happy birthday, fusion card challenge!

can you believe it's been a whole year since the awesome fusion card challenge began posting their amazing eye candy? well, it has, and to celebrate, not only do they have a great inspiration board for us, but each design team member has invited a guest, so there are TWICE AS MANY gorgeous cards to drool over. i was honored to be chosen by my jingle belles' partner and card-makin' sista, miss stephanie, and i can't wait to show you my card. but first the inspiration:

just in case you haven't played along yet, you can see from the graphic that it's a two pronged challenge: you can use elements from the inspiration photo, OR you can use the sketch, OR... you can do both! i chose the third course, and here's my card:

patterned paper: anna griffin, basic grey, kaiser craft, k and co, making memories, glitz design; florals: michaels; sentiment sticker: echo park; brad: oriental trading; sadly crooked-looking (but not irl, i swear!) lace: from my stash; black glossy cardstock: paper accents; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

you can see that for once i've used a sketch really faithfully! well, heck, why not? what's not to love about that thing? i worked in quite a few ideas from the photo, too: the colors, the white chalkboard-look script, a little bit of gilding, birthday cake, etc. i'd like to mention that, in real life, my lace is not on crookedly (no really! arrrgh!) but other than the slightly wonky photo, i'm pretty happy with this and it was a blast to make! 

many thanks to stephanie for inviting me to share this fun celebration, and happy anniversary to everyone at the fusion card challenge, especially my friend amy t! now go check out the main post, darlings, you have such a treat in store! ♥♥♥

only 359 days left until christmas... :)

...so it's time to get moving on those holiday cards, lol! ok, yeah, i know it sounds crazy, but seriously, the thing about starting right after christmas is that we all have a very fresh memory in our head of either being done our cards early and liking that feeling; or mass-producing at the last minute, and wanting to avoid that feeling. and since new year's day is when we all love to ACT on our newly-minted resolutions, that's when we like to start up at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥! the first prompt of 2015, "no time like the presents" is a nice easy one, because we're pretty sure that, just like stephanie and myself, most of our fellow card-makers loooooove to save bits of glittery gift wrap, pretty tissue paper, fancy ribbons and cool tags... so go grab one of the ones YOU held on to... or raid your leftover holiday wrapping supplies... and use something you find there on your first holiday card of the year!

glittery white and shimmery blue tissue paper from costco, apparently, who knew? patterned paper: my mind's eye, basic grey; glitter sticker: papaya art; chipboard snowflake: crate paper; snowflake sticker: stickopotamus; fabric snowflake button: michaels; adhesives: xyron, elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sewing machine

i had a pretty easy time choosing what to use because my aunt wrapped all of her presents in the coolest coordinating set of tissue paper i've ever seen! the white square with the glittery trees is the "main" pattern and then the back layer of blue with snowflakes (which is beautifully shimmery irl) is the accent piece from this set. all i did was save the least wrinkly bits and stick them to a couple of panels of plain white cardstock from staples, using my xyron machine. of course you could use gluestick to get a nice all-over bond, as well. no matter what adhesive you use, the trick is to apply it TO THE CARDSTOCK, rather than the (much more fragile) tissue paper. this is the same method i use when working with vintage paper, as well. i added in a glittery papaya label sticker from last year, and accented everything with machine stitching using some of the fancy gold thread miss amy gave me (ta v much, missus)!

for the layout of my elements, i used the current (#146) retro sketch again, because it's such a great, flexible design:

so if you're lucky enough to be home on this lovely new year's day, and you're feeling a bit resolutionary, why not grab some gift wrap or a tag and join us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥? we'd love to see you and your holiday cards over there this year! ♥

sometimes procrastination is a GOOD thing!

i mentioned last week that jeff had the chance to use up a few extra vacation days right before christmas, and that he was excited about last-minute opportunities to spend a day in bethlehem at christkindlmarkt and later for us to take an overnight near his parents' house so we could visit longwood gardens. we also unexpectedly go the chance to play host to some cousins from out of state who were in town for "a limited engagement" during christmas week. all of these events were wonderful, but there's only so much time in a day, so the thing that got pushed to the back-burner was december daily. i was still taking photos and composing pages, but photographing and posting just didn't happen. and i'm *fine* with that. afterall, there's no statute of limitations in papercrafting, darlings! my book is finished now, though, and i have a mega-wrap-up post for you, so let's get started:

dd19: oh rats

all december i'd been periodically checking the listings on the logo channel to see when they'd be showing their annual "battle of the nutcrackers" in which a different version of the ballet airs each night. and it was NEVER listed. the friday before xmas i discovered why... because it's not on logo, it's on ovation! so here's a page that's cute AND an excellent reminder to be careful about asking a question to which you THINK you know the answer.

dd20: (photo-less) christmas with the bergolds

apparently it's going to be a yearly tradition that there will be one BIG december event at which i utterly fail to take any photos at all. last year it was brunch with my family. this year it was christmas dinner with jeff's family, which took place on the saturday before the big day. somehow i came away with only one quick iphone snap of the badly backlit mini tree in my MIL's living room that i took when we first arrived. once there were cool photogenic PEOPLE onsite, it seems i forgot all about photos.

so i played around with filters and levels, printed the best version of the one pic i had, did some handlettering on top and journaling underneath on an attached oversized card. it's not the page i envisaged, but again it illustrates a nice point: during the holidays, it's more important than ever to just ROLL WITH IT. yeah, i can do that.  

dd21: longwood christmas

conversely, from our day at longwood gardens, i have waaaaaaaaaay more photos that i could possibly ever use. so i didn't even try. i chose one shot i liked, printed it at 5x7, attached the fold-out map and part of our e-tickets, added a couple of dimensional sparkly velvet flowers on top, and called it done. 

dd22: gangsta wrap

i love wrapping presents. i may have mentioned this about elebenty gazzillion times over the last few years. i like to take pics of gifts i think look especially nice... but they don't need many words, really, so a page covered with one of the textured papers i used, trimmed out with ribbon and featuring a nice big photo and a few thickers works for me. job done.

dd23: two trees

here's the only page in the whole album that i might actually go back and add to, or at least tinker with. once again this year we have two full-sized, freshly cut, seriously sparkly, uber-decorated christmas trees. and they are both kinda... well, MAGNIFICENT, actually... if i do say so myself, which apparently, i do! :) i took a pretty good full-sized shot of each and then made a pocket on the back of the page to hold a close-up detail pic of each tree. the back of both little cards holds typed journaling telling the type of tree, what kind of lights and garland i used, and other details i know i'll want to remember next year. i definitely like what's here, but i wouldn't rule out the addition of a few more decor pictures, on a different/extra page.

dd24: handmade holiday

i'm pretty sure this journal has more pocket pages than any project i've ever done, and here's another! it holds mini-snaps of the handmade gifts i gave this year: shadow boxes for my aunt and uncle, a funky ruffly rainbow purse for our new niece-by-marriage's little girl, and wooly caps for all the american girl dolls.

dd25: the yule log

this is probably only funny/interesting if you are me, or possibly if you are my sister. which admittedly, you might not be! but amie and i have both long been obsessed with the televised burning yule log that gets aired on smaller cable tv stations on christmas morning. which it turns out looks REALLY cool on the biiiiiiiiig giant tv that now (still rather surprisingly to me) resides in our living room. so of course i had to take and text a photo of it to my sis first thing that morning, and many, "i hope you have a dvd of fire extinguishers standing by" jokes ensued. again, you probably need to be us to find this even remotely significant but to me it seemed a fitting image to conclude this year's december daily festivities!

december daily 2014: the big sprawl

no journaling project of mine could be considered complete without the sprawly picture of the finished book, so here's this year's version. below, a more restrained photo of the same thing:

and this really does conclude december daily 2014... just in time to conclude december 2014!

happy new year's eve, darlings!

♥♥♥

SOS182: thrice as nice!

this week we're rolling out the last challenge of 2014 at shopping our stash, and in the true spirit of stash-busting we'd like to see projects which feature at least three different patterned papers. combining patterns is one of my favorite things, in fact my current record is 47! i'm not even close to that on today's card, in fact, i've only got four, but that's one more than i need for "thrice is nice"!

patterned paper: recollections, crate paper, basic grey; journal cards (2 combined to make an extra long panel): october afternoon; flower stack: october afternoon diecuts, prima and heidi swapp florals, doodlebug brad; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, sewing machine

i built my card around a pair of uber-cuuuuute vintage-style journal cards ("it's a party" and the sweet kiddos peering round the door)  that i glued together to make one extra-long sentiment panel. then i grabbed a mat of yellow and orangey tiles, another mat of yellow checks (it looks solid, b/c there isn't much showing) a nice big background panel of pink polkas, and a little flag-strip with strawberries on. since there was quite a bit going on already, i kept the embellishments pretty minimal, just a flower stack held on with a cupcake brad, to reinforce the birthday party idea.

i used the current retro sketch (#146)-- admittedly in quite a loose way-- to guide the placement of my elements:

need a little more inspiration in combining patterns? head on over to SOS where the whole team has created awesomeness for your enjoyment. ciao, darlings! ♥

merry christmas!

whether or not you are celebrating today, i hope you are having a wonderful, calm, happy day... and maybe even have a few treats to look forward to! in case your preferences run to eye candy, here are a few photos from our trip to longwood gardens on sunday:

longwood gardens, in kennett square, pennsylvania, close to the delaware state line, is glorious in EVERY season, but secretly, christmas time might be my favorite, as you can see, they go ALL OUT in terms of decor!

most of these pics were taken with my iphone; jeff shot using our "real" digital camera, and we made a little flickr album of those to share with members of the family who couldn't come with us that day.

if you go to longwood, it's a really good idea to pre-book tickets online because they get quite a few bus tours in addition to individuals and families, so it's possible a drop-in visitor could be turned away if they are full. (this has never happened to anyone we know, but especially at xmas we do tend to book ahead.)

in addition to bringing your camera and some comfy shoes, you'll want to save a bit of time and a few extra calories to have a cup of longwood's justifiably famous, uber-rich, creamy mushroom soup in the cafe. there is also a more formal restaurant on site, but we like the quickness of the cafeteria-style one, and the menus (including availability of beer and wine for the over-21 crowd) are similar in both places.

all of the indoor and outdoor facilities at longwood-- including the enormous 20-room conservatory which houses most of the christmas display during the holiday season-- are wheelchair-friendly and very accessible. there are wheelchairs and motorized scooters available to rent on a first-come, first-served basis. we've gotten a scooter for my mother-in-law several times, and it makes it possible for her to enjoy the very same experience as the rest of the family.

we've been to longwood... gosh, i'm not even sure how many times! it's quite near jeff's parents' house, so it's a semi-regular stop for our family. but no matter how many times we visit, the experience is always different, and always wonderful! ♥

it's beginning to look a lot...

 ...like christmas panic, lol! ok, panic is too strong a word, but there's always a point in the proceedings when i realize that i can either do all the things i need to do OR talk about them, and that's where i am right now. i have lots more december daily pages to show, loads of decor pics, and photos from our last-minute overnight trip this weekend which included a long and photo-heavy stop at the magnificent longwood gardens. i'll be sharing all of those, in dribs and drabs over the weekend, when things calm down! meanwhile, here are some fun giftbags, sitting under our vintage-ornament-bedecked tree, which i love beyond reason:

i used the current sketch at stuck on u sketches for my basic layout, though admittedly i have been pretty loosey-goosey with the proportions of the various elements:

since i usually need to make a bunch of kid-style gift bags at christmas, i almost always go for a hybrid design. i make the basic collage in photoshop using digital elements, print it out, and embellish with real-life lumpy-bumpy details. here's a closeup of riley's bag so you can see the collage properly: 

digi kit: an icy christmas by amber shaw and studio flergs, from sweet shoppe designs; plus a few other digi papers of unknown origin, possibly from katie pertiet of designer digitals; over the rainbow glitter style by studio flergs; colorful real-life paper scraps including october afternoon, echo park, we r memory keepers, studio calico, pebbles and lots more; florals: prima; felt snowflakes, red velvet wired ribbon, plain 10x13 kraft gift bags and gems: michaels; silver star brads, gem brads and xmas badges: oriental trading; ink: colorbox, vintage trimmings from my stash

ok, so which bits are which? the dark green mat at the very back, the red flower and white snowflake, the scatter of red rhinestones, the wonky layered trees, the red and white braided vintage trim and the machine stitching are real life elements... everything else is digi, bumped up with varying degrees of drop-shadow. i always go strongest on the name so it realllllly shows up... because let's face it, we all LOVE to see our names in big sparkly letters on a fancy present, right?

my favorite part of these miiiiiight be the gloriously wonky trees. the ones below are from lindsay's bag. there were a number of styles included in the digi kit i used, "an icy christmas" by amber shaw and studio flergs from sweet shoppe designs, and that's what i used in my digital composition, to get all the sizes and shapes lined up. then, before i printed out the collage, i deleted the digital versions of the trees, so that i could replace them with real-life versions, which i made by hand-cutting lots of colorful paper scraps into triangles, and stacking them in various combinations. this was definitely a fun and super-easy thing to do and i can imagine making a collaborative project in which a grown-up makes and prints the digi collage and some kiddos make the trees and attach the other embellies! 

i hope that your holiday preparations are going well and that you are taking time to enjoy christmas eve and look forward to the big day tomorrow! ♥♥♥

gingerbread and bratwurst? (oh ja!)

we are officially into christmas vacation now, and the normally home-loving jeff has become a fireball of holiday activity, so i'm not sure how many more of my december daily pages are going to be made and posted before the big day. but that's ok; because there's NO statue of limitations on papercrafting! today, however, he's immersed in a marathon of marketing and cooking so i'm sneaking in a couple more while i can:

dd17: christmas lights and gingerbread

we live pretty close to an open-air shopping mall in bucks county, pennsylvania, called peddler's village which hosts a number of yearly events, our favorite being the annual gingerbread house competition. we usually meet up with our friends kim and dave during the holiday season, have a nice dinner together, and then go check out the amazing gingerbread creations, enjoy the display of holiday lights, and maybe do a little shopping. this year all of that happened on wednesday night and was absolutely awesome, as usual. for my page i printed a small instagrammed pic of one of my favorite g-bread houses and turned it into flip-card to hold my journaling. then i mounted it on a full page (5x7) print of faux-bokeh holiday lights that i made by putting a pretty strong dose of pse9's "palette knife" filter onto an ordinary photo i took that evening. i had to play around with saturation and light levels a bit, and of course it's a total cheat, but i'm FINE with that, lol!

on thursday we drove up to bethlehem, pennsylvania, to visit the annual holiday event they call "christkindlmarkt" which is kind of half high-end craft fair and half holiday party. jeff and my mom are both big fans of this yearly treat (well heck, so am i!) and have been known to wax lyrical about the amazingly creative artisans who display their work, the live music provided by a variety of local groups and the awesome decorations, all set against the unique backdrop of the historic steel stacks, but don't be fooled, because i'll tell you right now, in reality, the two of them are all about the bratwurst, which is admittedly wonderful, and served in the bavarian-themed food court! :) :) :)

dd18: christkindlmarkt see-through pocket page

i'm a big fan of including "real life stuff" in any journal project, and i tend to collect paper ephemera wherever i go. at christkindlmarkt i bagged a few brochures, a vendor's map of the artisan booths, a menu, and a postcard of the steel stacks at night which was handed over to me in the very cool clear plastic bag from the artsquest visitor's center. i was especially psyched about the latter, because it allowed me to neatly include all of the above AND a few photos i took on the day. score!

well i guess that's it for today, except to wish you a fabulous friday, darlings! ♥♥♥