Birthday Queen

My gorgeous cake from Peggy

Birthday Queen Crown from Ginger

Some of the fabulous girls-Pat, Lori, Beth, Helen, Donna, Fran, Ginger & Peggy

Click on the photo above to see enlarged some of the beautiful gifts I recieved! Handmade greeting cards from Lori, Peggy, Ginger, Donna, Melanie, Elise, Marilyn, Helen, Elaine & Berta. ATCs from Helen, Ginger, Fran & Donna. A necklace from Ginger and Twinchy from Fran, and LFBs from Lori, Ginger, Miriam, Beth, and Helen. Bird Mobile by Melanie and Altered Art piece by Marilyn (Not pictured because they were already displayed!)

I was so spoiled for my birthday! I had an awesome day creating at Miriam's with the girls from the Vintage Room. They all made me such gorgeous art pieces and gave me such fun supplies! It was the best way to spend my birthday and I feel blessed to have such amazing and talented friends! Thanks for my cheesecake Ginger! :o)

Valentine with Aly

Here is the Valentine I helped my sister make for her boyfriend yesterday! I had to share because it came out so cute. We actually made the key by lining up three different acrylic stamps because she wanted the top to be a crown instead of a heart. She got me back into embossing and it was fun to see her excited about stamping!

Fab 50s Inchies

Here is the series of retro inchies that I created as gifts for my Fab 50s ATC swap participants in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group. I found the image on the internet, copied it into WORD, cropped it, and shrunk it down. Then I cut out each image, adhered it to a one inch square of chipboard and inked the edges with CTMH Black ink. Then I adhered the jewels, sentiment, and rick-rack. I was going to add a mini sequin flower to each one, but it started to look too busy. Hopefully the girls will like them!

Snow & Ice Inchie

I stamped the ice skates with an acrylic stamp from Close to My Heart and embossed them in silver powder. Then I colored them in with silver and stardust clear gel pens. I used dutch blue CTMH ink to ink the edges of the chipboard and a blending pen to "paint" the background blue and give a watercolor effect. Then I dipped the edges in a puddle of liquid glass and then diamond dust to get the frosted icy look. I created this inchie for the Snow & Ice Challenge on The Small World of Inchies & Twinchies Blog.

Valentine Inchie LFB

LFB front
LFB back

This is the LFB that I made for Fran's Valentine Inchie LFB Swap for the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group. It required that we use three of the inchies that were traded back to us in her Valentine Inchie Swap. I used inchies by Helen, Ginger, and Miriam on my LFB. I also used vintage book pages and amusement ride tickets, dresden scrap I just purchased from http://vintage-ornaments.com, images from Cynthia Hart Victorian calendars, K & Company Valentine paper, and assorted rhinestones.

My Little Bag of Grace

Gracie likes to keep me company in my craft room. If she's not meowing for me to make room for her to snuggle in my lap, she's getting into something she's not supposed to and meowing at me when I tell her to stop. I don't know how I raised such a stubborn little back-talker, but I love her to death. The other night she decided to knock over and curl up into a shopping bag and her face peeking out at me captured my heart and attention. I snapped a few photos of her, changed them to black and white and put a color spotlight on just her face to her eyes and little pink nose draw all the focus that they should. She's my baby girl, and she's my little "bag of Grace."

Bird Cage LFB

front
back

door opening

a peek inside

This is the Little Fat Book Page that I made for the Stampassion swap with the theme of "mechanisms." Something on the page had to move, or open, or do something surprising. This was challenging for me, as I had little idea which direction to take. I decided on making my own bird cage with the door opening to reveal a bird inside. I printed the cage in gray-scale so that I could trace over it with metallic gel pens, then I added German scrap trim to dress it up more. I printed the bird twice to that I could cut out one with the wings lifted out to pop up when the cage is opened. I added stamping and flowers to vintage music paper for the background, and found a pretty quote for the back. Lastly, I stamped a bird at the top of the cage over the "believe" sentiment in versamark and brushed over the ink with pearl-ex powders. I was proud of this one--several hours of work after a long day at work...I'm surprised I pulled it out of me!

Merry XMAS 2009 Layout

Tribute Wordle to In My Vintage Room Group Ladies

"Believe" Wordles

I was just visiting Ali Edwards blog and she had a link to this great website where you can create a "Wordle" They are tons of fun to make, and would make great inspirational posters for any craft space, classroom, office and more. I might even try printing them out and embellishing them as ATCs.

New Year 2010 Inchie Challenge

These are the inchies I made for my very first challenge ever. I stumbled across the Small World of Inchies & Twinchies Blog and was inspired by the "a Happy New Year" theme and all the artwork linked back to others' blogs from past challenges.

I'm just getting the hang of this minature art, but it's becoming increasingly more addictive for sure. As my friend recently wrote in one of her blogs, its been a challenge to go from being a scrapbooker who works on 12x12 pages or maybe 8x8 albums, and then begins altered art with 4x4 LFB pages, ATCs that are 2.5"x3.5" and we've shrunk down even further to 2x2 and 1x1!!! It amazes me the thought and detail you have to put into something so small and I love it!

Each of these inchies was created with images I punched from a Cynthia Hart Victorian calendar, words typed up and printed from WORD, various glitter glues, rhinestones, and even old pieces of costume jewelry as seen in "Believe," and old watch parts as seen in "Resolutions."

Matted Valentine Inchie Grouping

Thanks to Fran in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group and her last few swap themes that required me to make Inchies...I am quickly becoming addicted. I wanted to try to come up with a way to display my new creations, and hopefully soon my collection as I start to participate in more inchie swaps. I've decided to matte them in themed groupings and put them in an 8x8 scrapbook album. This is my first matted grouping of inchies, Valentine themed, and all created by me. I have to think through how to display the only other three inchies I have so far, from the Christmas Inchie swap last month. Each of the three inchies are by different artists, so if I glue them down to a matte, I want to also have a space to put the date created and artist name. So this is a work in progress. At any rate, the above is my pride and joy of the day...inchies triple matted on black cardstock and vintage music paper torn from a book I bought at an old bookstore in Wells, NY. Click on the photo to enlarge it and see each inchie in more detail!

My First Set of Twinchies!

"Sweet Hearts" Twinchie (2x2)
"Loving You" Twinchie (2x2)

detail shot to show dimensional adhesive on wings and words

"Admire" Twinchie (2x2)

"Adore" Twinchie (2x2)

detail shot to show dimensional adhesive and micro-beads

These are the first "Twinchies" or 2x2 pieces of artwork that I have ever tried to make. They were fun, similar to inchies, but more like ATCs. A little more room to play, but I like the square shape. I've already incorporated one of these into another project to include in my Secret Valentine Package Project for the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group exchange.

Whooo Loves You? Card

I made this card today to mail to my parents and my sister in VA to say, "I love you and I miss you." It's strange to not be able to go to their house anytime I want to anymore. I've been stressed about jobs and money and grad classes starting and it's nice to know they are still only a phone call away for encouragement. They sent me a cute card in the mail, and it's always nice to get fun mail instead of bills...so this is what they will receive in return.

Paris, City of Love ATCs

These are the Paris Themed ATCs that I created for my February Swap in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group. The Eiffel tower background stamp is Tim Holtz, the vintage paper is Making Memories, I used german scrap for a border, Stickles, rhinestones and pearls. The lady images were from Luna Girls clip art CDs and googled images. The words "Explore," "Love," "Romance," and "Journey," were done in a Word document, cut out and inked.

Fab 50s ATCs

These are the ATCs that I made for the first ATC swap that I'm hostessing of 2010 in the In My Vintage Room Yahoo Group. It's a 3 for 3 swap, but I was on a roll and now I get to keep one for myself. I googled retro images and came up with some great ones, then I looked for funny quotes to pair them with like I have seen on magnets and potholders in specialty gift shops. It just makes these ladies seem so independent and spunky to put sassy quotes in their mouths. I incorporated a Rock & Roll record, coordinating gem stones, and the print of 1950s drive-in/diner floors to complete the theme on each ATC. I hope I will have alot of participants in this swap...I had fun!

With Sympathy

This is a sympathy card that will soon be on its way to hopefully warm the heart of a very strong, talented, amazing woman who is mourning the loss of a cherished companion. I am constantly in awe of her artistic talent and I was fortunately able to meet her early on in 2009 in person and become friends with her outside of the scope of internet and snail mail art groups. She is a fabulous and kind-hearted person who I feel priviledged to have in my life. It makes my heart ache to know that she has had to say goodbye to someone she loves and accept his place as her guardian angel. Hopefully someday in the not so distant future, the sorrow she feels will be replaced by happiness and smiles of her memories of him.

I want her to know, she is not alone in her grief, and her friends are here to lift her up again.

MERRY Toe Sock Tradition Layout

whole layout
left side

right side

I created this layout to commemorate my first Christmas EVER without seeing my parents. Maybe commemorate isn't quite the right word, but it marks a moment I shared with Aly as the only immediate family I had left in NY for the holidays now that Elise and my parents have moved south. Our grandma from VA sent us a small package to open, and as usual it included a pair of holiday toe socks. For some reason these goofy pair of socks that you have to squish your toes into individually always brings a smile to our faces and I thought this year would be the perfect time to photograph and scrapbook the unspoken tradition. I traced my giant foot on the left side of the layout as a journaling spot. I stamped the red snowflakes, matted the photos, and added the word fetti stickers and gems.