is friday, can i get a "woohoo" darlings?! ♥♥♥

another fabulous "make your own challenge"...

...at shopping our stash this week, but this time, it's a bit sketchy:

Challenge 65: Sketch Challenge! 

 Use any sketch you can link to; it can be an old one you never got around to doing, or a current one; just link to it in your post!

well, this was a no-brainer for me, since we're in the last few days of the prompt which features stephanie's  gorgeous sketch at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ i just couldn't resist having one last go at it!

(patterned paper: basic grey, october afternoon, daisy d's, imaginisce dcwv; florals: we r memory keepers, petaloo, prima; brad: my mind's eye; adhesives: staples gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

here's another look at the lovely sketch in question, in case you've got a hankering to make a holiday card with us this week, the prompt runs through wednesday night; then our new one (which is also ♥FUN♥!) starts on friday:

i've got a mix of really old and pretty new stuffs here, i've also mixed in the current opus gluei challenge (it's #137, for those of you scoring at home!) it's called "red hot" and the brief is to use red + one other color, for which i've chosen white! and yes, for the record, i'm calling bright white, off white and cream all "WHITE" for the purposes of this card! :) :) :)

why not stop over at SOS, help us welcome our lovely new DT members, and see all of the amazing inspiration the team has made! then find a sketch you love and get started on your own card!

kindness is ALWAYS possible

i love this quote from the dalai lama, though i have to admit it makes me feel a bit sheepish to realize that, in the times i am not particularly kind, it's because i've made the choice not to be. yikes! not super-proud of that, actually, so i've made myself a little journal page reminder:

(my photo of a carving of the boddhisatva avalokiteshvara at the metropolitan museum of art; hand made text paper with gilding from thailand; digital paper: landscapeART paperie #6 by anna aspnes, o'scraps; for the digital cloud/thought bubble i cannot for the life of me find the credit, and i apologize, if anyone recognizes it, give me a shout! :) patterned paper: pink paislee; vintage ledger paper with spray ink, stamped with a studio g lotus and then machine stitched over all the stamped lines; rub ons: dove of the east + basic grey (recolored with chalk); adhesives: staples gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i was inspired by the current color + technique challenge on the zeus and zoe blog; the colors being brown, white, yellow green and grey; the technique being sewing; the whole thing being hosted by my lovely blogging friend and art-journaling heroine, sandi taloumis, and you HAVE TO go and see the page she made for this; g'head... i'll wait... see--how awesome is that??! even the palette thingie she made for the challenge is beautiful, isn't it?! NOBODY uses paint and product together the way sandi does, she is remarkable and inspiring in every way and if you're not reading her blog you are MISSING OUT!!!

so you can see i've used the colors pretty straightforwardly, but i want to point out my stitching "innovation" (if it is one? it's definitely something i've been wanting to try, i THINK i thought it up myself, but i won't swear to that!) i stamped the beautiful studio g lotus that mari sent me some time ago in black ink on a leftover bit of misted ledger paper, and then carrrrrrrrrrrrrrefully machine stitched over all the lines. i think it came out really beautifully, so i'm currently thinking rather obsessively about what other stamps i can do this with! here's a closer photo, so you can see it better:

my other inspiration for this page came from the current prompt, "kindness" at a year in the life of an art journal, where my lovely friend linda brun is on the DT; as always the page she made is glorious; and i love the site itself in which you're encouraged to go in ANY direction with any of their prompts; i'll definitely be going back there again for both inspiration and ideas! 

speaking of inspiration, i hope ♥YOU♥ will find some today... or failing that... maybe a cupcake, instead??!?!?  :) :) :)

if i knew you were coming...

...i'd've paper-pieced an entire cake, instead of just one slice! :) i can still show it to you though, want to see?

(patterned paper: glitz design, amy tangerine, sei, scrapbook wizard, my mind's eye, love elsie, doodlebug; rhinestones: recollections; inks: colorbox; adhesives: staples gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i was inspired by some gorgeous cakes made from paper and fabric scraps that i saw on tara anderson's blog, and of course have not been able to find again! (arrgh!) so you'll just have to trust me when i tell you that mine isn't even a fraction as cool... and trust me, this is BY FAR the best version of the ones i've made so far.

my color scheme was inspired by the lovely laurel seabrook's aptly named inspired by challenge (#37) for which this was the photo:

i did wind up mostly using the colors. i had sort of planned to have a sunshine, or some fluffy yellow flowers, or at least a bit more paper-piecing in the background, to make the whole thing sort of "quiltier" so to speak; but as it turned out just making a slice of cake that looked like a slice of cake (instead of really pretty random paper strips; as the earlier prototypes did!) took longer than i thought, so in the end i built my cake and grabbed this week's mojo monday sketch (#254) and called it a day!

i plan to keep trying with the paper cakes, though, because i love this idea! perhaps an inspirational trip to the bakery is called for??! i mean, a girl has to be willing to do her *RESEARCH* am i right??! in the meantime, i wish you a very happy and a very sunny sunday, darlings! ♥♥♥

more DPP for you and me

more pages made using the daily paper prompts from the mega-inspiring daisy yellow art blog... and i've made a start at making them into a *JOURNAL*!  (ps: can you believe august is already HALF OVER?! time flies when you're having fun!) ♥

 DPP#11: hot air balloon (from prompt list)

the background was another one from last week's "faded" prompt for which i used watercolor paints and a cloud stencil/mask thingie. the fanciful airship was in an old book about the history of flight. for some reason, every time i saw it, it made me think of "the owl and the pussycat" so finally i gave in, cut out the illustration, and stamped the words. phew. that's better!

DPP#12: round

for some reason, i'm currently obsessed with concentric circles. for one of my ICAD cards i layered and stitched them; for this one i punched circles out of one piece of paper and replaced them with circles punched from another piece of paper. so weirdly enough for ME, this page is completely flat! i was going to ink or stitch or... something... at the end, but then i decided not to. (i took the buddha photo at foster botanical garden in honolulu; seriously photoshopped it, printed on a clear inkjet label, then layered over some japanese text paper. apparently, this book is going to have a LOT of hawaii references!)

 DPP#13: list of nail polish colors (from prompt list)
second only to my longing to be a "miniature cities assembler" at legoland, i've secretly always wanted a job at OPI. they have the BEST-- and silliest!-- names of any product line, anywhere; thus i am pretty sure i'd fit in... though possibly not with this lot! :) :) :) (they make a high quality nail polish, as well, which is also nice, lol!) 

 DPP#14: pocket
this was going to be an ordinary pocket, honest, with like a piece of paper in it. then i saw the awesome confetti packets in this post on tara anderson's blog and i HAD TO make one. the disco dancers came later. it's a long story. of course, it wouldn't be the '70's without some egregious faux woodgrain, obviously. my childhood has much to answer for...

DPP#15: music
miss tammy's suggestion for this one was to listen to a favorite song and draw or paint how it makes us feel. and again, that was my intention... until i saw the expression and body language on this girl in a magazine, which conveys *EXACTLY* how i feel when i am driving in my car alone and singing along to the radio!!! (sadly, my volume tends to be in inverse proportion to my talent; which is why i'm required to keep my singing confined to a private, highspeed, sound-insulated metal box; but that's another story entirely and has no impact on my enjoyment of these occasions!) :)

now howsabout a look at where i'm keeping these? remember i showed you the fabulous set of 6.5x8" clear acrylic mini-book covers stephanie sent me? i knew right away i wanted to use them for this, but i wasn't sure how best to take advantage of their CLEAR-ness. and then it came to me: make the page mounts clear, too! or rather, if not exactly clear, at least make them from transparencies! this fit in rather well with my wanting to make some sort of fitting tribute to the sad demise of hambly screenprints, makers of the BEST EVER* (imo) acrylic transparencies for use in art; so that's what i did. please excuse the pics-- of course since this is one of my all-time favorite projects it was one of the all-time hardest to photograph!!! 

at some point i'll be adding a title or... well... some sort of panel to the front, which i hope will help with the record-setting levels of reflectiveness on this baby; but this gives you an idea. 

here you can see that each transparent page base is different, and that i've glued my 5x7 working pages back to back, so they sort of float; you can see through them here and there, and you get a great "stacked" effect from the front; but each page stands alone.

this is currently my favorite minibook/journal i've EVER made, so i'm pretty psyched that there are still two more weeks' worth of things to make and put in it! if you feel like making something totally fun and JUST for ♥YOU♥ why not check out the prompts at daisy yellow at start working in your own art journal?! ♥

*i've seen products which rival hambly EITHER in design OR in quality; in my opinion no one's ever done BOTH of those things-- at the same time-- as well as hambly; no one else (to my knowledge) makes beautfiul screen-printed acrylic of a thickness that can be used as a sturdy card base, or the foundation of a scrapbook or journal page, etc; but i'm keen to learn so tell me if you've got a product i should know about!!!

yes, i really DID make this card, too!

i realize that if you look at my ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ sketch card from last week, and the one i'm going to show you today, you could be forgiven for thinking they weren't made by the same person; but hey, one of the best things about making christmas cards once-a-week throughout the year (instead of a big, stressy, early december clump!) is that you can try every cool new product, every off-beat idea, and every conceivable style you've ever wanted to have a go at! so i did. :)

(patterned paper: echo park, basic grey; tiny accent and sentiments: funky christmas tags stickerz by EAD designs; santa cardstock diecut: crate paper; tag: basic grey; alphas: american crafts; brad: doodlebug; other: baker's twine, plain white cardstock from staples; adhesives: staples glue tape roller, 3m foam tape)

another reason to go in a COMPLETELY different direction this time is that i really wanted to show off how incredibly flexible miss stephanie's beeeeeeeeeeeeautiful sketch is:

something else i've been longing to do is get back to playing in the monthly color challenge at EAD designs , which i sort of lost track of whilst enjoying all of the summer ICAD fun. now, and of course, when i looked at the august colors...

...i thought, "ooooooooh christmas card!", though i confess i had my doubts about the bright yellow. and then as i scrolled down the eye-candy filled DT post on the EAD blog, i saw this tag of liz's which is not only brilliant (in EVERY sense of the word!) but also: i have those stickerz!!! sitting right in front of me at the time was a piece of dear lizzy "neapolitan" paper with the super-cute faux polaroids on it (including yellow and green ones) which seemed like the perfect frame for a collage of tiny little elements! weirdly enough, none of the "ingredients" i chose had ANY BLACK in them, so i decided to (somewhat uncharacteristically) make my "tie it all together color" be white; which kind of just totally lightens and freshens the whole thing in a cool way, don't you think?

the august challenge at christmas cards all year 'round is "kids' christmas" for which they'd like to see cards suitable for children; whilst at my time to craft they are celebrating "christmas in august", so i'm going to throw this little baby in to both; with a hearty "HELLO" to the talented teams at those sites!

and finally i'm going to link up with miss patrice's 52 card pickup, on her blog the old back porch:

there is still nearly an entire week in which to link up with us for the fab sketch challenge at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ which i hope you'll do ASAP. for one thing, we are always happy to see ya... for another thing, did i mention the prize...??!?!  ;)