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Last week’s MAMMA challenge was to make a card with the theme recycle. The card had to be made with recycled items or those items sent to you by other group members with the weekly swaps only. It was an appropriate swap since Earth Day was during the week.
I decided to cut up an old People magazine into small squares and use my mod podge to adhere them to a card back. I then added bits of scrap yarn some images about recycling torn from magazines and letters that I bought from a scrapbooker’s yard sale. There was not a complete set, but only random letters. I outlined the letters with my lime soufflé pen.
My card is made (literally) with recycled items and is a reminder to reuse and recycle. Some of the group members said it would make a great poster for Earth Day.
I also received a couple of the cards from previous week’s swaps.
This card was from Carlin in Tennessee for the provided image swap. She entitled it Lenore. Since I am an avid Poe fan, I loved this one!
From Renee in Minnesota I received for the Time swap this funny, funny card. The lady’s face cracks me up!
I am such a lucky girl, aren’t I? This week’s challenge involves dying a baby wipe with alcohol inks for a background and the theme is Words. The wipe is inked and drying now need to hunt for the words I am humming…
More goodies arrived while I was away last week and the mailman delivered my held mail on Monday. So without further ado here are the latest I have received.
Created by Mary Zingstra from The Netherlands.
Created by Shasta from Ohio.
Created by Norma Soulet from Arizona.
Created by Kate North of the UK.
Created by Joyce Fortune from the UK.
Created by Joy Vale of Australia.
There are a few more left to arrive and I will share them with you when they do. This has been a great month for art!
Vintage Bingo and Anagrams games $1 each.
Plastic letter tiles 50 cents.
Vintage, handmade crazy quilted doll dress $1. It would fit a toddler, too.
Mixed lot from church yard sale:
5 necklaces and one 3 strand pearl bracelet
3 mini bowling pins
2 silver brooches
1 pair earrings
1 cat brooch
1 clothespin
1 giant safety pin
1 antique kewpie like doll
All for $4.00
One stainless steel feather pin, one bow pin, one stagecoach charm, one pair of pearly clip earrings for $1.00
One miscellaneous bag of vintage buttons for $2.00.
Ruby and pearl brooch and earrings from church yard sale for $1.50.
Basket for 50 cents
Hansel and Gretel opera book and book of poems for travelers $1.00
Grand Total = $14.50!
Enough said!
I got home from dog sitting for 1/2 of last week and I am beyond exhausted. I was not prepared for the 4:30 and 5 a.m. potty wake ups. I am a fairly light sleeper so was up whenever she was stirring about. She took it easy on me this morning and slept on the porch after I let her out and I got to go back to sleep for a solid 3 hours until 7:30. Yep, the wake up call this morning was at 4:30! All in all, I loved spending time with Tasha! She is a great doggie!
I had a 3 hour nap this afternoon and will go to bed early tonight. I plan to sleep in tomorrow. All of my hold mail will be delivered tomorrow so I am sure it will be chocked full of goodies. I also hit a few yard sales on Saturday and have some goodies to share. I love yard sales! Nothing beats goodies for 50 cents or less!
I found some treasures…
My birthday week ended yesterday, but I couldn’t resist one more!
I thought I would party with the Paul McCartney!
Today is the big day, my happy birthday! Today I am 46 years old! Wowzer! That really hurt to write those 2 numbers!
I remember the parties that my Mom threw when we were younger for birthdays. There was always cake (store bought), Neapolitan ice cream (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry), and Pepsi. It seemed our house always had 2 liters of Pepsi present.
Then there were the presents. Always there was a Barbie, an outfit for her, or some part of the Barbie arsenal of paraphernalia. I had just about everything they ever created for that doll. My love of all things Barbie goes way, way back.
I don’t remember inviting people to my birthday party. It was always just the family. Of course, when you are one of 7 (9 with Mom and Dad) you always have a party! Even dinner is an event.
This birthday I am house sitting for a friend to take care of her dog, Tasha. I nicknamed her the “heavy breather” as she pants all the time. All. the. time. Bless her heart. She is getting “up there” and is starting to show signs of her age. She is so sweet and loving and enjoys the occasional carrot. Since she has a hard time walking they have a stroller that they use to take her for walks. I have never seen it as they keep it at the river place, but I am sure it is quite a site. “Hey lady…your kid sure has a long nose!”
For my birthday, I would appreciate a little favor. Practice a random act of kindness in my honor today and then leave a comment and tell me about it. Pay the toll for the driver behind you, pay the tab of the person behind at the drive thru, give a kiddie a $1 to get a little something, donate a dollar to a cause. Whatever makes you happy!
Happy Birthday To Me!
I mentioned previously that I joined the fantastic flat paper dolls group on Yahoo Groups recently. This month’s theme is mermaids and I joined the swaps for both the paper doll and the ATC. I showed the paper doll I created previously.
This weekend I finished the ATC mermaid. She took about 3 days to gel. Her body is made from a cereal box that was covered in layers of sewing pattern tissue which I Mod Podged on to give a bit of texture. The template for her body came from here.
She is wearing fan charms for her top and her scales on her tail are made using the eyes (from hooks &). I used the u-shaped for her scales and the straight ones for her tail fin. Her face is from a magazine and she is finished with a pearl in her hair.
The background is scrapbook paper to which I added a fabric leaf. Her arms and tail fin fold up so they fit on the ATC.
I really like how she turned out. I was really stuck for how to do the tail and was going through an old sewing case I thrifted lately and saw the eyes and Viola! Inspiration hit me!
What bits of cast offs have inspired you lately?
I have been so blessed to meet some great people from all over the world. Some of us may never ever meet, but we are all tied by a common love of art.
I received an unexpected birthday surprise from Shell-Shell. She sent me this ATC sized button fairy. She is so lovely and sweet and so completely unexpected. Thanks, Sherry!
I was also contacted by an artist, Angelique, from France to trade one of my ATCs. She is a great fabric ATC artist and a wonderful embroiderer.
Is this not the sweetest thing you have ever seen? She embroidered the flowers, leaves and stems onto this sweet picture. How freakin’ cute is that!!!!
I think it is so cool that my mailbox receives things from all over the world. I bet my local postal workers love it. When I was in some fabric postcard swaps the lady at the window told me that they loved to see them come in and made sure to show it around. She said that she hoped I didn’t mind. I said no. I guess it is a lot more fun than crappy old letters!
I thought this was too good to wait until the weekend. I cannot imagine the poise this little man possesses to be stopped in the middle and then deliver like this. His name is Shaheen Jafargholi and he is 12 years old! Awesome!
You will have to click this link to watch it on Youtube as embedding is disabled.
This week’s theme for the MAMMA Challenge was Time. Funny as lately I seem to have no idea whatsoever what day, date or time it is. The only way that I know what day/date it happens to be is if I have something on my calendar. Otherwise, an entire week can pass and I have no clue.
It is a real departure for me as I was always driven by time. Deadlines, meetings, commitments, watching the clock so I wouldn’t be late for appointments, one on one meetings, conferences, and interviews. Now, not so much. Truth be told I would love to have those time commitments back.
Now back to this week’s theme. For some reason all that kept running through my head was cake, but the theme is time. So I humored my muse and searched for cake templates to create an ATC. I found this one which is sized for a greeting card. I resized it for an ATC and then created a template so it folded to give me more area to work.
So now that you see this you are wondering how I brought it around to time, huh???
I think that the inside was inspired by Margaret’s (MAMMA) work feature in the latest Stampington publication Marie.
If I get the job that I interviewed for yesterday we can all have cake. I will certainly make time for that!
Cindy Is Crafty...and she makes things, too! 