Hello Tuesday - Odds and Ends

Ooops, I missed a couple of days.  Always something to keep a girl busy around here.

I'm still struggling with an unruly back/neck/ and legs issue.  Not that I've been lying around, on the contrary, but it is still annoying.

This is heading my way! Via Shay's new shop, Forever Young & Crafty. Well, it will be when she gets it in that is. I'm pretty excited about it, doesn't it look delish!

I've got a new layout for Scrapbook Circle to share with you.  Lots of fun pieces in November's Harvest Moon kits.  I paired the Traditions Add-on with the main kit for this project.  I've also used some of the tape from Talk of the Town kit.

I've been quite enamoured with the Heidi Swapp color shine mists and you'll see them here, as well as some more gold embossing.  For that, I used the Pink Paislee stamps from the Bulletin Add-on from October, which is still available in the shop.

This little guy is Jacob, whom we raised from birth until he was two and a half, when he went permanantly to live with his bio-dad.  Our hearts broke giving him up, but in the end it is the best thing for him.  My mama's heart has a hard time with that, but I am so glad for the times we have shared with him.  We got to visit with him pretty regularly until recently and are glad for those opportunities as well.

Love you Jakey!

What's inspiring you today?

Hello Wednesday -- A winner, A new layout and a Halloween Story

We have a winner!

Congratulations Tzipora!  Get your info to me and I'll mail out your stamps right away!

Today, I'd also like to show a layout and a little story.  I recently shared a layout about our family's love for Halloween candy.  I also mentioned in that layout that our family does not celebrate Halloween and I thought I'd share a little of the history behind that decision.

When I was a girl, we never celebrated Halloween.  I can remember feeling angry at my mother, because it was mainly her conviction that drove the decision.  She felt it was a day that honored the Devil and she didn't want to take part.

Fast forward a few years to when I was old enough to make my own decisions.  The very first time Halloween came around, I jumped on the chance to celebrate.  I rented a costume from the local outlet and was a court jester (and a waitress, had to work that night).  I thought I was pretty cool!

A year later, I was a new mother, but my daughter was only a month old when Halloween came around so we pretty much ignored it.  The next year, we ignored it again, but that third year, we couldn't resist decking our sweet little Kaitlin out in a cow suit.  She was the cutest little Bessie anyone ever did see.

However, I began to feel icky about participating.  It's not that I personally intended to honor Satan with my participation, but something niggled at my mind.  I began to do research and came across a small booklet called 'The Facts on Halloween'.  It's a quick read and presents information about the history of Halloween.

What I liked most about the booklet is that it presented information without in any way suggesting the reader MUST end with a particular opinion.  The authors leave the decision squarely in the hands of the reader.  In our case, we felt that we just didn't want to participate any longer.  After all that, I ended up agreeing with my mother's original stance.

It's funny how sometimes we have to take the long way around, but if I hadn't done the research myself, I wouldn't have really owned the thing I decided to take my stand on.

I'm not standing in judgement over what other families have decided to do, but this is what we have chosen.  We've often said that our first priority was to honor God and since it seemed to us that celebrating Halloween would take away from that goal, we decided to say 'NO' to Halloween.  Hope that clears up any questions anyone has about the why's.  If not feel free to ask.

And now for the Lily Bee layout based on my sketch.  You can see the sketch and participate in the challenge at this post.

I got out my embossing powders for this page and did the polaroid frames is red, yellow and pale blue to blend with the collection colors.

My Sodalicious goodies finally came in so I got to use those super fun wood veneer chevrons!

And here you see my 'still all time favorite thickers ever', the exclusives from Glee Club about a year ago now.  Still love that kit!  You'll also notice that I used those awesome Lily Bee stamps from the Autumn Spice collection quite a bit.  Love how crisply they stamp the image.

Have a beautiful day!

Hello Wednesday -- In full detail

Hello again. I have been a crafting maniac!  No really, it's true.  Yesterday, I completed a layout and half of a mini-album (from scratch!) And today,  I completed 3.5 layouts!!!  You may not know this about me, but I am SLOOOOWWWW. At least usually I am.  But since I have a load of deadlines I am cranking out the goods.  I feel good!

Here's a wee peek at what is coming down the pike.

This first one is all three of today's projects stacked.

This is the first one in more detail cause I'm pretty darn stoked about it.

Yesterday's labors included this...

and this

I've been posting these on my Instagram so if you want in on the action before it makes it to the blog, make sure and follow me there as ursie1972. (there's a cute little button for this purpose at the top of my blog on the left tool)

 I wanted to post the layout and tag from the Blue Moon Scrapbooking video I shared on this post so you could see them in full detail.

Here they are, in full glory!

Alrighty ladies and gents! Hope you have a wonderful Wednesday!

Precious

I've had a hard time scrapping about Maddie lately.  She's made some choices that have affected our family forever and have been painful.  Even so, we love her and we want her to KNOW that for certain.  

When people in our lives do things that hurt us it can sometimes be difficult to see the good that lies in them when their actions have long defined something in complete opposition to goodness. When that happens, I have to intentionally focus on what is good and right and excellent and lovely and praiseworthy.  It has to be a conscious decision.

For Madison, we want her to know that she's precious and loved and important and has place not because of what she does or how she looks or what she produces. She is loved because she is.  Because she is an intentionally designed creation of God and because as such she deserves, needs and even craves love.

Pray for her if you think of her as she is in a place of needing to face the difficult so she can find the beautiful and learn to celebrate that.

For this project, I played with the new Woodgrain Cardstock that Studio Calico is offering as a part of their add-ons now.  I love how it takes color and makes the grain show up so beautifully.  The page was created using the Studio Calico 35mm kit.

I gathered quite a few different Elle's Studio cards from some of the kits to pull this one together.  I'm particularly fond of that Polaroid frame above.

I both sprayed and painted the mists on with a brush.  For those I brushed, I added water to thin it down and get a bit more of a washed effect.

Oh, someone asked yesterday what font I used for the word 'clean'.  I believe it was 'Marketing Script'.  HTH

Hope you are having a fabulous day.

Inky Fun

I have to admit that I'm not so much good at just getting out my stuff and getting messy.

Well, I do like getting messy, but as you may be aware, there are such a huge number of terrific techniques out there that I actually forget some of them from time to time.

That is definitely what happened this time around.  I've known about embossing and resist techniques for at least 8 years but somehow it had slipped to the back of my mind.  And THIS is why taking classes is such a great idea!

Boot Camp brought all that to the forefront once again and I was able to play with color and texture once again through embossing and resist.  The result is that amazing rainbow hued paper you see in the layout below.  Does anyone else get as much of a charge out of that as I do???

We were supposed to cut shapes from our embossed resisted piece, but I could not do it.  It was too lovely as is.

Not only that, but I learned about making titles using stamps so you get to see an example of that as well.

Loving the inspiration this week.  And look, I got another LO for my poor neglected son!







Still looking for followers, you know the drill.....take a lovely walk over to the right margin and click that button.  And a huge thank you for stopping by and sharing my life!