Prom

I never went to my prom ... but I still thought this ATC was funny.

(And I got my first kiss that night, so I don't think I missed anything!)

:-)

Acting her age

Born too soon

Aging Beautifully

Another Becky Card!

"Becky Cards"

For the next few days, I'm posting "Becky Cards," cards made with ATC's from Becky Christianson . I have such fun with these! I've made cards before with these images, and they're always a hit!

Another Ice card

I thought, although my crazy printer ruined the bottom half of this photo, I would make another card for the smARTword challenge. Michelle encouraged me to use the ice scripture I found in Job, so that's what I did. Since the picture of the card did not turn out well (I'll repost it tomorrow ... it's extrememly overcast here in Western NY, and I think a sunnier day will make a difference), here's the scripture again:

Job 38:29-30 (New International Version)

29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?

Last minute card

I got a call from my husband yesterday shortly after noon that the person we knew who was going to the country of Cuba for a week was leaving that evening. We had thought she was going at the end of the month, and there was enough time to get letters and such up to her before she left. She lives nearly two hours away, and so I had only minutes to put together a card before we left town. I had a second photo printed of Susie's birdhouse, and although it was slightly color-damaged from the printer, it was minor enough to throw a card together with it.

The scripture reads in English: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He will sustain thee." The couple for whom I made it is in a heartbreaking state, devastated by years-long illness and depression. I hope they will be encouraged.

Birdfeeder

This card is made from the one other picture I was able to print the other day, also taken by my daughter Susannah.

Because we do not have a top-of-the line printer, there are little lines through every picture. I have found that using linen cardstock masks those lines. Unfortunately, all though it worked for this card, the camera overemphasizes the linen texture, so what you are seeing is not how the card actually looks. It's much closer to the photo, though of course, not quite as sharp. The background looks bluer in the photo than the actual card & photo.

smARTword challenge

smARTworks does a monthly word challenge, and this month, the word is "ice." When they started doing word challenges, I was a little disappointed ... too easy, I thought. But wow, this one was really tough. Especially because I really did want to use smARTworks stamps, even though that is not a requirement. I knew that the card didn't technically need to feature ice, and I considered doing a card with smARTworks mug trio set, thinking that cold, icy days meant for drinking hot chocolate ... but that felt like cheating, lol! I finally asked my daughter, Susie, if she had any icicle pictures. Susie loves taking pictures, and loves icicles, so of course, she had pictures for me!

What a relief! So it took me forever to come up with this idea. At least it would be simple to put together, right? Wrong! We coudn't move our photo editing program, which allows one to size pictures precisely, instead of just having standard photo options. So, that meant unhooking the printer and moving it upstairs with the old one. I finally got the pictures I wanted (figured I'd make some other photo cards while I was upstairs). But the light there is very poor, and I did not realize that the color ink was too far gone, and all but this picture and one other were all funky looking and no use!

Well, it did make deciding which picture to use much easier! :-)

By the way, I did look up "ice" in the Bible, and the only place I found mention of it was in Job. There was one passage I considered, but as it is part of God's rebuke to Job, it seemed a little cold (excuse the pun, couldn't resist) for a card. Still, I'm thinking about it... I love the poetry of it.

Job 38:28-30 (New International Version)
28 Does the rain have a father?
Who fathers the drops of dew?

29 From whose womb comes the ice?
Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens

30 when the waters become hard as stone,
when the surface of the deep is frozen?

Masculine Scripture card

I made this for my son while he was in boot camp last March, but forgot to take a photo before I sent it to him. It was the last layed card I sent ... they get very little storage space, so Stephen just did not have the room for those bulky cards!

Ordination cards

Since designing is the most time-consuming part of cardmaking for me, I love it when I find a design I can easily alter!

Pig in chocolate

Hmmmm...with my chocolate addiction, I could call this a self-portrait, but for obvious reasons, I prefer not to, lol!

Cat Journal

I was asked by a local couple to design a journal for them, one that included cats, and the colors pink and blue. I knew I had just the stamp for them!

A last minute journal idea

At the Houghton craft fair, two young women were looking for cooking-related stamps. That got me thinking ... I have a drawer full recipes given to me, copied by me, printed from the computer, etc. While my mom made each of us children a three-ring binder full of recipes, the index cards, magazine pages, etc, aren't easily added. I decided to create a cookbook journal as a last minute gift for the craft store. I would use cardstock so that pictures could be inserted - perhaps of young children or friends making recipes, or somebody's blue ribbon pie at the fair, etc. I also thought the sturdiness of cardstock would work well for attaching recipe cards and other loose recipes. And since hand-written recipes sometimes contain errors, or need notes of explanation, or one desires to just alter them, I included a space to keep a pen right in the journal. I made the covers an extra half in long to accomodate. I also used 1.25 inch wide coils so that it could hold a lot of added recipes.

It was purchased within a week, so I was glad I'd made it! My youngest daughter was impressed with the idea enough that she is now typing up my loose recipes so that I can make one for us!

:-)

Mini Journals

These are the smallest books I made for the craft fair; they measure slightly less than 3" square! All sizes of my journals sold well, but especially these. I started out with nine, and when I had sold most of those, a college professor stopped by, wondering if I would make more for her Sunday School class ... by the weekend. With Houghton being 45 minutes away, it would not have been worth it for me to drive them there, so I made them that night, before the second day of the craft fair. They don't take that long to make, but finding the right wallpaper pattern that would have a small enough design, and be enjoyed by a young girl or teen, took quite awhile. I didn't finish until 3:00 a.m.! (And that's why the second picture was taken in artificial light - I knew I'd never have time in the morning before I left!)

Medium & small journals

Hmmm... discovering I have several missing journal pics. Oh well, I didn't decorate any of them, so it's not really important. I made a couple of 5x7 journals, a couple 4x6 journals, and about a half dozen 4x4 jounals. The top one here is a 5x7, the others are 4x4.

"Standard" size journals

These are two simple 8.5 x 5.5 (page size) journals that I made. I love finding wallpaper that looks wonderful without any embellishing!

large journals

I made several large journals (8.5x8.75) for the Houghton College craft fair. In the craziness of preparation for it (with having the opportunity of two stores just happening this August, there was no way I could start preparing for the craft fair early!), I didn't photograph all of them, including one which I actually did some stamping/designing. These two are just covered with wallpaper, no stamping or embellishing, etc. The rose one was made out of the most gorgeous wallpaper, the picture does not do it justice. It was purchased by a college student to use for her wedding book!

It is Well remake

I made an identical journal to this over two years ago for a stamp challenge. It just might be my favorite journal. A friend requested that I make one for her, and with a need for journals for the Houghton College craft fair in December, I made two. The only difference with this one here is that the background is wallpaper (I always use that now), and I had a sort of face silhouette on the "Christ hath regarded my helpless estate" oval. It was definitely a feminine face, and as I though this journal would be good for a male as well, I omitted the image on the one I made for the craft fair. My friend's journal was purple, but a shade that my camera decided was gray. :-)

I was inspired all over again by this hymn as I re-created the journal. The pictures are from the actual tragedies of the author's life: the Chicago fire in which he lost his businesses, and the ship collision that cost the lives of his daughters. If you don't know the story, google the name Horatio Spafford.

Music journal

Here is the journal that I made with the music panels. I love making music-themed cards and journals. Not only do I love music, but their are just so many related symbols for stamping!

The music notes were cuttled, and the white on black sheet music was done with white on white embossing.

With all my lined journals, I used 24 weight paper instead of the standard 20 wt. copy paper; it makes for much crisper lines. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a printer that will give me a two-sided, double page layout that will have back and front matching, so I have to have the paper done at a printshop. This makes the price more expensive than I'd like, but for now, it's the way I need to do it. I make mostly cardstock filled journals now.

I forgot to photograph the journal cover before assembling, so my apologies for the poor quality of the photo. In order to preserve the cover, I punch a no-flap bag from clearbags.com along wo\with the cover before assembling. It's easy enough to remove when the journal is full.

Yet another music circles card!

Here's the last card made at the same time as the previous cards. I was actually working on a journal cover design, and not knowing exactly what I was wanting to do, made a bunch of music panels.

This scripture is very special to me. God used it during a time about a year and a half ago, when I went through a sort of crisis of faith. I spent four days in a motel room sized cabin at a retreat center in Alabama. It was on a lovely piece of property with a pond, etc, so great for walks as well. I spent the days reading the Word and praying throughout the day (I was the only guest in the entire place), and then reading some great Christian fiction in the evening. It was a fabulous time, and I highly recommend it.

Music hello

This is, of course, another card made from the music panels used in yesterday's card. The little piece of ribbon or something is a mystery to me, it's definitely not part of the card - I don't know how I failed to notice it when taking the picture.

Salt Challenge: JOY

I have absolutely loved participating in the bi-weekly Salt Challenge, but this fall was so intensely busy, I spent almost no time on any blogs at all, and completely forgot about Salt. I "rediscovered" it last week. "Joy" is a wonderful challenge theme, and if there is any stamp I have multiples of, it's ones that express Joy. How perfect to find that to be the word selected on Salt. Problem: I have a brand new Joy stamp I wanted to use for this challenge, but I just could not make it "work" on a card. So instead, here's a card that I haven't posted yet that still "qualifies"!



I used a joy stamp on this ministry card because I think it's easy in ministry to be overwhelmed by the responsibility of it all, and forget that God desires us to be joyful.

We're studying Hebrews in a church class our pastor teaches, and I've been thinking about this joy-related scripture about Jesus:

"...therefore God, your God, has set you above your
companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."

This is speaking of Christ's superiority over angels ... and one of those ways is that He has been annointed with the oil of joy. Isn't that fascinating?