A Day to Celebrate!

***This post will stay on top for the rest of this week! Enter by August 31st***

Hi all my crafty friends! Yesterday was quite a day for us! Eva turned 1 year old and Paul and I celebrated 3 years of marriage. Yep, she was born on our anniversary so having her live with us was kinda meant to be don't ya think? God had a plan for us beyond being a happily married couple.

So I thought I would share our happiness and have a little giveaway. Woo hoo! I love to give gifts and one of you will be the lucky recipient.There are only three rules.

     1. Be a follower of mine.
     2. Join our new site The Bling Chronicles ( you will not regret it I promise)
     3. Leave me a comment and tell me how you follow and that you are a member of the Bling Chronicles family.

Want Extra Chances?!?

It isn't a requirement but I would love for you to put this in your side bar. If you do I will put your name in twice.

Also if you participate in any of the August challenges over at The Bling Chronicles, I'll enter your name another time! 

That's up to three chances to win! The giveaway starts today and will last through August 31st at midnight CST. On the first of September I'll do my site checking and I'll have my DH Paul draw the winner.

So what can you win?

Plus a $10 gift certificate to Shop AH Designs where you can find fabulous bling, kits, handmade flowers, and creative findings.


It's open to everyone! Leave your comment and then sign up with the linky tool below. Good luck and thanks for helping us celebrate!

Just for fun I thought I'd add some pics of my wonderful handsome husband and of Eva playing  in the splash pad at her party  :)

Uncle Tyler, Aunt Laura, and Mommy (Krystal)

Daddy (David C.), Aunt Laura, Mommy and some random kid (lol).




















See you soon!

~Deb~

Let the Wind Blow!

Hi Everyone! Yesterday was my turn to post the challenge for The Bling Chronicles. I hope you've all signed up so you can join in the fun of making one. They can be made out of anything but you must use at least 1 recycled item. If you make a chime and enter it over on the challenge page, you will be entered to win a surprise goody bag.

Did I peak your interest? Here's what I came up with for mine...

I even did a video on it (stupid camera quit right near the end but I completed it with text). Total cost for the project was $10.30. Cute, personalized, and fun to make!

Come on and play!

Love ya,

~Deb~

Color Challenge!

I am still in wedding mode (and will be for a while so bear with me)

I have a niece getting married in November that I am helping with some decorations and then my daughter is getting married in April. With that in mind, for the Color Challenge over on the Bling Chronicles this month I made a Money Dance Box. For those who don't know what that is...at a formal wedding people pay a dollar, or whatever they want in bills, to dance with the bride or groom. This was a tradition started many years ago with the intent of helping the young couple get started. Here is a bit of it's history... 

Traditions - Money Dance History 

The "Money Dance" is alive and well, and it's a very popular custom at many wedding receptions all over the world.

The money dance is traditional in several different cultures. In most cases, it is a dance where the male guests pay for the privilege of dancing with the bride, although in today's weddings, the female guests also pay for the privilege of dancing with the groom. Each person who dances with the bride (or groom) gets just a few seconds before another guest cuts in. The money is for spending on their honeymoon.   

My daughters in-laws to be have never heard of such a thing. They are Baptist and as such are not supposed to dance. I think that may be why but I could be wrong.  Is this a tradition in your family? Have you heard of it? I'd love some feed back because according to them I'm crazy but hey, we've always done that at weddings where I'm originally from.     

So here is the box I created out of a wood treasure box. It has a lock though I haven't attached it in the photos.

Here's the colors and info for the challenge if you'd like to join us!

You have until AUGUST 25th to post your entry to the challenge

Your entries should be posted in the PHOTO SECTION and as a reply to this forum thread. Label the photo August Challenge for Angela Holt

This months Challenge is a "Color Challenge"

You must use 3 or more colors presented in the image below in ANY TYPE OF PROJECT THAT YOU WANT TO CREATE!!!

You can enter more than one project if you want but that IS NOT a requirement.

THIS CHALLENGE IS OPEN TO US AND CANADIAN PEEPS ONLY!!!

I will choose a winner of the challenge to receive a grab bag of goodies from me as well as be the featured Challenge Crafter for the entire month of September here on the ning and my other social media sites.

Then you will have at that time more challenges to participate in!!!

Let me know if you have any questions!!!

Good Luck and Happy Crafting!!!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/theblingchronicles/

http://www.shopangelaholtdesigns.com/

Love ya,

~Deb~

Path of Positivity Challenge (PoP)

Have you heard of it? It's a wonderful site that only features positive projects, posts, and images to promote the good of man kind. I really believe that if more people followed this path and embraced one another, the world would be a better place. No I'm not naive, I know it will never happen 100%, but it can happen 1 person at a time if people would open their hearts and stop being so self serving. All of my friends on here know what I mean and I think you all believe that way too.

For the last challenge over at PoP was based on caring. After reading my post about Krystal, Lisa Decosse, the owner of the blog, asked me to post it in the challenge. I did and guess what!

I made top seven! Voting is going on right now and I would love for you to hop over and vote. While I would be honored if you voted for me, I want you to vote for the person who you believe really deserves to win for their caring project./post. If that's me then Yippie! If not, that's OK. Every person up there is a winner for just being a positive caring person. Please go vote! You can click here to get to the voting area. Scroll down to near the bottom to actually vote. Voting ends Wednesday August 22nd.

Have a positive kind of day!
Love ya,
~Deb~

Wedding Mode

I'm going into wedding mode so a lot of what you see for the next few months will revolve around Jen's wedding. I can't believe it is only a little over 8 months away. My gosh time has flown! If you've joined us over at the Bling Chronicles, you may have seen these posted. Since I set up the site with Angela, I got to post the first pictures. I'm having a blast over there and I really hope you'll join us!

The first thing I made was her unity candle holder. Keep in mind this is going to be a vintage wedding with a touch of rustic so this is NOT a traditional type unity candle item. I found a candle holder that I fell in love with and bought for myself. When I got it home I got to thinking how great it would look for the wedding. So I asked Jen and she loved it too, so away I went, painting, adding, altering, blinging you name it.

Here it is naked

Her colors are peach, mint and copper. And here it is after I got to it!

So that's my latest...lots of wedding stuff still to come!

Love ya,
~Deb~

A Challenge Fit for a Princess!

Over on the Bling Chronicles (click the title to take you to the page for a full list of rules), Angela has posted the first challenge for the new site. It's a color challenge so you can be your creative self, make anything you want, but you must use 3 of the colors listed.You can also enter more than one project.

Aren't the colors yummy? So for this challenge, I can't show you my DT project yet so I'm going to show you what Krystal made.

Eva turns one on the 14th of this month. I can hardly believe it! She's grown so much since we've had her. Yesterday we had her birthday party. The theme was Disney Princesses so Krystal made her a Princess hat. It turned out so cute.

She used the purple, pink , and blue. Wanna see the back? Hop on over to the challenge and take a look. While you're there join in! It promises to be lots of fun!

Til next time...

Love ya,

~Deb~

Bling, Bling, Bling...It's News Time

I made it! I made the Angela Holt 
Team! I'm soooo super excited!!!! 
(bet you can tell by all the exclamation 
points huh LOL) OK so I've been 
attending her classes for about six (6) 
months now and when she did her 
DT call I really didn't think I'd have 
a chance. She has a large following. 
When she told me I was in but I 
couldn't tell right away I wanted to 
burst! But then the funeral happened
and so I couldn't be on here anyway.

With the new team comes a new site.
The Bling Chronicles, check it out, http://theblingchronicles.ning.com 
You'll find a new community of 
crafters along with tutorials, stores, 
and fabulous projects. I think you're 
going to love it! It's still brand new 
and so it's your chance to get in and 
help us build it into what you want 
to see. We can always use suggestions! 
Come and join us and get in on the
ground floor!!!

So here's the whole team...be sure 
to check them all out, they are so 
talented!

I want to Introduce to you the 
Angela Holt Designs Fall/Winter 
2013 Design Team

We are all ready to share, create 
and inspire you with each of our 
design concepts, tutorials, and more!!

So come sit a spell and embark 
on this creative journey with us!! 

Your Professional Crafting 

Educator and Designer

Angela Holt

Rhonda Ratliff

Hello there!!… Rhonda here, from Kentucky and I thought 
I'd share a little bit about ME!… I am married to the 
greatest guy in the world and have four awesome kids... 
all of which are grown now which has allowed me the 
opportunity to do more crafting. I have been crafting since 
about the 4th grade when my teacher showed me how to 
work with oil pastels in art class... from there it has been 
a little bit of everything. Till I found a love for creating 
cards and invitations, floral design and my new passion in 
altered art. I have been blogging about a awhile now... 
and LOVE IT!I have had a wonderful time meeting new 
people, learning many awesome techniques and been 
given many great opportunities. The crafting world has 
opened many adventurous doors for over the last year 
and I am loving every minute of it.

Find my links: 

• Blog: http://www.flowersbyrhonda.blogspot.com/
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/rhonda.bewleyratliff
• Facebook Fan Page:https://www.facebook.com/FlowersAndMoreByRhonda 

 Deb Ochs-LaGrone (it's me!!!)

Hi all you Bling Chronicles fans! I am so thrilled to be a 
DT member for Angela and can’t wait to share all my 
blinged out art work with you. First let me tell you a 
little about who I am as a designer and crafter.

I grew up in the military and traveled around a lot. 
We relied heavily on our family for entertainment as 
such. My dear sweet mother loved to craft and taught 
us all kinds of different mediums. She taught my sisters
how to sew, though I never caught that bug and can’t 
sew a straight stitch! She painted and tried to teach 
us a love for drawing, I’m not very good at that either 
LOL. She taught us ceramics, macramé, ornament making, 
and all sorts of other crafty goodness. I was very blessed 
to grow up with a creative mom.

My dad could fix or make anything. He passed some of 
those genes on to me and last year I created a whole 
new back yard complete with a waterfall feature, 
covered bar with an outdoor refrigerator and grilling area, 
and a slate and glass tiled patio surface. A little assistance 
was given by my family when I needed an extra set of 
hands but basically I created it on my own. I think I burned 
the satellites out with all the calls for advice to my dad.

I have two fabulous (most of the time) children ages 20 
and 17 who are both talented artists in their own right.
I’ve always tried to encourage that as I think it’s a corner 
stone in life. It saddened me to see schools pulling art out 
of the curriculum as it really enhances education and just 
your view on life in general. I feel lucky to be able to 
help my kids still have that outlet at home. I also have a 
10 month old foster grandchild who consumes a lot of my 
time but I am loving it! She’s such a sweet baby.

What I’m trying to say is that I LOVE to craft, anything, 
anywhere, anytime! I don’t have a particular specialty 
necessarily, but crafting with paper is my favorite medium.

Thanks so much for giving me the chance to share with you 
and I hope you enjoy looking at, and maybe getting some inspiration from, my pieces. You can find more of my art 
by visiting my blog, A Look Through My Eyes, found at http://alookthroughmyeye.blogspot.com 

Enjoy a crafty life,

Deb Ochs-LaGrone

Dawn Smith

I am a stay at home MOM with a ton of kids.4 from a 
previous marriage, 2 step and 3 from my current marriage. 
Yes I am a little insane, but I wouldn't trade it for anything 
in the world. I have 2 dogs (they are pitbull/bullmastiff 
mixes) Cin and Tink and we have 2 Tortoises named 
Neptune and Turk and about 20 fish all named after 
Harry Potter characters. My husband, Shad, is the love 
of my life and the heart of my existence, without him 
there would be no me. We have been together for 14 
years. We have survived the good and the bad 
and it has only brought us closer together. I have a 
serious scrap booking addiction, I guess that also mean 
I have a photo obsession too because i have to have 
something to scrap, right?! My kids all insist that they are 
being followed by the paparazzi. They joke about taking 
out a restraining order against me. 
Happy crafting!

Blog:  http://strawberryrainsdelights.blogspot.com/

 Facebook: 

http://www.facebook.com/dawn.smith.5891

http://www.facebook.com/Kre8tiveKustomsByDawnSmith

 Itza Gomez

MY FIRST LOVE IS MY HUSBAND AND MY SECOND LOVE 
I MUST SAY ... ARE MY CRAFTS... I HAVE BEEN HAPPILY 
MARRIED TO A WONDERFUL MAN FOR 13 YEAR AND HAVE 
BEEN CRAFTING AND MAKING JEWELRY FOR OVER 8 YEARS 
NOW. MY AFFAIR WITH CRAFTS FIRST STARTED WITH 
JEWELRY MAKING AND EVER SINCE THEN MY WORLD HAS 
CHANGED AND ONLY PROGRESSED TO OTHER CRAFTS. 
AT THE CURRENT TIME SCRAP BOOKING AND MIXED 
MEDIA ARTS HAVE BEEN KEEPING ME UP LATE AT NIGHT. 
MAKING MINI BOOKS AND ALTERING WOOD BOXES AND 
FRAMES ARE BECOMING MY GUILTY PLEASURES...

Blog: itzathoughts.blogspot.com

Facebook: http://facebook.com/itzathoughts

 Nicky Wilcox

With her creative spark, Nicky has an eye of making 
something out of nothing!!!  "I share simple home decor, 
upcycle and craft projects with people who are looking 
for friendly tutorials and affordable ideas."

Blog: http://www.ladyjasmine.co.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicky.c.wilcox

Stay tuned for tomorrows post! I'll 
be showing you the latest challenge 
at The Bling Chronicles along with 
Krystal's take on it. Her project is adorable!!! 
In the mean time go sign up and 
join the fun...

http://theblingchronicles.ning.com 

Love ya,

~Deb~