...and a pink carnation

A white sport coat and a pink carnation

I'm all dressed up for the dance...

In honor of the seasonal proms and graduations!

Linking to Pink Saturday - Thank you Beverly!

Happy Birthday Pink Saturday!

Happy 5th birthday to the Pink Saturday blog party. 

A weekly party hosted by Beverly at How Sweet The Sound!

Thank you Beverly for this fun party each week. 

Here are a few pretty pinks for you...

 

Opps! Not pink, but I think it's beautiful. It bloomed on the same plant as the pink blossoms, the plant is called an African Daisy.

Linking to Pink Saturday .

Thirty Minutes Of Wonderful...

Each spring for over 40 years I look forward to my magnolia tree blooming. Spring was slow at arriving this year but it's finally here and so are the flower blossoms. 

I love seeing the beautiful pink and white flowers on my magnolia tree in my front yard. I even love seeing the pink and white petals scattered all over the yard when they begin to drop. 

The blooming season for my magnolia tree is more than thirty minutes but the life of the flowers in bloom on the tree is short. One year the tree had bloomed and it was wonderful for a day then that night we had an unexpected freeze and by morning all of the blossoms had turned black and fell to the ground.

It was wonderful for a short time.

My title for this post actually is part of a quote from a movie.

Can you guess the movie?

 My friend Marcia from Glitter And A Movie on Facebook has a challenge. 

She has picked the movie Steel Magnolias for this challenge. Marcia invites everyone to submit something creative to showcase the movie.
I had to use my magnolia tree in some way...

I covered a blank tag with a thin sheet of silver metal for the background. 
I embossed the metal.

I took photos, printed out copies, then cut out the blossoms. 
I added a bit of Stickles glitter and some Diamond Glaze to the petals.
I added a few cream colored Prima flowers and a silver cord for hanging.
I used double stick mounting squares to fasten the flowers to the metal tag.

I decorated the back of the tag with a quote from the movie.
The quote is: "I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special." 

Linking to: Marcia's Glitter and a Movie page on Facebook and
Beverly's Pink Saturday Blog Party at How Sweet The Sound.

Wishing you Wonderful minutes...

Motivating Challenges

Lately it seems I need to be challenged...

The Gecko Galz host a fun group called 

Gecko Galz Paper Crafting: Ephemera Emporium Crafting Challenges

click here to visit the group 

For the month of April I have entered in two of their challenges.

The April Pony Express challenge 

To create this tag is used cardstock, rubber stamps, seam binding, ribbon, and images from Gecko Galz the "Yee Haw" and "Ephemera Days 2" collection."

The April Color Challenge

The color for the April challenge is white.  To decorate this blank water-color paper postcard I used scrap card stock, stickers, Forget Me Not flowers, a faux butterfly, rubber stamps, embossed scrap backing from stickers, Dazzled Diamond glitter, Stickles glitter and an image from the Gecko Galz "Pixie Jewels 2" collection. 

Visit the Gecko Galz here

Do Something With This...

This is the image for the April challenge at the Mind Wide Open blog. Gail, our lovely administrator, created the pretty image for the challenge and assigned the prompt word "freedom" to tickle our imaginations. 

It is amazing to see how many different projects are entered using the same image.  To see all the entries and to vote go here. You may pick only one.

Gail's image and word inspired me to create a prayer flag for my entry.

I digitally added an image of a baby butterfly fairy riding a blue bird and a Hans Christian Anderson poem to Gail's original image, the word freedom is in the poem. I printed the new altered image onto fabric and frayed the edges. 

I cut a piece of burlap fabric for backing and body and frayed the bottom edge. I stitched the two pieces of fabric together. I hand stitched and glued several flowers and a butterfly to the design. I machine stitched some lace, rick-rack, vintage trim, and the words "seek joy" printed on a transparency.  A little touch of fairy dust (Stickles glitter) was added. The finished flag is clipped fast to a mini metal hanger. 

The flowers, fairy/bird image, and hanger are from Gail's store at the Shabby Cottage Studio. I used my gift certificate award from last month's challenge to purchase some of these lovely items.  I must also give credit to Gail for her class on how to make prayer flags that she offered on the  Creative Workshop site. Click here to see the current classes offered.

 To see more of my prayer flags click here. For more information on prayer flags and some beautiful examples  visit Terri at Artful Affirmations. Click here.

My flag is mostly blue but there is enough pink included to link it to one of my favorite blog parties, Pink Saturday. Click here to visit Beverly at How Sweet The Sound, say hello to her and sit back and visit some of the other pink posts at the party beginning on Friday.

Spring ~ Hippity Hop

 Spring is here - I just wish Mother Nature would get the memo!

 Sweet Spring flowers

Fuzzy Easter ducks

Cute bunnies and butterfly tags

 Chicks

  Eggs

and bonnets...

yes that is chocolate on her face

 Happy Pink Saturday! 
Thank you Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for hosting the Pink Party each week! Click here to visit Beverly.

One more thing before you go - I wanted to tell you that I'm so excited! 
I won first place in the Mind Wide Open Challenge.

Thank you to everyone who voted for my entry. 

Inspirational Challenges

Gail at Mind Wide Open hosts a monthly challenge. She provides an inspirational image that must be used in some creative way in your design. 
Here is the image she provided for the March challenge. 

I was inspired by the image to decorate a square chipboard box.  

I digitally added a quote to the original image. 
The butterfly lady is from one of Gail's digital sheets that she sells in her Shabby Cottage Studio Store. I printed the image, cut away the background, and added color with pencil crayons. 
Some of the butterflies are stickers. 
The entire box is coated with Diamond glaze. 
Stickles glitter outlines the edges. 
A border of white and copper metallic rick-rack edges the box bottom and lid.

The pink upper wings on the large butterfly under the woman are actually wings from a broken faux butterfly. 

 I didn't photograph the bottom of the box but if you're wondering... yep, there are butterflies on the bottom too.

With all the pink in the image it's perfect for a Pink Saturday Blog Party. Hop on over to visit Beverly, our P. S. hostess at How Sweet The Sound. 

If you would like to see  all the entries in the Mind Wide Open challenge and if you would like to take part in voting, click here. The winner receives a gift certificate for Gail's Shabby Cottage Studio Store.

Altered Domino Books

A Creative Workshop class,  Altered Domino Books with Terri Heinz, was one of my Christmas gifts from my daughter.  Last year I started to altered dominoes by making some pins and a couple of pendents. Now I can add making books to that list. Below are some photos from my first two books. I really enjoyed taking this class with Terri. I appreciate her teaching techniques. She talks about and shows her process of design. She explains what she is doing and then demonstrates how, she also shares lots of tips. I will be making more books. If you would like to meet Terri hop over to her blog, Artful Affirmations.  You can get a sense of her talent and teaching skills by reading some of her posts and watching her free tutorials.

My first book - Take Time

 These images are from June at Dezinaworld and Gecko Galz

oops, this close-up shows I need to touch up the Stickles...

My second book - Birds, Bees, And Butterflies

 This book cover is my favorite so far. The background is a paper napkin that I stamped and coated with Diamond Glaze. The feathers are from my Love Bird.

These birds, bees, and butterflies from Gecko Galz are some of my favorite images.

 I found a perfect sheet for this theme in a paper-stack book. 

I used the printed side for the back of my book and glued the images to the plain white side of the sheet for the book pages. 

 It was fun stamping the tiny bird images on the ribbon...

 I like the idea of adding a little sound...

Yes, Joy...

I'm going to link this with Pink Saturday - click here to visit our P. S. Hostess Beverly.
Also linking to Anything Goes at Crafters Digital Art Center.

Muse On Hiatus...Mostly

I have not been blogging or creating as I would like for the past few months. Lucky for me my sweet grandchildren and great grandchildren do not let the winter blues stop them from making things. 

This very colorful heart was made by my granddaughter  She has a large collection of crayons as you can see.

 Below are Valentine drawings I received. 

The first drawing is from my 5 year old great grandson. He said that it's a drawing of two guys getting out of a space ship. He said the two guys are wearing their space suits. I'm not sure why guys in a space ship are on my Valentine. He did use a red crayon to draw the picture. 

 The next drawing is from my 7 year old granddaughter. I just love their gifts and their sweet hugs and kisses! They inspire me and bring me joy

Speaking of inspiration and joy...
My dear friend Marcia at The Shop Around The Corner sent me Valentine sunshine. Click here to visit Marcia.

Here are a few photos of things I have been working on.  

 I enjoyed playing with sequin yarn. The close up of the yarn shows the actual color better than the next photo. I like the little addition of bling in yarn.

 I purchased a steam punk watch case for my daughter as a Christmas stocking-stuffer. I didn't have time to put anything inside the case before giving it to her. Last week I finally designed a collage to put in the case. It's my first attempt at making a steam punk collage. I think I would like to make more.

Pocket watch

  Empty watch case

 The beginning - butterfly paper background, a metal button, watch parts, gears...

 add beads, a  bit of lace, a paper flower with bling

 I think I like it -
Snap it inside the case. Add a key to the chain.

My daughter was happy with the finished piece.
The time on the clock is set to always be "elevenses."
I hope you had a lovely Valentine's day!
I'm going to link this to the Pink Saturday blog hop. Stop by to see lots of pink posts and say hello to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound. Click here!