Scripture Verse Ocean's 11 challenge

Grace from our Ocean's 11 blogger group put out a challenge a while ago to use a favorite scripture verse or quotation on a card. I thought about this one for a long time . . . choosing a favorite scripture verse is like asking me which of my children I love best. All of them all the time and for different reasons! 

So I thought back on the reasons why I started this blog and why I stamp. I stamp because I like to create pretty things, I like to make people happy by giving those things away. I also do it because to me any form of creative expression is a way of giving back to the Creator.  Sure, everyone likes comments, everyone likes praise for their work but if at my core I am doing all these things for myself, then I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. I also am striving constantly to improve on what I create, because to me that too, brings praise to our Creator when we hone the skills He so generously gave us to begin with. 

I started my blog because it seemed like a way to have fun, a way to get to know people and a way to share my creations. But I blog also as a way to share what is most important in my life, my faith, my love for God. 

So this isn't a card, but something to hang in my kitchen. I think I'll get it framed, or put it on a stand, maybe make a few other key verses in the same size and rotate them. How often am I grumbling inside when I have to do the dishes, or another load of laundry, or pick up a gallon of milk at 11 o'clock at night! Everything we do, everything I do, if it is one of my responsibilities -- done for the glory of God is a worthy task and should be done cheerfully. This verse just seemed to encompass so many things that have been on my mind lately and could serve as a good reminder of WHY I do what I do.  Thanks for the challenge Grace and thanks for looking. 

Stamps: self generated verse, Harrington font 24 pt type, Autumn Leaves 'On the Edge,' Crafty Secrets 'Cherish' (flourish)

Paper: Vanilla, white, tangerine, green, yellow, Berry Sorbet, polished stone using Yoyo Yellow, Marigold, Rose, Pink Pirouette, Tangerine, alcohol, gold craft

Other: cuttlebug vintage folder, pearls, Summer Sunrise ribbon (PTI), gold organdy (PTI), gold EP, PTI New Leaf button, Spellbinders nestabilities oval 

Answers to a couple questions

I don't know how else to do this, so I'll do a post that hopefully answers some questions that I didn't get to in original posts. I don't know if you do this under comments or what, so this is the way I will choose to do so. 

The headache sachet mixture . . . I had an herbalist warn me that herbs were the original medicine of settlers and Native Americans, including other cultures as well, before pharmaceutical companies starting mixing up their own brews, so anything you try herbally with your body you should do with caution. 

That being said, in the headache sachet mixture I mixed one part lavender with a half portion of lemon verbena and pinches of crushed whole cloves until the mixture had just a bit of a clove scent in addition to the other two. As far as the cloves, I would search around until you find them for a good price at the grocery store. As an example, there is a chain that is a half mile from my house, we often walk there if we just need to buy a few things, but they only offer one brand of whole cloves and a tiny jar is $7.99. I go to a different chain store when I take my mom shopping, it is much further away but they sell the same size tiny jar for $1.99. No kidding. So when you buy cloves, shop around. 

The lemon verbena and lavender I found online at www.localharvest.org, an organization dedicated to (I think) helping sell the produce of small operation farmers. I bought the lavender two years ago, intending to make sachets and finally got around to doing so just this last month. That's how poky I am. :) When I bought the lemon verbena it came in larger sized leaves, so I crumpled it with my hands before mixing it with the lavender. 

As far as the fabric, any scraps will do, but be sure to measure it before you stamp it. Iron it after you stamp it to set the ink. Not that you'll be washing a sachet, but it helps anyhow. And I used Palette inks on the fabric, by far the best of the types of inks I tried for fabric stamping. 

Glitter Fishies . . . I used Martha Stewart glitter, but I've used Art Institute and other fine glitters and they work just as well. But one of the important things to have is the Art Institute Dries Clear glue and the applicator tip. I don't know if a LSS sells it, mine doesn't, so I had to order it online. Other glues will dry opaque, not clear, and you need a type that will dry clear so you can see the glitter. 

Hope this helps. 

PTI May Blog Hop

Tonight is the Papertrey Ink blog hop and this month's challenge was to use yellow. Seems pretty simple, but I fussed and fussed way too long over creating one card. Eventually I decided on the polished stone technique to give the teapot some shine and color variation. IRL it looks a bit like a real china teapot. I used four different colors of ink, including pink pirouette, rose, yoyo yellow and marigold and the colors when they dried are a close match for PTI berry sorbet and lemon tart, but they look a mix of rose petals to me. The yellow paper in the corner elements and the panel behind the teapot were made using homemade glimmer mist, so the paper has a bit of a shimmer to it. Again, I used yoyo yellow in the glimmer mist mixture, along with pearl colored pearl ex and when it dried, it looks a lot like lemon tart. I coped layout elements from a project Betsy V posted in the April blog hop, also copied her little tea holder for some gifts I gave to friends in Colorado earlier this month. Thanks for looking. 

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Tea for Two

Ink: Black Stazon, Gold craft, four reinkers for polished stone: pink pirouette, rose, yoyo yellow and marigold morning

Cardstock: vanilla, berry sorbet, white sprayed with homemade glimmer mist, random DP

Other: yellow GG ribbon, rubbing alcohol, cotton balls, gold EP, pearl ex, vintage corner die cut, PTI button, fiskars decorative scissors, threading water edge punch

Glitter Fishies

This was a project I took with me for all the gals in Colorado to do together, so I was the one who caused the glitter explosion all over Joanne. This is one of my favorite, although time consuming techniques. I think I made five cards using the same pattern and technique once, but because of the time it takes I usually stick with one card and one card only! 

The minute I saw these stamps online though, I knew I wanted to use the glitter window technique because fish are so sparkly anyhow and you can use just about any color on them and it will look okay. The directions are simple, the process takes a long time. Find a nice, open stamp. Stamp using black Stazon or another good black permanent ink on acrylic. Let it dry completely. 

Select one color at a time and use Art Institute's Dries Clear glitter glue with the fine applicator tip, put glue in the section where you are using a specific color, for example, for the fish's face where I have orange, put the glue there and there alone if that is the only orange patch. Then sprinkle liberally with glitter and wait at least fifteen minutes for it to partially dry before tapping off your excess. The glue won't dry completely for a few hours, but will dry enough for you to add your next color. I usually glitter in one section, go do some laundry or some dishes with a timer on, tap it off, do the next section, then do a little more housework . . . see how it goes? The important thing with this technique is to be patient and let it dry at each stage. 

When you're done, you flip the image over so you can see your stamped lines and the glitter will be on the back, so it won't rub off. For this card I cut out a rectangular hole and pasted a piece of very cool sea-looking background paper so the fish would look like they are swimming. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: Basic Grey beta series Gone Fishing

Ink: Black Stazon

Paper: Acetate and variety of DPs from Archiver's, SU Orange, PTI White, other papers that shall remain nameless because I didn't write them down before I cut them up

Other: SU Turquoise and Bluebird GG ribbons, a button, Martha Stewart glitter pack, AI dries clear glitter glue and applicator tip, assortment of nestabilities (including my new inverted scalloped square)

A Colorado Journal

A good and dear friend, Traci, invited a few of us to come to Colorado to visit her. She was our hostess and couldn't be nicer and worked so hard to make the weekend as pleasant as possible for everyone! I just wanted to share some of the remembrances from my weekend trip to Colorado. I don't know how to separate photos with text, doesn't work for me, but at the top you'll see the best piece of artwork created all weekend long, the little card my daughter made for me that was waiting on my pillow when I came home. 

I made some new friends. :) The photos with people in it, from left to right is me, Lois, Traci, Cindy and Joanne. We stamped, we laughed, we ate chocolate, we had eggs (thanks to Cindy) and we went shopping. And we stamped . . .did I mention that? We did our best to find a bear to wrestle, but he never showed up, guess we scared him away . . . maybe chocolate affects bears as badly as it does dogs? That was the biggest disappointment of the weekend . . . :)

When I think about it, the one word that really characterizes the weekend is love. Love between friends, the love of my family waiting for me at home, the love of our creator who made such amazing scenery. Anyone who has that kind of love in their life is so fortunate. 

Headache Sachets

I tend to suffer from migraine headaches and a while back a friend of mine, Lois, posted an herbal blend that includes lavender, cloves and lemon verbena, that she said, when tucked inside your real pillow, would help shoo the migraine away. Fortunately I haven't suffered from one since making these, but a lot of my friends get these headaches, so I thought I'd make a batch of little sachet/pillows and send them out. I have a few stragglers here at home still but most of them should have been received by this point. I bought random pieces of linen in the scraps section at Joann's, so that part was easy. Thanks for looking.

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Borders and Corners (square), and an alphabet set

Ink: Hibiscus, avocado, Vintage Photo

Other: beads, fruit punch stickles, fabric, herbs

One more card for Mom

After making a card for my mom, I needed one more for my MIL, a wonderful woman who does not fit any of the stereotypical mother in law jokes or stories. I love her and I'm glad she is in my life. 

 Stamps: PTI Women of Life, Life sets

Paper: white, PTI Plum pudding, pink scrap from my messy table

Ink: white craft ink, plum pudding, spring moss, avocado and SU Rose

Other: PTI guidelines paper, SU pink GG ribbon, cuttlebug swiss dots folder

Is it really Spring?

Every month at Papertrey Ink Nichole issues the design team a challenge and this month the peons get to play along! So this peon is chiming in (or would that be 'inking in?') 

Now, you won't be able to tell from my card, but this was an inspiration challenge to create a Spring card. And all I could think of when I saw Heather's inspiration for the challenge was . . . the Santa from Believe stamped in vellum. I don't know why, maybe it was the fact she mentioned the snow had finally disappeared so I got snow on the brain. But this is the card I created based off of the beautifully muted shades in the quilt she selected in the photo to the left. I've been waiting for Spring as anxiously as anybody, but then winter returned briefly for this card. 

I got to use a selection of three PTI stamp sets to create this, the original Guidelines set, the Life stamp set and Believe. I haven't paired up this particular DP with kraft paper before, I think I really like it. Thanks for looking. 

Stamps: Papertrey Ink Believe, Guidelines, Life

Ink: SU black, PTI Spring Moss, Avocado, Versamark Frost, SU craft white

Cardstock: Confetti white, PTI white, SU kraft, PTI DP, old SU swirly vellum from stash

Other: Waterfall stickles, SU WWC, aquapainter, Irridescent Ice EP, oval punches, ribbon, Fiskars decorative scissors

Women to Women Sharing Jesus

My friend Edith gave me a beautiful gift yesterday, I was ill with the flu and too technically skeered to try to figure out how to copy this and then tried the brilliant method of copying and pasting and it looks like it worked. She gave me the gift of this award and I thank her so much for it. I do love Jesus and want to grow closer to Him as I walk through this life and tell others what His love has done for me can happen in their lives as well.  

This award is from Diane's   blog Women to Women.



She and I would love to start seeing it on hundreds of blogs. Hopefully it will encourage other bloggers to help us exalt the name of Christ as we share our papercrafting passions.

The Exalting Christ blog award is given to bloggers who consistently exalt the name of Christ on their blogs. What a joy to see crafters blend their passion for Christ and papercrafting. This award is given to bloggers who share Christ through their posts or through the design of their artwork. We are commanded in Scripture to be "salt and light" sharing the Good News of Jesus no matter where we are (Matthew 5:13-16). This award is just a way members of Women to Women: Sharing Jesus can say thanks for exalting Christ with us!

Rules:

1. Post the blog award in a regular post on your blog with the explanation, including the original link to WTW and the rules for passing the award along
2. Name five people (more or less is fine!) to whom you want to offer this award and link to their blogs. The blogs need to obviously exalt Christ in some manner.
3. Contact the bloggers you have named to let them know they can pick up their blog award from you.
4. Invite them to permanently display the WTW blog badge and/or the award on their blogs. The badge can be obtained on the WTW site.

*************

Once it feels like my head is my own again I will be selecting a few fellow bloggers to bestow this award. 

So Tweet!

This card fits two challenges, one on Karolyn's blog for the Twisted Thursday challenge for Shirley's 2 Girls. Its a sketch challenge with a twist, you follow the sketch and the additional challenge instruction and this week it was to add dimension. 

Also, my Traveling Dork sisters have started a blog with a challenge and our first was to create a card that reminds us of Spring, flowers or May Day. This is such a cheerful little stamp, it actually is the stamp I won from the Twisted Thursday challenge a few weeks ago! And it really shouts Spring!

I stamped the image twice so I could cut out and pop up the star, the birdhouse, the tulips and the little saying, so it pulls the image beyond the oval into the card beyond it. Did my best matching colors on the DP. And the little black bugs on the bottom are from a new EK Success punch I bought at Mike's a few weeks ago. (honestly I had no other ideas for the squares at the bottom of the sketch, I hope these work) Thanks for looking.

Stamps: Shirley's 2 Girls

Ink: Graphite black

Paper: DCDW (DWDV? CDWD? I never can remember), some other random DP, purples and greens (is this suitably vague?), SU black, PTI white

Other: ribbon, EK Success punch, square punches, randomly assorted spellbinders nestabilities, copic ciao markers