Bird Song Tag Book

Karla's Cottage

Bird Song Tag Book Swap

What's this - all wrapped up in a bird page?

My Bird Song Tag Book!

Just look at all these beauties!

Here's Karla's Tag Book cover - see the bird feather and the  tiny birdcage charm,  complete with  a blue bird!

Erica's "Warbler of Marshes"

Sheila's "Vintage Chick"

Sibrina's colorful birdies

Jill's nest of pearls

Beth's vintage wallpaper with bird

Kim's "Flee as a Bird"

Maggie's "Bird Song" with 2 cute little tags in the pocket

I was thrilled with all the tags I received! It's always so much fun to see how others interpret the swap theme, and I like to see what techniques are used.  Karla hosts wonderful swaps from time to time, so keep an eye on her blog if you like tag swaps.  I've taken part in several: Puppy Love, Alice, and Dorothy. Karla is very welcoming to beginners and all levels.  She must've had almost 150 in this Birdsong swap!  Can you believe it? It was a fun swap, and I've enjoyed looking at my tag swappers' blogs too! Go see for yourself - some very creative bloggers!

Teeny-Tiny Baby Steps

Fun with Photos - and Microsoft Paint!

Yesterday I found Mary Green's post about making her own vintage patterned papers so interesting.  She mentioned that she'd used Microsoft Paint for a couple of the samples pictured, and said it was pretty easy. Hmmm, well I haven't even opened my PhotoShop Elements yet, so thought I'd give this a try! 

Isn't this a silly piece? Believe it or not, it started as part of a photo of a sunflower cake one of my daughters had baked! It was fun to play around with changing the colors, the eye dropper, spritzer, etc.

This was a small piece of one of my azalea bush photos cut out and pasted in rows all over the workspace.  I didn't get the size right since part of one row has been cut off, but I did learn how to do this.  Next time I can do better.

Here's the same piece with the brightness & contrast changed in

Office Picture Manager.  So now it does look almost like a soft wallpaper design.  Lots of possibilities here! I just used a couple of my photos this time.  Next time I'll try a smaller picture, and I'll see about changing from color to black and white.

Getting ready to storm - better go! Back Soon!

America the Beautiful

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

O beautiful for spacious skies

For amber waves of grain

For purple mountain majesties

Above the fruited plain!

America!

America!

God shed His grace

on thee

And crown thy good

with brotherhood

From sea to shining sea!

Thanks so much to Kimberly for hosting this beautiful Red, White, and Blue ATC Swap! Thanks to Kathy and Linda for participating too! I love all the ATCs and all the extra goodies Kimberly sent! Enjoy a wonderful July 4th celebration!

Welcome to July and the ATC Blog Hop!

Two Crazy Crafters

ATC Blog Hop

Twila and Lindsey of Two Crazy Crafters are hosting their first blog hop today - featuring ATCs with a Fourth of July theme!

Here's my ATC, made for Kimberly's Red, White, Blue ATC garland. I'll post the whole garland next.


Thanks, Twila & Lindsey, for hosting this fun blog hop! Now to go check out all the other ATCs.


Have a wonderful July 4th holiday, everyone!

OK, Now I'm REALLY Back!

SCRAP STASH SWAP

This was SUCH a fun swap - we got to go through all our Scrap Stash/es to find goodies to send to our Swap Partner. So easy, and so much fun!  I was sooooooooo lucky to get a wonderful swap partner, Leann, at The Old Parsonage.  Not only did she send me a ton of wonderful scrappy things, but she said she didn't mind that I was so slow getting my box off to her. Had several other things going at the time, so probably shouldn't have signed up to swap. But I'm so glad I did :)

Leann makes beautiful cards! Isn't this great?!

All kinds of 'goodies' - tags, tickets, great paper, letters.....

Real Ledger paper - I've never had any before -
flashcards, all kinds of accessories .... and more

Beautiful 12x12 paper, rub-ons, stickers, oh my!

Leann sent several sweet gifts in her box full of scrappy goodness.  Don't you love the color of that soap?
Smells so good too!

What a beautiful hanging!

Thank you so much, Leann, for being such a wonderful swap partner!  And thanks to Michele at Special Paper Projects for hosting this great swap! I really enjoyed it!  

Need to find my photos of what I sent Leann - next post?!

Back At Last!

Easter Tag Swap

I joined Sandy's Easter Tag Swap and was delighted to find Kathy Lowry  would be my swap partner.  We've been in some of the same tag swaps, so I'm familiar with her beautiful work.  She's been super busy lately helping with her two youngest grandbabies, but she still managed to send the MOST wonderful package you could imagine. I couldn't even remember what I'd sent her once I started opening all the goodies in the box she sent! But I knew whatever I sent wasn't nearly enough.

Just look at all these goodies! Amazing!

Kathy made this gorgeous tag book - isn't it beautiful? What a joy to look through the pages!

ATCs - everything with Easter or Spring theme.

One tin full of all kinds of bits and bobs - can hardly wait to use these! Another tin full of yummy cookies!

Look at this wonderful bunny on the Egg Tag - he's holding his own egg!  Don't you LOVE those huge feet and wildly floppy ears?! It's beautiful with that ruffled crepe paper trim.

What's inside this polka-dotted envelope? 

All kinds of goodies were inside, including the wonderful egg/bunny tag and the ATCs. Kathy has shared so much of her crafty items with me - I just love it all!

That's not all ........... just can't get all the photos to fit in here where I want them :(    I definitely need to learn much more about blogging.  Another really cute tiny envelope contained tons of little teeny-tiny tags, bunny punch-outs, graphics - oh, just so much! And then there's the large box full of Anna Griffin stamps and ink pads - an Anna Griffin stamping kit!  

I might need to continue with another blog post - Kathy sent SO MUCH and it's all SO WONDERFUL! 

Thank you, Kathy, for being such a delightful Swap Partner, and thank you, Sandy, for hosting this lovely swap!

Now what did I send Kathy?

That'll have to be another post too!

Exciting Mail!

Kimberly's Tuesday Trading Card Swap

Tuesday Trading Card Swap

Kimberly Laws has started a Tuesday Trading Card Swap, with three ATCs to swap every Tuesday. She has a different theme each week, and the first 3 who email her are the lucky swappers for that week. A couple of weeks ago I was one of the lucky ones!

The Theme for that week was Alice in Wonderland

Isn't this the most beautiful packaging? So lovely!

Here's the ATC I received from Kim -

                                            I love it - so much detail and variety!

And here's the card I sent! Love that Graphics 45 paper! I "borrowed" Kim's photo since it was so much better than my own. Really need to learn how to take better photos!  This swap was so much fun - hope to swap with her again soon! Thanks so much for swapping with me, Kimberly!