Giving Thanks Blog Hop Free Project AND Blog Giveaway!

(Click on image to view close up)

Continuing with the Thanksgiving theme and the Giving Thanks Blog Hop, I'm cross posting a project I created for the Beadalon blog. Enjoy the project AND if you'd like to win the plethora of paper crafting swag seen in the pic at the bottom of this post, just leave a comment explaining the significance of these particular names together (this is a trivia question) and I'll announce a winner randomly selected from the folks who answer the question correctly on Friday.

Fall Harvest Place Card Holders
Margot Potter for Beadalon

Colourcraft copper wire is coiled into a faux flower and ‘planted’ in a painted miniature clay pot. Make up a bunch of these for any occasion, simple change the color scheme to suit your event. These would be delightful as wedding favors!

Materials
Miniature clay pots
Sage green raffia
18 gauge ColourCraft copper wire
Decorative ribbon
Ranger paint dabbers in gold, copper, lettuce and sunset orange
Liquid Fusion
Hot Glue Sticks
Small glass pebbles
Glue dots

Tools
Paint brush
Hot glue gun
Scissors
Round nose pliers
Wire cutters
Nylon jaw pliers

1. Paint your pots and allow to dry. Paint a second coat if needed.
2. Glue decorative ribbon around edges with Liquid Fusion.
3. Cut a 5” segment of ColourCraft wire. Bend one end of your wire with pliers to create a small stand that fits inside of your pot.
4. Use round nose pliers to start a flat wire coil and continue using nylon jaw pliers. Make this a loose rather than tight coil.
5. Cut off a 10” length of raffia.
6. Hot glue your wire base into the pot, add a small glass pebble and more glue and your raffia. Allow glue to dry.
7. You can use “glue dots” to secure these on the table and prevent them from tipping over. Add your own festive place cards. I use a fabulous Fiskars squeeze punch to get this scalloped edge square shape on cardstock.

TastyLinks Saturday Giving Thanks Edition

I was thinking about the word Thanksgiving and it occured to me that it's an interesting compound. There's the 'thanks' part and the 'giving' part, obviously. What's interesting is the order of the words and also if you think further the words themselves, and whilst contemplating these things I had a small epiphany. One can give thanks figuratively, but one can also literally give...give something freely as a way of spreading our 'thanks' or gratitude to others. So today in gratitude for your support, I'm sharing with you a permission free image from my personal collection. This is a vintage Clapsaddle postcard, this particular postcard line is highly collectible. I have been collecting ephemera for many years and I find it endlessly fascinating. It never ceases to amaze me to hold a piece of vintage paper in my hands and think about the people who held it 100 years ago. This is a postcard sent in 1910 from Mr. and Mrs. R.E. Davis of Minneapolis to Miss Elsie Munson of Minneapolis. It's in excellent conditon and is embossed and artist signed. You are free to use this image in your design work. On a side note, I had to wonder if this turkey is really all that glad for Thanksgiving...what since he's probably the main course.

FYI-not all of the images on this blog are free for the taking, but this one is. Remember if you do click and save my blog images that they are all under my copyright or the copyright of the artist I've attributed. Everything on the internet isn't free...but this lovely postcard is!

This is part of my contribution to the blog round robin in which I'm participating this week. Please do click on the links and visit the blogs of the participants.

Without further ado, here are this week's Crafty Blogger Links. We're all of us grateful to you, our readers, for your support and encouragement. May you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

About Family Crafts Do you play with clay? If so, please take a moment and share your favorite stories, projects, recipes, techniques, and more.

Aileen's Musings Aileen is offering Vintage freebie images for you to download and use in your art. Get started on those digi holiday cards using some of them.

Cathie Filian Cathie has lots of Thanksgiving recipes, crafts and family activities posted. Plus tips for a smooth Thanksgiving!

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world Over at Craftside you can enter to win a Mixed-Media Doll by Linda O'Brien, Co-author of Who's Your Dada?, download a free intricate leaf paper cutting pattern, get a fun how-to on making a paper cupcake and a pretty pair of fall leaf earrings.

Crafty Princess Diaries Mix up altered books, glitter, and teenagers, shake well, and voila! You have a fun day of art combined with writing.

Cross Stitch at About.com Stitch a Simple Hanukah Menorah Motif for a card or ornament. Suitable for knitting or crochet projects too.

Farm Girl Roots, City Girl Style Linda shares one of the first quilts she designed and tells the first of many stories about lessons learned.

Mixed Media Artist Cyndi has finished a second Garden Quilt and is offering her tutorial!

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery Sweater Surgery attacks t-shirts and cuts them up into some cute gathered tops with the help of Generation-T Beyond Fashion.

The Artful Crafter Check out Eileen’s latest craft finds: lots of free stuff and free advice – well that’s usually free, isn’t it? LOL.

The Crochet Dude Drew kicks off the holiday season with a crochet pattern event!

The Impatient Crafter In this week's teen crafts blog for iLoveToCreate Madge makes a stunning mixed media necklace. You might just want to sport this one yourself!

Giving Thanks Blog Hop 2009!

It's a virtual cornucopia of crafty inspiration!

Welcome to the Giving Thanks {Blog Hop} 2009...

Thanks to some very amazing artists, over the next week, you will be able to hop around the web and find some amazing projects celebrating Gratitude and Creativity. We are very excited to be bringing you a cross-section of artisans, sharing their stories, creations, and thanks with all of you. Not everyone will post something everyday, but, there will be something somewhere everyday. You will just have to hop around and see what you can find. Each person participating has the full list of attendees posted, so you can hop from each one to another. We hope you find something that inspires you, sparks your creativity, or reminds you to be thankful this Thanksgiving.

From our house to yours, please enjoy your week and our gratitude...

Debbie Hodge

Kelly Purkey

Lisa Dickinson

May Flaum

Patti Milazzo

Stacey Kingman

Stephenie Hamen

Margot Potter

Lain Ehmann

Margie Romney-Aslett

Rhonna Farrer

Wendy Smedley

Jodie McNally

Liz Hicks

Becky Novacek

Jennifer McGuire

Allison Kreft Abad