Changes to come and a farewell.

No project today, I just wanted to share some changes happening on this blog.

Some have been planned, and will take place in a couple of weeks (and be announced when the time comes).
And another one is effective immediately: I have decided to resign from the Trendy Twine Design Team.
The Design Team term will be over in a couple of months, and Lesley is looking for several new team members. If you are interested she will soon have a DT call on her Facebook page and her blog. If you like Trendy Twine now is your chance... :-)
I wish Lesley and her store great success, as she is expanding her business, adding Unity stamps and cute packaging tapes to her inventory, as well as 7 new colors of twine before the summer. :-)

Basketful of blessings

It's My Thoughts Exactly Thursday, and here is my project using the brand new Easter Greetings stamps set.
Thanks to the mix and match concept of the stamps I used "of" from one sentiment and added the "blessings"from another one. This new set is not just for Easter and has several sentiments about Spring too. As you can see the "basketful" can also be used for gifts (there is a "basketful of goodies" option in the set).

I paperpieced the basket from the background paper, and added a few extra tulips with a glue dot to give it a tiny bit more dimension. Coloring was done with Prismacolor markers. (basket + tulips stamps are PTI, twine is Trendy Twine)

Don't forget to visit my fellow DT members who also have a project for you today:  Bee and Tracy. :-)

Trendy Twine Tuesday: Lucky enough to have you

It's Trendy Twine Tuesday, and the 1st one for March, so today the whole design team has projects for you!

We went with a somewhat "St Patrick's Day" theme this month, and used Twisted Lime twine.

For my project I decided to make a birthday card for my e-friend Alice. See, everyone needs an Alice in their life! :-) She is kind and loving, beautiful inside and out. One of the sweetest persons I ever (not) met... ;-) I really hope I will meet her for real one day! It might take a while before it happens, because she lives in London... :-S
So in the meantime I will just be sending a little paper love her way. I thought this sentiment (by Papertrey Ink (Big Birthday sentiments)) was perfect for my clover card and for Alice!... ;-) I was looking for a "one in a  million" sentiment when I came across this one... ;-) I am definitely lucky to have her be a part of my life, even if it's only the virtual part... :-) One of the things I really love about acrylic stamps is how you can bend them and stamp a sentiment in a curve... :-)

I initially used twine on my leaves too but didn't like the look of it and removed it, I didn't think it was possible but there is such a thing as too much twine on a project!... *gasp* o.O
The front panel is on pop dots which allows space for the twine all around. And now that I am all finished and my picture is taken I suddenly wonder, why on earth didn't I fold those leaves down the middle and only glued them partially to give them dimension? The answer is simple: I am a victim of the post office. When I make a card now I often ponder wether it will fit into the dreaded 1/4 inch slot limit or not... I think I had that in the back of my mind when I decided to glue everything flat... ;-)

For more projects with Twisted Lime Trendy Twine, visit the Trendy Twine blog, where you will also find the details about this month's challenge:

The challenge is on from March 6th to March 30th. Your project must include a Shamrock, Glitter and Twisted Lime or Holly Green Trendy Twine. If you don't have any Trendy Twine,  you can substitute Green embroidery Floss instead. The Winner will receive 50 yards of Trendy Twine, color of their choice! :-D

My Thoughts Exactly March release.

Well it's the 1st of the month and you are expecting your  My Thoughts Exactly release blog hop...
Unfortunately Alyssa ran into some manufacturing and shipping delays, and she wasn't able to get the stamps to her DT for the release.
However, the stamp set is now available for purchase here. And you will see plenty of projects as soon as the DT gets to work... ;-)

In the meantime you can visit Alyssa's blog for her projects made with the new stamps set.

Trendy Twine Tuesday: Feel better bunny...

The 3 years old daughter of one of my cousins recently fell in the stairs and broke her collarbone! :-( This happened to my daughter a few years ago (she fell from a tree) and it was a very painful and slow recovery. So I made a little card to cheer her up. :-)

I used Melanie's bunny, stamped on craft cardstock and cut out, then I bended the right paw, and made my own little sling out of Strawberry Cupcake Trendy Twine. So fun! :-)
I hope she'll get a little kick out of it... :-)

Pour les françaises! Encres et recyclage... ;-)

Une fois n'est pas coutume, un petit post juste pour les françaises aujourd'hui!... ;-)
On va voir si j'arrive encore à écrire en français, pas sur du tout... :-S

Ca fait maintenant 10 ans que je vis aux USA de façon permanente, et je ne suis pas "rentrée" en France depuis 8 ans 1/2... :-( L'autisme de mes garçons rend les voyages en avion problématiques....
Mais j'ai la chance d'avoir la visite de mes parents 1 à 2 fois/an et ils me ramènent toujours des petites gâteries françaises: foie gras, confit de canard, nougats, chocolat... et Calissons d'Aix... :-) Miam!...

J'ai découvert il y a un moment que les boites de Calissons d'Aix sont parfaites comme rangement pour les mini encreurs! On croirait qu'elles ont été faites juste pour les yeux de chat de Colorbox, mais en forçant un peu on peut aussi y mettre les gouttes de rosée de Tsukineko. :-)

Pour info les boites sur la photo sont de 2 marques différentes, au moins l'une d'elles vient du rayon "Régions de France" d'Auchan, donc ça doit être relativement facile à trouver... :-)

Voilà une bonne excuse pour manger plus de Calissons, zut alors!... ;-)

My Thoughts Exactly Thursday: Conversation Hearts set

It's My Thoughts Exactly Thursday and even though Valentine's Day was Tuesday here is my Conversation Hearts project... ;-)

It all started with the candle. When I saw the Candy Hearts stamps set, I immediately thought about a candle with little hearts all over it.  So I went to the store and bought some Conversation heart candies for my inspiration... Now before I go further I have to say that these colors are not my usual color scheme, I tried to stick with the colors of the candies and it threw me off a little bit at first... ;-)

For those unfamiliar with the technique of stamping on a candle, you stamp on tissue paper and then fuse it to the candle by heating it up with a heat gun. When the surface wax melts, it saturates the tissue paper making it cling to the candle and making it almost invisible. There are lots of tutorials out there, I like this one by Gina K. for Stamp TV.

I never tried coloring the tissue paper before and was not sure how to do this. Markers were a bit too bright so I opted for colored pencils instead. I stamped on the front of the tissue paper and colored on the back of the paper, hoping it would help the color to stay more muted and more even.

For the card that goes with my little set I also wanted some muted colors so after I stamped and colored my image (with colored pencils + paint thinner) I glued a panel of vellum paper (copy paper in that case, very similar results, way less expensive... ;-)) all over my image (using a glue stick). Then I glued this whole panel to a blue mat using pop dots for dimension. I added a little bit of Trendy Twine, and a little heart charm to finish it up.

The little tag attached to my candle is made in a similar manner as the card. Stamping, masking, coloring, and top layer, them matting.

All that was left to do was save some candies, and put them in a cute little clear pillow box wrapped with twine. :-)

Don't forget to visit my team members that also have projects for you today: Bee and Tracy. :-)

And last bit of information, this week My Thoughts Exactly is sponsoring the challenge at Case Study, check it out! :-)

In the spotlight: Sweetly Scrapped

Do you love vintage graphics? Do you like free printables?

Thanks to Pinterest, I discovered Sweetly Scrapped . Emily comes up with free printables faster than I can papercraft! ;-D

Pay her a little visit, she has fun stuff for every taste! I am not really into vintage and I found lots of cute accents for scrapbooking or cardmaking. :-)

Today she has a whole mini album with tabs!... :-)