Leaf Pile

Now we're really back from vacation! We stayed with close friends the first weekend, in the beautiful grape country next to Lake Erie, then a couple of days in Ohio with my lovely in-laws. On our way home, we stopped at our daughter's college flat at Houghton for dinner, left off our son who is taking a couple of classes there and could not afford to miss a whole week. He spent the night with the son of our close friends we had just visited. Our youngest stayed in her sister's flat for the night. Then Friday we all left again to visit our other college daughter at Patrick Henry in Virginia. I think we did close to 30 hours in the van, but it was great fun!

This card is one I made for a friend overseas, I didn't want to post it until she received it. I embossed the leaves (from Biblical Impressions) in gold on various vellums.

Wallpaper Fun

We've been away on vacation, and one stop was at friend's of ours whose daughters are learning to stamp. I had brought them a bunch of wallpaper to use for cards, and wanted to show them examples of cards made with wallpaper. (Our local Sherwin Williams used to allow anyone to take their wallpaper sample books when they expired). Unfortunately, when I went to my website to show the girls some sapmes, I realized I only had a couple in my galleries; I'd forgotten to upload them from a separate "wallpaper cards" file. So, this post is for them. The background is a very textured piece of wallpaper that reminds me of birch bark. I had a beautiful birch tree outside my bedroom growing up, and I absolutely loved to look at it. I hope it wasn't my fault for the times I just could not resist peeling it, but it was taken down years ago by the next owners of the house. I was so sad when I learned that! Anyway, wallpaper can be absolutely wonderful to make cards with!

Enjoy Life Journal

I need to learn how to use our new digital camera, scanners are great, and so much quicker to do then a photo, but I can't always get a great image. This is actually a paler color than shown here, and the "Enjoy Life" is actually embossed onto blue vellum. In person, you can more clearly see it.

I did not realize until making this journal how focused I've been on "greeting" type text stamps (thank you, miss you, thinking of you, etc). I have a lot of scripture stamps which work well on journals, but I don't want all of them Christian themed. Hmmm ... I'll have to work on that!

When I went to attach the back of the cover (after already applying the glue!), I realized I had already punched the cover! Because of the eyelets on either end, it was very difficult getting the cover into the bind-it-all as it was, so I couldn't just attach my cover and hope I could re-punch. So I grabbed a back of an EZ mount sheet (I keep a bunch on hand for anytime I am working with glue I might not want to dry), attached the inner covering, and punched. Then I applied some extra glue and attached it.

I just have one more journal to make after this, and then I'll send them to my friend who sells my cards at her gift shop.

Oh, make that two more ... my mom is down for a visit, leaving tomorrow, and wants to take back a prayer journal with her. Let's see, how late am I willing to stay up tonight???? :-)

Horse themed journal

I've been working on journals for a few weeks now, still in the learning process. This one is a fairly basic journal; there is a "secondary cover" with a pocket, but other than that, no extras as there are in the prayer journals I have done.

Still in the process of "moving in!"

I decided this card would be appropriate for this post, especially the part about patience! I am having difficulty finding the time to finish this blog, but hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to. (Deadlines definitely help me reach goals!) I still am primarily blogging on yahoo 360 ...

I'm working on cards for my next workshop, with the theme of resist stamping. This is a simplified version of a card I made last year. I love this technique, though it can be a little time consuming. :-)

I own three simple "blessings" stamps. One I received in a grab bag, but as I want people to receive God's blessings, all three get used frequently! This one is from Eureka , and the leaves are from Biblical Impressions. I stamped the solid leaves with versamark, and used a jumbo pad for the color. Then I used Stazon with the outline stamp of the same leaf.

RAK from Trish!

I love cards from Trish - they always arrive at the right time, and say just the right thing! Her friendship is a blessing to me! And of course, I love her artwork!