Christmas Crafting and Freebies!!

Hello Friends!

Oh, my, my!! Has it really been a MONTH since I've posted? :O

Well, it is that time of year when we are pulled in all directions.
I have had lots of crafty projects, which I'd love to share with you.
I knew once December came all I'd want to do is bake cookies
and shop ;) ...oh, yeah, and eat the cookies.
So I revved my engines and did my creating in November. Whew!

First up is this cute little box filled with handmade tags for my Paper Soiree group.

and here are the tags:

 

For our make and take we made these little bags and origami trees

to embellish the bags:

 

Here are my samples:

 

I really wish I had a template to give you, but I don't.
I do have a link to the origami tree video, which you can see here.
You could add them to any bag, it is easy to adjust the size.
They're so cute on cards. 

Wendy of BlissAngels had a Christmas Cake Box swap,
and if you have been following this blog,
you know I love me my cake boxes :)
And she happened to be my partner!
Now I know that Wendy loves her fairies, so I made her a
SugarPlum Fairy:

 I do have several other projects to show you,
but I think I'll save them to provide the impetus for me
to post later this week :)

Now I shall shower you with images for your own
Christmas crafting:

 

Click to enlarge, right click and save!
 

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday.

You will find links to lovely teacups at Martha's Favorites and Artful Affirmations!

For links to lovely, shabby, chippy whites, stop by White Wednesday!

Lovely, feminine things at Pearls and Lace Thursday!

Lovely, cottagey links at Feathered Next Friday!

Party on at a very pinteresting party at Tutus and Tea Parties!And for all things lovely and vintage, visit Knick of Time!

♥♥♥Thank you so much for visiting and for all your lovely comments!! ♥♥♥
Have a great weekend!

Marie Cake and Cake Toppers!

Hello Friends!

And Happy Birthday to Marie,
it's the big 257!!

The Marie Antoinette group has been celebrating all month
with lots of fun swaps, and I'd like to share with you
some creations I made to celebrate Marie's birthday.

Marti hosted a cake box swap;
we created our boxes from a template,
used pretty papers, lace, ribbons, and other embellishments
to adorn it,
and filled it with fun crafting goodies!
I made this cake box for my partner, Thespa:

And Debi hosted a cake topper swap.

I made mine a bit differently...

I made the base out of an empty ribbon spool,

wrapped in paper, trim and festooning,

and mounted it on a candlestick that I glittered and sealed.

This cake topper went to my partner, JoAnne:

This is the beautiful cake topper that JoAnne made for me:

It's beautiful, JoAnne, thank you so much!!

It's been a fun month, seeing everyone's creations.

Now, time for some freebies:

A little birthday sentiment:

Marie herself:

And something seasonal:

 

Click to enlarge, right click and save!
 

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday.

 

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great weekend!

Tinsel Trading Company and Halloween Freebies!

Hello Friends!

Well, my search for fall color was apparently a few days too late,
and I MISSED the New England peak foliage.  :(

I did console myself with a trip to Tinsel Trading Company, though.  :)
Let's do a little window shopping:

 

 

 

 

 

Oooh, let's go inside:

Inside this cabinet are very vintage trims:

And there really are boxes and boxes on the floor in the back of the store

of very vintage trims just waiting to be unpacked and displayed.

 I am always mad at myself when I get home for not buying more when I had the chance!

Especially since our hotel was literally a half block away!

 

Here's a little giftie I made for my friend Rosa:

 

and some Halloween freebies:

Click to enlarge, right click and save!
 

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday.

 

For links to lovely, shabby, chippy whites, stop by White Wednesday!

 

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great weekend!  

Autumn Leaves, Tiny Dancer Cake Box, and Freebies!

Hello Friends!

It's Autumn!!
Does it look like this where you live?

 

 

Yeah, me neither.

 

It's been a long, hot summer and I look forward to

a crisp, cool nip in the air. 

But leaves changing color is just not going to happen here in San Diego,

I will have to seek them elsewhere.

 

Our swap for the September Paper Soiree

was decorated cake boxes, and of course

I was all over that, I just love making these little boxes!!

 

 

And it gave me a chance to use some craft supplies

that I love, like the ballerina, the circle of pearls,

and those tattered roses by the yard

that are so cool, but don't always fit in with my projects.

 

 

So, let's continue the ballerina theme with some freebies:

 

  

Click to enlarge, right click and save!
 

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday.

 

For links to lovely, shabby, chippy whites, stop by White Wednesday!

 

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great weekend!

Aloha, Pink Hotel, Lu'au oops, and Bitty Book Necklace!

Aloha Friends!

Yes, I have been on vacation. 
OK, I did squeeze in a little pinning on Pinterest while there,
but other than that, I was pretty much unplugged,
sipping a pina colada with my toesies in the sand.
But...
I did consider my Pink Saturday friends,
and therefore insisted we stay in a PINK hotel!
Just so I could blog about it, lol!
Well, not exactly, but the hotel was pink,
the very lovely, historic Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki.
I took this picture of it...

 and a few more pics and then...
I dropped my camera.
And it broke.
Aaargh!  Right at the start of the vacation!
If you've been a reader of this blog,
you may already know that I am very hard on cameras.
I drop them, I leave them out in the rain...
So I toughed it out for a few days using my lame cell phone camera
for the rest of the time we were in Honolulu,
and bought a new camera when we got to the Big Island.

I just love the Big Island.
Funny story - well, kind of embarrassing, but more funny than embarrassing,
so I'll tell it.
You almost always come across, at the very least,
one or two or more weddings when you're in Hawaii.
Now, I am not a big lu'au fan, but we were staying at the Orchid,
and figured they would have a pretty good one, so we decided to give it a try.
Ocean breezes, beautiful live Hawaiian music, long lovely tables with tropical flowers,
tiki torches, a lovely buffet, and everyone was so friendly!
Striking up conversations with us, asking us about ourselves...
we thought, wow, this is sooo nice!!
Well, just before we started stuffing our faces with kalua pig and poke salad,
we heard the beat of distant drums....literally....from the real lu'au....
and realized that we were at some wedding couple's rehearsal dinner!!  LOL!!
In our defense, there were at least 100 people there....who knew?
And we missed the real lu'au because we spent so much time at the RD.
Oh well, a good reason to go back.  :D

OK, OK, on to artsy crafty stuff:
I do have a lovely collaborative bitty book charm necklace to share with you.
The lovely Robin of  Once Upon A Pink Moon
recently hosted a swap in the Marie Antoinette Mail Art group.
She did not just host it;
she taught us how to make itty bitty book charms with a wonderful tutorial;
she attached our charms and books onto our necklaces,
AND
she wired lots of extra pearl charms that she made for us onto it
so that we would all have a beautiful necklace like this:

 There were five of us in the swap,
and we each made five bitty books so that each member would have
one book from all the other members.  We also made 14 charms each.  ;)
These are books by Terri and Marti:

Each ties shut and has a dangly charm at the top.

The inside pages are Frenchie/Marie images.

These are books from Robin and Lisa:

 
I loved them all!
Do you even see how Robin made a teeny weeny birdnest with two pearl eggs in it?
Fabulous!

And this one's mine.
I used gold embossing powder for the French wording and edges of book.
There's a gold german scrap crown on the front,
embellished with rhinestone chain and pink crystal.
A gold fleur de lys charm,
and tied with gold metallic filament thread:

 

Here's a pic of all the bitty books I made: 

This really was one of my favorite MAMA swaps yet,
I just love this group!  Thank you so much, Robin!!
And thank you Marti, Terri, and Lisa!!

OK, so you may be thinking...but what's inside these bitty books?
Holding the little books open and snapping a pic proved too much of a challenge for me.
So, for your Friday Freebie this week,
I offer you an assortment of images which I pasted to the inside pages of my books;
each little image would be pasted onto one of the ten pages in the book.
Perhaps you will be inspired to create your own book!  :)
Check out Robin's blog for inspiration!
Or use for charms, etc.

and

Click to enlarge, right click and save!

Aloha!!

Sigh...
 

For links to lovely, shabby, chippy whites, stop by White Wednesday!

Lots of links to lovely pinks at Pink Saturday!

 

Thanks so much for visiting, and have a great weekend!