~ Nina.B.Designs Blog-Hop #2 ~ and a Challenge

Welcome to the NinaB Designs's 2nd blog hop! We had a great time last month and we just want to thank you for your enthusiasm and encouraging words. The NBD team has new projects to show you today featuring NinaB Designs Spellbinders™ Paper Arts (Home Sweet Home and Sewing Elements), The Craft's Meow Stamps, and Want2Scrap bling. We have added a new twist to our hop. Not only do we have tons of inspiration for you, but we also are joining in the Crafty Friends' challenge that you can participate in. And of course, there will be prizes up for grabs! You will find more info below.

For my project, I used Spellbinders™ Sewing Elements for the scissor die-cut, Want2Scrap Classy Corners rhinestone embellishments, and The Craft's Meow Sew Lovely stamp set.

I die-cut two of the cute little scissors: one in cream and one in kraft, then cut the kraft one in half and layered it over the cream piece. A little rhinestone embellishment finishes off the scissor joint.

The rhinestone swirl embellishment was originally part of a frame, but I cut it to fit, as the entire piece was a bit too heavy for the whole effect of the card. Also, I can save the rest of the frame for another card next time!

Sorry for the visual-details-overload...

THE CHALLENGE: If you choose to participate in the challenge, create a new project that uses two die cuts. They don't have to come from two different die cut sets. Then, link it to the Crafty Friends' challenge blog. One participant will win the Sewing Elements dies. You can enter as many as you want. THE RULES: Leave a comment on as many blog hop stops as possible. FOUR commenters left on the NinaB Designs team blogs will be picked to win prizes. One comment per blog please. This is open to our international friends. Here are the links to the NBD team:

NinaB Designs * Beate Johns * Beatriz Jennings * Clare Buswell * Heather Jensen * Jennie Harper * Lea Lawson * Linda Lucas * Mona Pendleton * Viola Mahr (you are here) * Crafty Friends' Challenge Blog

THE PRIZES: There are several prizes to be won. One Crafty Friends' challenge blog participant will be randomly picked to get the Spellbinders' Sewing Elements dies

Four commenters left on the NinaB Designs team blogs will be picked to receive the following:

 Spellbinders Home Sweet Home

The Craft's Meow's Thanks Bee to Thee stamp set

The Craft's Meow's Lovely Birds set

Finally, please consider liking the following Facebook pages that are represented on today's hop:

NinaB Designs

Spellbinders Paper Arts

The Craft's Meow

Want2Scrap

We hope you enjoy the projects we're sharing with you today and enter the Crafty Friends challenge as well!

Thank you for visiting.

~Vi

~ Nina.B.Designs ~ Paper Piecing

This fun card was created with stamps and dies designed by Nina Brackett...........(she is one  talented and lovely woman).

The leafy stems were stamped with Happiness Is... and for dimension, I stamped a few extra stems, trimmed out the leaves, and adhered them with foam dots.

By the way, I know my stamping is not perfect. I can almost never achieve perfectly crisp images. Somehow they invariably end up with lighter patches or something wrong... =(
However, I am always inspired by artists who can do perfect stamping, and I will keep practicing and improving (and maybe invest in better inks). One day I will be a real stamper!
For now, I like to comfort myself with the idea that the imperfect stamping somehow lends a nice, soft effect to the final product ;)

PLEASE RAISE YOUR HAND IF YOU AGREE.



The lovely sentiment is also from the Happiness Is... stamp set.



And the cute, cute little hearts were die-cut from Nina Brackett's Home Sweet Home by Spellbinders™ ... these come with the tiny eyes punched out after die-cutting, so it was super easy to thread it on a length of thin twine.

The other bits on the card are patterned paper by K & Co as well as MME, a couple of cute blossoms by Prima, and some pretty trim.



Hope your weekend is a verrrah good one ;)

hugs,
~Vi

~ Nina B. Designs ~ die-cuts

These three cards were embellished with die-cuts created with Nina B Designs' Spellbinders™ Home Sweet Home dies.


this one uses the two pieces of the house-shaped dies. Super cute and very fun to add details to! The roof was made from kraft cardstock, and the lower half was cut from Crafty Secrets' Love Mail creative scraps. The rhinestone heart is from Want2Scrap. Pom-pom and lace trim from my stash. the stamped background was created with The Craft's Meow Sew Lovely stamp set.



and this one, with the heart-shaped dies. after cutting some text-patterned paper with the die, I distressed the edges and kind of "folded" it to create texture in the middle... makes the flower more 3-D. the rose is by Prima. the beautiful, large leaves are from The Craft's Meow Happiness is... stamp set.



on the right-hand edge of this third card is the wings from the Home Sweet Home. I cut it from kraft paper, and lightly brushed the embossed area with white ink. It doesn't really look like a wing here, but... nevermind. HA!

the fluffy flower is also by Prima. 



a closer look at the little house. the more I stare at it, the worse it looks. next time i'll go for a more conventional "house" look =)

the sentiment stamp combination on all three cards is from one of my favorite sets, Kind Deeds by Clear and Simple Stamps.






(hope I covered all the details...)

three cards, one die-cut set ... lots of possibilities. Hope you can grab yourself a little bit of Spellbinders™ ~ Nina-B-Designs' magic!! 

enjoy your weekend.

xoxo Vi

wedding weekend - March 10, 2012

Hi! I'm creating a few more projects to share and doing some blog designing, but in between i decided to post a couple of (un-professional) photos from my sister's wedding two weekends back.

I know, I had a sister married last december, but this is a different one =)

disclaimer: some of these photos have this weird color going on, but i think it's cause i messed with them in photoshop. i decided to post them anyway :-/

This one is a peek at one of the photo/testimony collage boards I created with the help of some dear friends!



The kneeling bench (in the church sanctuary) with fresh roses and satin and organza:



Details, details.... (my amazing mother handmade my sister's bridal gown, including the intricate chinese buttons and beading here on the sleeve)





Wedding bands: (i apologize I got carried away and took so many)







Watching from an upstair window as her groom arrives =)
(for some reason I only have this photo in b+w and it's kind of grainy because of the indoor lighting.............. oh well aarrrgghhh)



the reception was held in the outdoor gardens of our church, and the weather was BEAUTIFUL! the reception-caterer did a wonderful job with the food and decorations.



my sisters and our friends made a wonderful spread of homemade desserts and tasty morsels (like they did back in december).



mini sugar donuts, mexican wedding cookies, banana cupcakes, chocolate chunk cookies, cream-cheese topped fruit jelly, mocha crinkles, mini cinnamon rolls, pineapple tarts, cream-cheese and carrot cupcakes, white chocolate pretzels, dark chocolate cupcakes, cornflake cookies, ummmm.......... (trying to remember if I forgot anything) oh DURIAN cupcakes. I wonder if any of my readers have ever tried the amazing fruit called durian (google it!) ... The bride and groom are big durian-fans, so we had to have some durian cupcakes for the reception =)







i made that cake up there.
it was a black-forest cake, and if I'm not wrong, it tasted pretty..... nice........ =)
(my frosting technique is less than perfect, though)

I think this is a better photo of it even though it shows mostly the flowers.



yours truly signing the guestbook - I'm not really that short... i was just kneeling down to get on eye-level with the table =) (someone secretly took my camera and snapped this pic)



... and they lived happily ever after!!!



the end.

*happy memories* ... thanks for sharing them with me.



~Vio

~ Nina.B.Designs ~ Dream Team Blog Hop

**Winner is MICHELLE! More info on Nina's blog HERE. Thanks everyone who joined in the hop!**

Welcome to the first-ever Nina B Designs Dream Team Blog Hop!

I think I'm just about the only one on Nina's brand new Dream Team that didn't get a post in on the day of the announcement (just like me, yes). But today is the day of the grand blog hop and I can't wait to show my project to you.

This card features the Nina B Designs' Spellbinders™ Paper Arts Home Sweet Home set, as well as The Craft's Meow Stamps Sew Lovely set (I LOVE ME MY CRAFT'S MEOW STAMPS!). Here is my project:


I used Spellbinders Home Sweet Home die set to cut the wings and heart out from patterned paper, did some simple distressing and layered it with foam dots. The wings have a lovely embossed detail on it that doesn't show up on my photo too well, but it's there!

The Craft's Meow Sew Lovely is a new set that was released after my term with the team was over, so it's new for me and I LOVE IT! Nina designed it too... she's awesome!!!!!!!!! I used the sentiment stamp and one of the cute button stamps (in olive green ink, behind the wings).



I also used a mixture of Webster's Pages and BasicGrey patterned paper (mostly scraps from my scrap file), Prima pom-pom trim, Melissa Frances resin keyhole, and some random doilies, trimmings and beading lying on the scramble of my table.



That's my project for today (and I will create more and share soon!), but keep reading!

***GIVEAWAY IS OVER AND WINNER POSTED ABOVE AND ON NINA'S BLOG HERE. THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION! :) ***

There is a prize hidden in each of the designers' blogs in today's blog hop, so, you are *STRONGLY* encouraged to comment on each of them to be entered in all the drawings. Now the rules:

• The prizes are hidden in the blogs and winners will be drawn randomly.


• One comment per blog please ------> LEAVE A COMMENT HERE TO WIN! =)


• The giveaways are open to everybody in the world (which I love because I'm someone in the world but not in the US) =)


• The winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 21.


• This is not required, but if you have projects using NinaB Designs stamps, dies and/or bling (see tabs above), please upload it to the NinaB Designs Flickr gallery, so we can all see your beautiful work. And who knows, we may have a Flickr fan giveaway someday :).


• This is not required, but please consider liking the following Facebook pages: NinaB Designs, Spellbinders Paper Arts, The Craft's Meow and Want2Scrap. These companies provided some of the prizes today.

Here are the prizes that are being given away - 11 prizes and 11 stops in the hop:

Spellbinders Layered Flowers dies	Spellbinders Aster Flower Topper dies	Spellbinders Bauble Blossoms One	Spellbinders Bauble Blossoms Two dies
Spellbinders Classic Decorative Inserts One dies	TCM Timeless Tags set	TCM Sending You Sunshine set	TCM Lovely Birds set
TCM It's a Banner Day set	TCM Fruity For You stamps	Want2Scrap Borders and Corners

Thank you for joining in the excitement!

Now, go be inspired as you visit these talented ladies:

Beate Johns * Beatriz Jennings * Clare Buswell * Heather Jensen * Jennie Harper * Julie Overby *Lea Lawson * Linda Lucas * Mona Pendleton * Viola Mahr (you're here) * Nina Brackett
(I love the graphic Nina created with all our photos, so I had to share it here) =)

I'm honored to be on such an amazing team of ladies!

Happy Hopping Thursday! =)

hugs,
Vi

P.S. Thank you friends for all the pinterest invites after my last post =)