Garden Flowers Tri-Shutter Album

You may remember seeing the tri-shutter train album I made my brother for Christmas. This one is a spring version with lots of flowers. I didn't make it for anyone specific so there are no pictures in it. The big flower is on the cover and the next two pictures are what it looks like when you open it. I didn't decorate the two side pages so that it can be used for bigger pictures.  I bought this tutorial from Andrea Walford several years ago.

picture jasper

This is another pendant I got on e-bay. It is made of picture jasper with a blue stone, then framed with landscape jasper. This pendant makes it easy to see why it is called picture jasper. I added the little bear fetish below it. The necklace is a combination of large landscape jasper faceted stones and smaller picture jasper nuggets, chips and rounds.

Fishes and Stars

These cards are made from another set that I borrow quite often from Anna. I have a tendency not to use blue paper and the sea life forces me to use some of it. I also like using the cuttlebug bubble folder on any cards that are water related.

Look at all the little details on the cards; the heart for an anniversary and the birthday hat on the fish. Do you see the brad next to the thank you? It is a little star.

Ode to Picasso

The pendant bead on both of these is Picasso Jasper. It gets it's name from the lines across the face of the bead. This stone is a brown color and is one of the most beautiful stones I have used. The other one is red and some of the shapes in the stone remind me more of Dali than Picasso. I got both of these from Hong Kong via e-bay. You have to be careful with stones from e-bay. I have found to buy a few the first time to check out the quality and then go for it. I will definitely buy from this guy again.

Coffee, Tea, or Hot Chocolate

This has been such a cold winter. There has been snow in places that rarely see snow, not here thank goodness. What is your preferred hot beverage? I am a tea drinker, hot or cold, but on cold nights I like a good hot chocolate. Coffee is not for me.

My friend Anna loaned me her Stampin Up coffee set again. The chef is not a part of it but he is holding one of the cups from her set. He comes with all kinds of little things to stamp on his tray. I will be using him again with some of them.

Baby Bears

Jim has been busy making things again. I guess it is the cold weather. We don't feel like leaving the house, not that the house is that warm. These are the cutest little jasper bears. He made a bracelet, necklace, and two different styles of earrings.

Tree of Life

When I first made the tree of life, I put it on a necklace of three strands of chips. My neice, who sells alot of jewelry for me, suggested a single strand would appeal to the younger crowd and thats what I have made from then on. We have had good luck with trees. Selling many in green (rhyolite), brown (tiger eye) and reds and yellows (moukaite). This year I added tree earrings which are hard to make but give a complete look. For most of these I have chip bracelets to match which are three or four turns of memory wire. I had made some bracelets with mixed chips including turquoise and many other jaspers and stones and they have sold well. I decided to try a tree of life to match and put it back on the three strands. We both like the way it turned out and this may be added to my repetior of trees.

Happy Valentine's Day

Do you have your card to send to your valentine? I send my cards early so that people can display them before the holiday. This gives them a little holiday decoration and a longer time to enjoy the card.

I only made a few valentines for sale because we only did one craft show before the holiday. It was that rainy one a few weeks ago. I didn't sell one valentine. So some of them, I took off the greeting and changed it to Happy Anniversary. Unless they read the blog, they will never know.

Quilting with Paper

I have never made a quilt. In fact, I do very little sewing of any kind. But when I taught Discrete Mathematics, each of my students made a small model for a fibbonaci quilt. They then made one larger class quilt using the fibbonaci sequence 1,1 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ....

These cards are suppose to have quilt like

features.

It is a great way to use very small strips of designer paper. If you look close at the yellow card, it was run through the big kick using

an embossing folder. This gives it the puckered up look that most quilts have.

February Birthstone

The birthstone for February is amethyst. 

Sue's great grandmother was born in February, on Valentine's Day and a dear family friend Beulah.