Blue Christmas and something springy

I have been quite busy creating the past couple of days. I finally finished all of my Christmas presents on Monday and mailed them after work yesterday -whew!!!!! I had already finished all of my DT work last week so now I am just playing - yay!!!!! I did the above wallhanging for the Let's Get Shabby challenge blog - I used some Harlee-quinnz Designs Butterfly Gardens "Garden of Beauty" paper, wet the edges, and then molded it into the embroidery hoop. The doily is vintage and the flowers are mixtures of Making Memories, Heidi Swapp, Joannes, and American Crafts with vintage buttons as centers. The bear buttons are porcelain, and the glitz is old Heidi Swapp. the photo is a Waterford crystal ice bucket filled with white silk flowers on my dining room table last Christmas.

I did this layout just for fun last night using the colors for the Candy Shoppe Designs Bold and Beautiful challenge - fuschia, yellow, white, and black along with big alphas. I have been doing so much fall stuff and now Christmas stuff that I just had to do something spring-like. I am working on a daffodil painting and this is one of my reference photos. The journaling reads

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome." - Anne Bradstreet (a wonderful poet who lived in American colonial times). Isn't this an apropo statement for today - as they say, history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes! The ruffled flowers are tissue paper, the background paper is SIS (purchased this fall when their paper was 10 cents a sheet) and the fuschia die cut paper is old Autumn Leaves . The die cut flowers and leaves are Basic Grey from last year.

I finished my watercolor class today and am trying to catch up on the Tim Holtz tags plus make some decorations for my house. I saw a wonderful felt deer on a website and I have drawn a pattern to make it as well as a small felt tree. I also want to make some little "Putz" houses for my village (photos to come) and maybe a small button wreath. Then I need to get some cookies made - Dan wants Scottish shortbread from his grandmother's recipe, Brian wants chocolate chip (for Christmas???), and I love meringue cookies and macaroons but neither works well in the Florida humidity so I will probably make some iced cut-outs and/or cookie press cookies.

thanks for reading and ttfn