holiday wall hanging

 Here is a wall hanging that I started several years ago.  I finally completed the back of it today.  I want to take it to work and hang it on my office door.  To see others that I have made similar to this one check out my blog posts from 10/24/2010 and 11/21/2010.  I think the hardest thing about making these is finding the jump rings that go between the blocks

I think I used coasters for these and cut them down with a Nestabilities die.  I used Close to my Heart Passages  Paper pack for the THANKS and CTMH Mistletoe paper pack for JOYFUL.  You can't see it but I used the stardust gel pen to add sparkle and shine to Santa's beard, the tree on the Y, the snow on the house and tree on the O, and on the reindeer.

As always, thanks for tuning in.

Chief Petty Officer Pinning Album

Chief Petty Officer Julian Yarde - Pinning Ceremony September 14, 2012

United States Naval Station Mayport Florida

This album was made for my friend, Jen Brown, she was my boss several years ago.  From day 1 she has believed in my abilities and that really means a great deal to me.

Her fiance' was promoted to CPO and she wanted to preserve those memories. I just hope that I have done her faith in me justice. Some of the photos aren't the best and "we" are blaming the Commanding Chief's cell phone camera.  Yet thankful that he was willing to take the photos and send them to her. 

Some of the photos are of their personal life and the beautiful couple they are and the love they share on this journey.  Going through the photos while loading them here I realized I missed at least one.  Jen brought the program from the Pinning ceremony to me, I stitched it onto the card stock base and then cut a slit through the page protector so it could be viewed in its entirety, but forgot to get the photo.  I left Jen & Julian lots of little journaling places to write about the details and thoughts and feelings about the photos.

Michael's made it easy to put this project together since they sell the album shown here.  It is genuine leather & expandable.  It comes with 10 sheet protectors.  I also found some great sticker sheets to go with the project. Some of the embellishments I made by hand, hopefully not too noticeable.

Please do not think I am in any way making fun of the military when I put "Chocolate Chief Cookie" as the title of one of the pages.  That is a pet name Jen has for Julian, as I believe he is a chocolate chip cookie monster, and she asked me to fit that into the album.  My husband served in the Navy over 35 years ago at the same naval station.  I have a deep love and gratitude for our military.  

The photo of the layout "You only live once" is actually a CTMH File Folder. It is made to fit the page protectors and you can use it to store certificates or report cards or plenty of other things.  For this one I put their hand written notes back and forth to each other while they were like "two ships passing in the night".

 As always, thanks for tuning in.  Your comments are appreciated much more than you can imagine.