Birthday Card for Ally

So my most favorite pretty girl turned 16 a couple of weeks back and we had a party for her.  I wanted to make a card she would ohhh and ahh over and I have a ton of cards and card stock from my paper stash. (That's what happen when you plan a wedding twice and then elope!) Can we say card stock out the wazoo...
Anyhow, I decided to uses some of the Color Me Paper  for my background and to keep it fairly simple.
I embossed my petal of the card with my swirl embossing folder and my cuttlebug. Cut my butterflies with my Sentimentals cartridge and layered them adding just a bit of bling.Used Ranger Distress ink for my color and made sure I got all my edges. Then I sprayed everything with sparkle Shimmer Spritz added na nfew pearls, Et Voila ! She loved it.

Flower Obsession Interrupted (or This cat is a pest.)

Ok, I know I'm obsessed with paper. Flat out addicted to it in fact. But, I tell you if it's a craft and it involves flowers I'm right smack in the middle of it. I have no self control. No will power. None! Crepe paper flower? Yup! Love to make 'em. Origami flowers, yup. Quilled flowers for cards and lets not talk about my rubber stamp collection and the flowers there. I was recently reunited with my PSX Botanical Stamps and my husband said he really didn't realize girls squealed over stuff like that. 

I think the only thing more important than flowers or paper is holding the big black cat who consistently invades my personal space. He is a space hog to say the least and he has no conception of boundaries.

Ace

OK, let's be clear. He thinks it's more important. Period. And as cute as he is, he can be a pest. Especially if I'm working on things that include long strips of paper. (Quilling) Any form of ribbon, floral tape, yarn. You get the picture.


Today I came home from work as soon as I could because during my run home at lunch, the mail man came with goodies for me from Custom Quilling. I was so excited. I still have a mass amount of paper strips for different projects but today in my order was a new book! Yay! I'm also addicted to books.

This is what came!!!

This book is a beautiful project book by Alli Bartkowski called Quilled Flowers. I've been home for an hour, had a cup of tea and looked through the whole thing, and drooled. I'm not ashamed. I was. DROOLING!

I can hardly wait to whip out my paper strips and get started. (cat be damned!) The photography is simply gorgeous, as are the projects. I mean heck, look at the cover 3 dimensional quilled flowers. If that doesn't inspire someone to learn how to quill I'm not sure what could. Also, all the directions are clear, she does a great job of going over the basic quilling shapes and breaking down what you need to do the projects.

I just can't decide what to do first, but I have some teeny tiny and smallish glass bottles and vases that need some flowers so lets see what I can do! Without the cat's help.

I'm a Bad, Bad Blogger.

Ok. We are NOT going to talk about where I've been. Let's just say that life got in the way and move on.

For those wondering, I did NOT get to have my DIY paper-filled dream wedding I was hoping for but I did get married. YAY. It was a nice little trip to Tahoe with my nearest and dearest, back in November. Of Course in this very mild fall and winter that we've had here in Northern California it chose that weekend to snow which was kinda cool but the intimate service with my friends and family was perfect.
Besides my dress, my bouquet was my most favorite accessory of the day. Not my crepe paper flowers I was hoping for but considering I had a very short time to get them done, (24 hours to be precise) they turned out great.

I was wish I'd been able to make it larger but time and supplies on had were very limited. I used several glass buttons for centers to give it some bling and then floral filler picks for doing regular flower arrangements to add another dimension. I hand cut all my squares from hand colored "Color Me" papers from Hot Off  The Press. a couple of sheets from my Anna Griffin stash and a couple of sheets of a really nice 12 x 12 script that I picked up from Joanne's.
Ok that's all I have time for today as I've been forced at keyboard point to do an update and I've got the flu so it's taken me all day to get it done.
Time for a nap....