Places from Abroad:China

The Altenew April challenge From Places Abroad: The Forbidden City, Beijing, China brings a lot of memories back to me... my husband and I travelled about 4000 kilometers through China more than 10 yrs. ago. It was a wonderful and very interesting journey and we love to remember it.
So - of course - I HAD to play with this challenge this month!

I love Chinese paintings with the typical red signature on one side or corner - and so I tried to mimic one of these with the Altenews "Vintage Roses" stamp set and my own asian signature stamp.

As I love to use vellum lately, I embossed some golden stripes (background stamp from Hero Arts) and stamped one of the roses on a piece of handmade paper.

I centered everything, as Chinese people love all things balanced out.

Here are the inspirational pictures of the challenge:

... and a close up of the card...

I´ll also link it up to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. 

They are showcasing Hero Arts products this week - and I used the Hero Arts "Canvas Stripes" stamp for the background. I like it a lot because of the uneven structure of the stripes - a really cool effect!

I think it´s always fabulous to see how well products from different companies go together!

... which means "thank you"!

It´s high time

Yes, it´s high time to participate in 2 fun challenges, which both end April 25th!

 ----- Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge ---- and ---- Sparkle and Shine Challenge FOUR ----

For these 2 challenges I combined products from Penny Black (die set "hooray"), Altenew (stamp set "Vintage Roses") and Memory box (die set "Resting Birds"). I´m soooo sorry, that I don´t have anything from Winnie&Walter by now... :-(

I´m totally in love with glitter paper and die cuts and vellum at the moment - want to use these components all the time!

In addition I gave the birds some dimension with Glossy Accents:

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Mix it up!

Today I´d like to participate in the Essentials by Ellen April Mix It Up - Challenge... it requires to mix products from 2 companies - in this case Essentials by Ellen (Ellen Hutson) and Lawn Fawn.

I needed a quick and happy packaging for 2 chocolate bars and came up with this idea:

I mixed the Essentials by Ellen die "Limited Edition You Rock", which consists of the gem and the "you" and the Lawn Fawn word die "Scipty Thanks" . To be able to combine them, I cut off the "s" ... which brought a new idea to my mind: I do not have a "to"-word die in my stash - but this Lawn Fawn die is very versatile - I stretched the use of it by cutting off the "h" and the "nk" to get this:

Thanks for stopping by today!

(PS: The Butterfly is "Lydia Butterfly" by Memory Box.)

Polka Dots

Polka Dots suit every occasion - even a card/gift for a man: I made a little something for my Dad ...

I´d like to enter it into the City Crafter Challenge which is all about Polka Dots this week!

Altenew

Today I´d like to participate in the Altenew March Challenge.

I used up all my wedding congratulation cards last year - so I was in need for at least one new one - here it is:

I used the gorgeous "Persian Motifs" stamp set from Altenew, white and gold embossing powder on some vellum and I incorporated a 3dimensional element, too, to express the magnificence of the architectural detail on the photo.

And this is the challenge theme/inspirational photo (1 of 3):

Thanks for stopping by today!

Xenium

In this (cold) time of the year filled chocolates and chocolate truffels make a great gift! 

Here´s my gift for a generous host/hostess : 5 different "handmade-by-me" chocolates

Baileys Truffles:

Chili Truffles, wintry filled white chocolates with a nougat-cinnamon filling and Egg-nog-Coconut Truffles:

Rum Truffels:

I made a "basket" from a white cardboard box and some designer paper and filled it up with the chocolates, a flowerpot and a wintry flowerpot stick and a matching kitchen towel.

I added a pretty card.... 

... and a cellophane wrapping - voilá!

Try it yourself, too! It´s a lot easier than it looks and the response is overwhelming! 

Have fun!

Thank You

I was really happy to learn, that I do have loyal followers who read my blog posts and encourage me with their comments!

THANK YOU!

This is for you!

I tried my hands on a very chocolaty chocolate cake - and it turned out delicious! 

I´m so sorry that I can´t hand out a piece to everyone of you in real life!

Just in case you don´t know how to make the leaves: just take some leaves from a rose, dip them into warm chocolate, put them into the fridge, peel the leaves off again - voilá!

If they´re still ok (not torn) dip them into chocolate again... and so on ...

And if you´d like to try this flower out of white chocolate, too - I got the instructions here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhcmeWkHb6k

how to make a CHOCOLATE FLOWER rose by Ann Reardon

Have a nice day!

Jeweled Journey Part 2

Hi again!

… if you´re new here, please start with Part 1 here : http://apricotbubbles.blogspot.co.at/2014/06/jeweled-journey-part-1.html

So, after creating my dark pearl necklace, my second piece was a cream colored pearl bracelet – I LOVE bracelets – so nice to wear!

I took a piece from my rhinestone heap and added some quite large pearls – done! Within no time at all – 30 minutes perhaps?  

This was so much fun to me, that I realized, that I´d need much more rhinestone pieces for my new passion.

I visited Vienna´s largest and most famous (on Saturdays: flea-) market – the “Naschmarkt” – and found some really nice pieces for a reasonable price.

Aren´t they all so pretty?!  

In the next few months I made some necklaces – you can read about them HERE – or just take a look HERE

I even made myself necklaces for just a day/ an outfit and took it apart afterwards – crazy! But so much fun! This one for example does not exist any more – it was only for a day… the center-piece is the only heirloom I have from my paternal Grandma.

Please stay tuned for some more stages of the Jeweled Journey :-)

Thank you so much visiting again!

PS: I link this up to the Vintage Inspiration Party !

Jeweled Journey Part 1

Hey there!

It´s been ages since my last blog post and I´d like to explain to my loyal readers (are the any?), WHY I´ve been so quiet … well, I still love paper crafting, but now I switched from paper crafting to jewelry making!

It´s been 4 years ago, when I found Jamie´s gorgeous pieces on her site Simply Me Art… since then, the fire was lit. But I didn´t dare to really start making jewelry – I did just one necklace …

….and the stopped for a while…. Anyhow I never stopped following Jamie´s blog. She was very nice and gave me some very good advice, as e.g. buying Amy Hanna´s book Rejuvenated Jewels  

Since I really wanted to give it a try, I started buying “treasures” on flea markets and antique markets… such as broken rhinestone jewelry, old brooches etc. …

About a year later I subscribed to Where Women Create and found an article about Andrea Singarella and a beautiful photograph of her sitting in front of her desk and wearing a selfmade necklace. 

You can read the article HERE.

I was so inspired by her, that I made myself a necklace with beautiful dark pearls within the next 2 days – and I love it still:

  

Please stay tuned for some more stages of the Jeweled Journey!

Thank you so much for keeping faith with me!

Happy 17th Wedding Anniversary

... to my husband and me! 

Each year it´s a special challenge for me to make a card for my husband - that´s how it turned out this year:

... I couldn´t resist to include at least a small amount of "glitz" ...

... the inside holds a small envelope with a voucher on the back ...

Both envelopes were ready in a breeze with my new Envelope Punch Board!

Thanks for stopping by today!