2013 White Christmas Tag Swap

It almost didn't happen this year, but Chris from Perfectly Printed decided to host our annual White Christmas Tag Swap and I'm so glad she did!  Here are the tags I received:

Created by:  Jonnelle

Created by: Nora Neeley

Created by: Tammy Kaplan of Snipsandthreads.blogspot.com

Created by: Kimberly Laws of artjoystuff.blogspot.com

Created by:Jeanelle Ricca

Created by: Leann Shultz

Created by: Chris of "A Little Creation"

Created by:  Terri Wilkerson of Junqueseeker.blogspot.com

Created by: Jacqueline Reed

Created by: Chris of Perfectly Printed

Created by: Erica of Golden Egg Vintage

Created by: Deidra Kidder

And this is the tag that I made this year for the swap:

If you'd like to see the tags for the past years, visit my posts below:

2012 White Tag Swap
2011  My Tag  for the Swap
2010 White Christmas Tag Swap

Thanks for stopping by!

Winter Soiree 2013

 I'm feeling much better so today it was over to The Paper Crown for Bobbie's Winter Soiree!

This is the class sample that Bobbie made to entice us - not that we need any encouraging when we know Bobbie is teaching.  In fact, she announced today her upcoming Valentine Soiree and we all signed up without hesitation.  We don't even know what the project will be yet, we just know that if you don't sign up early, you'll miss out!  And THAT would be unbearable!

Bobbie has an amazing eye for detail.  Of course, we couldn't get started without our cute name tags!

My collection is growing.  :)

And of course, the class kits - packaged so prettily!

My Snow Queen came out so sweet - I'm in love with her.  I haven't gotten a full length picture of her yet as the day got away from me,  but here she is riding shotgun on the way home.  How cute is she!?!

As a class bonus, we also made these adorable star ornaments:

It was another wonderful workshop with lots of delicious food, door prizes, fun and friendship.  I say it all the time but, we are so fortunate to have such talent here in Oklahoma and such a great group of ladies to spend an afternoon with.

This happened...

I had a little episode over the weekend that ended up with me in the ER and getting to spend the night in the hospital. 

I am on the mend and feeling better and stronger each day.  :)

I'm a little behind on my Christmas crafting, journaling, and decorating but I'm taking it slow and will hopefully get caught up soon.  We have bad weather coming in for the next two days so I think I'll have a chance to do a few things around here - with plenty of time to rest too.

Holly Abston's Ship Class

So, on Sunday I trekked back over to the Paper Crown to attend a lace ship class taught by Holly Abston.  

Holly taught this class in California at Jenny Doh's Crescendo studio back in the spring time, and we were SO EXCITED when she agreed to teach it here at home.

Isn't it so cute???  My ship is about six inches tall in total, but Holly has made them as large as almost two feet tall.

It was hard to get a good photo, but trust me when I say that my ship is precious!

I'm definitely going to have to make a few more of these.  The hardest part is wrangling the wire which was a bit daunting at first, but once I got the hang of it - no problem.  I'm dreaming of all the different laces I can use...

Sewing on the lace was fun and therapeutic and one of those things that you can sit, talk with your friends, and just relax.  It was a perfect class for a Sunday afternoon.

Jackie Peters snapped this picture of us after the class.  It was fun to have Jackie actually crafting with us since she's always teaching.

Speaking of Jackie, hop on over to her blog:  Good Grief Girdie and check it out.  She's been busy creating for tomorrow's Glitter Market.  I'll be there first thing to get a good place in line before the market opens.  :)

Let the Christmas Crafting Begin!

Here in Oklahoma, we are so very lucky to have a store like the Paper Crown where we can go to take some fabulous classes.  On Saturday, Bobbie from My Creative Life Diary taught a class with four beautiful projects! Bobbie is so generous in everything she does, and is a genuinely beautiful person, inside and out.  Check out her blog - she does amazing work.

Our first project was this adorable rosette ornament:

Next up we made this fun Christmas notebook to keep our holiday receipts and to jot down important notes for the holiday.  Isn't it festive?!?

 We also covered a photo album with these fun papers and embellishments:

And this - believe me when I tell you that the photos cannot do this beautiful project justice.  The finished project is approximately 15 inches tall and is so freakin' adorable!  I'm not a fan of hunting or deer heads but this wall hanging is just too sweet for words.

Can you believe we did all these projects for one class? We all had so much fun.

Stay tuned - I've got lots of stuff to talk about coming up.  I took another fun class on Sunday, I've signed up for Dawn Sokol's Christmas countdown journal class and also for Christy Tomlinson's Ornament class.  Can't even wait!

Pumpkin King

Yesterday, Bobbie from mycreativelifediary-bobbie.blogspot.com taught this fun Pumpkin King Class at the Paper Crown in Oklahoma City.   Bobbie is not only a great teacher with amazing attention to detail, but she is also one of the nicest people you will ever meet!  

If you can't really tell from this picture, this adorable piece is over two feet tall, and it looks great on my mantle. 

Bobbie also made up cute little "favors"  which were kits to make this cute little banner below.  Since we had enough time in class, we were able to finish these too.  

Of course, what is a class without an adorable name tag? So sweet!

Bobbie had a giveaway on her blog a few weeks back and I was the lucky winner.  Isn't this just gorgeous!?!  

 I got to see and spend time with my creative friends and had the bonus of coming home with all this cute stuff!

Halloween Shadow Box

I went again this year to Ann-Denise's 31 Wishes Event and had a great time.  One of the swaps was a Halloween Shadow Box and I sooo wanted to participate but as usual, I waited until the last minute to get my swap done. Even still, I think it turned out pretty cute.  If you'd like to see it more closely, click on the picture and get a better view.  I'm sorry if it's a bit blurry, but you'll get the idea.  ;) 

Do you believe in ghosts?

One of the things I really wanted to do when we went to Charleston was to take a Ghost Tour.  There are several tours to choose from, but we waited too long to make a reservation and all we could get was the Dungeon Ghost tour. 

We walked along the streets at night and and our tour guide gave us some history of the city, and at each stop along the way. Our first stop was at the Provost Dungeon.

The dungeon was very dark with no real lighting to speak of other than our guide's flashlight and some of the street lights filtering in through the windows.  There were little vignettes set up to portray what it was like to be underground way back in the day.

I took several pictures with my iPhone and several with my little camera, and whatever lighting you see is due to the flash lighting up the very dark space.

The next day when I was looking through these photos, I saw this ghostly figure in the picture below:

If you enlarge the picture and zoom in on the shadow, you can sort of see a pirates face.  I can make out a turban on his head, his eyes, a nose and a little mustache.  Can you see it?  

What do you think???

Charleston Trip - Part One

My investment club just got back from a fabulous trip to Charleston, South Carolina.  It's amazing that twelve ladies could actually get our schedules together to make this happen - and even more amazing that on this trip, there was NO DRAMA!  It was wonderful!

Our first night in town, we were lucky enough to have dinner at Husk.  We did have to make reservations several months in advance since this place is very difficult to get into.  If you are planning a trip to Charleston, I highly recommend this place.

The menu changes daily and reflects the freshest seasonal ingredients.  A few of the more interesting things we tried were compressed watermelon, pig's ear lettuce wrap (I couldn't quite enjoy the pigs ear - it didn't taste bad, I just kept thinking about the treats I used to buy for my dogs),  pimento cheese spread (delicious!) and the baked grits.   We left Husk feeling so full, I thought we might pop.

This is a picture of the outside of the restaurant:

 On Saturday morning, there was a farmer's market in the town square adjacent to our hotel. The pink building in the background is the Embassy Suites where we stayed and it used to be the Citadel.  Although not fancy, the location was great, the place was clean, and the staff was attentive.  The free breakfast was also good.  The weird thing was that not all the rooms had windows.  Since we only went back there to sleep, it was fine.

 The produce and the flowers at the farmer's market were just spectacular.  Look at those peppers!  There were plenty of local artists selling their wares, and I know we all had a great time mulling around.

Charleston has plenty of steeples.  Oh, that blue sky and the *perfect* weather!

Part of our group took an afternoon to head to the beach.  We went to Folly Beach which ended up being a great choice.  There was a festival  going on in the little town, and there was plenty to do (or not to do!) for all of us.   Just looking at the beach pictures makes me feel relaxed.

Folly beach has a huge fishing dock if someone wanted to do some fishing.

The piers under the dock - I thought this was so cool! Some of the girls got in the water and then sat on the beach.  I walked around and took lots of pictures - just soaking it all up!

We took a carriage ride and learned some history of this beautiful town.

Tom pulled us with grace and strength.

Of course, there was shopping.  There are several in our group who are hard core shoppers and they were not disappointed in all that Charleston had to offer.  The City Market was fun and we all picked up a few things, but the big time shopping was done over on King Street.

In the next post, I'll share more fun stuff we did.  We packed a whole lot of stuff into the time we were there.  

Fun embroidery hoop art

I've seen lots of cute embroidery hoop art out there and finally decided to make one.  This one was sent to my sister for her birthday  - which was yesterday.  It turned out so cute, I wanted to keep it for myself.  :)

It feels so good to be in the creative groove!

Oklahoma Memory Book

Debby Schuh of The Memory Bee came to the Paper Crown in Oklahoma City last week to teach several classes.  I was only able to attend one of her beautiful classes, but look at this fabulous Oklahoma Memory Album we made!

I am not originally from Oklahoma, (I'm from Connecticut) but I have lots of memories that I have made in the 12 years I have been here so it shouldn't be hard for me to fill this album up.

Debby was so generous in her kits, I have tons of paper and stickers to use as I add my memories.

I'm usually a very slow crafter, but for the most part, I was able to keep up.  Yay me!

 None of us were able to complete the books in the class, but I was absolutely determined to get mine finished and ready to use.

 I think this is a record for me - only four days after class is over, and I have my book completely assembled!  I'm on a roll, baby!  ;)

 If you want to get a closer look at these pages, just click on the photo and it will zoom for a better look.

 Lots of fun detail, fold outs, envelopes, page protecter inserts - just fun!

 Oh! and a bonus was getting to see a bunch of my friends in OKC that I haven't seen all summer!

Isn't this fun!?!