Pics of some Swaps posted

Good afternoon Y'all!   I trust that you are enjoying this beautiful Lord's Day today!   How truly awesome it is to Praise God for His tender love and mercy, Y'all!   We had a great worship service at church this morning and I look forward to a wonderful time of praise, worship and Bible study this evening. 

I wanted to pop in and share a few pics of some swaps I was in for January.   I had a great time with these swaps.   It was just a few short months ago that I joined my first swap of all time.   Can I just say, "Y'all, I'm addicted", but I must also say, it's a great addiction.   It is part of my quiet time, alone time with the Lord.   So, I love it.   I also get to pray for whom ever receives my swap.   That makes my crafting so meaningful.   I know that any skill or talent I may have came from the Lord of my life, and I praise Him for that.

So, without any further ado, here are some of my pics:

The picture above is my tag that is all about Love .   I cut the tag on my Silhouette and then the hearts are a Sizzix sizzlit, (I believe) and it is a cut and emboss hinged die.  It does it all in one pass.  Pretty neat.   The little xo on top and the small heart in the middle and the ticket stub on the bottom were pieces I had bought.  They were in 13 inch strips for borders, so I snipped what I needed and used some more on another swap.  I really had fun with this.

The above pic is the image I put on the back of my tag.  I just wanted to gussie it up a little bit, too.   I had printed out several vintage images and used one.   I inked the edges and also darkened the whole image just a tad to give it a more vintage look.

The above pic is of my ATC swap.   You will see some more of one of the borders I used.  I snipped off two of the xo's and used on these.   I had posted a mini tutorial back earlier in the month showing how to put small pieces in an embossing folder and keeping them from moving with a very tiny piece  of scor tape.  Well, the ATC's is what I used those on.  They are in the very center of the card.   I just wanted an element with embossing on it.   I cut the letters out with my Silhouette.   They cut like butta'.   I had gotten some Viva Decor Inka Gold Metallic Rub for Christmas in 5 diff colors.   The edges of the ATC's have four of those colors on them.   Gotta love me some Viva Decor!   Love that stuff, Y'all!

The last swap was a shaped Valentine card.   I had gotten this card from the Silhouette store and thought it was perfect for what I needed.   My Silhouette, again done a beautiful job.   The white pieces you see were cut with my Cuttlebug and various dies.   I believe that all of those pieces was cut with diff Spellbinder or Sizzix thin dies.   You see some really small hearts scattered around on the interior of this card.   They came from the exterior of the card which you will see in the next pic or two.   They were the perfect size to just pop on here and there.

See, you can see where all those little hearts were cut from.   It was such a shame to think about tossing them, so, I glued them on and them glittered them up.   Oh yeah, you knew I would get around to bling!   Love me some bling!   I also used my perfect pearls and went around the scalloped edge with gold.   More bling, y'all!   hehehe

Since my card wasn't a regular sized card, I needed to make an envelope for it.  So the above pic shows my envelope.   Then, I took out one of my embossing folders and my Grand Calibur because it has a larger area and got the folder just so on the flap and embossed with my Sizzix heart folder.   I enjoyed how that turned out.

Ok, so for this last pic, I decided my card needed a closure of some kind to hold it shut.   I had mentioned about some borders I had purchased and used some of this one.   I took what was left and folded it in half and glued it together and a made a band to go around it to keep it closed.   All of my swaps had purple in them.   Y'all, I love purple, what can I say?   So, I used purple and pink colors.   I think purple and pink says "Love" as much as red does.  

Well, that is the pics of my swaps and the story behind them, and I'm stickin' to it.   gggg   I hope and pray that my swap recipients enjoy them just half as much as I enjoyed making them.   Oh, and stay tuned, because I have some more pics of projects and you DO NOT want to miss them! (hehehe)

As I leave you this evening, I leave you with a message from Jesus, "I Love You, my child!"    No other person will ever love you as much as Jesus loves you!    Jesus is the best Valentine anyone could ever give or receive.   So, as we are thinking towards Valentines Day in February, that is my Valentine to you.

John 3:16-For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

I pray that you will accept this Valentine in the spirit in which it is offered, LOVE!   Jesus loves y'all and so do I!   God bless y'all every day in every way!

Good evening and Hugs y'all,  Patty