Thirty Minutes Of Wonderful...

Each spring for over 40 years I look forward to my magnolia tree blooming. Spring was slow at arriving this year but it's finally here and so are the flower blossoms. 

I love seeing the beautiful pink and white flowers on my magnolia tree in my front yard. I even love seeing the pink and white petals scattered all over the yard when they begin to drop. 

The blooming season for my magnolia tree is more than thirty minutes but the life of the flowers in bloom on the tree is short. One year the tree had bloomed and it was wonderful for a day then that night we had an unexpected freeze and by morning all of the blossoms had turned black and fell to the ground.

It was wonderful for a short time.

My title for this post actually is part of a quote from a movie.

Can you guess the movie?

 My friend Marcia from Glitter And A Movie on Facebook has a challenge. 

She has picked the movie Steel Magnolias for this challenge. Marcia invites everyone to submit something creative to showcase the movie.
I had to use my magnolia tree in some way...

I covered a blank tag with a thin sheet of silver metal for the background. 
I embossed the metal.

I took photos, printed out copies, then cut out the blossoms. 
I added a bit of Stickles glitter and some Diamond Glaze to the petals.
I added a few cream colored Prima flowers and a silver cord for hanging.
I used double stick mounting squares to fasten the flowers to the metal tag.

I decorated the back of the tag with a quote from the movie.
The quote is: "I would rather have thirty minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special." 

Linking to: Marcia's Glitter and a Movie page on Facebook and
Beverly's Pink Saturday Blog Party at How Sweet The Sound.

Wishing you Wonderful minutes...

Motivating Challenges

Lately it seems I need to be challenged...

The Gecko Galz host a fun group called 

Gecko Galz Paper Crafting: Ephemera Emporium Crafting Challenges

click here to visit the group 

For the month of April I have entered in two of their challenges.

The April Pony Express challenge 

To create this tag is used cardstock, rubber stamps, seam binding, ribbon, and images from Gecko Galz the "Yee Haw" and "Ephemera Days 2" collection."

The April Color Challenge

The color for the April challenge is white.  To decorate this blank water-color paper postcard I used scrap card stock, stickers, Forget Me Not flowers, a faux butterfly, rubber stamps, embossed scrap backing from stickers, Dazzled Diamond glitter, Stickles glitter and an image from the Gecko Galz "Pixie Jewels 2" collection. 

Visit the Gecko Galz here

Do Something With This...

This is the image for the April challenge at the Mind Wide Open blog. Gail, our lovely administrator, created the pretty image for the challenge and assigned the prompt word "freedom" to tickle our imaginations. 

It is amazing to see how many different projects are entered using the same image.  To see all the entries and to vote go here. You may pick only one.

Gail's image and word inspired me to create a prayer flag for my entry.

I digitally added an image of a baby butterfly fairy riding a blue bird and a Hans Christian Anderson poem to Gail's original image, the word freedom is in the poem. I printed the new altered image onto fabric and frayed the edges. 

I cut a piece of burlap fabric for backing and body and frayed the bottom edge. I stitched the two pieces of fabric together. I hand stitched and glued several flowers and a butterfly to the design. I machine stitched some lace, rick-rack, vintage trim, and the words "seek joy" printed on a transparency.  A little touch of fairy dust (Stickles glitter) was added. The finished flag is clipped fast to a mini metal hanger. 

The flowers, fairy/bird image, and hanger are from Gail's store at the Shabby Cottage Studio. I used my gift certificate award from last month's challenge to purchase some of these lovely items.  I must also give credit to Gail for her class on how to make prayer flags that she offered on the  Creative Workshop site. Click here to see the current classes offered.

 To see more of my prayer flags click here. For more information on prayer flags and some beautiful examples  visit Terri at Artful Affirmations. Click here.

My flag is mostly blue but there is enough pink included to link it to one of my favorite blog parties, Pink Saturday. Click here to visit Beverly at How Sweet The Sound, say hello to her and sit back and visit some of the other pink posts at the party beginning on Friday.