Love is in the Air

Love is in the air and red hearts are appearing all over my house.
It is not yet February, but my Valentines are up on display, to spread some love around my home.

Like my last collage I posted Winter wishes, I also made one a few years ago for Valentines Day.
It goes in the same frame that changes out with the seasons and holidays.



The collage is full of Valentine motifs surrounding a big glitter heart and swirl. A heat embossed chipboard key to my heart, a rhinestone centered velvet flower and some vintage Valentine images. Easter and spring will go up next. 

I made the collage below using my Cricut and most of the images came from the Zoo Balloo cartridge. I did not realize the cart had this cute house and tree on an animal themed cartridge. The papers are mostly Basic Grey and the rub on title is from Jenni Bowlin.

Below is my Valentine banner. Five chipboard hearts covered with pattern paper, crepe paper ruffled circles and LOVE in sparkly red glitter. 

I have some vintage and reproduction Valentines I like to display in my photo holder. 

A big pile of punched hearts sewn together makes a sweet garland. 

I had a few friends come over to play with paper and stamps on Thursday and I made these little matchbox Valentine treats for them. The boxes are cut from a die from Stampin' Up and the label and bird are Stampin' Up punches. A sweet treat!

Our projects we worked on Thursday were this sweet card that can be a Valentine, wedding or just because card. All supplies are from Stampin' Up. The basket below was our other project. 

The little basket is one I made from inspiration I found on this blog, thelittleblueroom, via Pinterest. 

I changed the handle and style a bit and added the two little tags, both are crafted with 

stamps and punches also from Stampin' Up. 

A little red and white bakers' twine from Martha Stewart ties it all together. 

My Valentine tree is all decorated for the holiday. Christmas and angels have come down and red hearts and love have gone up. 

Many of the ornaments are ones I have made just for the tree. 

This paper covered chip board heart with a felt rose is a new one for this year. 

  

These four below are some I made the first year I put up a Valentine tree in Jan. 2010. In 2009 I had gone on a vacation right after Christmas and by the time I was taking down my tree in my solarium, it was mid January. So I decided I might as well leave it up a few more weeks and turn it into a Valentine tree. My family liked the tree and thought I should decorate a tree for every holiday. And now I do! 

Each year I create a few more ornaments for the tree. Vintage images, glitter and tinsel come together to make some love filled decorations. 

Most of my Valentine decor is up on display, but if I find some new inspiration, there will be more! I love to craft for the holidays and every year I bring out my decorations I am reminded of the fun I had crafting them all.

As always, if you have a question about the supplies or techniques I used, please leave a comment. I would love to hear from you! 

It has been over 70 years!

Sunday, my hubby, my sister in law Joanne and I went on an adventure.

I had seen a news story late last week on our local CBS affiliate KPIX. They had gone to Yosemite National Park to do a story about our lack of rain and snow this winter. We have not seen rain here in northern and central California since October, and this is our rainy season. 

No rain or snow means no snow pack in the Sierras, California's main source of water for much of the state. It is so dry, that there is no snow on the Tioga or Sonora passes, which are usually closed between November and May, or even later, depending on the snow fall. They were both open in January, something that has not happened in over 70 years. 

And that meant that many parts of Yosemite Park that are usually buried in snow in the winter and inaccessible were open. Including Tenaya Lake. Not only could you visit frozen Tenaya Lake, the lake it self was not covered under many feet of snow. 

People were skating, picnicking on the lake ice, even playing impromptu hockey games. I thought it would be fun to take a day and go visit the park and lake after I saw this news story. I did not know my sister in law had seen this same news report also.

On Saturday, we were chatting and she mentioned she was going to go to Yosemite on Sunday. I asked why and she told me about the news report she had seen. I told her I had seen it also and I would go with her, if she wanted company. When we talked to my hubby, he said he would like to go
along for the ride too. 

So Sunday morning we got up early and headed out on our adventure.
I had packed us a picnic lunch to eat at the park. Many of the concessions in the park had closed down for the winter, as usual, not knowing the winter weather would be arriving so late! It took about 5 hours to get to Yosemite and then another hour or so to get to Tenaya Lake, with a few photo stops in between. 

 A view of the back side of Half Dome from Olmstead Point.
Beyond Half Dome is the famous Yosemite Valley. 

Perched on a cold granite wall at Olmstead Point. We might not have had much rain or snow, but the winter cold had arrived anyway.

From Olmstead Point you can see Tenaya Lake.  

Here I am out on frozen Tenaya Lake. 

Frozen sold from shore to shore. The sounds coming from below the ice sounded like whale songs. It was very cool being able to visit the lake and knowing that it may be another 50 years before we have a  winter like this again.

After we left the lake we decided to continue on over Tioga Pass, passing Toulumne meadows. We decided not to head back down to Yosemite Valley, but go the Tioga pass route and head up to the Sonora Pass. It was cold and windy at the pass, and sadly barren of snow. 

We headed down the pass to Hwy 395 to travel north to go over  Hwy 108 and the Sonora Pass, another pass over the Sierras not usually open after October, until May. 

When we got to Hwy 395 we stopped at a vista point to view Mono Lake and eat our picnic lunch.  

After lunch we headed up Hwy 395 to Hwy 108 and started up the Sonora Pass. Because this road is less traveled than Tioga, it is much more narrow and winding. But full of beautiful views! I can't imagine making this trip by horse and wagon!

After we traveled over Sonora Pass we headed down to the central valley and on to home in Sonoma County. It was a long day of driving, about 500 miles in 15 hours. But a chance to get away for the day and experience something we might not see again in our life time, 

was worth the long but beautiful drive. 

Rain is forecast this week which means snow in the Sierras and the chance to make this trip at this time of year will be gone. 

Twelve of twelve

Project 365 is big with the start of the new year. I have seen lots of posts on blogs, Facebook and twopeasinabucket. It seems like everyone is doing it! I did Project 365 in 2009 and really enjoyed the project. But toward the end of the year, finding new ideas for photos sometimes was difficult. 

I don't have small children so there was not a lot of playtime, school 

and sports photos to fill up my pages. 

But I loved photographing the every day. The simple things in life 

we can easily overlook and forget. 

While on Two Peas the other day I came across the 12-of-12 project. Take 12 photos on the 

twelfth of each month, for all of Twenty Twelve. 

12-of-12

in

2012

I figured I could easily do that! 

So on Thursday the twelfth I got out my camera in the morning and started photographing. I took three  photos in the morning, three at noon, three in the afternoon and three in the evening. Easy peasy!

I was so excited to get this project underway, I uploaded the photos the next day to pick up while running errands on Friday the 13th. 

Since I wanted smaller photos to be able to put all 12 on a two page layout, I made a collage in Picasa, two per 4x6 print, so I could scrap 12 3x4 or 4x3 photos and save on processing. I also added the numbers 1-12 to each photo in Picasa, so I could match my journaling to each photo. 

Last night I scrapped my first 12-of-12 layout for January. 

I used some old Basic Gray papers for the January layout. I have a big stash of Basic Grey, so I may use Basic Grey for all 12 layouts.

Here is my first layout. I hope to remember to post each layout as I complete them each month, ending the photo project on 12-12-12. 

I already will have a change in my house, as I discovered a crack in the mug I took my first photo of for the project. 

Winter Wishes

Now that the Christmas season is over, even though my Christmas tree is still up,
I have taken down most of my holiday decorations.

One of the holiday decorations I have for every holiday or season is my Holiday Collage. I have a 12x12 scrapbook shadow box frame that I bought at Michael's.
Each new holiday or season gets a collage.

I wanted to take down my Christmas collage but was not ready to put up my Valentines collage, so I made this "Winter" collage. A snow and New Years theme. I got the idea for a holiday collage from my friend Jenny. She has a frame she changes out each holiday and when she made hers, she inspired a bunch of her crafty friends to make holiday collages of their own.

I went through my stash of crafty/scrappy supplies and put together a big pile of stuff to work with. All   the papers have a blue/teal color range. Lots of glitter papers too.

I used a clip art of a 1907 New Years card and a little card board ornament of a cherub that I have had in my stash for over 25 years for my "New Years" part of the collage.

The Bingo card is from October Afternoon and the little snowmen are left
overs from my snow globe project.
The white deer is from Martha Stewart, I covered it in glitter.
The glitter trees, bird and house are cut from Sizzix dies.
The felt snowflakes are from Stampin' Up. I layered the snowflakes and added rhinestone/pearl brads from Michael's in the centers.
"Snow" is cut from my Cricut and "Day" are Making Memories letter stickers.
The "winter wonderland" cut out is from My Minds Eye.
The little cameo is from Websters pages and the silver star is an ornament from Target.

Because my scrapbook frame is also a shadow box I could use some very dimensional elements like my snowmen on the Bingo card. I just had to trim a little from the backs so they would lay flat. 

Lots of glitter glue, pearls and glitter added sparkle to the collage.

Below the collage in the frame. 

I have made a collage for every season and will share them all as I change out the frame.

Now to put away all the stuff I pulled out to make the collage :)

Thanks for looking!