Irene is gone!!! And I'm late with my post!!!

Today I am so thankful that Hurricane Irene turned out to be much less intense than forecast. My home and family came through with flying colors - just some debris cleanup outside. But my heart and prayers go out to everyone who have had their property damaged, or worse yet are injured or killed. Having been through this before, I know the recovery is going to be long and tough, so please remember those affected.

Saturday's Paper a la Mode Challenge over at The Outlawz started yesterday, but I was so focused on the storm that I completely forgot to post my creation - my quick creation. This entire week was full of work and home storm preparations, but I found a little time on Friday to try to put my thoughts about the inspiration photo that is the focus of the challenge onto paper. The colors and lines are just so bold and beautiful, and I had to make a couple of tries to get something pulled together that I was happy with, but this is my "inspired creation":

I used some Pink Paislee papers that I had in my stash, along with a little chipboard tree and a variety of little gems and pearls that are supposed to look like leaves in the fall, although I'm not sure how successful that turned out.

But thanks for stopping by, and thanks to everyone for all the prayers and positive thoughts as Hurricane Irene approached and passed us by. Hugs to all!

Banners - Saturday Paper a la Mode Challenge

Okay, it's time to talk about one of my favorite things in paper crafting - BANNERS! I love making banners, and I have made quite a few over the last couple of years to celebrate different seasons, holidays, as gifts, and now have made a tiny one to put on an Artist Trading Card (ATC) for this week's Paper a la Mode Challenge over at The Outlawz.

I made the banner pieces, which are quite small - maybe 1/2 inch for each piece - using Power Point. PP has a lot of different shapes built into it, so I used a triangle and sized it to what I wanted. Then I typed a letter into each piece - in this case I was spelling out "joy" because my ATC is for the Christmas season. I made the border of each triangle red, and the letters black. Then I printed it out on plain white cardstock and cut out the pieces - easy peezy! (If you would like to use the same idea, let me know and I will send you the file to use) I love the little digi bunny - I colored that with Copics and added a little Stickles to the fur on the hat for some bling.

My last post had the ATCs for the other 3 seasons, and this is the final one. These are for a swap over at CDAC where we had to use digi images to make ATCs, and we could pick one or more seasons - I am doing all 6. I've got to get these in the mail to the swap organizer this week, and I am so looking forward to getting back the ATCs that everyone else in the swap has created. This will be my 3rd swap with CDAC - if you haven't tried it, it's a lot of fun. They do different ones for stickpins, cards, ATCs, mini albums - just about anything.

Thanks to everyone for stopping by! Big hugs to all!

Paper a la Mode Challenge at The Outlawz

Ooh, I have been soooo remiss with my blog lately!!! And with my paper crafting too for that matter!

So now for this week's challenge, and hopefully a little inspiration for you! Over at The Outlawz, we do a weekly challenge called Paper a la Mode. There is usually a twist, and you can use the twist to make pretty much anything involving that twist. This week's challenge is to make anything but a card (so a layout, banner, mini-album, wall decoration, etc.).

So I decided to try my hand at some ATCs (or artist trading cards), which are tiny in size ( 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches ).
I am making these for a swap, in addition to this challenge, and they are seasonal. The swap requirement is that they each have to have a digital image of some sort on them. I struggled and struggled with this, because I am just not accustomed to trying to work with something so small - my typical card size is 6 inches by 6 inches!!!

So this first one is for Summer - it's the first one I did. I thought the canning jar with the flowers was just so "summery", and I tried to put it with some colors and patterns that reminded me of summer - I guess mostly because they reminded me of summers at my grandmothers house a million years ago, but my best memories ever!

This second one is for Spring, and might just be my favorite. I used an adorable image from Arielle at the Wax Fruit Company - I actually won this in a sneak peek contest, but just had not taken the time to use it yet. I think it's just too cute!

And then the third one is for autumn, and in this case I made it Halloween-y with one of my all-time favorite digis from A Day for Daisies! I love cats!

There is a fourth one that I am doing for winter, or in my case Christmas, but I am saving it for later. So stay tuned for that one coming along in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and I hope you join us over at The Outlawz for some fun! Big hugs!

Blog Candy on Gabrielle Polacco's blog (Such a Pretty Mess)

Just wanted to let anyone know who is interested that you should head over to Gabrielle Polacco's blog, Such a Pretty Mess, and leave a comment to be entered in her blog giveaway. This lady is so incredibly talented - I have been following her for a few years, and her eye for detail and beautiful things is amazing. She is on several design teams, so she has lots of extra goodies that she wants to pay forward to someone.

The Visitor

I have always been a huge nature lover. I grew up in the country, and have raised a coyote, two squirrels, a crow, and much livestock and domesticated animals. The back of my house faces an old peach orchard, so I get to see lots of bunnies, pretty trees and flowers, and other assorted wilflife. I have lived here for six years, and have only seen a fox on one other occasion during daylight hours. This morning before I left for work, I was sitting at my computer, which is always at the kitchen table, and I looked up and saw this fox on my back deck. I occasionally feed the stray cats that people have discarded and roam around the neighborhood, so I guess he/she has been coming around to dine and was looking for a snack. Boo Kitty raced to the window and scared it away, but it was just such an unusual sight I just had to share it here on the blog.

Thanks for stopping by! Hugs to you!

Pin Swap ... Come Join In

Hi everybody! I hope the weather wherever you live has been behaving in a nice way. We had some devastating tornadoes in my area last weekend, and we almost never have tornadoes. I live in Hampton, Virginia, and my family lives in Arkansas, and they have had a lot of tornadoes there too in the last week. Major damage and several lives lost, so my prayers to all those affected.

A couple of months ago, my dear friend Jenn invited me over to join Crafter's Digital Art Center (CDAC) and particpate in a beaded stickpin swap. The swap was to make pins in spring colors to be used to decorate cards, scrapbook layouts, or whatever you like. These are a couple of photos of the pins I made.

This first one shows the packaging that I made to present the pins. Inside I used a fabric-wrapped piece of cork as a holder for the pins.

This one is a bunch of the pins I made (yes, I got carried away) stuck into a little blending sponge I had handy.

This shot shows a closeup of a few of the pins.

These are extremely easy to make. There is a quick tutorial on the CDAC Pin Swap thread in the Swap Group that shows you how they are made - the rest is up to your imagination.

I had never worked with beads before, and these were so much fun, that I signed up for the new pin swap, where we are doing various groups for different holiday themes - 4th of July, Halloween, Fall/Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's Day. I signed up for all of the groups!

We would love to have you join in the fun, so please come on over to CDAC and check it out! You can find the main CDAC site at http://priscillastyles.ning.com/
. After you join, just look at the "Groups" and find the one for "CDAC Swap Central" and look for the Swap No. 7 - Holiday Colors Beaded Stick Pin Swap. You can sign up for one holiday group or all five - it's up to you! You'll love it!

Thanks for stopping by, and big hugs and Easter blessings to everyone!

Happy Birthday ... and some Echo Park

Yesterday's Question of the Day over at Simply Scrapping Crafts asked what was my least favorite line of papercrafting supplies. I really don't have a least favorite, but I did comment that I didn't understand all the hype over Echo Park, and that I don't generally care for their papers.

Well ... fast forward a few hours, and my lovely friends over at The Outlawz have a nice Sunday CAS Challenge, which I felt inspired to participate in. So guess what I used? You guessed it - Echo Park - their new Playground papers. The challenge is to have at least two punches (I used 3), use the color blue, and have some plain cardstock that isn't embossed or stamped upon. So here's my take on the challenge:

I also found myself one of those little flower frogs (at least that's what I think it's called) at Michael's to hold my cards while I photograph them. Now to just make myself a lightbox - one of these days!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll leave me a sweet comment - I always enjoy knowing that my friends stopped by! Hugs to you!