TEACHER THANK YOU CARDS

Emma wanted to make "Mr Joe" a Thank You for making her memory book of her Pre-K year. Included was some of her class work, some of her art work, some journal pages that she dictated and he wrote, and lots of pictures from the year. It is a very nice book.

Since her class was called "the butterflies" I showed her what butterfly stamps I had. She picked out a Hero Arts set of four butterflies. Matti also wanted to do a card for one of her teachers, so we had two going at the same time. They picked Martha Stewart pastel chalk inks and did each butterfly a different color. Since they love to punch, they did the front right edge with the Martha Stewart monarch butterfly border. Emma chose blue to put behind it and Matti pink. We then added iridescent Stickles to some of the butterflies on the front. They had a hard time squeezing the bottle to make it smooth. Inside it says "Special Thanks" and inside we added a punched little butterfly with one wing up. Matti wanted purple and Emma stayed with the blue. It is a simple card.

Then we got the idea of making a bookmark. I have the cutest Inkadinkado stamp that is a direct quote by a child named Harris Weinstein, age 7. He says, "if i had TEN thumbs, I'd put them all up for you". So we took a bookmark sized piece of white card stock, they rounded the corners, punched a hole for the ribbon, stamped the quote and there was room where they also stamped a butterfly in pink. Emma had a med blue ribbon and Matti had a lavender. I thought they were sooo cute and hope the teachers like these bookmarks as keepsakes. Both girls signed their cards and the bookmark. Gotta have their work documented. It was a fun morning project.
Thanks for dropping in.

FATHER'S DAY CARDS

Last Tuesday the two grand daughters came over to spend the day with us. I helped them make three cards...one for their dad, and one each for the two grandpas. The one for their dad utilized a photo of their faces. They each had stamped a flower at Archivers for the Hero Arts Demo weekend we attended and I cut the flowers out and used their faces in the middle of the flowers. Each girl drew the stem with a green marker They punched leaves to add to the stems. They love punching ANYTHING! They each helped to punch green grass with the Martha Stewart grass border and Emma requested I add brown dirt at the very bottom. They each wanted a worm too but they are hard to see on either side of the saying "All things grow with love". Inside is the saying "Happy Father's Day".

I let them choose a stamp for each of the grandpas. Matti picked an owl stamp from Penny Black for Papi Bill's card. Emma found a lovely Mallard duck pair in water with reeds behind for Grandpa John. Matti stamped the owl four times and she colored three of them "her" way and I suggested she try some browns and yellows like the top of the stamp. I let her pick which one she liked best, and of course she liked the owl with purple eyes. but she agreed the brown one was the one Papi would recognize. (I let her take the other three home to use on a picture. and she was happy.) Emma did a wonderful job coloring the ducks, asking if the boy duck was the pretty one. She has small muscle control and colors in the lines well for 5 years.

We kept the cards simple but I wrote on the front of the owl card, "Whoo loves you Papi?" and they punched some leaves to add to the branch the owl was perched upon. Inside was the same Happy Father's Day, but I wrote the word "grand" in front of "father" to make it appropriate.

I am amazed at these two little stampers/crafters. They enjoy it so much, and work really hard. I direct some of their choices, but try to allow them input about every design element. Making choices is how we all learn...and that is fun to watch. They have already learned to punch, stamp, use the glue runner and make decisions about colors, images to use, sayings, and so much more. Thanks for stopping by.

HAIR STYLIST IN TRAINING

What is it about bows and clips, curls, and braids and all the things little girls like to have done/do with their hair? Are they training to be a hair stylist, or just want to look pretty and special?

Here Matti combs the back of her sisters hair. Emma was looking up and so not the most complimentary of her. She has beautiful eyes, big baby blues. I have a drawer full of their hair things. They each have their brush and comb...pink for Matti and purple for Emma. There are pony tail holders, flower clips, Princess rubber bands, and others. It is fun to play with hair. I used to brush my mothers long hair at night. Girls will be girls. Thanks for dropping by.

EMMA'S GRADUATION!

Next year Emma, our oldest grand daughter, will be going to Kindergarten. Her years at the Christian Day Care have been wonderful years or growing, learning and becoming the person God wants her to be. Her class was called the "Butterflies" for obvious reasons. They even sang a song about a caterpillar who spins its cocoon and then turns into a butterfly. The program was precious and the teachers have fallen in love with their students. It was very touching and I am glad we were able to attend and watch the ceremony of their names being called, going up on the stage, and getting their certificate and receiving gifts. They were given a DVD with a slide show of over 350 photos of the year. I was told by one of the teachers that I am on the slide show where they show some of the grand parents who attended Grand Parents Day. They each had a scrap book with some of their papers, and pictures, and a few journal pages where the teachers wrote their comments down. And a couple of books to read.

I made Emma a special graduation card. All the store cards were made for older grads and were not suitable. I used my Precious Moments Birthday cake girl stamp. She is carrying a little cake with candles. I used tape to mask the cake, inked the stamp, and removed the tape, and stamped it. I did this six times., two of them I forgot to remove the tape and had a little blob of ink where the cake was. Grrr! Those things happen, right? But I was able to use the heads only of those for layering. I drew a small mortar board cap using the head as a guide for the fit. I also drew a rolled up graduation certificate. I cut out the sleeve of her dress and the hand and got it ready to layer that too. I colored her skirt a blue/lavender shade, used my Copic gray to add shadows to the folds of the apron, and the shadows of the sleeves. So after coloring the bottom image, I layered her sleeve and head with the grad cap. The graduation cap was colored purple, with a tiny purple brad on top. I wanted a tassel and so took lavender sewing thread and dyed it a little darker with a Stampin Up marker. IT WORKED! I doubled the length and wrapped it around under the brad head twice. Next I started tying knots close together until it was long enough to fall over the edge of the top of the cap. I then cut it off about 1 1/2" long and used the cut off part to wrap twice around where the knots stopped, and tied in such away to secure the end and the tails were cut off to make the tassel. The ends were kind of squirrely, so I used some glue on them to hold them together. But it is a handmade miniature tassel and I'm "bustin" my buttons over that one.

I used a purple print paper for the background (all the purple items look blue in the photo but DH took the picture and his camera didn't get the colors right for some reason.) from a little pad of papers from Provo Craft called "itty Scrap Pads backgrounds"bought at Michaels some time ago. I don't think they sell it still but it is called French Country Colors. My matting is two Bazzil pink shades: Strawberry Splash which was smooth and the second was Watermelon Sensation which had a little bumpy texture. And I added two pink tulle folded bands across the matted background before I put the image on. My grand daughters favorite colors are pink and purple and I often use those colors for their cards. Thanks for letting me share.

SPRING FLOWERS

My card uses a wood mounted Rose Decor stamp. It sat on my table for a month staring at me until I started by stamping it four times, and thought some more. I knew it would lend itself to multiple layering. I took one of the stamped images and trimmed around some of the leaves sticking out and then used the inverted Nestie circle die to cut it out. I also think I want to try some other die shapes with this image and see what I can come up with.

When I looked around at some of my samples of punches I have bought recently, I had a piece of green that had been punched with the new Martha Stewart branch punch. It mirrored some of the leaves around the roses and I liked it instantly. I used a rose mat behind the image to buffer the contrast between the white of the image and the green. I also took some yellow and dusted the edges of the white for that same purpose. I layered two panels behind the branch punched piece. That particular punch does not have a "branch" corner The corner for that border has a bird on the branches and that look did not suit. So I just punched straight and let the branches "fall where they may", and it doesn't look half bad. The print paper on the two vertical panels is shades of rose as is the matting. I used a piece of pink tulle for a bow. The saying is one of the Michaels $1 stamps. "You Bless Me" is such an encouraging saying. I used the Nestie #10 to cut it out and then cut a larger one of the same shape but in rose. But it was too large for the front and covered up part of the rose image and Grrrr! I didn't like it. So I cut off the top and bottom portion of the saying and just made it straight across. I did the same with the matting, and it fit and had room for a pink brad on either end. Funny how the creative mind keeps adjusting and trying something different until it "pleases the eye and looks right to the beholder". For taking so long to get started, I am pleased with how it turned out. The layering brings the roses to life. I used my Stampin Up markers to color it. Thanks for stopping by.

NORMAL?

Well, I think I am recovered at last and back to as near normal as I will ever get. LOL! I hope I don't ever have that crud again. What is normal anyway? The older I become, the more I see and hear that there is no such thing as "normal". We all are so wonderfully and beautifully created by the Father, that He alone knows every hair on our head and everything about us. He made us to be unique and special and loved us enough to send His Son to die so we might be forgiven and saved. We are willful, stubborn human beings who forget we did not make ourselves. May He forgive us all for breaking the first commandment of not having any other Gods before Him.Our sins are evident by how we think, how we treat others and how we use our time. We all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of the Lord.

I wanted to make four cards today. HA! HA! HA! I have the stamps sitting out ready to use. I need to find the card stock and pick my challenges and colors and the rest. AND it is almost 1am. Best get busy. No I am not mad, just delusional sometimes. I often think I am going to accomplish a lot of tasks because I feel the weight and pressure of them sitting there to be done. And I usually do my usual...nothing! My excuse...I am retired, I am old and slow, and I am a bit lazy some days. Or as some card makers say, "I lost my Mo-Jo"! On the days I get some tasks done, I feel good and usually worn out. The mind is willing to be more active, but the flesh is weak!

I guess I have accomplished a few cards this past week, taking two classes a week apart. Shabby Chic class had four darker cards using a few new techniques. They used Hero Arts stamps, some paint daubers, some paper flowers colored to match and while I believe they are good looking cards, they just are not my faves. I do like the one with the ferns the best. I much prefer the brightness of the second class called "Colorful Creations". Both classes are at Archivers, a mainly scrap booking store that has items for card making too. They run specials like "buy 5 sheets of card stock, get 5 free" with the coupon. I try to take advantage of this because they have really nice card stock. With this class, we did a lot of Glimmer Mist spraying and we had to let everything dry in between. The card stock has a sheen to it, the panels were spreayed with one or two Glimmer Mist products. We sprayed the paper flowers with it also and all that had to dry. We did two 2 cards of each. One technique we stamped with Versa Mark, embossed with clear emboss powder, heat set, and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist. The embossing area did not absorb the Glimmer Mist and we patted it dry and trimmed the excess away from the panels. Two of the stamps done this way were the Hero Arts Butterfly Fields nad Wildflower Bouquet. These are cling stamps and what is different is that they are a flat piece of rubber with the design etched out, a silhouette stamp. They are very unique and I can't wait to try them in my own card ideas. The other two stamps are clear stamps and the saying was stamped with Versa mark, embossed with clear and heat set. We then sprayed them with Glimmer Mist, patted it dry with paper toweling, and the saying shows white through the "mist". We hadded a stamped watercolor paper panel which when the stamp was inked with Tim Holtz distress ink and sprayed with iridescent Glimmer Mist, gives a very watercolor look to the image. I won't go into any more description, but you can figure out which is which. I have posted all 8 cards from these two classes. The last four are from Shabby Chic. the first four bright colored cards are from Colorful Creations.

The best thing about classes, is I don't have to think...just follow directions! LOL!

MY MOTHER

We do not get to choose our parents. I am not sure if we would ever have the wisdom to choose parents. children, or any family members. (Adoption discounted here, although there is a bit of choice made). God hand picked our parents and our children for HIS plan and HIS purpose. HE knows all and knows what we would need and how "all will work together for good to those who love the Lord and are called according to HIS purpose." We must always remember that we are HIS creation, for HIS pleasure.

Back to my mother! I love my mother so much. She is not a highly educated woman but she has a lot of knowledge. She was an only child of a broken marriage at a time when not too many were divorced. Mom grew up in the depression era, being raised by her grand mother and even adopted by her grand mother. She was shy, quiet, and artistic. She also was very good looking, similar to Dorothy Lamour. My mother married young, and had me at age 20. She had lost her first baby at 5 months. She was a SAHM until we were in Jr High, and then she cashiered in the evenings. My dad was usually gone working in the day time, and doing his own thing at night. Mom endured many things for the benefit of her three children. I honor her and praise her.

Mom is now 88, a widow trying to make it on her own, living in the house they built together. She has learned to pay bills which she was never allowed to do. She is resourceful, resilient, and stubborn (which is what keeps her going.) She seems to have made it through the last 1 1/2 years of grieving. She gets lonely at times and maybe a little depressed, but we have found a companion for Tuesday and Thursdays for four hours each of those days, and it helps the week pass for her and gives her someone to interact with. I go down to see her about every three months and stay a week. We always enjoy each others company and I cook for mom and we share some laughter and fun.

I made mom a card even though I am still sick with this upper respiratory crude. She didn't want flowers or a gift so I poured all my love into this card. I LOVE YOU MOM and THANK YOU for all you are and what you mean to me! I thank GOD for picking you as my mother.

Card Recipe for my card making friends:

Stamps: Rose (Comotion #2147), You Are Special (PSX#F3138), Happy Mother's Day (Impression Obsession #C1450)

Ink: Tuxedo Black

Paper and Card Stock: White base, Bazzill Basics in Moss Green, Strawberry Splash, Pink glitter heart paper (unknown)

Ribbon: Pale pink sheer (1 inch) from Michaels

Punch: Martha Stewart Scalloped Arches