text me!

the new prompt has just gone up at *JINGLE BELLES* so of course this is a very exciting day for me. can you guess from the title what we're looking for? it's called "text me", which is a huge hint; so whaddaya think? well, if you guessed we want to see bold sentiments, funky fonts, text paper, lots of letter stickers, dictionary pages, or otherwise to make a statement with TEXT... then yes, you've definitely got the idea! here's what i did:

(patterned paper: echo park, my mind's eye, love elsie, october afternoon; large letters cut from an echo park journaling card; ho ho ho sticker: october afternoon, poinsettia stickers: recollections; ink: colorbox; white paper and cardstock: staples; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

one of my goals this year is to make at least some of my christmas cards a little less lumpy, bumpy, and expensive to mail. which is not to say that i won't occasionally go nuts* with the large 3D flowers, pearls and other bulky embellishments i love, but in doing my december daily journal last year, i kind of "rediscovered" the fun of combining paper, stickers, vintage illustrations, photos and other such items creatively, so i'm trying to keep that in mind while making my cards. at 6.25" by 7.5" this one is into an oversized envelope, but it's flat, and does't need to be protected with corrugated cardboard, so i'm callin' it a win!

miss stephanie has made an absolutely delightful text-based card this week, which i'm sure you'll enjoy seeing. why not hop over to *JINGLE BELLES* and check it out? i'll meet you there, darlings!

*because, let's face it, i'm still *ME*, aren't i?! :)

my collage-making obsession continues...

...and the aptly named collage obsession blog is fully supporting my habit!  this week's prompt is "bridge" which we can use in any way we'd like. i wound up being pretty literal, using a vintage gummed label of the golden gate bridge from an american geographical society book:

once i had the cool sticker as a centerpiece, i thought i might use some of the "bits" from my 2012 trip to san francisco, but it didn't turn out that way. somehow, i wound up using the colors of the photo more than anything, and working rather randomly; which seems to be my collaging style at the moment.

however as i look at the completed piece, i realize that i've got chopsticks and some chinese text and the fortune from a cookie... which kind of (obliquely) illustrate how much we loved san francisco's chinatown. and there's a tally sheet... quite appropriate, since on every trip my friend barb and i take together there is a SERIOUS ongoing canasta tournament at the hotel each evening! then, i suppose, the rest of the vintagey bits and bobs can represent the fact that we've never been known to walk past a thrift shop, rummage sale or bookstore without going in. so really, this collage is all about our trip, afterall! :)

be sure to check out collage obsession, there is already a totally *FAB* gallery of work posted for the "bridge" theme!

SOS136: cabin fever

i fully realize that compared to northern canada-- or, for that matter, even new england and parts of upstate new york-- a new jersey winter is not especially harsh. even this year's higher-than-usual ratio of snow days has been quite mild, compared to more northerly climes. additionally, we are lucky enough to live in a fairly populous suburban area, where the roads are plowed quite quickly, and weather-based inconvenience is definitely at the lower end of the scale. having said all of that, and with complete cognizance of what a spoiled brat i am, i still have to tell you, in confidence,

holy moly 

i am SOOOOOOO 

flippin' OVER winter, 

already!!!!!

thank you for listening. 

i feel better now. :) 

if you are similarly beaten down by the cares and heartaches of not having been outside to play in far too long, why not join us this week at shopping our stash for a little challenge we like to call, "cabin fever" for which we'd like to see you make anything with an outdoorsy vibe. you can do snowy trees and frozen lakes*, of course, if you're into it. or indulge your warm weather fantasies, with beaches, gardens, meadows... whatever you like! i decided to branch out (ok, sorry, worst pun ever!) by re-creating one of my favorite sights of spring: lovely birds in a tree full of leaves and flowers!

(vintage: book paper and oriole illustration; very very old pale green patterned paper: crate; copper metallic cardstock: the paper cobrads: oriental trading; dogwood flowers: off a silk-flower branch from michaels; spray inks: tattered angels, mister huey's mist, smooch spritz; leaf mask: heidi swapp; adhesives: scotch gluestick, staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i only realized as i sat down to type this how few commercial products i've used here, but i've definitely tapped plenty of vintage-based stash! i spent a pleasant half hour over the weekend playing with masks and inks on vintage dictionary pages; i fussy cut a pair of baltimore orioles; i did a little machine stitching; and then i called it a night.

each and every week, olympic gold-medal-winning levels of usin'-up stuff is being performed by my lovely SOS dt-mates. why not cruise over to shopping our stash and observe this phenomenon? ciao for now, darlings! ♥

*afterall, BY FAR the best place for that sort of thing is ON CARDS, am i right?!!

city crafter and (possibly?) collage obsession

it's another oddball post, i'm afraid. but at the moment i seem to be seriously addicted to making fast, random collages, so bear with me, ok? this one is in honor of two challenges i've been longing to participate in. first up: my old favorite city crafter*, whose current call, "the key to my heart" is for projects which include both a heart and a key**. i've obviously got one of each, so i'm pretty sure we're good to go on that score, woohoo!

the second challenge is a new-to-me site called collage obsession, which i've be quietly and awe-fully stalking for the last few weeks. they want us to feature the newly announced pantone color of the year, radiant orchid in this week's color challenge. now, in real life, my flower is an almost perfect match, which is why i chose it as my centerpiece... but it's only one element of my otherwise neutrally-toned piece. add to that the fact that unfortunately, i left my photo-taking until rather late in this grey new jersey day, and it's messed with my color a bit, making my flower look pinker than it actually is. so i won't be crushed if the lovely folks at collage obsession disqualify me on that account, but i thank them for the inspiration, and hopefully i'll be back next week to play again! :)

meanwhile, i do hope everyone reading this has had a very pleasant sunday, which featured LOTS of artsy pursuits and as few chores as possible! ciao, darlings! ♥

*miss kirsty may recognize a few of the elements i have used here, seeing as the little resin bird, the music paper, the gem flourish, and the heart were all part of the wrappings of a lovely little parcel which came my way last week! ta v much, missus! ♥♥♥

**i've only just noticed that one of the first words at the top of the dictionary page i built my collage upon is "armpit". pretty sure mine will be the only entry this week at CCCB... or indeed ANY of the major papercrafting challenges, for that matter... to prominently feature a heart, a key, and an armpit. awesome. sorry guys. :)

inch by inchie

sometimes serendipity is REALLY awesome, but i'll get to that in a minute. first lemme just remind you that we're having ourselves a "merry LITTLE christmas" at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this fortnight. by which we mean we'd love to see holiday cards that feature inchies and twinchies*! here's what i made this week:

(cardinals from an old christmas card, cut into inchies and mounted on a scrap of core'dinations cardstock; patterned paper: studio calico; florals: michaels; brad: my mind's eye; vintage seam binding from my stash; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

so here's the serendipitous part: i wound up making my card reaaaaalllllly late this week, and thus i was looking around for a sketch on wednesday night, whence i found, newly posted, this week's offering (#107) from christmas challenges with sketches, which... i mean... has there EVER, in the entire history of papercrafting, been a better sketch with which to use inchies?! i think not!!!

then i saw this uber-xmas-friendly pallette, at colour q (#225):

so yeah. basically all i had to do was flip through my stash of saved christmas cards for something that'd make a nice 3x3" grid, mount my inchies on an offcut of "artichoke(ish)" cardstock, and assemble the card. i originally had the squares right on the white cardbase, but there was this bit of woodgrain paper sitting out and suddenly i thought, "we're looking out a window at the cardinals in the snow!" so i decided to add one more layer. i actually already know EXACTLY who will get this card, next christmas, too; which is unusual for me, but i know someone who will just adore this image! come to think of it, it may have been he who sent ME the cardinals card, in the first place, a few years ago! ok, i think i have check my recycling bag and see if the inside of the card is still there, just to find out! :)

meanwhile, i'm sure you're longing to see what stephanie made this week, and check out the divine readers' gallery at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥!!! ciao, christmassy darlings! ♥♥♥

*we're not rabid about exact measurements, though; so if you've got the perfect 1.5" label punch you'd like to bust out, or have found some 3/4" round embellies that rock... WAHEY! consider those honorary inchies, and c'mon over to PLAY!!! :) :) :)

knitting mojo!

here in the northeast we got slammed with more snow this week, and boy was grateful that i could stay indoors through the worst of it! luckily, lovely husband jeff, who HAD TO be at work, was clever enough to have booked a "just in case" hotel room near his plant the night before, and he rode out the storm safely, as well. so in the end, what 8" of white stuff meant to me was an extra day, all on my own, playin' with paper. there are definitely worse fates! :)

(almost everything here is vintage ephemera, including those gorgeous graphed letters i cut from a needlepoint how-to; the crocheted flower illustrations from an old yarncraft book; and that fabulous doll in her glorious 1979's KNITTED trouser suit! the exceptions being a crate paper fabric brad, some dymo label, core'dinations cardstock, and colorbox inks.) 

i made this yarn-themed card for a knitting friend, using loads of off-cuts and leftovers from a new crop of small knitting journals i've been working on, very similar to the mini sewing journals i made last fall. i'm hoping to list the new yarn ones in my etsy shop this weekend!

i used this week's mojo monday sketch (#329) for my layout, rotating it ninety degrees to the left so my stunning-knitwear-clad beauty would be facing into the card!

another fab thing that happened during the snowstorm is that i found a really great local guy to plow our driveway! ordinarily, jeff gets home early enough to do it, but it certainly is nice to know that in a pinch, there's a trustworthy and affordable option that does not involve my already creaky back and a big heavy shovel. thank heavens for friendly entrepreneurs, am i right, darlings?! ♥♥♥

SOS135: the blues... times two

for this week's challenge at shopping our stash we've got the winter blues! lemme essplain: we want to see cards (or layouts, minibooks, atc's, etc) that prominently and predominantly feature the color BLUE, in all it's glorious hues and shades! so celebrate cerulean, relish royal, or go mad for midnight... then c'mon over and link up with us. i made two cards. they're the same, but different!

(vintage map and map index; fish cut out of an old angler's handbook; patterned paper: my mind's eye, basic grey, crafter's secret; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i made the bottom card first. and i really like it, but we're shooting for projects which are predominently blue, and i wasn't sure it was really blue enough? particularly since my star, the handsome mister fish, who irl is silvery blue... in the photo just looks plain old grey; plus i've covered up most of the blue clouds in that awesome amy tangerine paper. as it happens, i have two important "guy birthdays" at the end of january, so i decided i'd try a second time with a bluer fish and bluer clouds paper. mission accomplished. or accompfished? ok, no. sorry. nevermind. movin' on...

(vintage map; fish cut out of an old angler's handbook; patterned paper: amy tangerine, october afternoon, my mind's eye; round frame sticker: memories complete; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

i used last week's i (heart) card sketch for my layout, admittedly somewhat loosely. the bottom card is a more faithful version, but i accidentally drew my circles a little too small on the upper card, and would've had to trim an awful lot of lovely fish away... so i adjusted!

and now i know you are longing to see what the rest of the SOS dt has made for your delight, so off you go, darlings! ♥

is this too weird?

as you know, jeff and i have been reminiscing about hawaii a lot lately; but then a cold, grey, new jersey january will do that to you! the other day in the grocery i saw these little plastic palm trees and i just couldn't resist buying them, to make our own private island!

the base of my collage (assemblage? pretend island? what would YOU call this thing??) is a vintage atlas page; the sunset came from the same book. i've got some vintage dictionary paper (including the definition of "tropical"); the flowers and word are from a piece of creative imaginations paper. i wrote the word in big loopy script on a piece of scrap paper, then held it together with the patterned paper to cut it out. other than that, there's a little ink... a little machine stitching... and that's about it, i guess.

i debated quite a bit about posting a project as odd as this, but i'm longing to play along with city crafter's "arty trees" challenge, which ends today. plus you have to admit... these ARE artsy and they are trees, so there ya go! :)

would this be a good time...

...for some totally random collage action?*

this is the birthday collage** i made for my friend paul, in october. i thought i had posted it at the time, but today when i was looking for the post in order to email a link, i couldn't find it. so i apologize if this is a "re-run"!

someone was asking me about my collage-making "process" recently, and i think i babbled something stupid like, "ummmm... i cut stuff out... i glue it on a paper... and ummmmm... then i stop..." after which i turned red and only just barely resisted the impulse to run away. since then, i've been trying to sort of "pay attention" while i make a collage, to see if i can come up with a less ridiculous answer. but it turns out that a reallllllly big chunk-- like probably 80%?-- of my "technique" is subconscious. i hardly ever know what i'm going to make, not really. i look through LOTS of paper and choose some images, pretty randomly; i suppose there must be a teeny tiny part of my brain which is planning ahead, because, eventually i'll start to see commonalities in the things i've chosen. in this case, i realized everything was black and white... plus i had a bunch of hands and eyes to go with the little text caption. then i started looking for more hands and eyes, in black and white. all the while i was shuffling things around on my worktable, seeing how... or if... they'd connect up. so how did the venus de milo and a cartoon carp get in there? no idea, lol! "i cut stuff out... i glued it on a paper... and ummmmm... then i stopped..."  in retrospect, that sums it up pretty well, actually!

happy sunday, darlings! hope you are keeping WARM!!! ♥♥♥

*if you said no, the rest of this post is bound to be disappointing. sorry. on the other hand, the lolcats were especially funny today; feel free to switch over! :)

**instead of a card, i make him a collage every year, and just write, "happy birthday" on the back. how this started is sort of a long story, but to sum up***: he always loves getting them, and i always love making them, so i doubt we'll be changing this tradition any time soon.

***all-time favorite inigo montoya quote from princess bride:  "lemme essplain. no. iss too much. lemme sum up." :) :) :)

have yourself a merry *LITTLE* christmas!

it seems like people either love inchies, or hate them. what do you think? i love them. stephanie loves them. so for the last couple of years we've had an inchies/twinchies fortnight at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and we're doing it again this year! this was one of those times when i almost had "too many" ideas. i know, i know, there's no such thing, really, but sometimes when my brain feels bombarded with lots of inspiration, it can be hard to focus. eventually i decided on twinchies... round ones... and after i'd made those decisions, everything came together:

(vintage: sheet music + seam binding; patterned paper: studio calico, mambi + the backing from some k and co rub-ons as the base of my twinchie circles; flowers: prima; jingle bell brads: oriental trading; evergreen clear stickers: bo bunny; music tape: freckled fawn; red berry rub-ons: kaiser craft; labels: dymo; ink: colorbox; 2" circle punch: marvy; corner rounder: we r memory keepers; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick) 

for some reason i'm really LOVING neutrals right now, especially white and off-white. not sure why, exactly, but whenever possible i like to follow these little tangents, it's always interesting to see where they're going to lead!  i'm not sure you can really see where all of the ingredients i've used have wound up... they're mostly at the center of the three circles, but layered up. so i decided to take a pic in hopes of clarifying. yeah, it would've been great to snap photos as i went along, but at the time i was too immersed to even think of it; my process is not very "documentation friendly", actually, lol! :)

miss stephanie has made a remarkably cool card that i'm positive you'll enjoy seeing, so why not head over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and start planning your own bid for world inchie domination, too! ♥

SOS134: miss you

this week's challenge at shopping our stash is called "miss you". it's a great chance to make a card for someone you haven't seen for a while, which was what i originally planned to do; but at some point i took a crazy left turn and wound up with a funky hawaiian text-and-photo-based page in my art journal. i'm still not really sure *HOW* that happened, but i like the result:

(my own photoshopped hawaiian sunset picture, printed on kodak premium glossy paper; rub-on and sticker alphabets, from top to bottom: 7 gypsies, mambi, making memories (tiny glitter stickers), autumn leaves, and 3 differenet making memories fonts... hudson, providence and heidi; plus an american crafts minimarks rub-on heart)

i don't know about you, but i still have lots of rub-ons, especially rub-on alphabets, and i still really love them! as a matter of fact, i used a bunch of them at christmas, to label my gift wrapped packages, and it never fails to amuse me how much they astonish "civilians" who cannot figure out *HOW* you've attached them. "are these some kind of special stickers?" they ask doubtfully, fingering the not-quite-textural letters, "or did you WRITE this?" rub-ons are also very cool on photos, i think, again because of their seamlessness. yes, i could've gotten pretty much the same effect by putting the text on digitally, but sometimes it's just fun to play around with physical products, isn't it? i used seven sets of rub-ons and one set of very flat stickers, and i love that the text adds a fun element without covering up too much of the picture.

as far as the subject matter, yeah, i know, jeff and i were only in hawaii for three weeks, and it was two years ago; but i seriously don't think more than a month has gone by since then that one of us has not brought up a memory, a sight, a location, an activity, a food, or... well... SOMETHING from that trip that we loved and still think about. it's that kind of place, i guess. and obviously such longing is even more acute during a cold new jersey winter!  :)

something that i KNOW will warm you up, no matter how frosty your current weather, is the wonderful fast-moving high-pressure front* of inspiration emanating from my lovely SOS dt darlings, so off you go to check out the gorgeous eye candy they're created for your delight!

*we watch a lot of weather channel at our house. a lot. just sayin'...

more EAD fun in 2014?

yes, please! of course i was thrilled when the lovely amy tsuruta asked if i wanted to take part in another tribute to the late great EAD designs. this time our theme is, "something old, something new". my "something old" is the pair of chipboard brackets, which you might recognize as being verrrrrrrry similar to-- but perhaps slightly newer than-- a pair of chipboard brackets found in king tut's tomb. yeah. they are that old. :) my "something new"? it's actually this set of EAD stickerz, which the very generous miss amy was kind enough to share with me, along with a few more of her goodies, at christmas time! (my own EAD supply was admittedly beginning to dwindle slightly!) and now here's my card, which i think might just be my all-time favorite EAD design:

( stickerz: EAD designs; patterned papers: amy tangerine/american crafts, my mind's eye, prima, october afternoon; chipboard brackets (ancient... but still, imo, AWESOME) : kay and co; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

obviously the stickerz did most of the work, i love how the clear background ones make paper-piecing soooooo easy; and the fact that they are re-positionable means that you can try out a few ideas before you commit to a final choice. but the thing that really MAKES this card, imo, is the amazing sketch, which i found at paper playful, posted by a site called scrapping everyday miracles; though i believe it's originally a cardmaps sketch. the minute i saw it, i knew exactly how my card should look... right down to the fabulous antique brackets, lol:

speaking of awesome-looking things, i know where you can find a bunch more of them, on these blogs belonging to my fellow EAD tribute artists! there are also a few special prizes on offer, and the more blogs you comment on, the better your chances, so off you go, darlings:

Amy

Julie Smith

Julie Tucker-Wolek

June

Lauren Bergold  (yepper, that's ME!)

Rose

Stephanie 

Wendi 

old and new, redux!

i know i mentioned this over and over (and over!) again last year, but i really love that we're fortnightly rather than weekly at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! because most of the time my problem isn't that i don't have enough ideas, it's that i have too many; and having to choose only one for any given challenge can be kind of agonizing. so it's awesome to have *TWO* shots at every single prompt throughout the year. here's my second card for "something old something new", on which i've got a couple of old things, a few new things, and two that qualify as BOTH!

(vintage: doily, and scan of vintage postcard made slightly smaller and printed on kodak premium photo paper; patterned paper: crate; tape: k and co and freckled fawn; brad: my mind's eye; florals: michaels; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

first the new things, which were part of some lovely xmas presents i received: paper from miss june, plus tape from leslie and gina; the oldies are the brad and the pink silk poinsettias (stolen from an xmas garland i bought at michaels!); as for the category of items both old and new, both came from the amazing stephanie... so they are new to me, but they're vintage... so they're old, as well: the doily and the lusciously gorgeous postcard! ok, technically, the latter is a scan of said p/c because i do also collect vintage postcards, and i couldn't quite bear to part with it permanently! :) also, making a copy allows me to scale things down just a tiny bit, so they fit better on a "normal" (in this case 6" square) card!

speaking of stephanie, of course you know she has ROCKED this idea yet again, but don't take my word for it, jump on over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ to see for yourself!

SOS133: use something new!

at shopping our stash, the only thing we love more than using up our older supplies is breaking out our BRAND NEW supplies and using some of them... preferably with a bit of older stash! which is exactly what we're asking you to do this week, and what i've done on this card:

(patterned paper: recollections, crate + vintage image from an old book and sheet music; doily from my stash; flowers off some silk dogwood stems from michaels; tape: k and co; brad: my mind's eye; pearl flourish: prima; other: marvy giant circle punch, scallop scissors; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i've got every possible age of supplies represented here, i think: my NEW stuff consists of brand spankin' crate and recollections papers, plus some gorgeous kay and co deco tape i got for christmas; the (partial) pearl flourish and brad have been in my stash for ages; the doily and sheet music are genuine vintage; the focal image is from a distressed former library book i rescued from the 50 cent shelf, and my favorite bit... the dogwood flowers... came off some silk stems that are in a vase on my dining room table!

now i'm pretty sure that either santa brought you some goodies, or you helped him out by choosing a few for yourself in the pre- or post-xmas sales, right? but if not, i suppose you might just have to make the ultimate sacrifice and treat yourself to something lovely, and thus make you eligible to play along this week! ;) in the meantime, maybe checking out the gorgeous DT examples at SOS will give you some extra inspiration, i know that always works for me! ♥

snow day!

snow is not exactly rare here in the northeast, but the last couple of years we've had two uncharacteristically mild winters in a row-- which some of us quite liked, actually; WHY are we changing back??!-- so perhaps we're a bit out of practice. something that *IS* rare here at our house is a snow day on which even intrepid husband jeff doesn't care to venture out. we only got maybe five inches or so of the white stuff overnight, but it was on top of some ice, and accompanied this morning by strong winds, and for once that worthy fellow decided to stay at home. i'm a chicken, myself, so i was ALWAYS laying low today, but it's kind of fun to have company! he's clearing the driveway at present, and even from this distance i believe i can hear the word, "snowblower" being muttered occasionally; i suspect home depot will be seeing a little more of our money before winter's end! :)

inside the house it's a lot warmer, so this seems like the perfect time to do a little tinkering here at the old blogstead. i had made a new header over the holidays, and today i finally fitted the words on* in a way i like, so here it is:

(digital elements: taped together paper pack no 1 (at the verrrrrry back, lol) and basic tags no 1 by katie pertiet, designer digitals; multi media flowers no 1 and twiggy brush set no 1 by anna aspnes, o'scraps; birds and text from renewed spirit kit by agnes biro, design house digital; clockface from mixed elements pack no 2 by juliette kniepp, design house digital; free fonts: bohemian typewriter and cry kitty; software: adobe photoshop elements 9)

now that my blog is neatly dressed i suppose i should follow suit. i mean, what kind of responsible adult is still in her pajamas at noon? oh wait, i know that one: the COMFORTABLE kind! nevermind, darlings; let's just stay cozy today, ok? ♥♥♥

*first rule of header-making: plan the design around your blog's title, rather than trying to fit it in at the end. it's a ZILLION times easier, and will probably look better. this is a very important point that i almost always ignore and almost always regret ignoring. ah well. c'est la vie creative, non? 

let's get ready to *JINGLE*!!!

hello and welcome to 2014, i hope the new year is treating you well so far! one of the things that's made the last few years pretty awesome for me, is making my christmas cards one at a time, throughout the year, at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! it's fun during the year because i get to see some of the best and most inspiring holiday cards being made by crafters from around the world; and it's REALLY fun in december when i am not stressfully mass-producing my cards at the last minute!

we'd love for you to join in the fun, so our first prompt of the year could not be easier; we call it something old, something new... and i bet you can guess what you need to do, right? yepper, grab something that santa brought you (or that you scooped up in the post-xmas sales!) AND something that's been in your stash for awhile, and make a lovely holiday card that features both items! but before you get going on that, check out what i made:

(vintage: christmas card and doily; patterned paper: studio calico; cardstock stickers: echo park; floral: petaloo; sparkly snowflake: martha stewart; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick)

you may have guessed that the sparkly central panel is part of my "something old" since it's from a vintage christmas card. for my "something new" i've got a pair of stickers from an echo park 12x12 cardstock sticker sheet and also a petaloo red velvet floral; both of which were from crafty steals' super pre-xmas deals. my favorite part, though, is the lovely doily, which actually counts as *BOTH* "something old" and also "something new"... because it IS vintage, but it was given to me as part of stephanie's awesome christmas goodie box! nice, right?

i've done quite a loosey goosey version of the current super sketchy sunday sketch at 365 cards, but it really was the thing that inspired me, so it's only fair to give credit!

getting back to stephanie, i'm sure you want to see her gorgeous card, and also start planning your own, so why not head over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check it out?!