Live Life in Color

I really liked this layout in concept, but the working out of it left me a little disappointed. I haven't figured out just why, but, I finished it anyway, as I've learned there really is no accounting for taste!

They that wait upon the Lord...

I love this chapter from Isaiah!

This set of journals I am working on is featuring the wallpaper more than usual, I normally just use it because it makes for stronger corners than cardstock. But this sky design was perfect for this stamp!

Journal time!

The coffee/gift shop in which I sell my cards needs some new journals. I am working on five, this is the first one I've completed. I wanted to use my friend Becky's aging-themed ATCs, but when I finished designing the cover, I realized the wallpaper I used was really more appropriate for the dieting themed ATCs. I hope I won't regret making this one!

Before punching the holes with my binditall, I put a flap-less clear envelope over the cover to protect it while in use.


Something I figured out in doing this journal is how I want to make pockets. I purchase cardstock almost exclusively in the 8.5" x 11.5" size, and to make a secure pocket by folding up a single sheet of cardstock meant either a too-short pocket, or a too-short page. I also wasn't sure how to make it strong enough for frequent use. So, I came up with this design.



I hope these instructions make sense: 3 5/8" seemed a nice pocket height, so I used a scoring blade to mark the line on the long side of the cardstock. Then on the side which would be where the coils are, I cut a strip 1.25" in from the top of the cardstock down to that 3 5/8" line. On the other side, I cut a 1.75 inch strip down to the line. I cut in from each side at the scored line, eliminating thos strips, and leaving left the center at the journal width of 5.5", with an 8.5" strip remaining at the bottom (picture an upside down "T". Folding the "bottom" of the "T" up, I folded the narrow side toward the back. For the wider side, I did a triple fold with my scoring blade at quarter inch intervals. I made a valley fold into the pocket, then the third fold to the back. This made for a deeper pocket. The finished length is about an inch shy of the 8.5 lenght, so I simply glue the pocket onto a piece of 8.5 x 5.5cardstock, resulting in added support for the pocket. I added the strip of wallpaper over the top of the pocket to keep it from wearing away.

Autumn!!!

I know, it's summer still ... but I'm ready to make fall cards! I made this one a few weeks ago with some Paperbag Studio stamps I borrowed from a friend. It's obviously meant to be a photo negative, but once I had this idea, I made a bunch of images this way. For some, I used this sparkle black, for others, I used a deep brown mica. This is the only card I have actually completed, though next week I hope to use the image for a few more cards. I liked the idea of the rainbow look behind the trees ... there is hope that with the dying season of fall, there will be rebirth...

This was done using heat and stick powder to emboss with, then brushing metallic powders over the stamped image.

Butterfly notecards

My oldest daughter loves butterflies, and so I began purchasing butterfly stamps to make cards for her. I was delighted to find this text stamp and the two butterflies that went with it. Originally I was going to emboss with gold and color in, but I realized that would be too much effort for simple notecards! I had some fun foam from a craft project for Children's Church years ago, and a bunch of wood blocks. So, I stamped each butterfly onto the fun foam, intentionally over-cut the image, and used double sided tape to affix them to wooden blocks. Then I used multi-shaded stamp pads for color. I colored in the bodies and antennae with markers.

Horse card set

I know, "horse" doesn't say much, but then, I don't really know anything about horses. In fact, I was so sure that the coloring was wrong that I brought one of the cards to a friend of mine who owns horses, sure she would tell me it was off. Fortunately, she told me that it was just fine, that there are horses that light colored. Whew! I'd done a sample image first, but didn't realize how much darker that particular cardstock was than the one I ended up using for the card set, so was very surprised as I finished coloring to see this shade.

Rejoice in the Lord!

When I first saw these smARTworks people images, I did not like them. But over time they began to really grow on me to the point that I knew I wanted to purchase them. I thought they would work perfectly with my "Rejoice in the Lord" stamp. :-)

Steeped in Joy

I love this little set from smARTworks!

I chalked the teapot (I recommend the Stencil collection chalks ... for the first time in a couple of years I used another brand, and did not get the smooth application I have gotten used to, and while I normally don't worry about sealing chalk, this stuff needs it). I colored the rose in with markers. I had planned to use pencils, and blend colors, but I was getting really tired while working on this set of cards, so I tried marker and was pleased with the results!

Grand theft card design!

I unashamedly cased this card from my wonderful friend Jacki at The Card Castle. She is my "coloring tutor," and if I ever really "get it," it will be because of Jacki! Her "potted plant" cards are here.

This is a very simple card for sets of six that I make for the coffee shop. All the card sets are unlayered and without embellishments. (Which is a good thing because I don't get a lot of pleasure out of duplicating cards, so making six cards with all that extra time would simply never happen, lol!)

The stamp is inked with white pigment, and colored with prismacolor pencils (thank you, Jacki!). Jacki has a tutorial for this technique on her blog.

Blessed are they that mourn?

I've been thinking about this scripture. Wouldn't it be more of a blessing to just not mourn? Isn't that better than mourning with comfort?

The Word of God says that Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with our griefs. (Acquainted here means complete understanding). So if He said that there is actual blessing in grief because of God's comfort, then how amazing that comfort must be! I've been thinking a lot about grief and loss lately, and realizing that there can be great grief not just in loss because of a person's death, but death of a dream or a vision or the loss of something that brought great meaning to one's life can bring a grief that is equally hard to bear. Will not God's comfort bring blessing in these as well?

Something to think about...

Abbie's home!

We picked up our daughter from the airport this morning, after 10 weeks ministering at a camp in Bosnia. We almost picked her up this evening ... somehow we'd mixed up that little a.m./p.m. thingie ... Only because I felt like checking her flight plans to see where she was yesterday morning did I realize our error! Living nearly two hours from the airport, and having other errands to run (and no cell phone), she'd have possibly been stuck all day! Between the time difference and having an overnight stay at an airport, she's pretty whipped! She lasted just until after opening birthday presents after dinner (she turned 21 while in Bosnia), then her brother, home just for the night before returning to his own camp job, gallantly carried her upstairs!

Oh, how lovely to have all four of our children under the same roof, at least for a night!

"I'm sorry" card

I love using patterned paper and buttons. With a half-inch punch and some ordinary buttons, one can have a lot of fun!

The ink is a little on the light side ... but I think it's okay. I really love the simplicity of this card!

A few more notecard sets

These are the rest of the sets - plus one I won't send to the store. I can't believe I didn't notice until I was packaging the sets this morning that I had managed to punch holes in both ends of a bookmark! Hmmm... because the paper is expensive, I'm not going to replace it until I see whether or not the sets will sell. :-)

The blue quilt-like paper is not as elegant as the others, but the company I purchased it from haD (it's fixed now) a standard description for each design stating it has metallic highlights running through it. Most do, but this one did not. However, it definitely makes the others look even more elegant by comparison. :-)



These are the rest of the sets.

Japanese Yuzen Washi paper card sets

I absolutely love these Japanese prints! The paper is almost clothlike, and very elegant (and expensive!). I am making some card sets for the gift shop. Because of the expense, the cards are A4 cards (notecard size), so that I can get six panels instead of four. Then I use left over pieces for the bookmarks. No stamping, just a couple of layers.

"Tutoring session"

One of the nicest benefits of having a daughter attend a local college is that we get to add more members to the family! Amber shares a flat with our daughter Abbie, and is spending the summer near campus. Though Abbie is still in Bosnia, Amber came & spent the night here to make her beautiful pictures into photo cards! Here are the three cards she finished today:




We had a lot of fun thinking of humour captions for the ladder, like:

*You know you're in trouble when you use this for your "bridge over troubled waters"!

*If this is your bridge over troubled waters, just jump in and try swimming."

Etc, etc. Only my family, lol!

SALT challenge

I have not been able to get to the SALT challenge in ages, and I can't say that I was inspired for this one, which is sad, because I'm so happy to be able to do them again! But life continues to be amazingly busy, and I'm afraid I just won't get to it if I don't finish today ... three weekends in a row with company, and my son just asked if he could bring a bunch of camp staff up Saturday for an end-of-the-summer party. Three of the staff, siblings, are really family to us, and they and their parents moved two hours away last year, so this would be our last chance to see them for awhile. Not to mention since Stephen joins the military (we think) in January, opportunities to do stuff like this for him are waning. Next week we retrieve our oldest daughter from the airport after having spent the summer in Bosnia. Then a visit to my inlaws, then college ... wow!

Anyway, I wanted to have a better text, but I ruined the stamped panel! So I just did the first thing that came to mind for a text (I didn't know what direction I was going when I chose the earth picture), and threw it together. I did some editing to the scan to make it look better, but even the scan itself made things look worse, lol! That purple panel is actually blue!!!) I definitely will take the card apart for other use ... not the first time I've done so with the SALT challenge. :-/

Perhaps I will be better inspired if I have time later this week, and will replace this card, lol!

Meanwhile, I will tell you what's behind the text: a couple of years ago a daughter brought her Geology prof to our house (with some students and another teacher) for dinner, as they had been in town to see the local GPS system. The conversation turned to global warming. The professor, whose career (she was just an adjunct for a semester to accommodate her dh's career move) was in this area, said that while she was completely convinced that global warming was real, she, and all the scientists that she has worked with, believe that the earth is probably able to handle it. She said the big scare is because it's very difficult to get funding for something like this unless scare tactics are used. She was not condoning that, in fact, she and her colleagues get very frustrated with it all. Very interesting! At any rate, whether global warming is a geniune issue or not, I know what God has made is good. The world turns by His command...

You never know...

...when something you would never use ... becomes useful! A friend asked me to make a journal for her future daughter in law.

"What does she like?" I asked.

"Well, she likes the color blue, and she's really into fairies."

I told her I did not have anything with fairies, which was fine with her, but I could at least do something in blue. (Not being at all into fantasy type images, I didn't want to buy anything either). Then, hurrah, I remembered I had a set of papers that happened to have fairies! I'd never used those particular sheets, and never expected I would, at least not the part with the fairy images. I was so delighted to be able to please my friend and get rid of the fairies! I used my flourish stamps in blue to enhance that color (barely present in the paper), and to bring it together with the flourish wallpaper that I covered the front with before adding the paper.

For the inside cover, I stamped the flourishes on purple, then cut out a fairy, a flower, and a design element from the paper that looked like a bookplate.

Wedding photos

We have a young engaged couple here for the weekend; Katy is one of our "adopted" daughters - a close friend of Abbie's from college. Abbie is still in Bosnia, so we're especially delighted they chose to come visit us anyway! We were talking about wedding photographers, and knowing what pictures to include. I thought they should have some inspiration, so I showed them this picture from our wedding album! We still have the same oddball sense of humor, and are leashing four children upon an (mostly)unsuspecting world that have it too!

And just so you don't get too worried about my "bored" look in the above picture, I'm putting this photo here as well! :-)