Butterfly Award...

Oh, my goodness!  I just got awarded the Butterfly Award by my dear friend Barb Bruder over at Art and Soul Creations.  I never even heard of it, but I LOVE IT!!  Thanks Barb, and definitely right back at you.  For the uninitiated, here's what it looks like and the series of questions that go with it.

As part of this award I have to answer the following 12 questions and pass this on to 5 people. Here are the answers to my questions: 

Name your favorite color? 
Blue, pink, purple - Oooh don't make me choose!  I love them all!

Name your favorite song?
The Prayer- by Josh Grobin & Celine Dion


Name your favoirte dessert?
Creme Brulee (but that's only at the top of my list)


What wizzes you off at the moment? 
Blatant fraud.  (don't ask!)

Your favorite pet? 
Gabby, my sweet kitty

Black or white? 
Black is slimming, my dear
Your biggest fear? 
Bridges -- HATE THEM!

Best feature? 
Sense of humor

Everyday attitude? 
People pleaser (only cuz I want to!)

What is perfection? 
A day with my kids

Guilty pleasure? 
chocolate - is there anything else?

When you're upset? You REALLY don't want to know!

So now I pass this on to you, dear blogger friend.  Some of you may not even know who I am, but I am a definite fan of yours!


Barb
Julie
Becca
Dawn
Shona

Ciao for now.

Ciao Bella!

Just checking in!

No card pics today.  But I do have a short tale to tell.  I had signed up to do the convention in Troy, NY this past weekend with my E-Z BowZ, so we left on to set up for the show.  All went well and we had a slow, but steady stream of people stopping by the booth -- be sure to pop over to the E-Z BowZ blog for a lookie-loo.  Well, as you know, Irene hit with a vengeance and day two of the show got cancelled (ugh!).  So what do three women do while holed up in their hotel room weathering the storm?  Here's one pic of my friend, Chris.

We actually got to spend an entire day doing NOTHING!  My other friend, Regina, was also with us.  After spending a weekend with them, I've decided that we have gone totally techno -- they both have iPads, I have a Kindle, two of us have cell phones and between the 3 of us there were more darn rechargers in that hotel room -- it looked like a room full of snakes!  So we played Words with Friends, and 7 Little Words, watched TV, called our loved ones from time to time and then ran next door in the wind and rain to a sports bar to grab a bite to eat.  When was the last time I did absolutely nothing??!!

On Saturday morning we got up early as we had seen a fabulous looking diner on the way to the convention center.  I just HAD to take pictures of it for my favorite granddaughter.  I think she'll get a kick out of it.  Here they are:

And, yes, the clock is right -- it's 7:10 a.m. when we were there!

I was so impressed with the pristine look of this fabulous diner.  It was a jewel!  And the food was to die for!  I got a bowl of oatmeal that you could have floated a small yacht in.  Mmmm!

And here's a foggy view from our hotel parking lot.  The hotel sat on a knoll looking down into the valley and across to Renssalear I think.  This is just outside of Albany.  Can you see the pockets of mist here and there?  And you can barely make out the city through the haze.

We had a great time in spite of Irene, but it's really great to be home again.  Thanks for stopping by!

Ciao for now.

Ciao Bella!

M'Lady's Slipper

Hi Ciao Bella followers!  Wow!  I don't know where I've been this past month, but I hope I had fun wherever it was!  I can't believe it's been this long since I've posted anything.  I must have been busy (and I hope I figure out what it was.).  So, my apologies to m'ladies and here's a set of cards to go along with that apology.

We've been using quite a bit of the micro fine glitter at the store and I had to run a few more of these classes to keep people happy.  Not that it was a drudge -- believe me, I loooove working with this product by Elizabeth Crafts.  It's the smoooooothest, finest glitter anywhere.  There's a certain technique involved when doing these cards and it involves very wide tape, transfer tape, peel-offs and, of course, glitter.  Here's a look at both the cards:

For those of you who are not familiar with this technique, it's called Burnished Velvet.  I always get a kick out of my students when they start to burnish the glitter and you always get the same reaction:  "oooh!  look at that sparkle!".  While it's a bit time consuming to do the larger image, it's still a really fun project to do because it's like a puzzle revealing itself one piece at a time, but unlike a puzzle, you have complete control over what goes where.  It is such a fun techique!  The purple card was done using one of the smaller images in the peel-off package.  Here I used a square scalloped (Spellbinders) backing to show it off and I used the same technique using my wide tape and the Glitter Ritz glitter.  It was topped off with a lovley quadruple loop bow made on my Craft-Dee BowZ bow maker which you will find on my other blog.

Here's a close-up of the larger "slipper".  Hopefully, you can see how fine the glitter is and how it sparkles in a "hushed" way, so to speak.  You'll notice how I left a lot of the black peel-off in place to mimic patent leather.  Click on either image for a close-up.

Well, I hope you'll forgive me for my lapse in time and that you have enjoyed these cards.

Ciao for now!

Ciao Bella!