Calendar Girls: Christmas in July

 My dear friend Carol was our Calendar Girl's hostess last month, and she challenged us to make Christmas cards in July...well well...well...in the recent scorchy days we've been having, making cards with a Christmas theme sort of makes you think of 'cold' and 'snow'....wishful thinking I may add! Today we reached 37 C...which I believe it to be 99 F!! OH MY!!

 I love Christmas, and yet I always seem to fall short of cards and/or stamina to make them by the time the winter season approaches. For this challenge I made two cards but never uploaded them until now...yikesss.....I knew exactly what I wanted to do for my first card , and for my second one I really wanted to ink this set that I had for a long time but never used until three weeks ago...(unfortunatly I have many of such sets...*sigh* keep telling myself that,once retire I would brush off the cobwebs and ink them one by one....*wink*
Can YOU tell what both these cards have in common????
Take a close look at their golden dry embossed panels...
Does that remind ya of something??? mmm...need more hints? awww well..lemme tell ya...
I repurposed  the bottom of a nice large golden box of Lindt chocolates!!! yupppp!! et voila'!! ♥

For the first card (Lovely as a Tree by SU) I gold embossed the tree on black card stock then cut it out and mounted in the middle of the embossed golden frame, using dimentionals. Inside I used gold embossing too, to enhance both the sentiment and the snowflakes.

For my next card I finally inked 'Gifts of Christmas' and had it mounted on double oval nesties (white c/s and old olive c/s) reposing on a dry golden embossed poinsettia's panel (from repurposed Lindt's box!) I really love the crackling that the embossing produced...it created a beautiful and unexpected vintage looking ♥ I cut out the three lil red flowers and popped them on dimentionals and added red glitter to them... A pretty satin and organdy bow plus a wee sentiment in contrasting color complete this  card. I must admit I REALLY like it when I find ways to re use, repurpose, recycle good items and obtain beautiful results!

♥ Carol also asked us to share a special Christmas memory...

For me it's the day we get to open our stockings...

As a young child I was often spending 'Stocking Day' at either my Granparents' house,where we  celebrated La Befana on Jan 6th ending the last of the Christmas Holidays for our Italian roots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Befana

In my house, we get together as close as to January 6th as possible (usually the closest week end)

We celebrate with a great big brunch altogether as a Family and then the opening of all of the stockings that La Befana brought for all....big and small,during the night.

I like to add also a few mandarine oranges as my grandmas did too during my childhood and my grandchildren now do expect them also...although they all still believe that La Befana comes to visit Canada each year , just for them!! ;o)

After the stocking reveal,we usually play board games, especially Tombola, which is the italian version of Bingo.

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And now my Friends, are YOU going to tell me which card YOU like best??

Ya know I am curious to know...*wink* ♥

Thank YOU Carol for a fun challenge...and for the memories!

BLESSINGS TO ALL OF YOU!!!

Dueling Darlings : Game's On!

   Hello Friends,
yesterday was the official day to post our Dueling card for this month.
Jeanette (SCS:Forest Ranger)is the hostess for us Dazzler,
 and Kelly is the hostess for the Divas.
Both gals are behind the Dueling idea  right from the start...
This time around the theme is: 'ARE YOU GAME?'
Jeanette sent us Dazzlers an *AMAZING* kit from which we created our cards...
I absolutly LOVE the designer papers received and already put a lil stash away...lol

There were so many goodies in the kit's received, including a few embossed colored panels. I chose the blue embossed Bingo card to enhance the front of my card...

Isn't this image just too funny??...lol....

Indeed I sure have seen a few people react this way!! ;o) 

Jeanette's kit contained the following:
Image: Art Impressions UM3511 Bingo
DP: Tessa Collins Freestyle Collection
Embossed Paper: Tim Holtz Embossing Folders by Ellison (Mini Bingo Card on SU! Tempting Turquoise; Mini Rays on SU!
Pumpkin Pie and Mini Ticket on SU! Pixie Pink)Embellishments :Morex Corp. Organdy Ribbon
Prima Flowers
Studio 18 Rhinestones
Button & Brads (vendors unknow)
A Scrabble tile

The only items I added to create this card were the following: white card stock; really rust card stock;
Spellbinders sm. classic inverted scalloped circles. I also used Copics to color this fun image.

♥ THANK YOU JEANETTE FOR THE GENEROUS KIT YOU SENT!!! ♥

As part of the challenge we were supposed to try something new with our card...well....I create it in the middle of the night and only AFTER it was done I re read the request sent us from our group leader...My apologies ladies! :/

Regardless I hope that whomever decides to visit would like this fun card...I sure enjoyed making it!! ♥

*Blessings to all*

House Mouse Unidentified Mystery Solved ♥

Hello my friendly peeps,
this card was made for the Unidentified Mystery Swaps that I partcipate in.
Barb is the brain behind this bi-monthly idea .For more informations please check
her wonderful blog here:
http://inkingintoretirement.blogspot.ca/2012/08/unidentified-swap-happiness-house-mouse.html

                  The swap hostess for this round is Janet (aka JanetJ on SCS)

She's an adorable gal with strong likes

for ANYTHING that is coffee...LOL

Janet sent us partecipants some very sweet,cute House Mouse images.
This one is called  'Take Time to Smell the Flowers'.....quite appropriate eh?!♥

In addition to the images received, I added the followings:

Stamped Sentiment : Make It Count (SU)

Card Stock: Old Olive (SU) , Bazzil Basic Premium c/s (pink)

Designer Paper: 'Me and My Big Ideas'

Copics , Stickles, Liquid Pearls , Bella Baubles , Green Grosgrain ribbon ,

Spellbinders: Circles dies and Tags , LifeStyle Crafts : Nesting Eyelet Circles dies. 

Hopefully Janet will like my contribution and interpretation

of such fun image to work with ....THANK YOU JANET!!

 (raising my espresso demi-tasse to you my friend!!)

Wishing all of my peeps a wonderful , FUN week end!

♥ GOD BLESS !

Mystery Image (July 2012)

 Hello friendly peeps...
I am soooooo late with all of my posting and have LOTS of cards to blog but hardly time to do it all...
Well, at least I CAN blog again!
(I had a huge problem with my laptops for days that prevented me to
be able to upload ANY photos into my computer and I even had ALL
of my pictures files totaly disappearing!! Needless to say I was choked...

Anyways,things apear to be in the norm now- fingers crossing-
so here I am on blogland again...

The card I am posting today was made beginning of July and should have been posted at a much earlier date  but, as I said, my laptop decided to go wonky on me! :/

This sweet card is for a mystery group on SCS where all partecipants use the same image sent to them by a monthly hostess. Cards are then kept as a surprise until revealing day in blogland or SCS galleries.
 Kate was our hostess for this round and she sent us partecipants this cute image of a little pony from SU! (Stampin’ Up Pony Party)

To the inages received, which I colored with Copics, I added the following:
Card stock: certainly celery
D/P: DCWV 'Nana's Kids'
Sentiment: Birthday Counts (SU)
Stickles, crystal effect, glittery flower w/gem, Spellbinder dies.

Hope the recipient will like it...cute simple cards for young children...♥

*Have  a wonderful day everyone*