A Day Full of Friendship

Well, it's been nearly a year since my little Georgia married the love of her life and I'm just getting back to crafting & posting some of my projects!  Before I completely move on I thought I would share the shower invites.

What I like most about these Shower invites is the Golden Angel Wings embossing powder from Lindy's Stamp Gang.  It is one of  those rare and unique finishes that shimmers with a translucent glow over various colors creating soooo many variants.  

I wanted to take a quick second to share how beautifully this embossing powder changes depending what it is applied over.

• The first example is over deep blue (one of her wedding scheme colors)

• the second (looking purplish) is over deep dark BROWN!

• the 3rd is over a creamy caramel

I also tried it with clear ink and it was mostly a shimmering clear golden effect and over dark green it stayed mostly dark green!!  

It was so much fun making these.  They were simple with the invite and RSVP info on the back but we were able to customize the colors and I really loved the sentiments. 

Her day - a year later - is still a beautiful memory of joy, laughter and love that we got to share with so many close friends and family.

If you're looking for some portion of the stamps I used on these shower invitations I've kept it easy since most all of the stamps are from Unity Stamp Co.  (again!)  The fluffy dresses, the raining hearts (clipped from the bottom of a cloud), the scalloped frame, the sentiments  💗  

Wedding Day!

                                       

It comes to mind that I need to update the "About Me" portion of this blog as my middle daughter, Georgia, was married this spring and is now an entire US away from me in Florida!  My cute little paper crafting partner is now a wife and enjoying her own home & husband!

Georgia's wedding was beautiful and it was also the result of help from many loving hands.  You see, my new son-in-law, Billy was on deployment without knowing just when he'd be back in the US and further we didn't know of his leave dates or if he'd be allowed to travel because of the virus.  We only had about 3 weeks of time between "knowing" and the day of the wedding, so things around here were a whirlwind!

Just try renting some sort of venue, caterer, having flowers arranged or food prepared with only 3 weeks notice!  We found it to be impossible.... everyone was booked through June.... Solution: We had the wedding on our lawn.  We prepared the food - arranged the flowers (silks, fresh were 4 weeks to order) - did the decorating (with the help of many friends day of💖) - purchased our own tents (no rentals available1) & we were lucky enough to have a wonderful pastor who promised to make himself available no matter the day. Georgia found a dress that didn't need to be ordered

What An Adventure!!!

I thought I would share with you how we made our own announcements, thank yous and other paper crafted decorations.

I have to thank Nick at Unity Custom Stamps.  He made the rubber stamp for our wedding announcements and did a speedy job filling his blank so that we would receive our stamp as quickly as possible!!  Thank You Nick!!!

And it was beautiful!!  Because the month changed all I had to do was clip it out and write in the correct date.    First I stamped a background (Iron Swirls from JustRite) on ivory using several generations of stamping so that they were progressively more pale.  Each one was unique and so lovely!  I used Versafine Clair ink in my MISTI and gold embossed all 200 of them, some on vellum and some on the shimmering ivory paper!!  It didn't take as long as you'd think... maybe 3 hours!! Then I mounted the ivory paper on or under the vellum according to where I had the script embossed.  I still have not been able to choose which style is my favorite!!

Stamped on the vellum & mounted over cardstock

Stamped/embossed on paper

From there it was an easy matter to write in the date, once we had it, and get them sent off immediately since time was short!!  

   filling a candy bag. We also printed
"word" docs & accented them with
   die cuts that matched other wedding
elements & framed them

Here's the really fabulous part...  I carefully clipped out their names and used them elsewhere.  I'll share the "Thank you Gift tags" we put on the fill your own candy bags!!  I had to make a few more announcements and it was easy to insert their names back into the original stamp and flawlessly stamp again.  The trick is to just make one cut line and not trim edges after you've removed the cut away portion of the original stamp.  Then it will fit back together like a puzzle piece.

For Christmas I am going to remount their names onto a new cling so they'll have a "Billy & Georgia" stamp for envelope flaps, gift tags or whatever!!

What's also funny and not anticipated is that when friends and family began planning her wedding showers, I was not at all sure Georgia would still be here.  She was anticipating a May wedding and given the shower dates, I thought she might be married and gone before them!  As it turned out, they were married a week after the last shower -- another lesson in trusting God's plan!! I was excited to create invitations for one of her showers so I'll be posting a quick shot of those too!

 

Well, I hope you've had fun seeing & hearing about our Big Day!  I am still recovering ~ trying to catch up on ranch work and yard work ~ my craft room (Georgia's old bed room!) is a wreck but I'm looking forward to some quiet Autumn Days and the opportunity to make some fun stuff to share with you all!

Thanks for humoring me - I love sharing!  I hope God will bless your day with gratitude and friendship...

Sending Happy Wishes

Wow!  What a busy last couple of weeks!  Traveling to my big brother's wedding, 4H conference in Corvallis, headlong into Spring Fair, replanting my garden, as we had several days below freezing & now on to Summer Camp (luckily I'm only driving there and back!!) Which means that as long as it is raining (Yes, I forgot to mention the arrival of rain! Beautiful, cool WET rain) I may have time for some crafting and blogging!!

First I would again like to thank Unity Stamp Company for my prize package which came somewhere in the midst of all of the above! $50 worth of beautiful stamps <3  I highly recommend visiting their store and Face Book sites and JOINING IN THE FUN !!

Which Brings me to my next subject:  Weekly Challenges!  Always inspirational, this week on the Unity show & tell FB page the challenge is: any item made with one of the "Unity Girls" 

This is the one I chose. She is from the Kit Of the Month MAY 2014.  I used a sentiment from a newer kit Sending Up Something Beautiful.

I needed to make a few birthday cards and the request was for bright colors.  I first water colored the image with my "Zig's" and then decided that this shade of pink (Pixie Pink from Stampin' Up!) went best with the colors I'd used.  I wanted the background to "pop" a little so I inked  my multi-striped embossing folder from The Paper Studio with Rose Red from Stampin' Up then embossing the pink cardstock which also transferred the color simultaneously.  I thought it was beautiful just like that!  Adding Black to the card made it a little more sophisticated and punching a lacey edge for the white card base gave it the vibe I was looking for. 

 I added the tag on the inside just to finish it off as a birthday card, but I could've left it as a note card otherwise.

Simple, beautiful and so full of celebration!