The last little bits of 2012!

I was lucky enough to participate in a fabulous Christmas banner swap over at Vintage Dragonfly!  We were all to make banners from a shrine template turned upside down, in soft muted vintagey colours, tones and images.

This is the banner I submitted for the swap ...

I used lots of texture with burlap, lace and vintage lace ... I had a blast doing this swap!

And this is the completed banner that i received!  I was thrilled to get this, it looked so lovely draped over the doors of my china cabinet.

 This banner was made by JoAnne of Vintage Dragonfly.  Love the soft soft colour palette.

 This one is by Michele of Nook and Cranny.  The fibre around the edge was actually crocheted onto the cardstock.

 This little blue beauty was made by Melinda (no blog) love love love the lace she used.

 This one was made by Karla (again no blog) and wow, i just love it to bits!  love the little white resin angel at the top  and the giant bling ball at the bottom.

 this one by Sandi (why don't these people have blogs?) omg, the bling, the glitter the dots of pearls ... so pretty

and finally one by Linda (you guessed it ... no blog)  sorry it's sideways ... what a cute image she used!

I was totally gobsmacked this year when i received a hand made ornament in the mail ... this ornament was created by the uber talented Lynn Stevens of Trash to Treasure Art ... Lynn is an amazing artist and if you have never visited her blog, you should ... you will be inspired!

 I know that these photos do not do this tiny ornament justice ... it is a teeny tiny church in a field of snow captured in a tiny salt shaker ... little vintage bells adorn the outside of the bottle ... it is amazing in real life.

and finally, Do you all know about the Ikea Monkey?  If you don't just google it ... basically it was a little monkey wearing a shearling coat, trying to get into Ikea.  My niece Alyssa used a still photo from the internet, and photoshopped it and created a background for it ... all done in Ikea colours of course!  She then printed it off and used it to wrap a friends Christmas gift in.  Well, that friend put it on facebook and from there it migrated into that whole great big World Wide Web thing!  LOL!

I was thrilled to see it on MSN just before Christmas.

Thank you so much for sticking through this rather lengthy post ... may the new year bring you peace, health and happiness! hugs to you all