Here is the first Pocket letter I ever made.  I exchanged with my dear friend in Ohio.  We are both obsessed with the Julie Nutting paper dolls.  The papers I used are from Crate Paper.  A line called "Farmhouse"

 This is it all folded up and ready to send.  I made a band to go around it to hold it all together.  

This is a close up of the band.  Lots of little details.  

I just love this paper line.  I used a 6x6 pad for this project but I have the 12x12 pad as well.  I'm kind of hoarding it.  The banner across the top is removable.  

Here's a close up of the doll.  She has a lace hanky in her pocket.  

These are tiny Julie Nutting dolls I laminated and make into paper clips.  The rhinestone on this doll and the heart on the one above are adhered on top of the laminate.  They are just so darn cute.

I am hooked on Pocket Letters now, too.  I made on for a sweet young mom in Italy and received a lovely one back.  Next I am making another doll one for a lovely lady here in the US.  

SYS Cards

I like to make what I call Simple Yet Striking cards.  SYS for short.  Here's one I made using a Stamps of Life set called Crazy For Daisies and the matching dies, Tim Holtz's Tattered Leaves die and a simple sentiment stamp.  

This whole card took me less than 15 minutes to make.  In the time it took the hot glue gun to warm up I had it assembled and then I just adhered the rhinestones to the buttons and glued them to the centers of the flowers and voila. Simple Yet Striking.  Don't you agree?

Crazy Birds for Broadway Boys

The girls got Glamour, the boys got Crazy!!!  I made 14 of these for the guys in the cast. Coloring is not my forte although I enjoy doing it.  I'm just not that good at it.  I figured with these silly birds by Tim Holtz I couldn't go too wrong.  I used my Prismacolor Pencils.

By the time I got to these time was at a premium so I only got this one picture.  I used brads on these instead of the flat back pearls.  The music paper is from an old music book.  Again, I hand stamped Best Night Ever.  I don't think you can see but I used Tim's Tiny Attacher to secure the baker's twine and in 2 corners of the music paper.  Tags inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink by Tim Holtz.

Prima Dolls for Broadway

I'm so in love with Julie Nutting's Prima dolls.  I have "adopted" more of them than I care to admit and joined a couple of FB pages.  Here are some tags I made for all the gals in the cast of the Broadway Under The Stars show I did this summer. I made 17 all together.  Because I had to make so many I kept them simple.  

I used all the same elements on each tag. I just switched them around.  Each doll represents a gal in the cast.  Each one has the correct-ish hair color and usually there was something about the doll that reminded me of that person.  

I made my own "chipboard" letters using my Cricut and handstamped the Best Night Ever phrase.  

Each one had something sparkly or shiny and several had bits of lace.  I love these dolls so much.  I'll have more posts of them soon.  

Materials used: The kraft paper is from Joann's cut using SU's Top Note die and inked with Vintage Photo Distressed Ink Pad by Tim Holtz.  The doilies are Martha Stewart purchased at Michael's.  The bodies are stamped on dictionary paper and inked with Vintage Photo. The papers are from my stash.  

A reminder

Saw this on my way to work.  Need I say more?

I'd Rather Have Jesus

Last week I saw a play called August Osage County in which there was a male character named Beverly.  This led me to think about one of my favorite singers George beverly Shea and my favorite song by him; I'd Rather Have Jesus.  That led me to this

I love tight family harmonies.  The first time I heard it was years ago when we lived at Green Oak Ranch.  Sue Story sang it at First Baptist Church of Vista. It makes me sob out loud every time.  Ugly cry.  Enjoy.  Have a Kleenex handy.

Plate rack for Sylvia

Another great thing that happened earlier this year was that I got my kitchen cupboard done. I have been wanting open cupboards with plate racks like I see in magazines. Plus my Kitchen Aid didn't fit under my cupboard and I had to keep it on the other side of the kitchen which made no sense.  So the plan was to make the cupboard about and inch shorter than the existing one in order to get it to fit underneath.  I've had the plans in my head for about 3 years and I finally talked Norm into doing it.  We bought pretty expensive plywood at a wood specialty shop.  I don't have a picture of the cupboard "before" but here is step one of the rebuild.

Old cupboard pulled off, wallpaper scrubbed off and wall painted.  Originally I was going to leave the wall behind the shelves white but decided to paint it yellow too.  There are a lot of marks and stuff on the wall because of the way the house was built.  I thought painting it would disguise it better.

You see there is a big gap between the wall and the edge of the cupboard.  This whole house is wonky like that. 

After Norm got the other cupboard up he filled the holes with putty and also tried to smooth out the wall a bit too.  By the way, the reason I was able to talk him into doing finally tackling this project is because he got an air nailer.  Gave him an excuse to use his new toy.  Whatever it takes, right?  As usual I was in a hurry so we set up the little heater to dry the putty faster.  We did this project in early March and it was wet and damp so it was taking a long time to dry.

Almost done. 

 Doesn't my Kitchen Aid look cute under there?  And my new Fiestaware?  I had been wanting Fiestaware for about a year and this motivated me to finally get it. I still love my red dishes and have put them away in a cupboard but I got them in 1986 so I thought it was time for a change.  Macy's and Kohls often has Fiestaware on sale so it was easy to get it on the cheap!  The blue flowered dishes are the ones I got in Rossland with my sister Carolynne.  As usual she was very supportive of my purchase - coughcoughshetalkedmeintothemcoughcough.  They are from a British company called Port Meirion and the pattern is Crazy Daisy.  Cute, eh?

Isn't it fabulous?  The cupboard doors are the original ones; just cut off to fit.  I love it sooo much.  Half the dishes were in the dishwasher when I took this photo but you get the picture.  I'm so happy with it.  Thanks, Norm!  Oh.... and happy birthday to me!!!