I joined a mingle at Oriental Stampart and we were required to use a red money envelope with some stamping to be included.  Below is the card I made for my two recipients.  The lanterns were a rubber stamp that was originally released by Auntie Amy.  However, I believe she sold her line to another company or gave them permission to sell the stamp.

Jill was our project host for January; she started the year off with a bang and set a high standard for the following months.  She had us start with the embroidered birthday card on the left followed by Valentines.  Jill supplied a vast amount of papers, ribbons and embellishments for us.  I really had fun making my cards and visiting with friends.  The cherub favor in the center was a gift from Debbie (See previous post).

Monday night was our monthly DIVAS meeting and Debbie E presented each of us with a Valentine decorated box and mine contained this beautiful cherub in a heart shaped box.  It is very elegant with the jewels on the crown and inside of the box around the edge.  The leaves are a bright gold.  I love it!  THANK YOU, DEBBIE.

With the sun out, I had to take some more photos.  How do you like this one?

It is now 1:30 and most of the frost has dropped off the trees or melted. 

When I got up this morning everything was covered with ice crystals and the neighborhood looked magical. We have not had above freezing weather for over a week but it did warm up just a bit yesterday to create a fog which created the crystals (my interpretation).  In any event it was a scene not to miss and below is one of the photos I captured at 7:30 this morning.

You won't believe this but I created an actual project for the first week in 2013. YEA!  My plans for the new year include jumping back into some of my paper craft groups and I needed a way to display the items swapped, mostly cards. Here are photos of what I created -- A CARD TRAY .  The only items I had to purchase for my project were the wood dowels to hold the cards inside the tray.  My ongoing resolution for 2013 is  to USE WHAT I HAVE and deplete stock on hand.    My inspiration was Laura Denison who created something very similar.  Thank you, Laura.