This & That

Many thanks to everyone who visited and left sweet comments during the Blog Hop. The major highlight for me, however, was seeing my friend Jessica's card highlighted on Nichole's blog as one of the Blog Hop winners. We met close to a year ago - she lives just down the road - and have become crafting enablers of one another very quickly! Congrats to Jessica - please visit her blog, The Paper Parade, here. As for me, I am slowly making my way through the blogs in the participant list.

For today I have a card and a new addition to my craft room to share. So sadly, I had to make another sympathy card this week and I was totally out of ideas for this. I was at a loss. My March issue of CARDS came in the mail, and the card on page 141 by Melissa Phillips caught my eye as something very calm and comforting. So I CASE'd it... {Sorry.} Here's what I came up with:

The bottom two layers of fabrics are from a flower kit by K & Co. The felt layers are from PTI. The pearls are from the SU! Pretties Kit, which I spilled in its entirety all over the place! What a mess! I am going to be finding pearls for months and months to come. The patterned paper strip at the bottom is from My Little Yellow Bicycle's Savor Collection; have you ever felt their paper? It almost feels like nylon. I love it!

The paper that the flower is mounted on is vintage cream, but I inked it up with chamomile ink all over to tint it a little bit, and then I stamped the Diamond Background in white; then it was heat embossed. I wasn't sure how this would turn out, but I really like it!

Here you can see some of the texture in the My Little Yellow Bicycle paper, as well as the embossing and the fishnetty/tulle fabrics in the flower.

Here is the newest addition to my crafty space- the awesome shelf by Making Memories, which I picked up on sale at Michael's last week while I was on vacation. I have wanted this for the. longest. time. and I am happy I finally bought it. I chickened out of hanging it on the wall, mostly because I cringe at the tought of putting lots of nails in the walls...even though they've been painted for years. LOL! So I moved my bookcase to the side of my desk and put the shelf on top. The two pink metal flower boxes store cards I have both made and received, and the bottom one stores felt and some loose ribbon. I used these as card boxes at my bridal shower & wedding; I love them. The bottom file holds scraps and the encyclopedia is very old and is used for its paper, very tissue thin and great for flowers.

The teddy bear in this shot was a gift from my grandmother. When we first got Teddy, our dog, she bought this for him at the post office. She thought it was a dog toy, but since it isn't, I have kept it in my room as a reminder of her. I have always stored my PTI buttons in these plastic containers; each bag of buttons fills one to the top, but the containers don't fit vertically on the lower two shelves. Do I think I will ever use all of them? No way!! But they look pretty!!

Hope you're having a relaxing weekend!