This I recall, and therefore I have hope:

I love this passage from Lamentations 3:21-23

21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

French Greeting

I took strips of neon paper, cut at angles, and covered an entire piece of 8.5 x 11 paper with them. I cut several large stripes, then used my cuttlebug for the rest, some with the puzzle die, and others with the squares as you see on this card. Very time consuming, but I had a lot of fun with the cuttlebug part!

As for me and my house...

Early in my stamping life, which has been about six years now, I came up with the design for this card, and although I normally hate the glue and scissors part of cardmaking, I had so much fun with this that I made a bunch of them. However, they had one layer less than these, and I hadn't thought to put the doornob, so once I improved a little with stamping, I put them away. When I began making cards to stock two stores, I was grasping at anything that would make quick cards. I took these, cut the cards down into panels, and affixed them on new card fronts, adding the brad to the door before attaching. Still a simple card, but much nicer with the added layer and embellishment! I love recycling!

Here is the original design:

And the slightly modified versions:

Birch trees

I love birch trees, they're so beautiful! I had one outside my bedroom window growing up, and I remember just sitting at my window and daydreaming as I gazed at it. I confess that as much as I loved that tree, I tortured it. The bark of a birchtree peels off like parchment paper ... so hard to resist! It's amazing it survived me (though to my sorrow, I've heard it since has died). Anyway, when I was ordering Oriental stamps from OnyxXpressions, I couldn't resist adding this image!

I often forget to check the settings on our digital camera, and my daughter often changes them when she uses it. So, all my birch cards - as well as other cards photographed at the same time - turned out a little funny in the photos. I took pictures of the cards again, still not realizing the problem, so they didn't look any better. I was out of time, so I shipped all the cards off to the Houghton store even though the pics were not very good. :-(

smARTworks challenge: glitter

I did it! I managed to get a card done on time for the February smARTword challenge! I have been in the midst of making a new set of cards for the local craft store, feeling great pressure to replace the cards that were there because of having closed my website at the beginning of the month. That address is on all my cards. So, I was trying to get at least one or two cards for each of the categories (20) that I have, and if you've ever worked with glitter, you know that it's rather time consuming and messy ... I had plenty of mess and no need for more, and not enough time! But, well, I managed! The glitter is a dramatic red, and stands out much more than the camera shows, so I was pleased.

Gotta laugh!

While I relate to poor Charlie Brown's experience, while I can truly feel his pain .... this cartoon always brings a smile to my face. Maybe it's just because it's a classic, or maybe it's just because I've learned that sometimes we do have to be willing to risk people letting us down, that when it happens, we have to just get back up again ...

I like Charlie Brown, he really wants to believe the best about people. :-)

Sailor Birthday

I realized Friday evening that if I wanted to make sure my sailor received his birthday package on time, we needed to mail it out Saturday morning. I'm in a flurry of cardmaking for the craftstore ... finally closing my website means I need to redo all the labels on the backs of my cards. So, I need to get the cards back that are there now, and replace them with "current label" cards. So ... I knew I needed some help! I did a search on Splitcoast stampers, and found this card there. While I have intended occasionally to case a card, usually I end up designing something altogether different. But this card was so perfect, I changed very little at all.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you have a great day tomorrow!

cuttlehearts 3

And this is the third card I made. The die is not symetrical, something I had not noticed before making a stack of them. It meant that certain patterns I had meant to put together could not work, so I stopped at three cards.

Cuttle hearts 2

I wanted to make a valentine card with non-traditional colors. The pink is actually a more muted pink than the camera shows, and the brown just a bit "browner." As simple as it is, I could not get satisfied with it for days!

Cuttle hearts

I had fun using my cuttlebug heart die & embossing folders. I made several cards using the same basic idea.

Valentine

I absolutely love these toad images from Biblical Impressions!

Sympathy card

I love the elegance of the wallpaper for this card!

New Ministry

Close friends of ours, the Phelps, own a recycling business in their town. A couple of times a year, they have a warehouse sale. I hadn't been to one before, but now that I have, I won't miss again! The veneer layer on this card came from there. It's very brittle to work with, so while I can put it through my die-cut machine, sometimes it breaks. I tried embossing, first with a dry piece, then a damp one. The pattern did not hold, but I'll play with it again...

Birthday card

As I was creating the card I posted yesterday, I really liked how the flower looked on the patterned paper. I don't usually stamp an image onto a strong pattern like this, but it looked great, so while I didn't want to cover it up with the text, it worked well for a simple greeting.

And to think I believed it was all about me...

I love this quote from Mother Theresa. I think I need to make something with it for myself and post it where I will see it daily! I want to think that everything I do is done out of the goodness and purity of my heart, but needless to say, that's far from the truth! If I ever doubt it, I just need to look at my reactions when my actions are misunderstood, unappreciated, or just plain unnoticed. If what I offer is offered first and foremost to God, then I am at peace with the reactions - or lack thereof - that the world gives. Lord, give me the grace to live to please You alone.

One last "Becky Card"

I just had to add google eyes!