I Know The Plans I Have For You!!

Recently, I had the privilege of creating this card below for Katie. The daughter of some good friends of ours. This was really a labor of love. We have known her and her family for almost 7 years and the love that they have for God, family and life really is a blessing to see . This family really has been an encouragement to us over the years and Katie always was our babysitter until our guy got to big for that! So to have them ask me to make a card for their daughter meant so much. 

Katie just graduated from university and was heading to Guatemala on a missionary trip just 3 days after her convocation. So exciting, but yet so fast! Wow! She is now there working for the summer and really enjoying what God is doing in her life has she teaches at one of the local schools. 

When I was asked to create the card, I was also asked to incorporate scripture in some way. Well their favorite verse, like so many, myself included, was Jeremiah 29:11" For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." This verse holds so much power and greater still, how much God has for us and cares about all that happens in our lives on a daily basis. Today and tomorrow! This verse has been a strength to me during very difficult times and I knew that it would mean something special to Katie as well. 

So I printed the verse using my word processing program and played around with fonts, size and so-forth. I had the family pick some styles and colors from other cards that I have made in the past, and they seemed to like my distress cards the most. They love purple and yellow. So that is what I did here, along with adding the color brown. I never thought that brown would work with these colors, but it worked great. The flowers were stamped in a deep purple using the STAEDETLER watercolor makers. I actually brushed it over top first then stamped the image on paper. Once dried, I went back in and used that same color to add shading around the center of each flower piece. 

Close up of layering of flowers and use of distress inks. 

I used pop dots to add more dimension to each flower and added brown silk ribbon for a bow. Pearls and sentiment were added to complete the creation. I am happy to report that when the mother came by to pick up the card she actually cried. I was almost in tears myself because I didn't expect that response. I really wanted to do a beautiful job for this family and I was so happy to later find out that Katie loved it also. 

I have to be honest in saying that it meant the world to me, because after submitting 18 - Yes! I said 18- cards to the Gallery Idol contest and all of them rejected - I was very sad indeed. Not because of rejection so much, but because there were so many and because I worked hard on those creations and thought maybe at least one would get picked. I guess I really don't know what they are looking for. Sometimes I think that politics can play a role in the paper crafting world as well and I am wondering if that was the case here!   Maybe I am wrong, I sure hope so, but one can never truly know. Oh well! I am just super happy that some of my Flickr Group friends got in the running!   I read another lady's blog about the feeling of defeat when she didn't get picked as well. I guess lots of folks were disappointed! I am not really sure if I submitted correctly or not and if that played into the equation. Your wondering maybe what I mean by that!  I was under the understanding that you could submit cards that were previously made and seen elsewhere. It was once you were selected that all submissions had to be new. So I submitted a bunch that I had made before that fit the categories that cards were being asked for. So maybe I misunderstood there submission deadlines. Not sure!!

Okay, so where am I going with this!?! Lol. I say all of that, to say that it was this reaction from my friend Cheryl that reminded me of why I started making cards in the first place. Admit it! We all like to have our work recognized and rewarded because at the end of the day, free scrappy supplies is a plus. Especially when you don't have to pay for them and it helps you to save money. But truly, and I mean truly, it is the ability to use the gift that God has given me to reach out to others, to minister to those around me that means the most to me. I kind of started to lose sight of that somewhat, due to trying to spend less money on supplies and to win things. But God through His wonderful mercy and grace has shown me through the tears and happiness of a good friend that my work is appreciated, that I do have a ministry that cheers the hearts of others. That it is God and God alone, my audience of One, who remains in the center of my caring for others and if that is in a card that is being sent to bring a smile, to say hello, or just to say someone is special, than and only than, have I used my creativity to make the world a better place. 

Praying that today is a day filled with sunshine and happiness. No matter the place or time, why not bring a smile to someone today to make their hearts happy!!

Hugs & Blessings

Dana

Quick Clean & Simple Card Set!

So how are you all doing? I trust your enjoying great weather and for most of you looking forward to enjoying summer. Well I wanted to pop in real quick with this set of CAS cards that I made for my sweet friend Katie. These cards were super fast and so easy to make. 

 

Close up to show the shading of the flower and the effect it gives using light and darker colours. 

Sorry for the poor quality of pictures. Battery was almost dead. lol.

Details:

The card base was actually from a package that I purchased at Wally World. They came in bright and cheerful colours and were blank both inside & out. After deciding what colours I wanted to use, I embossed the Etched Medallion  stamp from Hero Arts onto each card with white embossing powder. To give a more dramatic effect, I used my Staedtler Watercolour pencils to shade around and inside each flower. Then to complete  Stampin Up sentiments were stamped on each individual card. There you go! Simple but yet so elegant. 

Thanks for dropping by and I look forward to you visiting again. 

Blessings

Dana

The Birthday Boy!

Hi Everyone:

Yes, I have been missing in action again it seems! Sorry about that! I have been getting over Bronchitis, along with trying to still finish school work and having birthday celebrations. So life is crazy here again!

On to more interesting things! Lol. I wanted to share this page layout that I did a while back of my little man on his birthday! We just celebrated his birthday again yesterday and I can't believe how much he has grown. The fact that he is not little, really is hard to deal with and it makes this Mama's heart sad. Where did the time go? One day, bringing him home from the hospital and the next, talking about girls! Yikes! Lol,

I actually did this page when Nichol Magouirk was teaching free layout classes at 2Peas. I actually used Jillibean Soup Spotted Owl Collection and I just love how this turned out. I love this line of paper and I think it is because everything flows so well. I have always found it difficult to find boy papers that matched with anything else, but I think that may be a problem that is disappearing. Echo Park, Crate, and so many more companies are really getting on board and making some amazing boy collections. That is great in my book because not everyone is okay with using flowers on boy pages! Not me anyway! My son would have a fit! Lol!  The top portion of the layout used die cuts from the sheet that was provided with the kit. All the circle embellishments were popped with pop dots. The journaling note cards were cut in half and tucked behind the happy birthday strip. 

I did use some alphas to make the title " Giggles" using my Close To My Heart letter set. The orange note card shape border was cut on my Cricuit Machine using SCAL Program and a svg. file from 2 Peas called  Borderlines by Laina Lamb. I will link to each item below.  The celebrate stamp was from Studio G and were just called clear stamps. Product # VS4911 Series 46.

I used a white gel pen by Ranger to add highlights to the letters and make them pop!

Some folks like to add embellishments over top of their pictures, well I did that here. I love how it gives more layering and that extra punch of colour around the picture. As long as you use a good adhesive, everything should stay in place and not make the picture sticky with glue.  It really has been a long time since I have shared any layouts and I am gonna get better about that, especially now that I am back to scrapbooking again. My sweet "Secret Sister" ( a women's ministry at my church) whoever she may be, gave me a beautiful 8x8 scrapbook leather album for Mother's Day and I can't wait to use it for a Toddler Album for my son. So there are more layouts to share later. 

Here is a pic of my sweet handsome boy! I can't believe that he is a young man now! We took him out for supper yesterday. Then we came home and Skyped his grandparents to share the moment that he blew out his candles on his birthday cake. It is so cool to do this with them though they live in a different province. There are some great pluses to advancement after all I guess! It wasn't as good as being with them or my parents in person, but almost!!

He was really happy with this gift from his Nana & Pop who still live back in Newfoundland. He loves to tell people about his heritage and background. He had a great day, but I think it would have been better if he got the one thing he wanted the most! A puppy!! He is saving up his money to buy one, and though we could get him one, this saving of his money really is a great lesson to teach him about saving for something special. Most of all, that if you have goals you can reach them no matter how big or small. Who knows, maybe before to long, there will be some small cutie under our feet. Lol.

Thanks for checking in with me and hope you enjoyed your visit. Until next time, take care of yourselves and each other. 

Blessings & Hugs

Dana

*Jillibean Soup SPOTTED OWL SOUP 6 x 6 Mini Pad JBPP805	Scotch ATG - Adhesive Applicator Gun - Pink - Uses One Fourth Inch Adhesive	Bazzill Tropicals	Bazzill Neutrals
Glue Dots	*Ranger Inkssentials WHITE OPAQUE PEN Pigment Ink Stamp	HA Everyday Sayings	*Tombow GROOVY Dual Brush Pens Markers
Vintage Photo Tim Holtz Distress Ink by Ranger Industries

InLinkz.com

STAEDLTER Give-away Winners!

And the winners of the STAEDTLER Spring Give-away

are the following 2 people who left these comments:

Maureen Morton said...

What a sweet thing - love a giveaway and have been wanting to try these products ever since you started with them. It is always a joy to drop in here. Have a Happy Easter.

onecraftymama said...

What a giveaway...Staedtler products are amazing. I still have & use a set of coloured pens that I bought in university eleventy billion years ago. I'm a follower :)

If you both could email me your mailing address so I can forward it to STAEDTLER, so they can send out your packages that would be great. You can email me at the following email address: ad.colbourne(at)hotmail(dot)com. Thanks you for following my blog and sharing about this give-away. I look forward to seeing what you do with STAEDTLER products.

Hugs

Dana

 

¹⁷ Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17

Thanks to my Mom and Mom-In-Law for all you do. For all the support and prayers over the years. Wishing all the Moms out there a wonderful day. May you be loved and treasured the whole year through.

My Creative Retailer Magazine Publication

Hi Everyone:
I have been holding off on sharing this news due to waiting for the magazine to be on store bookshelves. Now that it has been out for a little while I guess it is safe to share. I have a gift set published in a STAEDTLER Ad in the Creative Retailer Magazine by Northridge Publishing. I have had layouts published before but never a card or any other project. So I am so excited!

I was so excited to be asked to take part in this ad and here is the actual layout page.

Here are the actual projects that were used for this page spread.

My Card

Projects were created using Hero Arts Stamps.

 I used Hydrangea # K5376  for the leaves and the flower itself was this stamp below,

 Etched Flowers# CG430.

Old Letter Writing

Product Number: S4878

I changed the leaves due to needing a much thicker leaf base to add dimension & depth to my design. I also used a sentiment from the *Clear Hero Arts Stamps,

Everyday Sayings # CL342 Clear Design

To cover this bag with such a big flower I had to increase the size. So after stamping the flower on white cardstock, I then enlarged it and printed it onto watercolour paper using a photocopying machine. I repeated this step so that I could actually pop some of the layers of the flower. I love how this really gave the flowers so much depth & dimension. This made it really look like a rose and the yellow colour was beautiful. I used the leaves from the Hydrangea flower and enlarged those as well. I wanted to go with a vintage feel for this set, so I used slate blue, walnut brown, and deep yellow for my colour scheme. I cut a piece of Basic Grey Paper the size of the bag. It was distressed around the edges by adding walnut distress ink and then stamped with the old letter writing in blue distress ink. Before adhering it to the brown paper gift bag, wide lace, brown ribbon, pearls and pearl pins were added to the piece to add that touch of elegance. The flower was coloured with STAEDTLER Triplus Colour Fine tip markers,  STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell Watercolour Pencil and the white watercolour crayon was used for highlights on the flowers. A white gel pen was used to add white dots to the center of each flower. The flowers on the card were coloured in the same way as the one on the gift bag and adhered to a stamped background that was distress with storm/blue and walnut/brown distress inks. This was matted on slate blue and drk. brown cardstock which was placed on a kraft cardbase.

I had a lot of fun making this and it really helped me to see that Vintage style is much easier to make than I thought! Well maybe! Lol. I hope that I have inspired and challenged you to look at your stamps in a different light. They might be small in size when you first purchase them, but the sky is the limit when you think of all the sizes that you can use with photocopying an image. I trust that you are all doing well and that this month of celebrating National Scrapbooking is filled with much fun and creativity! Lol. Take Care Hugs Dana

Salisbury Delight

You know in this big world of blogging we get to meet some pretty amazing people. I had such a priviledge a few weeks back. I had the delight to meet Barb from Kinsale Creations and it was just like we always knew each other. With her beautiful smile and laughter, you could not help but feel that you were in great company. Thansk to my son for taking this pic of us! Lol.

Her kindness & support has meant so much to me and I feel bless to know such a person. There have been occassions where I have gotten Happy mail many times from this lady and it always makes me smile. Not because of what she sent but her sweet messages mean so much to me. The best part is she is right here in the Maritimes, which is a plus for me. Her work is outstanding and you can see this in the card that she sent me right here.

This card is totally amazing and here is a close up of the flower itself.

To see the details on how she made this amazing card check out this blog post that she did featuring this card and others.

The cleverness to place such a bold and vibrant flower on a white background, popped with dazzling gems is genious! I am so happy that this is on my work shelf. Thanks sweetie for your kindness and your friendship. It really means a lot to get to know such a great gal. Wishing you much sucess on all your future crafting endevours.

Hugs

Dana

Happy National Scrapbooking Day

Be Sure To Check Out Each Post For Amazing Give-Aways!

Today is National Scrapbooking Day and there are many places that you can hang out today. The team over at the Scrapbook & Cards Today blog are having a major party with loads of challenges and prizes. I will be back a little later to share some of the things I have made today. What are you doing today? Are you making cards, doing layouts that need to be completed, or just hanging out with your scrappy friends shopping? Whatever the cause, whatever the reason, I trust that you are having fun and creating fun & lasting memories.

Hugs
Dana

Scrapbooking Again! Finally!

Seeming that May is National scrapbooking month, I wanted to share with you today, a scrapbook layout that I made a while back. Yes, I haven't done much with scrapbooking and my son is not to please that I still don't have his album completed. Therefore, I am trying to turn over a new leaf and get back into the swing of it again.  His birthday is coming up soon and that will be my surprise to him. I learned from attending a crop this weekend past, that it is best to prepare page kits ahead of time rather than to bring all my stuff and be over whelmed. And if you find that you don't get many pages completed at crops, I would suggest making yourself page kits of those pics that you want to scrapbook and always have them ready for when you get a free moment. Some of the ladies at the retreat this past weekend did just that and the pages they completed were amazing.

I wanted to share this layout because it really is an amazing picture and truly demonstrates how much my guy as grown up. I can actually cry to see that he is no longer my baby, but my teenager. Oh so scary! He still talks about video games, but now the names of girls are added to the list as well. Yikes! Lol.

This layout was completed using many different elements. The one thing that I wanted to do was to include stamping. I love to follow Nichol Magouirk's work and to be challenged by all that she shares.

So I tried stamping on this layout using "We R Memory Keepers Geo-Hectic Stamps, along with matching die cut shapes and paper. Background page was distressed with Ranger Walnut Distress Ink and Gogs& Gears where stamped with Versa Mark and not a ink. This will give you a stamped image that is the same colour as your paper but a little darker. Really cool technique.

All diecuts were added with pop-dots and then outlined with white gel pen to add more definition.

I love to add texture and a masculine feel to my layouts and I acheive this bye distressing the edges of my cardstock by tearing the sides. This is achieved by using my distressing tool.

It was a lot of fun to get back into scrapbooking and I am happy to say that I am feeling the mojo again! Yay! I look forward to seeing you back here again for another day of sharing cards & layouts.

Hope your enjoying your day in your part of this crafting world. Until next time.....

Hugs & Happy Crafting!

Dana

Missing In Action!

If your looking for my give aways, my Blog Give Away is here! and my Staedtler Give Away is here!

I have been missing in action for a while and maybe some of you may have wondered if I was ever coming back! Lol. Sorry about that! But I had to put life here and crafting on hold for a little while.  Well to be honest the past two weeks have been totally crazy for us. Well for those of you who do not know, I have been homeschooling this school year and it is a learning experience for sure. We have had projects to catch up on and test to complete. Then there was our district Heritage Fair. I was on the committee this year and was also helping my son with his project. So those are the things that have kept me busy for the past little while.

All of our family had so much fun at this Homeschooling Event. I am happy to report that my sweet young man placed 3rd. We are so happy about that! He is not one for large groups of people and can be somewhat quiet at times. So to see him come into his own is truly a blessing. To see a once shy kid stand before judges and present his project with so much self confidence and friendliness was totally amazing. (He has always been friendly, but mostly to those he always knew...strangers not so much.) To get feedback from the judges and to see the positive comments about him being a great speaker made this Mama's heart flutter with shear joy!! To see him shake hands with all the judges and introduce himself was so great! Yes, I am so happy for this major change in my sweet guy!! I have lots to thank God for indeed!

We have been studying in our History course about the War of 1812 and he wanted to do his project on important military structures that are still around. Here he is, in his cool hat sharing his project on Martello Tower.  

This picture was taken during the judging process.

Now these pictures were taken after the awards ceremony and we are proud parents.

And yes, this was a blooper picture below. I have no idea what we are laughing about, but were having a great time that is for sure.

So has you can clearly see we have been busy. Also, this weekend I attended a 3 day crop and it was one of the best I have ever attended. I got to sit with some other Newfie Gals and I don't think that I have laugh so hard and so much, as I did this weekend. Thanks Michelle, Lorna, Una, and Diane!!! These ladies really went out of their way to make me feel apart of their group and I am so grateful.

To be honest I haven't been to an event of this nature for a very long time. Sometimes I am scared that I will be myself to much and that someone won't know how to take my sense of humor or my take on life in general. I know I shouldn't care about this, but I do!!

I attended a crop last fall but it was a very small event, but this was a bigger event for me and I haven't been to one like this in over 3 years. Since then I haven't been around a lot of folks in a long time. So knowing how to deal with others sometimes can be difficult for me. I was never shy but, very much a people person, but when I had my operation on my hand and than later hurt my back, I didn't go anywhere or take part in group settings. This is the worst thing that you can do, because when you try to get back into things again it can be so difficult.

So I was somewhat anxious about going to this one really. I was gonna back out but had paid in advance. So I had to go! I was anxious to say the least that I would not fit in because it has been so long for me, but this was not the case. The ladies were all great and though conversations were serious at different times during the day, I think all in all we respected each other and had a great time. I sure hope so anyway. I hope that none of my serious or silly-fun talk didn't offend anyone or turn anyone off. I think sometimes when you are lonely and out of the loop, you can be misunderstood and find it difficult to fit in again and belong.  Sometimes that takes time and other times it is just that love and kindness extended to you that makes all the difference. To know that there are those who have compassion for others and go out of their way to show that kindness, makes other people want to do the same. So all in all, it is a continual circle. Some of the gals there this weekend really made me feel that way and I am so happy that I got the chance to meet such amazing and inspiring ladies.

You should see their layouts! Your mouth would surely drop. I kept telling them that they should submit them for publishing. I just think that when someone's work is amazing that the rest of the world should have the opportunity to see it. That's it! Anyway, it was a great weekend. I hope that we all get together again soon. I will share some of my layouts later.

Okay, on to other things now! I did want to share a card with you that I did resently. This card was one that I started a long time ago but never finished. It was recently completed for a challenge at Stampin' Sisters In Christ challenge blog. It was for a challange that my friend Karen did at our Flickr Group. So it was to make a card using patterned papers. This is my card in a vintage style. To check out Karen's cards go here!

 

I uesed "Lost & Found" paper by My Mind's Eye and one of my go-to stamps from Hero Arts - Hand Drawn Blossom(#CG285), plus this script stamp - Old Letter Writing( #S4878).  

Here is Karen's beautiful card. Didn't she do an amazing job! Wow!

Sorry such a long post, but I had lots to share. Check back this week for layouts, cards, and tutorials. Don't forget that the Month of May is Scrapbooking month and lots of places will be celebrating National Scrapbooking Day which is this coming Saturday. What are you making for that day? Something wonderful I am sure! Until later....

Take Care of Yourselves & Each Other.

Dana