I've got the Joy!

My eldest daughter needed a gift for her second grade teacher, but changed her mind last minute. We came up with this quick gift idea. (being as banners are such a popular trend right now- she still had to explain to her teacher what it was!)

We used the lovely Jenni Bowlin Christmas Bingo cards for the backdrop, then covered them with vintage German Scraps, Christmas picks, cut digital collage images, dresden, tinsel and pom-pom garlands, a stamped image of a cardinal (insisted upon by sweet girl). JOY is made from Cricut's Storybook cartridge (yes, I use that one frequently!). All strung on bakers twine and tied up with seam bindings in red and hand-dyed cream!)
Closer ups of the individual letters- Hot glue gun works well for adding the picks, garlands, and dresdens. Otherwise Zip-dry is my personal glue choice for papers.

Generally French

My wishlist has almost always include one of these gorgeous decorating boxes from the French General
I finally broke down and made my first purchase:The holiday decorating box! (I believe it is currently referred to as the Star Bright box). This compact box holds a surprising amount of heart palpitating goodness. Here is the first layer

After unearthing all the trims and notions containers, the second layer filled with dresden, feathers and stamen. The silver underneath is a type of cloth/tissue I will savour as long as it holds out.

Removing the beautiful cloth layers to reveal pretty papers and old labels. What fun it will be to create with this lovely box of notions!

Melting Marshmallows

I am participating two new banner swaps (Hot Cocoa and Candy Cane). I am creating the "H" and a blank for the Hot Cocoa set. (We use blanks to start, finish, and separate words on a banner). I chose to create a crepe rosette dusted lightly with mica flakes. Center round is old German print, then a Cricut Storybook H and snowflake brad. Background is a candy stripe red ribbon and swirl, again from Cricut Storybook.

The blank uses Cricut Joys of the Seasons Ice Skate, with silver blades! Chalked to age, assorted scrapbook papers, prima, doodlebug velvet brad, and some craft pom-pom trim. I hope my swap partners are pleased.

Studio Sightings

I thought I'd show you my fancy-dancy studio (re: spare bedroom that happens to have a desk in it). I'm traveling to a retreat later in June and these are the goodie-bag gifts I'm bringing to the other girls. I wrapped vintage and new trims around shipping tags. Some of the tags came pink, others I used Glimmer Mists to colour. Added things like posies, buttons, journal labels. Each set is based on one or more of their favorite colors. I will package them with crepe rosette's that are inspired by Kris Hurst's work (I have spent literally hours going over her blog posts). I hope to show you the finished packages later, but I need more colour ink to print out some collage elements for the rosette centers.

Here are just the tag elements

And this is my favorite stash-away for ribbons, glitters, buttons, and my purchased tag sets from Marilyn Healey's etsy shop.
Her's smell better.