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The Flower Challenge: Spotlight Stamping

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The Flower Challenge is new to me, and so is the current challenge: spotlight stamping where you selectively color just part of an image. I needed an encouragement card, and thought this would be a good time to try it out.

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I chose one of my favorite stamp sets from the Simon Says Card Kits. “Floral Bliss” from the June 2017 kit has such a gorgeous floral bouquet. I stamped it with India Ink Black on Tim Holtz watercolor paper and got out my Inktense watercolor pencils.

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The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s “It’s the Thought.” I chose to color the three main flowers and the two sprays above in pinks with orange accents. I thought a bit more orange was in order so I color just the centers of the daisies.  The final touch was to add three black pearls by Amuse.

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I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have give this technique any thought without the challenge, but I’m quite happy with it in the end. Check out how others approached the challenge right here. 

 

Time Out Challenge: Thankful

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I’ve had more than the usual amount of time to create this weekend. The photos at the end of the post will explain it pretty well. Along with some birthday cards and Valentines which I can’t post for awhile, I have a set of thank you cards to enter at the Time Out Challenge: Thankful. It’s their 100th challenge which is quite an accomplishment.

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I pulled out two oldies—Papertrey’s “Brushed Off” and Winnie and Walter’s “The Big, The Bold, and You.” Just by changing the colors of the ink I came up with three quite different feeling cards. I used Hero Art’s Ombre pads, which I do have a bit of trouble with. Some look a lot more ombre than others.

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I did add a strip of washi tape down the side of one of the cards.

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On Friday, our temperature reached 50°. We’d seen warmer temps on Thursday as well, and almost all the snow had melted by the end of the day on Friday.

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About 8:00 Friday night, the snow began and didn’t let up until mid-day on Saturday. Tracy was down and out with some kind of bug, so Matt came over in the afternoon to snow plow our driveway and sidewalks. He took a yardstick and measured 13 1/2 inches in our front yard.

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Needless to say, I was home for the day—and most of today as well. Hope it’s warmer and less snowy where you are! Off to check out the inspiration at Time Out Challenges.

 

Take Three Thursday

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Unexpectedly, I’m joining in with Mary-Lou this week for her Take Three Thursdays. Here’s Mary-Lou’s explanation of her weekly meme:

In an effort to notice more of the ordinary in my life, I have decided to share what I have noticed this week in Take Three Thursday.   The idea is to take photos that are linked some how; by theme, by colour, by date, by moment,  by points of view. 

When I read Mary-Lou’s post this morning, I didn’t think I had any photos that fit the meme. But it is SO nice today (over 40° warmer than it’s been recently) that I decided to take a walk. I had to walk in the street most of the way because the sidewalks are still covered with icy patches, deep puddles, and some crusty snow. The first thing that caught my eye was the reflection in this puddle:

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And then these branches caught my eye:

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And finally another reflection:

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Sadly this warm weather is not supposed to last. Another storm and cold front is headed our way. I hope it’s not too bad because we have plans every night from today through Sunday.

One Little Word 2018

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It takes me a long time to think about and choose a word to accompany me during the new year. This year, my word “appeared” in November and the more I thought and wrote about it, the more it seemed like a good fit. One thing I wanted from this year’s One Little Word was that it would incorporate the last three OLWs that have provided good guidance, and in some cases, been transformative. They are SIMPLIFY (2014 & 2015), MINDFUL (2016) and CHOOSE JOY/GRATITUDE (2017). This year’s word . . .

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. . . seems to meet that criteria.

This definition captures what I hope NOURISH will do during 2018: “to cause to develop or grow stronger; to foster the development of; promote; to support and encourage. As I thought about “nourish” and how it might guide me, I divided my intentions into three areas:

Mind

  • Morning reading time
  • Sketching
  • Classes: Sketching Now: Watercolor, Linda.com: Lightroom 6, Holstee*, Craftsy
  • Improve photography: work on the photographic journal (a Christmas gift), CY365
  • Continue to declutter and purge
  • Create two travel photo books (for some reason this continues to be an intellectual and creative challenge!)

 Body

  • Healthy diet: focus on anti-inflammatory/whole foods
  • Regular exercise routine (3/week minimum) & daily stretching
  • Rest; maintaining a balanced schedule

Soul

  • Every day, find a way to give something to someone: thanks to God, lend a helping hand, thank someone for kindness, give $5 to the needy, give a compliment
  • Quality time with family and friends
  • Spiritual direction
  • Daily prayer/meditation practice
  • Daily journaling/Morning and Evening Reflections
  • Volunteering
  • Contemplative Photography
  • Catch up with Project Life
  • Card Making

I think it’s easy to see how NOURISH incorporates the concepts of simplifying, becoming more mindful, and expressing gratitude. I know there will be days when the daily meditation and journaling will fall by the wayside. But I do believe that by having them written down as an intention, they are much more likely to happen.

*I’ve joined Holstee this year. If you look through the site you’ll see that they have a series of themes–one for each month. I’ve used their journals on reflection and intention already and find them very helpful. Before I joined, I subscribed to their daily reflections. It didn’t take long for me to appreciate the wisdom being delivered to my inbox every morning. I can also highly recommend Jessica Swift’s 100 Uplifting Days. I’m on Day 99, and I will miss them! I can’t tell you how often during the last 99 days just the right message showed up in my email with a piece of beautiful mixed media art and an inspiring quote.

I found the graphic for nourish on the internet and there was no attribution attached to it. It’s such a perfect fit!

Reflections on “Choose Joy” and 2017

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It’s always interesting to look back at the intentions I set at the beginning of a year, and reflect on how I did with them. Last year’s word(s) was “Choose Joy” with the emphasis on gratitude. I’ll have more to say about that when I post my 2018 One Little Word tomorrow.

In general, “Choose Joy” was a good choice, particularly in a year fraught with so much national conflict, division, and violence. In the face of the daily news, it was good to “choose joy,” leaning in to all the things for which I am so grateful and blessed.

So here are my 2017 intentions with a brief summary of how I did

  1. Keep one weekday free of obligations. With few exceptions, I kept Wednesdays free of commitments. When I did put something on the calendar for Wednesday it was a social engagement or an unavoidable meeting. My membership on a variety of committees means I have to be flexible with other members commitments as well.
  2. Maintain morning reading time: 1 hour book; 1 hour blogs. Totally kept this one. If I had an early morning appointment, I made sure to find time later in the day to read. It paid off as I read more books this year than I’ve ever read: 54. You can find the list here. Note that I only use 3-5 stars to rate my books. If it’s less than 3 stars, I’ll abandon it by page 50.
  3. Continue volunteer commitments: RHR, Spiritual Formation, Dining Room Ministry, Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network, SW Food Cupboard Board, Cameron Community Ministries, Church Leadership Development Day.  Kept this one, too. At one point when I thought I could use some more time at home, I looked at this list, and recognized that each one of these was really important to me. Only two of them are weekly commitments. I volunteer at Refugees Helping Refugees one or two days/week depending on their class schedule, and two afternoons/week during the after-school program at Cameron. Most of the rest are monthly commitments.
  4. Sketch: 3/week Didn’t do as well here, but my one accomplishment in this area was completing the 100 Day Project. I did 100 sketches, and filled 1 1/3 sketchbooks.
  5. Photography:
    1. CY365
    2. Contemplative Photography practice: read Adventures in Seeing, Photography and the Art of Seeing
    3. Five in Five meme monthly                   
      This was a mixed bag. I completed two online classes with Kim Manley Ort on contemplative photography, and attended a weekend workshop with her in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I kept up with CY365, and completed 11/12 Five in Five memes. I didn’t finish reading either book.
  6. Blogging Schedule: Monday Memo, Wednesday cards (challenges), Friday contemplations. I never had a blogging schedule. If I had something to post and/or time to write a post, it went up. I was more consistent at the beginning of the year than I was at the end.
  7. Make time for creativity: minimum 3 hours/week I didn’t keep track of the time I spent, but I’m pretty sure I came close to meeting this one.
  8. Choose one challenge and participate regularly (CASology?) Didn’t happen, although I did participate in different challenges pretty regularly.
  9. Exercise: walk, yoga, weights: 3/week Like blogging this was inconsistent. I do well, then fall off the wagon, and hop back on again.
  10. One book/month from the following list. This is one of the most interesting ones to me. I didn’t include the list here because, frankly, I only read 7 of the 18 books I listed. For next year, I also have a list but it’s titled “List of Books to Consider.” I know now that as I listen to podcasts, read books, talk to friends, and read book reviews that books I’ve never considered will rise to the top of the list. Ten of the best books I read in 2017 weren’t on my original list.

I’ll be back tomorrow, I hope, with my One Little Word for 2018. I “found” it in November and think it will serve me well.

Chicago Celebrations

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As always, we packed up right after Christmas and headed to Chicago. After Erie, PA received nearly 60 inches of snow, we decided to take the route through Canada. We had generally clear roads, and sunny skies for most of the trip, but had a two hour wait to cross the border when we reached Michigan. I guess we weren’t the only ones trying to avoid the mess in Erie.

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By the time we got there, both kids were in the pajamas, but Caleb was eager to open gifts.

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I had a hard time this visit, capturing good photos of Hannah who is now walking, but here’s one of her with her dad. She has a variety of these little animal pacifiers which she loves.

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We not only celebrated Christmas, but on the 30th we celebrated Hannah’s first birthday, and Caleb’s sixth birthday. The night before we blew up about 100 balloons and tossed them into Caleb’s room. Much to my surprise, he slept through it all.

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When he woke up in the morning, he found one package on the dining room table, and a clue for the next. One clue required popping balloons until he found the six with the words to the next clue. It extended the birthday celebration through most of the morning.

One of our gifts to Hannah, was a water table. Even without water, it proved to be a popular gift with both kids.

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Adam has made a poster to commemorate Caleb’s birthday every year since he turned two. Caleb remembers every one of them, reminding his dad the night before of the images he’d drawn on last year’s poster. Here are this year’s. Caleb received quite a wonderful camera for Christmas, and was eagerly taking photos of everything he could.

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And Hannah’s for her nickname “Hannah the Banana”—who knows where that came from?

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Sharing your birthday with a one-year-old isn’t too bad. I think it might become a bit more challenging as Hannah gets older and has some opinions about how things get done. And one last photo of Adam, Sarah, and Caleb at dinner one night—one of my faves from the trip.

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Thanks to Laura Bassen, Caleb got one of my more involved birthday cards. I pinned it as soon as I saw it on Laura’s blog, and recreating it wasn’t as difficult as I expected. It opened and closed perfectly at home, but required a bit of adjusting once it was opened in Chicago. Looks great, though, in his bedroom which is decorated with a space theme.

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The card required just two sets of dies: “Space Journey,” and “You’re a Star,” both from Simon Says as well as some Dark Indigo cardstock and a bunch of scraps (all Papertrey Ink.)

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I’ve learned the hard way, not to give toddlers a shaker card. Ella took hers apart the minute she opened it on her second birthday. But I figured I’d go for it for the first birthday since Hannah was unlikely to want to play with it. I found a shaker kit I purchased quite awhile ago which made it easier to assemble, and frankly, quite a bit sturdier as well.

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I’ve had the Mama Elephant “Carnival Cupcakes” stamp set for quite a few years. The little bunny and the cupcake both come from that set. I colored them with Copic markers and fussy cut them, adding some Distress Glitter to one layer of the cupcake. The sentiment is from Papertrey’s “Birthday Bash” set–also an oldie. The balloon and strings are dies from Papertrey and the number one is from the “Typewriter Numbers” by Memory Box. I added a few Nuevo glitter drops as a final embellishment. 

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That wraps up December! Now on to finishing up my reflections on 2017, and putting the final touches on the One Little Word for 2018. I’m pretty sure the number of blog posts in January will double (triple?) the number in December. 

 

 

December Highlights

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Between the holidays and traveling, my blogging took a rather unexpected hiatus. It wasn’t intentional, but I have a few events to record here after the fact. Because the Christmas in Chicago also included two birthdays, I’ll save that for the next post.

The George Eastman Museum hosts an evening with Santa each year, and for the third year in a row, we’ve taken the girls. This year we missed seeing Santa come down the grand staircase (no fault of our own), but we still had a good time. None of the girls is quite sure about an individual chat with Santa so we forego the long line, but Ella expressed an interest as we were leaving, so next year may be the year Grandma hops in line to save their places.

Skylar has enjoyed the Gingerbread House Scavenger Hunt for both of the last two years.

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My favorite gingerbread house this year was fashioned after a real home in Canandaigua, New York. The facsimile was remarkable close to the photograph that accompanied it.

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Upstairs in the Discovery Room, there are always fun things to explore.

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And although, they’re reluctant to visit Santa themselves, both Skylar and Ella enjoy watching Santa talking with other children. This year Skylar had a list for Santa, and the kind volunteer took her list and put it in Santa’s bag for her.

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The following weekend, we went to Buffalo with friends to visit the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site, followed by a visit to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. It was a wonderful visit and we really enjoyed the current exhibit: “Out of Sight! Art of the Senses.” You can see a video on the website here of some of the interactive installations. We had tea in the tea room, listened to music, and had a particularly good time in the room of mirrors. We were lucky that the museum was not crowded the day we visited. Here are some of my favorite photos from the art gallery:

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A house made of green fabric.

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The room of mirrors; love the second one. I had no idea what I’d captured until I uploaded it!

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Light and shadows

We celebrate Christmas three times; twice in Rocheter and once in Chicago. First with Matt, Betsy, and the girls. Although they come for the early part of the Walker Christmas on Christmas Day, the event is too late for the three little girls. This year, Betsy’s family joined us. Karen, her sister, arrived from Boston just in time, and Pam, Nadia, and Betsy’s dad also joined us. These photos are courtesy of Pam, who records every family event faithfully.

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Skylar and her beloved cousin, Nadia

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Christmas Day is always fun with the Walker crowd. Here are a few faves from that gathering. The first two photos were taken by Skylar who wanted to try out my camera. She captured the only one of me for the day, and one of her dad with his Uncle Greg.

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Matt, Ella, and Maddy

When Skylar and Ella came to bake cookies the week before Christmas, Skylar wondered if “the piano lady” was coming this year. We missed Sonora last year, but she was here this year, and entertaining the girls as always.

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From the right, my niece Jasmine; her brother Mason; his girlfriend, Molly; Jasmine’s husband, Hollis; and Tracy. Jasmine and Hollis had exciting news—they’ll be parents
in early May!

And last, my favorite photo of the day: Miss Ella on the stairs before the party began.

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If you got to the bottom of this post, thanks for hanging in there! Still frigid weather here; hoping for warmer temperatures tomorrow when I do have to go out. 

 

Five in Five on the 5th

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Last night I thought I’d type up this post using some photos we took at the Albright-Knox Museum last month, and then realized that they were not taken within five minutes. When I woke up this morning, I immediately saw the beautiful patterns the ice had made on some of our windows, so decided to take five photos from five different windows. It was 0° when we woke up, with a wind chill of -20°.  Last night, all the county schools closed for today in anticipation of unsafe wind chill numbers. The high is only forecasted to be 4°.

When we arrived home from Chicago on Wednesday night, our furnace was not working. We know it was working earlier in the day because we can change the thermostat from afar, and did so before we left Chicago. It wasn’t nearly as cold that night (22°), and the house was still a little warm, but by 10:00 when the repairman appeared, the house was getting really cold. We needed a new motor, and fortunately, there was one in the truck! We still need another repair, one that will require the furnace to be off for six hours. It’s scheduled for tomorrow, but Tracy is calling to reschedule for the middle of the week when it’s supposed to be in the high 30’s. This cold snap will last through tomorrow night. 

All these photos were taken about 7:00 this morning with my iPhone.

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The last photo was taken from one of our kitchen windows. They are new windows, and better insulated so they don’t frost up often. Nonetheless, while I was having breakfast sitting near them, it was much colder than in the living room! You can see that we’ve had a bit of snow, and if you look closely, you can see the red ribbon from the evergreen ball blowing in the wind. I’m intending to stick close to home today despite the fact that I badly need a workout at the gym.

I’m joining in with Sandie for her monthly 5 in 5. Yesterday I discovered that I never did a 5 in 5 in December, but managed every other month last year. Hope to be here every month this year.

Fusion Card Challenge: Mail Call

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I’m excited to be the guest of Michelle Leon for the first Fusion Card Challenge of 2018: Mail Call. The inspiration piece at Fusion always has two parts:  a photograph and a sketch. You can opt to use one or both. The Design Team has lots of inspiration for you right here. Each designer has invited a friend as a guest so there’s twice the inspiration this time around. Be sure to check it out!

Fusion Challenge for January

I decided to use both the photograph and the sketch. Looking at the photo, I took three elements:  the wooden boards, the color combination of turquoise, gray, and white and the keys.

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I scored the gray portion of the card to represent the gray boards in the photograph, and added two shades of turquoise to the right side of the card following the sketch. The key (Papertrey Ink “Lock and Key“) was die cut three times from silver paper and layered for another bit of dimension. I didn’t have any stamped sentiments that worked well, so went to my digital files and found this circle. It was filed without any reference to the designer. I resized it, added two words to the center to create a sentiment with the key filling in for the last “word,” and die cut it with Simon Says “Stitched Circles.” Finally I adhered the focal piece to a white card base, and then decided to add the three silver hearts that fell out of the key die.

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Join in with the Fusion DT and be sure to check out the gallery in a few days.

Becca Cruger

Michelle Leon

Betty J

Carol Mayne

Jeanne Jachna

Karren Johnson

Linda Callahan

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Lupton

Michelle Williams

To play along:

1. Play with just the sketch challenge.
2. Play with just the inspiration photo challenge.
3. Or you can create FUSION by combining BOTH challenges into one card.
4. Use the challenge graphic and link back to Fusion in your post.

 

 

Time Out Challenge

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This is the first time I’ve sat at my desk for the last four days. They’ve been busy, busy, busy, but not hectic. I did have a chance before all this holiday activity to make a few cards for my friends who do not celebrate Christmas. The inspiration piece at Time Out Challenges was perfect, and once again, I had a pile of silver snowflakes on my desk which made for some quick and easy, but I think, elegant cards.

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I seem to have a navy, white, and silver thing going for the holidays this year. The card I sent out to most folks (I’ll post it when I’m sure everyone has received their cards) also followed the same color scheme.

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I made four cards, but there are two identical ones. All of them use Papertrey Ink’s Dark Indigo cardstock and a sentiment from “Stylish Sentiments: Holiday.” The snowflakes were cut with dies from Papertrey Ink’s “Silver White Winters” and My Favorite Things “”Stylish Snowflakes.” All the silver paper came from Michaels.

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And my favorite:

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I hope your holiday preparations are going well. The six-year-old and three-year-old granddaughters were here yesterday to make cut-out cookies. We had a great time, but it was good there were two of us present, as Ella lost interest long before Skylar who has had two years of previous experience in Grandma’s kitchen. I should be able to finish the cookies today. Then there is just one last shopping run to get gifts for my son-in-law. I’m looking forward to lots of time with friends and family over the next week or two over lunch, breakfast, and visits. We’ll be entertaining for lunch tomorrow, on Friday evening, and then again on Christmas night. That, truly, is the best part of the holiday! 

Take Three Thursday: Christmas Decorations

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I’m joining in with Mary-Lou today with her Take Three Thursday meme at Patio Postcards. Every week I intend to join in, and so frequently it just doesn’t happen. If she continues it next year, I’m hoping to be more consistent. 

I LOVE Christmas and Christmas decorations. Like many folks, I’ve pared down the decorations over the last few years, but that hasn’t kept me from picking up a few new ones. This year I found a delightful tin house and church one day when I was “window shopping” with a friend; both are candle holders. Before I had time to decide where to put them, I found a tin lamp at Pottery Barn. It was on sale, and I had a coupon, so I got it for less than half price. I love the three of them together on the side table in the dining room.

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I’m not counting the next photo as one of the three, but wanted you to see the darling deer ornament I picked up at Crate and Barrel in October. He was the perfect finishing touch.

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Next up, an oldie but goodie. Ten or fifteen years ago, I picked up a centerpiece at Pottery Barn. We had it on the dining room table each year, and there was no need to splurge on fresh flowers for Christmas dinner. About three years ago it began to looked very “tired” and I took it to a local florist who transformed it. It’s now way more beautiful than the original. I took this photo one morning because I loved the light shining on it. 

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Lastly, a white poinsettia that sits on the end table in the living room. This, too, had beautiful light one sunny morning.

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CASology: Gray

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After the combo red, black, and white, gray might be one of my favorite colors. Strangely enough I don’t often pull that color for cards very often. But this week’s CASology Challenge encouraged me to change that. 

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My favorite gray cardstocks are all made by Simon Says. There are three gradations of it, and this time I pulled the darkest of the three: Slate. The patterned paper came from the Pinkfresh Studio “Live More” collection, and both were part of the Simon Says Card Kit from August. (I have three boxes of papers and embellishments from old Simon Says kits, and need to pull them out more often.) The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s “Wet Paint II” die collections. I die cut three of them and layered them for some dimension. Couldn’t be a simpler card.

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It’s a frigid day here in Western New York, in the teens with an even colder wind chill. A friend treated me to lunch at the Monroe Golf Club. It was decorated beautifully for Christmas, and the food was superb. Home now, snuggled in with a bit of crafting time.

Winter Scavenger Hunt: Part 1

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There’s been no snow to speak of yet. Luckily the storm moving up the East Coast isn’t going to get as far west as Rochester. They’re predicting several inches by early next week, though, so I think winter’s on its way. We had blue skies with lots of sunshine today so I thought I’d look around the house while there was some decent light for photographs and see what I could find for Eileen’s Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt.

First off #8: “Silver.”

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This silver bowl was a wedding gift. For the last several years I’ve filled it with bells and ornaments. This year I found this silver bell garland at Crate and Barrel. I just love it!

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And three predominately silver ornaments from our tree.

Number 19 is “A pair of . . .”

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One of my favorite pairs of gloves. I put them on the typewriter that sits on the dresser in our front hall at Christmas.

Number 13 is “A line of . . . “

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This line of leather camels has resided on the window sill for many, many years. Tracy’s mom and stepfather brought them back from Egypt when they visited there.

The first item I found for the scavenger hunt was last night on our way home from friends. We passed this amazing display of blow-up Christmas decorations. It’s perfect, I think, for #17 “Many.”

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Another view:

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Number 11, “A book shop” is probably the most interesting item I’ve found. I was at Barnes and Noble this morning to pick up a book. A volunteer from Wild Wings, a group dedicated to the care and housing of injured birds of prey was there as a fund raiser. 

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I have ideas for several more items, and know that some of them will be easy to find in February when we’re away. For now, I’m glad to have five crossed off the list. The scavenger hunt goes from now until the 21st of March, so if you’d like to join in, there’s plenty of time. The list is right here.

 

 

Two Cards; Two Challenges

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As soon as I saw the Color Throw Down Challenge this week, I knew I’d want to get a card made for it. Gold, Silver, and Black—what’s not to like? 

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There was still a pile of silver snowflakes laying on my desk from a previous project as well as a piece of True Black cardstock with a gold sentiment that didn’t make the cut for another project. 

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All it took then was to die cut the black piece with a Stitched Rectangle die (Simon Says), adhere it to a piece of gold cardstock (Michael’s) and add the snowflakes. I also added two gold sequins and some PTI rainstones to the center of the snowflakes for a little bling.

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The second challenge was inspired by left-over pieces on the desk, as well. As soon as I saw the Freshly Made Sketches design, I knew I had the start of a card.

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There was a plaid oval left over from the card I posted here and I found the silver JOY in my drawer of previous die cut images. I added a second silver oval, and some Holly Jolly dies with red Amuse pearls to finish off the design.

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I brushed the holly leaves with a Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen. This angle shows the glitter in the plaid paper by My Mind’s Eye (“Comfort & Joy”) as well.

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Although I’ve finished the bulk of the Christmas cards that we send out each year, I’m glad to have a few extras to add to the mix.

Fusion: Red Christmas Challenge

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A quick post for the Fusion: Red Christmas challenge. I’ve admired the challenges here for a long time. One of the things I particularly like is there are always three choices. You can use the photo, the sketch, or combine them. 

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My card follows the sketch this time. I was also attracted to the photo, and although I have a sizeable collection of pitchers I don’t own any good stamps so I took the plaid runner for my inspiration. I think it’s the sketch, however, that is the real inspiration here.

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I die cut an oval with one of my old Spellbinder sets from a piece of plaid paper from the My Mind’s Eye “Comfort and Joy” paper pad. I silver embossed the sentiment from Papertrey’s “Rustic Wreath” set, and added two snowflakes cut from a shimmery paper from my stash. The snowflakes are from My Favorite Things “Stylish Snowflakes.” I admired them last year but they were out of stock until after the holiday, but I picked them up on sale later. I’d forgotten about them until I reorganized my dies last week.

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Sadly, you can’t see in any of the photos that the white line in the plaid is a glittery one. It makes the card much more festive than it appears here. To finish off the card, I added two rhinestones.

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Hope your weekend is a lovely one. I’m looking forward to a little time with my oldest granddaughter tomorrow afternoon, and a day of crafting. Our tree is finally up, lit, and decorated and just in time as we have family coming for supper on Sunday, and the book group on Monday evening.