Holiday Hustle and Bustle...Full Speed Ahead!

  I do hope that in the midst of the busiest time before the holidays arrives you take some quiet time for yourself. We all need that.

  This post will be short and sweet. I won't be adding many details so feel free to contact me if you have any questions about anything. Besides still working on getting the main tree up and getting handmade cards together my Mom unexpectedly came down with THE dreaded flu earlier this week. Since  taking her to the dr. I have been helping her out each day, running errands and checking in on her (as she is alone with her dog) to be sure she's taking her meds, resting and getting enough fluids etc. At the end of each evening I take a few min. to meditate in peace and quiet and it is so very helpful.

  On to the festivities! I'll be sharing some ornaments I had made the other week, some cards I did get finished and ornaments I received in a recent swap.

  These are the cards-very simply done:

 

  I made these to send to relatives and some friends overseas. The yellow is just the paper I used behind the card while scanning. The image is one of my fave Stampington images. The girls' coats and hats are glittery and I added some dots and swirls of Liquid Pearls on the patterned paper.

  This is a series of vintage paper ornaments I made along with cards (which I forgot to take a pic of before mailing) to send to some of the art friends I met online and have  known for at least several years now and  who share a love of vintage images and style:

  Here's a card I made as a sample and have a handful of them partially done-they may get done in time and they may be for next year :)

  I wasn't able to get it to scan right-it's actually on a white notecard. The tree is from Magenta and it was heat embossed with my own mix of powders in greens and sparkle. A peace symbol charm was added at the top and the red strip is washi tape.

  The following are ornaments I made the other week using a freebie collage sheet from Retro Café Art. They offer free collage sheet downloads about once a month. If you so choose you can also use the sheet to enter up to three projetcs (on their Facebook page) for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate or six collage sheets. I think you can still download the vintage Christmas sheet.

  It's too bad you can't see the german glass glitter on the frames which I die cut with my Grand Calibur machine.

  You can probably tell by the one on the left that I printed it and my color cartridge went low. I decided to use it anyway. And the paper frame behind the image was die cut from mirror paper-very pretty and shiny.

  Again, I die cut the frames to make cute little Christmas tags which can double as ornaments.

  I participated in a holiday ornament swap thru ARTchix Studio recently. You can see the six ornaments I made here.

  These are the beautiful ornaments I received back:

 

  I know the one at the top left came from Sweden! The stiffened doily is all glittery and I have to say-every one of these has some sparkle and glitter and are just so beautiful in person!! They will have a place on one of my two trees along with handmade ornaments I have received over the last several years.

 

  I'm linking up to Paint Party Friday and Show and Tell Saturday at Artists in Blogland. Stop by these blogs and visit some of the other artists links-pure artistic eye candy!

 

  Leaving you this week with a quote so apropos at this time:

 

          "In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you." Deepak Choprah