peace on EARTH DAY!

one of my favorite prompts of the  ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ year is the one that falls just before earth day, when we challenge ourselves (and our friends) to make holiday cards that re-use, re-purpose, re-cycle or up-cycle at least one element! this has led not to  just some of the most creative ideas we've seen, but also some of the most beautiful cards. plus, you know, i always have tons of old stuff i'm dying to use up, lol!

since nearly EVERYTHING on this card used to be something else, it might quicker for me to tell you what the new elements are: the tiny blue and white doilies that are matting the focal image and part of an eyelet outlet pearl bling flourish. yep, that's it. as for the rest? the cottage image was punched from one of the (store boughten) holiday cards we received in a previous year; the lace was a scrap from my mother's sewing room; the papers with images have come from several old xmas "ideals" magazines; the (cool, blue!) text paper came from an old falling-apart book i rescued; and the sheet music is... well, it's sheet music, lol... mostly from books that have pencil markings and "well done" stickers and things inside them.

to deploy all of this goodness, i used the current (rather fab!) layout from sketch saturday, though i did, admittedly, get rather carried away with my strips of paper at the bottom of the sketch, so i will completely understand if they feel i've strayed too far from the original. the sketch did totally inspire the design, however; for which i thank them!

speaking of thanks, i am lucky enough to have the nicest blogging partner and crafty buddy in the whole wide world! her name is stephanie, and if you don't know who i'm talking about, you need to hop over to ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and check out what she's made this week. then start planning your own masterpiece and join the fun!