Gardening Lover's Necklace

I’m catching up with a couple of girlfriends later this week and always like to bring them a little something. One is an avid gardener so I knew when I saw this little green garden boot charm on sale at Michaels I had to get it for her. There was also a beaded chain in the same section so I picked that up too.  Both are by Bead Landing from their “Derby Chic” collection.

I had some complementary colored seed beeds in my Blue Moon Beads design team supplies, along with a very cool silver bail and bell charm.

I attached the boot and the charm to the bail along with some silver charms I had in my stash.

I took the beaded chain apart at the middle , ran a small length of plain chain through the bail and then attached the beaded chain to either side.

Using the seed beads, I strung two sections and attached oval jump rings to each end. Attached these to more plain chain .

I don't think she'll be wearing it while she gardens but I hope it captures her passion. 

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BFF Open House Link Party#94 Wrap Up and Features

What a fantastic turnout for Friday's party! It's always fun to see some new blogs linked up along with those who link up regularly. Hope you had fun checking out other links. Here are just a few of the wonderful ideas that were shared.

 Michele at The Scrap Shoppe shared this gorgeous Spring wreath using moss and sunny yellow burlap. Don't you just love that big bow?

Jenna from 24 Cottonwood Lane transformed a thrifty find into this elegant Paris themed plant stand. Beautiful! 

Jenna's plant stand would look great with this ottoman that started out as a pallet from Allyson over at Domestic Superhero. 

Keri over at Shaken Together has a really cute way to give someone a little St. Patrick's Day luck along with a Lotto ticket. 

And this week's chocolate feature comes from Cindy over at Everyday Insanity where she is tackling life one brownie at a time. These look pretty darned perfect to me! 

Again, thanks to everyone who linked up and hope to see you all again on Friday. Make it a creative week! 

Ten Minute Black and Gold Necklace

It's not as if I needed another necklace but what's that got to do with anything? I decided at the last minute before we were going to see a movie yesterday that I wanted a new necklace to wear.  I did this so fast, I barely took any pics. I remembered this black and gold chain that was in my Blue Moon Beads design team stash and decided to make it the focal of my necklace. 

Grabbed some gold chain, antique silver chain,  and a multi-strand waxed linen necklace, all by BMB. I took the clasp ends off of the waxed linen necklace, measured the three chains the same length, and attached them to one end of the waxed linen necklace. Attached one half of a  hammered gold toggle clasp to the other end of the waxed linen necklace and then the chains to the bar end of the clasp and done. 

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Celebrate National Crafts Month With A CutCardstock Giveaway!

I'm doubly excited today. First, it's National Crafts month which, in addition to being a recognition and celebration of my favorite thing next to chocolate, is also usually a month with lots of wonderful ideas and projects shared by all of our favorite companies. 

But I'm even more excited that March begins my term on the CutCardstock.com design team! I'm honored to be part of a team that includes some very talented papercrafters. 

To kick off the month, CutCardstock.com is hosting a giveaway of some of their products. The giveaway is on now through March 5th. Available to US only. 

Prize pack is valued at $45, and includes:

• Brown Bag Kraft A2, square flap envelopes (50 pack)
• Brown Bag Kraft A2 folded cards (25 pack)
• Flavours Gourmet 8.5 x 11 sampler cardstock (16 pack)
• Curious Metallic Cryogen White 8.5 x 11 cardstock (25 pack)
• Mini Dot-N-Go Glue Dots in dispenser (300 count roll)
• Kraft Print Chiyogami Origami paper (48 sheets)

You can enter to win on Facebook here: 

Be sure to follow the CutCardstock.com blog  and Facebook pages to see my projects and those of my fellow design team members. This is also where you'll also  find news about specials on some great products. 

BFF Open House Link Party #94

Yep. I'm going to make my usual comment about where in the heck did the week go? If only the weekends didn't fly by as fast. So let's get right to it and see what everyone's been up to this week! 

St. Patrick's Day Printable Using Dingbats

Just a quick printable for St. Patrick’s Day. Found a really fun personal use “dingbat” font here . The text is a font called Emerald Isle.

If you’re unfamiliar with dingbat fonts, each letter is its own image. So the clover frame is actually the letter d.


a b c d e f g h I j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z


That’s the whole alphabet! Once you install a dingbat font, you can use in any program just like you would any other font, and the images can be resized. I made this printable using My Memories Suite Digital Scrapbooking Software.

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More Birthday Fun With Tim Holtz Stamps and Embossing Folder

I’m sharing a couple more things I made to celebrate Mr. Chocolate’s birthday. As we get older, we’re less about giving each other “things” and more about experiences. So for his birthday this year, I planned a day filled with stops at some favorite spots as well as a couple of places he’s mentioned wanting to check out.

Since he’s a good sport and comes with me on some of my crafting stops, I’ve discovered that he likes Tim Holtz designs. So Tim helped me out with my birthday plans.

You might recognize the stamped car on the front of the card from the altered cigar box I recently shared. That box held the card, along with the little altered box shown above.

For the card, I covered a blank 5x7 card with a piece of “wood paper”. It’s actual wood veneer over cardboard. I picked it up at one of my favorite stores before they went out of business. I added strips of paper from the Tradewinds collection by DCWV to the top and the bottom.

I ran a piece of chipboard through my Cuttlebug using a Tim Holtz gear embossing folder. Went over that with Ranger Distressed Ink in black and Fresh Ink pigment ink in grey, leaving some of the chipboard exposed.  Layered this onto more of the DCWV paper, alternating with black cardstock,  and added some gear charms by Bead Landing. I stamped the car and sentiment ( both Tim ) onto scraps of the wood paper and tore the edges. Finished with some coordinating washi tapes.

The other part of this present was a little altered “clue” box I made. I created vintage themed clue cards for  the places we’d go during the day (breakfast at a favorite spot, a tour of a local small batch distillery, a fun little 20’s / 30’s style tavern with a secret room, and a favorite restaurant for dinner)  numbered them and tucked them inside the box. I told  Mr. C. throughout the day when it was time to look at the next clue. In between our "scheduled" stops we had fun roaming around new neighborhoods and places we just stumbled upon. Including a CHOCOLATE FACTORY! More on that next month.

The box ( see how it matches my wood paper!) I found in the  $1 bin at Michaels. You know I had to buy a few of these right? I decided not to cover the whole thing but went over parts of it with printed tissue paper and washi tape, sealed with Mod Podge. I forgot to take pictures of the sides but I traced around them and used up the last of the DCWV paper from the card and Mod Podged them to the box.

Accented the button closure of the box with another of  the gear charms.

We had a wonderful day and even had cooperation from Mother Nature with the Seattle weather! 

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