Inspirational Verse

Every time I'm going through a tough time, this Bible verse, James 1:2-4, always encourages me.  I was playing around with Picnik's (free till April) premium editing options and came up with this sweet little printable.

You can print this out as a photo and send it as a postcard or frame it to give as a gift!  

I hope this can bring a little encouragement to you or someone in your life!

Pin It Like It's Hot!

Butterfly Valentine Printable

Well, as you all probably know by now, Picnik is closing down (moving to Google+?).  I don't know about you, but I'm going to squeeze every last drop of use out of it.  

This little idea popped in my head for a fun Valentine, so I whipped it up!

I created the art over in Picnik, printed it out, cut it down and added some butterflies I had punched out of scrapbook paper.

SO easy and free, because I already had everything on hand!  

If you don't have a paper punch, you could draw a butterfly or use a stamp or stickers.  These would be fun for the little ones to make, too!

Want to make your own?  Just click on the picture to make it bigger, right click and save, and paste it into a word doc.  You can adjust the size to suit your needs!

If you've got a cute idea for Valentine's Day, leave me a link and I'll stop by! :)

Linking up to these fun parties!

My Butterfly Valentine Printable was featured!

Crafting My Emotions

I craft because I love it and it relieves stress.   You know the term "eating your emotions"?  

I craft them. :)

Why do you craft?

We're at the Top of the World

At the very beginning of our relationship, Daniel and I used to drive around our tiny college town in his truck, listening to music.  The Juliana Theory got a lot of airtime in the truck.  One of the songs we'd play over and over was "Top of the World".  It means a lot to us, but it also reminds us of the wonderful group of friends we have.  Daniel and his friends have been to see the band several times and his best friend even used the song in his wedding.  This song is the epitome of "happy".  I need to fill this frame for the nursery and thought it was the perfect sentiment for how we feel about welcoming a new member into our family. 

I whipped this up on the laptop and sent it off to Walgreens for an 8x10 print.  I painted a frame I had on hand and had a mat cut at JoAnn.  Here are a couple copies if you'd like to do the same.  Just click on the pic to make it bigger, right click and save.

A Few Vintage Images

Hey there!  I've been busy lately trying to organize my tons and tons of craft supplies.  We're moving all my craft stuff from the guest bedroom to the office, so we can turn the guest bedroom into the nursery.  We find out the gender right before the new year, if all goes well!  At least I got my Christmas decorations up! :)

Since I haven't had time to really finish or photograph anything I'm working on, here are a few vintage images.  As always, feel free to use them however you please, just please don't repost them on your own blog to give away.

Click on the images to make them bigger, right click and save!

For more images, go here or visit my flickr.

Little Ladies on Parade

I have gotten my hands on a bunch of really fantastic vintage greeting cards and decided to share them with you.  I apologize in advance for my lack of editing skills. :)

All of these cards are from the Nashville Flea Market.  Click on 'em to make them bigger, right click and save.  If you make anything from them, I'd love to see it!

Visit my flickr for more.  Feel free to use these images however ya want to! 

From Me to You

Because I would have loved to be able to give every single person who commented on my giveaway, I decided to scan in one of the vintage goodies to share with everyone. I picked this up at the Nashville Flea Market from a very sweet man who had a booth full of vintage cards and advertisements.

The front is a sweet little bird:


The back is an advertisement for Gerken's Ice Cream and Confectionery Parlor:


Just click on 'em to make them bigger! Please accept this "thank you"!

Wednesday Epherma - Vintage Recipe

I found this in an old Family Circle (circa 1968 - that counts as vintage, no?) of my grandmother's.


Remember the recipe here?

Wednesday Epherma and a little quilt nonsense.

So I'm going to start a new installment (well, try anyway). On occasional Wednesdays, I'm going to post an image of some type of old paper product, be it wrapping paper, magazine pages, book pages, etc. I don't have any idea how old most of the stuff is, so we'll say vintage/retro/beenaroundforawhile. And you can copy it for personal use.

Today's epherma - a sweet wrapping paper I found at my Grandma's house.


In other news, did you know that the muscles you use to operate a rotary cutter are between your shoulder blades, right below your neck? I brought back what was left of my Grandma's fabric stash after all my aunts went through it and have been cutting everything into 4" strips to make some simple lap-sized strip quilts. I might have 30 of them by the time I'm done. I think I'll take a break to get my friend Kimberly's baby quilt done, but after that, all other projects are on hold until I get the tops put together.

Hopefully I'll have them completed by August. That's the next massive family get-together we're having and it lasts a whole week, so I'm going to enlist some of my aunts and cousins to help tie them off. I know, I know, but seriously - do you think I'm crazy enough to hand quilt ALL OF THOSE?!?

Altered Shipping Tags and the Envelope Dilemma

I started decorating and altering shipping tags to make cute gift tags and found myself in a bit of a quandary. I wanted people to be able to use these as note cards as well, but anything you write will be public, right out there for everyone to see. This won't do, I told myself.

Then I thought envelopes! Perfect! But then I quickly realized that if I wanted envelopes that snugly fit the tags, I would have to make them myself. A pencil, scale ruler, scissors, a plate and some graph paper later, I came up with this:

I used items I had on hand. Old book pages, security envelopes, ribbon and paper scraps. I got the shipping tags in a pack of 100 from Staples. You could probably find them at any office supply store.

I found that it was best to use double-sided roll-on adhesive. That way, the paper won't pucker and everything will lie flat and pretty.

I spent much time designing an envelope for these cards, but you don't have to! Download my free template with instructions here. It should print out the right size, but just in case, the paper is 1/4" scale, so get out your ruler to make sure!