Just for fun...

My orchid is blooming! This was one of my Christmas presents from DH, and the one that our friends were most impressed with because it is a more rare variety. The first picture was taken yesterday morning, and the second one this morning.

Cream in my Coffee

Still playing around with this coffee set from smARTworks - I love coffee and tea stamps, and this set is just cute, that's all! Not sure what inspired this little scene, but here it is anyway: I'd been wanting to try some pleat folding on a card, so that makes up my tablecloth. The tabletop is handcut and pieced, and cups are paper pieced. I stamped the cup once directly to the paper; the second one was stamped first to a palette stamp (a shadow stamp works too), then stamped from palette stamp to paper, to create a reverse image.


I have a favorite song by Fernando Ortega which he wrote to his wife, and this sentiment reminds me of the chorus...


You're my first light of the morning, my cool sunrise;
You're my love across the table, a little sleep in your eyes;
You're my strong cup of coffee, you like to laugh right with me;
You're my heart's companion, my one true companion;
Sweet darling lover of mine.

Sigh...sweet, huh? I always have to listen to it twice...

Stamp set winner is....

Shelly @ Inky Hugz! Contact me with your mailing address over there in Sunny FL and I will get this soldier card and stamp set off to you. Thanks everyone!

9 years today...

....still do. :) Love you, babe!

Hello June releases!

Here is a sneak peek at one of the sets being released by Our Daily Bread designs in June - this set is called Ask Seek Knock. The door is the main image, accompanied by 3 verses. (The sentiment I used is from the Flourished Christian Symbols set.) I stamped the door image twice, once on this piece of Basic Grey cardstock, and once on red cardstock. I added some shading and highlights with Prismacolor pencils. On the main panel I cut out the doorway, then cut out the door from the red panel, leaving a tab on the right side so it could open out. The door is slightly ajar, and 'popped' with mounting foam. The rock path is sketched in, and grass is stamped in with chalk inks (grass stamp by smARTworks). The corner flourish stamp is from Stamp Camp.

After a lot of prayer over the last few months, I've decided that June will be my last month on the ODBD senior design team - it was a hard decision as this team is so unique, loving, and supportive, and has been such a blessing to me...I just feel that it's time for me to ease up on some of the things that pull at my free time, so that I can be more available and flexible with my family and my team here when things come my way. I'll still be designing stamps, though, so you'll still be seeing ODBD represented here, don't worry! I just can't pull myself away!

Upcoming Tea Party

Here is the challenge laid down by our very own Trish D -

"OK, Ladies, I have our new challenge! We all love color, right? Well, that's good, because this time there's NO WHITE ALLOWED! (OK, so a little bit in patterned papers is acceptable :) Have fun!"

The smARTworks design team will be posting their creations Wednesday June 3rd. We hope you'll join us too!

Not Forgotten

I get a little more sentimental when we're away from home on patriotic holidays. I wanted to pull out this set that I designed to pay tribute to those who have fought to keep my country - and other countries - free. Thank you - you are not forgotten.

The set is available from Firecracker Designs by Pamela, and is one of my own designs. Click here for the story behind the main image. I'd like to give this card and a copy of this stamp set away in honor of Memorial Day - leave a comment on this post if you'd like a chance to win! I'll draw a random name Thursday at noon my time - that's Wednesday (5/27) midnight EST.

Lord Bless

I mentioned the pad of canvas sheets I bought the other day - thought I'd use the canvas to feature the eagle image from Our Daily Bread designs' In God We Trust set. The red background is done with reinker - I like the opaqueness and depth of color it gives. I used watercolor pencils on the eagle.

busy weekend!

Just wanted to share a little bit about our weekend - for those who don't know, we serve at a training center for Indonesians who have a desire to work among tribal people. We've been here almost 3 years, and love it here. On Saturday we graduated 2 families who have completed the 4 year training program. The amazing thing about these 2 families is that they are tribal people themselves. Our coworkers came to their mountain village about 25 years ago, learned their language and culture, and taught them the truths of the Bible. A church was planted there that has grown and thrived, and reached out to other areas of their tribal language group. These believers have a desire to reach out to tribes beyond their own, and they now have the specialized training to do just that. That is sooooo cool to me! They are why we are here. Here they are - the 4 in the front - with our staff (can you find me?). DH and I were both involved on the graduation committee - I generally get handed any task that involves word-processing or design, so that meant creating the invitation, designing and printing the certificates, and designing the 5-meter banner that presented the theme of the graduation ("Looking unto Jesus", Heb. 12:2): I was also involved with the music team, and the decision to keep it a 2-person team greatly simplified that this time! The graduates also asked me to sing a special song, which turned out to be one of my favorites and went perfectly with the skit they came up with. DH created a slide presentation of the graduates, mixed with pictures of tribal people from all over the world - twice during the presentation, a voice boomed out the verse from Isaiah: "Whom shall I send, and who shall go for us?" and in response each family shot up their hands and said, "We will!" as they went to the front (ooh, I get goosebumps and misty thinking about it still!).

Today we are tired and sunburnt from a all-day staff outing to a mountain lake...we actually spent the whole day on a little island in the middle of the lake, with a nice covered picnic area - church service and wonderful lunch. I got to sing twice again - once alone and once with a co-worker. Very special time... marred only by the boat ride back to shore, which was truly un-fun. We rode up and back with close Indonesian friends, and enjoyed that time. On the way home we stopped to visit other friends who had a baby yesterday. Yesterday was also my oldest son's 8th birthday, and poor thing...we were so busy that all the celebration he got was banana muffins in the morning! But he is not one for a big fuss...and he knows we will party when we recover from our weekend. He will kill me but I love this picture of him, taken about a year ago when were in Oregon on furlough:

Happy birthday, dude!

Featured stamper!

In the middle of my crazy-busy-getting-ready-for-graduation day, I got a fun email! Seems I've been chosen as the Featured Stamper over at the Christian Paper Craft Magazine forum. Here are the details on Cindy's blog! Gotta run again........thanks so much Cindy!

Impression Obsession DT challenge - Summer cards!

I think I live in perpetual summer weather...but I'm sure ready for the perks of summer! We have been running, it feels like, since the beginning of March - preparing to teach a health class to our students, my 7YO's emergency appendectomy on a scheduled visa run away from home, teaching the health class then running home to teach my own kids each day, then preparing for the upcoming graduation of 2 of our student families (by Saturday I have 3 songs to learn and a bunch more to practice, as I'm half of the music team!), speaking at a ladies' meeting at a church in town next week, then the following week a regional conference hosted at our campus...this week DH and I have been dealing with intestinal parasites and my house helper unexpectedly had to go home yesterday because her Mom is sick (still not sure if that is really the case, or if it was a way to 'escape' and save face)!

Flip flops are a staple of life in this part of the world, and I love this set from Impression Obsession ...so fun and versatile. It made for an easy 'quick card' here:

The full sentiment says, "I'd flip out without you". Cardstock is Basic Grey, the flower is a punch, and the leaf is a foam sticker from the kids' stash (shhh!). The rest of the team has some summer goodness to share:

Daniela @ For the First Time
Deborah @ Cards and Things
Jeanne (our guest) @ Inky Paws
Julie @ Out to Impress
Kelli @ I Made This Myself!
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Shirley @ the I.O. Blog
Tina @ stamp it chick (she still has that I.O. gift certificate up for grabs...!)

Tea and inspiration

It's Tea Party time! Susan chose to offer us an inspiration challenge this week, using her pretty decorative cup. Inspiration challenges are great because inspiration can lead in so many different directions...are you inspired by the shape of the cup? the colors? the pattern? the flowers? dots? embossed lines?

I chose a few different elements of the cup to play with, focusing mainly on the colors. I intended to go more with the blue, but when I opened up my patterned paper folder, this floral print was right on the top - absolutely perfect!

Since the flowers were in the patterned paper, I chose to focus on a verse from the Buttoned Up set. It's stamped in Stazon Azure, and then shaded/ highlighted with Prismacolor pencils. To fill the space to the left, I used a flourish from the Frames sheet, and a flower from SBO Happy Silhouettes.

I imitated the embossed lines on the cup by embossing with my Scor-Pal, and the horizontal lines were echoed in ribbon.

Be sure to check out what inspired my team-mates, too!
Trish @ Tah-Dah!
Susan @ In the Works
Giovana @ A Place to Praise and Craft
Donelda @ Wiggy’s World
Donna @ Dee’s Studio

random product testing

DH and I found ourselves on the graduation committee for the training center we serve at, so that has been taking up much of our time...so any stamping time I've had has been short and a bit frenzied. Here's a little somethin'-somethin' I played with at some point - I found a pad of canvas in the art paper section at the bookstore in town. Never seen a pad of canvas before, and there's no brand name or anything on it, but surely if it's available here it's available where you are. It's basically a pad of artist canvas - 10 sheets, spiral bound, intended for oil or acrylic. Thought I'd play around with different inks and coloring mediums, just to see what worked well and didn't.

The piece is labeled directly, so you can see the results. None of the inks bled, that was cool - but the Versafine gave the clearest image. Looks like my Stazon pad needs reinking! The canvas accepted all coloring mediums I used, but with differing results. The acrylic paint was quite watered down, so the outline of the image would still show. That made the color a bit more washed out than I wanted, but it blended well. I like the sand/shadow area of this sample the best. Watercolor pencils worked well too, and I could have gone back and layered more color there for a greater contrast. Shimmerz - I wouldn't probably paint an entire image with just Shimmerz, but they did lay down and dry fine on the canvas, and would work well as accents over a painted image. Oddly, I had the most color control with my Prismacolor pencils, blended with a lot of OMS. I had a little fun with reinkers too, but not on this piece. With the alcohol markers on order, there's another option for use on this fun stuff - I will probably end up using the canvas sheets for mixed media work...someday, when I have time again!

(Oh, BTW, that stamp image is Solitary Ruff from Impression Obsession.)

Happy Birthday Mitra!!

Mitra is the owner and brains behind Impression Obsession, and the Impression Obsession team wanted to make sure she felt loved on her birthday...!! Happy birthday, lady! Who wouldn't want a truffle tree? I love this image...I colored it in with Prismacolor pencils. The white highlights are dots of acrylic paint, applied with a small stylus. The sign is part of the Garden Fence set, and I wrote the words in by hand.

Here's what I stamped inside the card - the top sentiment is from smARTworks, but it fit so well with the tree...!

And a close-up on those yummy truffles...

The rest of the team will be sending their birthday wishes to Mitra as well - be sure to visit their blogs and leave them some love, especially TINA, who is giving away a $25 gift certificate from Impression Obsession!! Definitely don't want to miss that. :)

Daniela @ For the First Time
Deborah @ Cards and Things
Jeanne @ Inky Paws
Julie @ Out to Impress
Kelli @ I Made This Myself!
Laura @ Laura's Stamp Art Journal
Shirley @ the I.O. Blog
Tina @ stamp it chick

stuff of life.....

Elliot, my little guy, gave us a scare yesterday...he has had this weird sore on the bottom of his foot, like a blister, but thicker - he said he had been bitten by an ant, but he's 3, so who knows if he stepped on something or what happened. Anyway, we have been trying to have him soak it in epsom salts...I could tell there was some dirt or something still irritating it inside, but he wouldn't let us clean it out. Russ tried removing the outer layer of skin to clean it but even after that there was dirt inside it. I just taught that health class, you know, so I'm all hyper-vigilant about symptoms, and was worried of course about tetanus, though he's had his shots... Wednesday night he threw up, then again on Thursday he threw up, and for an hour or 2 just sat there with his mouth wide open and drooling everywhere. Weird. Not just like mouth-breathing open, like unnaturally widely open. I couldn't help but be concerned about lockjaw, so figured we'd better get him checked out. He had, of course, closed it by the time we got to the hospital... but the nurses were able to clean his wound out well, and they also gave him an antibiotic 'just in case'. Where he would have fought and screamed with us, he laid perfectly still and quiet for them...sigh...just thankful to have had that help for him! He seems to be doing lots better today.

Vintage flag

Thought I'd share this card today - I try to do collage once in a while...it's a genre that I really want to grasp. I bought a book when we were home on furlough, but I haven't had time to sit and absorb it all...anyway, this is one of my attempts. The flag image is from Our Daily Bread designs' new release called God Bless America - it's a great image, large sized and very versatile as a focal image, accent, background, etc. I have a general fear of primary colors on my cards, so I did my best to mute the colors here. The flag is stamped on kraft cardstock and colored lightly with Prismacolor pencils, just enough to add a hint of color without being overpoweringly red, white and blue. I covered one corner with white acrylic paint (I applied it with my finger), grunged it up abit, and stamped the sentiment there.

Of the other collage elements, the image with the children was from a free vintage ephemera site, and I apologize for not having a source link to credit them...the stamp is a bit sentimental, in that it came from my Granddaddy's lifelong stamp collection. He's gone now, but before he died he separated out all the stamps that were only worth face value, and determined that those stamps should "do their job". My Granny uses those stamps for postage, so occasionally we get some cool ones on a birthday card or letter.

It's a little hard to see, but I also used the "I Pledge Allegiance" stamp as a background on the card base. It's available now, too, as a single stamp.

That's it for today!

Bring it on...

Susan's challenge for our Tea Party next week is an inspiration challenge...and the photo below is our inspiration. Ha! Remember that inspiration challenges can go wherever your mind takes you...whether you're inspired by the pattern, color combination, shape, texture, or whatever! Have fun with it - please, please play along! We'd love to see what you create. The smARTworks design team will be posting their creations on Wednesday May 20th.

gonna be an aunt!

Sooooo happy for my brother and his wife, who just announced that they are expecting!!!!! DH has nephews that are older, and YES I love them, but they were already teenagers when we got married - not the same as anticipating and snuggling a newborn niece or nephew. :) Funny thing, stamping related, too, the way he told me...he remembered I had mentioned that my birthday card stash was waning, and he wanted to tell me I'd better stock up, because I was going to be needing one more card per year soon! *GASP*SCREAM*CRY* My daughter who's 6 came running and asked what the matter was - I told her she was going to have a new baby cousin soon, and she said, "Oh cool! I thought you saw a rat or something."

The bear I used here is an older one from TAC that I watercolored. Sentiment inside the card is from smARTworks, and flourish from Stamp Camp.

Happy Mother's Day!

These are the cards I sent to our Moms...they'll arrive late, but hopefully not with any less love than they were made with. Each of the kids signed inside and drew pictures (Evan drew a picture of his appendix scar...sigh...boys...) and that was a fun time. Last year on Mother's Day we were home on furlough, at my Mom's house, and spent the afternoon with my parents and my Granny - 4 generations. Very, very special memories! Aw, here's a picture, just for fun. Love you Mom! (Wow, can't believe how much my daughter has changed in a year! and aren't those tulips gorgeous?!)I ordered a bunch of charms and findings from a bulk place in Hong Kong that offered free international shipping...so the heart is one of the designs I got. I have a few more on order. I thought the prices were great, and we've talked about teaching some of the girls here to make earrings and other jewelry, so I'm not worried about having bunches. The rose below is from Impression Obsession, and the sentiment is from smARTworks.

This hummingbird scene is from Creative Impressions (apparently coming soon again under the company name "Talkabout Images" - I got it on a full sheet at a convention a few years ago. Love the hummingbirds and columbines. The scene is watercolored, and I added some olive Shimmerz over the birds. Just ended my day with a just-for-me vanilla cream pie. Next time...more filling, no meringue! Happy day everyone!