Another Year Over.

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Glittery Snowflake hanging ornaments

Oversized gift tag

In my last post, I was bemoaning the speed with which Thanksgiving was approaching. Well, now Hanukkah and Christmas have come and gone and New Year's Eve is upon us. Am I the only one who thinks this year went by with blinding speed? At the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center, they have a party at the drop of a hat so the holidays were just another reason to turn on the music and dance. In between the music and the revelry, we managed to find time to craft a thing or two.

Oversized gift tag

The group displays their reindeer cards.

We began the winter crafting with glittery snowflake hanging ornaments. These were hung around the center when completed. The snowflakes were followed by oversized gift tags the featured a three dimensional Christmas tree complete with rhinestone baubles and a glittery star on top. Christmas crafting wouldn't be complete without a Christmas card so we made one with a reindeer sporting beautiful curlicue antlers that were glittered to make them really stand out.

JoAnne Biswakarma, DSCC director,
livens up the party with confetti.

Curlicue Reindeer Christmas Cards

Once Christmas crafting was over, we focused on the new year, creating a hand held sign a festive Happy New Year on one side and glittery stars adorning the back. A New Years party, complete with music, dance and confetti, was held at the center during our craft class and the joyous soca rhythms were a happy distraction. Everyone danced a bit, sat down and made a hand sign, then got up and danced some more. Many thanks to JoAnne Biswakarma and the wacky sense of humor she brings to every Dorchester Senior event. She really livens up the party.

Happy New Year hand held signs

It's time to party!

Here's to another year over and a new one just begun. Happy 2018, everyone! See you again next year.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Another Year Gone By.

The past two months are a blur. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve have come and gone and we're already past the middle of January 2016. Why does it seem that time is moving more and more swiftly as I get older?

Some of the highlights of the past couple of months include gardening. Yes, gardening. In December. In New York City. Early winter 2015 boasted some of the warmest weather in recorded history with temperature hitting 70 degrees two days before Christmas. As a result, my garden was in quite a confused state. My front yard hoop house, which had been winterized with a plastic covering, was now as warm as a spring day and producing a bumper crop of cilantro and some red leaf lettuce. The lettuce was sufficient for a small side salad (yum) and I am still harvesting cilantro for cooking. I find this winter cilantro to be even more fragrant than the warm weather variety.


The holidays would not be complete without some Christmas-related crafting. Although I was busy with many things, I made time for some last minute card and tag making. The tags came from my RTU (Ready To Use) stash of leftovers and I embellished them a bit with gold edging and text cut from gold card stock. For the cards. I decided to go simple. Instead of designing something from scratch, I chose a free ornament cutting file from birdscards.com, mounted the finished ornament on cardstock squares that I had in my RTU stash, and used one of my favorite card styles: the matchbook. The cardstock I used for the card was double-sided so the inside was a coordinating print to the outside. A bit of ribbon, a small ornament and a bow round it out. I printed out my own greeting on my computer, slapped in inside the completed card and, voila!, a finished card. You can find the free cutting files on Birdscards.com's website HERE .

I also made time to create an winter themed over-the-door sign for the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center. A couple of years ago I made a spring themed door sign and I thought it was time for another season to be represented. Again, I used cutting files from www.birdscards.com for the corners and some of the snowflakes. The plan is to eventually create signs for every season so they can be changed every three months.

Valentine's Day is around the corner and I haven't done a thing to prepare, craftwise. I better get moving. Looks like the next few months will be a blur also.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

The Arrival of Spring

 (Click on any photo to see a larger image.)

Due to an unexpectedly warm winter, here in the northeast we are experiencing an unusually early spring. With temperatures at times reaching upwards of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, all manner of flora and fauna that would usually be out of sight until April has made a glorious appearance in mid-March as evidenced by the beautiful daffodils I photographed in my garden. There was actually a period during which daffodil shoots were actively growing with nary a crocus in sight when the reverse is usually the case. Eventually the crocuses got their act together and showed their faces before the arrival of the daffodils but it was a pretty tight race.

Although I announced in a previous post that I would no longer be conducting weekly craft classes at the senior citizens center, I agreed to continue putting up the seasonal decorations. I wanted to really celebrate the arrival of spring's colorful flowers in a way that all the members could enjoy so I created a large (12" x 34") sign to go over the entry door to the main activity/lunchroom, a place where it can't be missed by anyone who enters the center.  All the materials used to create this sign were either free or donated, including the electronic cutter I used to cut out the various elements of the sign. The paper and fabric flowers came from Materials for the Arts and the cutting files came from SVGCuts.com, a site that offers free cut files for electronic cutting machines. The butterflies were created with Memory Box dies I purchased for my personal use but once I cut and colored them, they were so beautiful I just couldn't keep them all to myself. Click on the photo and zoom in to see the details on those blue beauties. There is also an invisible detail that doesn't show up in the photo. The oval in the center of the sign has flowers stamped in watermarking (transparent) ink and dusted with gold pigment powder. The stamped flowers can't be seen until you pass underneath the sign. When the light catches it just the right way all the flowers appear to shine.

This is the first large scale project I've done with my eCraft and I still have much to learn but I'm very pleased with the way this first attempt came out. Ya know, I had so much fun making this sign, perhaps I'll make another one for summer.

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva