Quilled Keepsake Invitation 2

Here is another quilled keepsake invitation. Sorry for the bad photography I had finished just before the wedding and we couldn't get a good picture of it before we left with it. The couple was Asian and the invitation inspired a simple bamboo theme. Bamboo has the symbolism for good luck in Chinese culture. I also added the Chinese letters for double happiness at the bottom of the invitation. It was framed in a 12 x 12 walnut shadow box with a rust red background. I have one more invitation to post that I have done as soon as my daughter downloads if off her camera. Have a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends!

Until next post, Shalom,

Sonya

Comments always welcome if you have the time.

New Photo Tricks

I recently purchased a new camera, my old one wore out in Israel from the over 900 pics! This one is a Cannon PowerShot SD1100 IS, blue case. It has some nice features and special effects. I was playing with the color change option and came up with these:

These were in the sepia option. The one with Jake in it was on a rug that was about that color anyway and so was the dog! The one with my baby granddaughter Ava came out nice and I think I will play with it some more with her dressed and outside.

The picture at the top and these two pictures were taken with the color change option. You can choose a specific color in the picture and the picture will only have that color and the rest will be black and white. I like the effect it has with the collar and ball with Jazzy. The one with Jake and the blue ball is cute also. My rose picture was a little more difficult to get because of the light and shadows so I'll have to practice with that one. But think of the possibilities for these photo options. I might try taking a pic of the kids in sepia and print it off on watercolor paper and "color" in portions of it with my watercolors. There are more options for this camera that I haven't explored yet, but will soon.

And a thanks to my sister for her post yesterday highlighting my quilling. Now if you want to see her blog go to: www.thecreamerchronicles.blogspot.com or click the link in my blogroll. You will find many good and thrifty tips there, along with great recipies, gardening and thrift store finds with ideas to use them.

Well, I have to finish a quilling piece for a wedding gift for Saturday night and I will post it tomorrow along with another invitation keepsake that I have recently finished. So off to my craft table.

Until the next post, Shalom,

Sonya

Comments are always welcome if you have the time.

Morning Glories

This spring we went to the Texas hill country for a few days and stopped by a nursery that had beautiful flowers and plants. I picked up three morning glory plants because I have always love the big blue flowers on them. I didn't plant them right away because we had to have a stump ground in the corner of the yard. The stump finally was ground and I planted them in the back corner of the yard by my once vegetable garden. We put up a metal trellis for them to climb on and waited for the glory of the blooms. And waited. And waited.

Finally the vines started to take off and then they REALLY took off with lots of vines and leaves, but no blooms. It looked like a potato vine on steroids! It was literally months before I saw my first bloom. I was not disappointed. It was magnificent! Then once they started blooming they didn't stop. The 3 neighbors who share that corner of the fence also have morning glories to enjoy because the vines are like a blanket hanging over the fences. On a clear day they are as blue as the sky! I would love to be able to reproduce these gorgeous beauties in my floral punch. Another challenge, I'll let you know if I come up with one. Anyway I love looking out my french doors and seeing the glorious display and I am reminded of the scriptures:

"Because of the L-RD's great love we are not consumed,

for his compassions never fail.

They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself. "The L-RD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Lamentations 3:22-24

and

"And we who with unveiled faces all reflect the L-RD's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory,

which comes from the L-ORD, who is Spirit."

2 Corinthians 3:18

Just as I waited for the blooms to come, I often have to wait upon the L-ORD for answers to my prayers and for direction. He never fails me and He is always faithful. The answers are not always the way I thought the answer or direction would be, sometimes it doesn't seem at the time that it is good at all! It is like surgery, you have to have the sick and diseased tissue cut out before you can be well. G-d knows what we need, how we need to received it, and what "surgery" we need to heal.

I was praying in the prayer garden in Glorietta NM many years ago and knew that G-d was real in my life but feeling a bit adrift. I asked Him if He was there. Boy, did I get an answer and it definitely wasn't the one I was expecting. I think the "garden" prayers are the tough ones, Yeshua prayed in a garden and received His answer and was faithful, for us. There were some devastating days after that prayer and the scars are still there. While I received my answer, He is there with me always, it took some hard times to show me just how much His is there. G-d is also a multi-tasker.

While answering my prayer He also wanted to do some "surgery" on me. He brought some long unhealed issues to the forefront and said "it is time to heal", you are strong enough in Me to deal with these things now. You know the saying "be careful of what you ask for", it is true when you pray also. The L-RD knows the real prayer and need in our hearts and will do what it takes to answer it to your best interests, even if it hurts a little.

In Zechariah 13:9 and Malachi 3:3 it says the L-RD will refine us as gold and silver. In refining these precious metals it takes heat to refine out the impurities so it will be pure. The refiner knows exactly how much heat to apply so that these impurities will surface and can be skimmed off. The heat has to be increased and applied at the right time, not too fast or not too much or the metal is ruined.

The L-RD knows how much "heat" we need to draw out the hurts, sins, and disobedience -the dross, the impurities - that keep us from being pure. I know from experience that it isn't always a pleasant! It hurts at times and I had/have to look at myself in the mirror of His Word and sometimes have to look at the ugliness there so that He can burn off these impurities and take the ashes and exchange them for His beauty! He is ever changing me from glory to glory in His likeness. I just have to cooperate!

Look for His Glory today and gloryify Him in your life always! I will pray that all who read this will see His morning glory and faithfulness every day!

Until the next post, Shalom,

Sonya

Comments are always welcome if you have the time!

Jumbo Clip Bookmarks

While searching the net on tips and techniques for paper art I came across these cute bookmarks made out of jumbo paperclips. These are not your "large" paperclips they are 4" long I used my nestabilities large set, the smallest two, cutting the card stock in the largest die, 2 times and the patterned paper in the smallest, once. Then I punched either a small circle or a blossom punch and added the embellishments and paper pricking. The matching second piece of card stock was used as the back. The adhesive I used was stick dots and it seems to hold well.

There is only two that have punched flowers and I will make more using quilling as an embellishment. They make the cutest bookmarks and with the addition of a magnet on the back it could be used as a note holder for the fridge!

The cream one with the A on it has a beautiful sparkle paper and I thought that it would make a great wedding favor. Think of the gift possibilities of these fun jumbo paperclips! They are easy to make and you could change the round scallop for a square one and use other shapes and die cuts to personalize for any occasion. These are brass colored clips and I found them at Staples but they told me that they were discontinuing them. Accu makes them also. I also found silver ones at Walmart, 10 for .97!

Well I am off to make more!

Until the next post, Shalom,
Sonya
Comments are always welcome if you have the time.

Quilled Invitation Keepsakes

I haven't posted any of my quilling lately so here are the commissioned pieces and gifts that I have quilled. I love the challenge of doing these invitations as keepsakes. The design is determined by the design of the invitation and some, as you will see, have to be cut apart to fit. The colors are also determined by the colors in the invitation and the flowers requested. I try to use the flowers used in the wedding or event, but sometimes that isn't possible and others are substituted. As I said it can be very challenging to do this.

This is the first commissioned invitation that I have done.

Here is a close-up of the detail

Here is another using the same color scheme and flowers with the addition of calla lilies.






This one was a graduation invitation, challenging for the colors and the invitation had to be cut apart and fit to see all the elements. This one has a hydrangea and two tone fringe flowers.






This one was for my nephew's wedding and it uses the flowers that his bride used in her bouquets. It has pink gerber daisies, a lime green spider mum, green and mango orchids with punched accent flowers. This one was much fuller than I would do in the future.

This is the first invitation that I quilled a border for. I took the picture of it which explains the bad angle of it. The invitation had navy writing on it so I put it on a navy background and used white flowers.

I have another two that I will post later. Practice makes perfect so I will keep practicing and now that I am learning how to do floral punch I will have more options to embellish the invitations that I love to do! I might even dig out my wedding invitation from 30 years ago and quill a border for it.

Until next post, Shalom,

Sonya

Comments always welcome if you have the time!

What Ike left

We were blessed by the way of not having very much damage from hurricane Ike. We lost our very large, and only tree in the backyard which split and took out the back fence and then split again! We were only without electricity for 4 days so I count our blessings. The picture above is what Ike left us. This rambunctious boy was running around at a friends house who we were fixing the fence. We didn't want him to run out on the main highway so we took him home with us after looking and asking around if he was someones lost pet.

After a few days of looking for signs of "lost dogs" and checking with the shelters to no avail we decided to keep him. By then Christine, my daughter back from the Navy, was attached to him and he was named Jake. Off to the vet he went and we found out he had heartworms and an infection and thin. Jake is currently being treated for the heartworms and is rotten pug! He will sit by the door when Christine goes to class and howls. He has to be by one of us snuggling when he isn't being a nosy boy getting into everyones business and trying to get the Chloe and Jazzy to play - all the time! He has made himself at home and we have come to love his crazy antics.

Until later, Shalom,

Sonya

Paper Punch Flowers

I had a wonderful time at Scrappily Ever After in Temple, TX taking a Punched Floral class with Susan Tierney Cockburn the author of The Paper Bouquet. I naturally am intrigued with floral punch flowers because of my love of quilling and I use punch flowers with it. So when I saw that there was a class withing driving distance and given by the author I had to go!

I wasn't disappointed. The class was held at a great scrapbook store, Scrappily Ever After, http://www.scrappilyeverafter.com/ . Cheryl, the owner, has a great room to hold classes and has a lot of great goodies to purchase including the punches from The Punch Bunch that are used in The Paper Bouquet to make the beautiful flowers. Susan comes down from Washington state to teach floral punch and there are wonderful examples of what can be made from these punched flowers as you can see from the pictures above. This craft is so versatile in what can be made and adorned with these lifelike creations.


The first class was for a tin calendar that had interchangeable scallops with the months and a different flower that was attached via the magnet that held the scallop in place on the tin. It is so cute, easy to make and makes a great gift! To Jody, my sister, and my Aunt Sandy, I guess you now know what you will be getting next month!


The next class was making cards and gift tags using the flowers and rubber stamps made especially for these flowers. Susan is a great teacher and punched all the shapes out for the class so that all we would have to do is assemble the flowers!


The hollyhock flowers on the pink card were made with coffee filter paper. It gives the flowers an airy delicate look. The color comes from Luminarte H2O's water colors. I love these sparkling water colors. You just take a watercolor brush, the kind that you fill with water, and squeeze some water onto the dry cake of color and let it sit a moment, swirl it around with the brush tip and then paint the coffee filter punch with it. The sparkle shimmer effect is beautiful. These come in over 100 colors and two sizes of pots. Back here at home I tried out these paints by making a hydrangea and sweet peas. Both were beautiful and will be another great version.

Pictures from the morning and afternoon class, with Susan standing.

I hope to be able to take another class from Susan next year. The class was fun and informative and while we were busily assembling the flowers we also tried to solve the worlds problems as only we women can. What did we come up with? Well, we came to the conclusion that we couldn't and that crafting was much more fun!

Comments are always welcome.

Shalom,

Sonya

Newest "try on"

Back to "trying on" backgrounds. I am also trying to update my header, which is harder than it looks for someone who doesn't know what they are doing. There are several sites that have tutorials and when I find one that is real EASY I will post it! I am leaving in a bit to go to Temple Texas for a paper sculpture class taught by Susan Tierney Cockburn auther of "The Paper Bouquet". I love the flowers she creates using punches! I can't wait to use them along with my quilling and of course that means more punches and cardstock to purchase (don't tell my husband). LOL. Not really he is the one "dragging the trailer" as he says to the class, he's so good to me! Below are a few of my first attempts at paper punch flowers. I didn't have the small sun punch for the centers so I improvised until I can get it this weekend. Also I finally downloaded my pics off my new camera and I have about a weeks worth of pics to blog! So check back to see!

Comments always welcome!

Shalom,

Sonya