Crafty Secrets & Eclectic Paperie Shabby Blog Hop!

*****GIVEAWAY CLOSED*****

Good morning, my friends!

We’ve got some fun planned for you today!  The Crafty Secrets Design Team has teamed up with the wonderful Design Team at Eclectic Paperie for a challenge today…and we’ve got some prizes for you!

Both Eclectic Paperie and Crafty Secrets will be giving away prizes—a total of 16 prizes all together!  You can find out more about the prizes on the Heartwarming Vintage and Eclectic Paperie blogs. ( linked below).  

The more DT blogs you visit and leave comments on, the more you increase your chances to win one of the 16 prizes!

You have from today, March 18 to Sunday, March 20th to visit each blog participant. 16 winners will be chosen to each win some Crafty Secrets goodies. Winners will be posted on both the eclectic Paperie blog and on the Crafty Secrets blog on Monday, March 21st.

Winners to be announced on Monday.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it?!

I chose a farm theme for my projects today…and Crafty Secrets has the most wonderful farm-themed products to choose from…available through both Crafty Secrets and Eclectic Paperie.

So let’s head on down to the farm, shall we?

  

I love this fabulous vintage rooster image found on Crafty Secrets’ new “Farm Fresh” Creative Scraps…

…double-sided with SO many images, journaling squares & sayings to choose from…

I framed the rooster with the checkerboard boarder stamp found in Crafty Secrets’ new “Farm Chicks” stamp set, which also contains the “something to crow about” saying I used here…

…adorable, isn’t it?! 

I also used the chicken wire stamp as a background, which you can see better in the close-up here…

To finish it off, I gave it a VERY liberal spritzing with “Creme de Cocoa” Glimmer Mist…(making it just a bit shabbier!), and…

…tied it all up with a rustic bow of twine, topped off with a black vintage button.

If you visit me much, you know how much I love Vicki Chrisman’s 3D Shadowbox cards (available through Crafty Secrets)…here’s one I made for today…

 

First of all…I have to apologize for these photos.  It’s been so gloomy here lately, I’ve had a VERY hard time with my photography!  Oh, well!  What can you do when Mother Nature’s in charge?

 

I love this adorable image on the left side of the card…a young farm wife in dress and apron planting seeds in her garden…

 

…and this sassy farm girl on the right panel…checking out her new seed catalog…what to choose? 

 

Here’s the center panel…a wonderful image of a mid-century farm couple, found on Crafty Secrets’ “Farm Fresh” Creative Scraps.  I framed it with some of the miniature vintage “seed pack” images also in the Creative Scraps…

…and, of course, (as they usually do!) this image reminded me of one of my stories…

  

My beautiful grandmother, LaPriel, when she was about 17, just before she met…

…my handsome grandfather, Rudger…a farm boy.

Not long after the two had gotten a bit better acquainted, LaPriel confided to her sister Veon that she knew she was in love with Rudger because she felt so strongly about him even though he “didn’t dress the way she liked” (i.e. plaid flannel shirts—farm boy clothes!)

Well, she visited his family a time or two (their mothers were very old and dear friends), helped Rudger with his chores on the farm (wearing one of his old plaid, flannel shirts!), and the rest is history…

Even though he was no longer a farm boy after they were married, this image still reminds me of them at the beginning of their romance…

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I hope you’ll stop by and visit all the talented ladies from both Design Teams during the Blog Hop—and you never know—YOU might just be a winner! 

(Keeping my fingers crossed just for you!)

Craft Secrets DTgirls:

Vicki Chrisman Team Leader

Pam Hooten

Linda Duke ( on both teams)

Michele Kovack

Melissa Phillips

Flo Teixeira from France

Julie Campbell—you are HERE!

Mary Hamer

Heartwarming Vintage Blog

Crafty Secrets website

Eclecitc Paperie DT girls:

Daisy Sparks
Broni Holcombe
Latrice Murphy
Linda Ledbetter
Micki Harper
Sherry Cheever
Starla Nelson

Eclectic Paperie blog

Eclectic Paperie Website

See you soon with something new…

Julie

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,Eclectic Paperie,Design Team Challenge,LaPriel Riggs Smith,Rudger Grant Smith,farm

Not Forgotten…

{Mary and Ann, about 1904}

Cherished family photos, documents and journals being sorted and piled in an effort to reorganize…

Sweet angel faces keep arising…evidence of daughters much-loved…many times photographed in an era when photography was new and not an everyday occurrence as it is today…

Faces of little sisters…long gone away…

I’ve loved my family history all my life.  Can’t really remember a time when the people and the stories weren’t dear to me…but I’ve always focused mainly on those I’m directly descended from—fathers and mothers—not as much on the great-aunts, great-uncles…

{My great grandparents, Hjaldermar & Anna Ostlund, with their two oldest daughters—Mary and Anna—about 1908.}

This last week—an overwhelming need to spend time with these three little girls…why? I wondered…

{Mary, Anna and Theodora.  Taken 1911.  One hundred years ago…my goodness…}

Three of my great-aunts…Mary, Ann and Theodora…the older sisters of my grandfather, Dow, who I’ve talked about often here…

They lived in the small prairie town of Stirling, Alberta, Canada…this is their grandfather Theodore’s home and general store at the turn of the century…the girls’ mother, Anna, kept shop for her father for years…a quiet, country life…

Three little girls…grew up…

{Mary…about 1919}

{Ann…about 1923}

{Theodora—Dody—about 1914—the only single portrait I have of her}

Mary never married.  Ann married a wealthy, kind man…they traveled the world and truly enjoyed their lives.  Dody was married for a very brief time, and the marriage was annulled…we don’t know why.

Three little girls…no children ever born to call their own…no one to come behind them to remember…

…I will remember…

All three sisters—all grown up—with their mother, Anna (far left)…

“Auntie Ann” with my sweet mother, Karen…on a rare visit to Canada early in her childhood…such love for and pride in her little niece…

Mary taught English in high school for some years, then left teaching to join Dody in the big city of Montreal for a new adventure…

…as proprietors of a high-fashion dress shop…

So glad I have this piece of letterhead stationery from their business venture…

Dody died very suddenly of heart failure when she was about 45.

Mary stayed with her mother for the rest of her life…caring for her and  being a cherished companion…                

…always lovely, always gracious, always so grateful to have our young family of wiggly children come for a visit…

…more stories for other days…

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A new page for my heritage album completed last night…

I so enjoyed working on this page as I thought of these three great-aunts of mine…

Beautiful journaling images used are from Crafty Secrets’ “Love Mail” and “Vintage Photos” Creative Scraps…

 

In each of the photos of the girls, you can see beautiful lockets, gold baby bracelets, rings…big beautiful ribbons in their hair…here, a locket to represent these sweet gifts of love from their parents…

A border of roses made from some lovely vintage netting given to me by my mother…tinted a bit with some gorgeous Glimmer Mist & each topped off with a  little half pearl…

I love giving my pages texture and dimension…much more interesting to me that way!

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Stories told to my three daughters…questions asked, photos pored over…appreciation gained…life lessons learned…love kindled.

Little girls remembered.

Three little sisters, long gone away…not so very far away, after all…

“Memories are the heart’s guardian.”

 

Julie

 

LiveJournal Tags: Crafty Secrets,Love Mail,Vintage Photo,Anna Meier Brandley Ostlund,Mary Ostlund,Ann Ostlund Yuill,Theodora Ostlund,heritage scrapbook