Life

At  Bible study today I was very inspired about a verse I got to read. I had to put the verse in a card one way or another.

The card looks crooked as it opened up some when I took the picture, but it is not.

Paper doll

Looking at the beautiful paper dolls being made, I decided to have a go at it too. Here is the result.

 I just HAD to try another one!

Pirates

This is a picture of a page I made 3 years ago, before I got introduced to the real deal of scrap-booking. My camera.....what can I say.

Blue

Experimenting with the scrap paper that was given to me by two very generous gals, Sandie and Beatriz. Thanks! ;)

This is a flower I made from layers of cupcake liners and coffee filters. I died the coffee filters with food coloring. The cupcake liners were already a great shade of blue. If it is acid free, I couldn't tell you, but I like my pretty blue flower!

Don't pinch me!

May you always have
Walls for the winds,
A roof for the rain,
Tea beside the fire,
Laughter to cheer you,
Those you love near you,
And all your heart might desire!

Tear Bear

It is actually great how these blogs work. Sandie put pictures of these cute little bears on her blog which I later found out are called Tear Bears. I commented on her post "I want one!" A couple of days later I was happily sitting at her house making me a Tear Bear. Thanks GF!

C'ote d'or

I want some!

Soap

I used to make soap. It was a hobby, but I ended up with such an enormous amount of soap, I needed to sell. When I first moved back to Alabama I lived behind my friend Rinske's dairy farm( Working Cows Dairy). Our feet used to get so dry in summer, I decided to make soap with the cow milk. It would make a creamy moisturizing soap. I added some tea tree oil and some peppermint oil. Great oils for feet, I thought. When finished it was a beautiful product. Of course the soap had to cure for a while to get rid of the lye. After the curing process the craziest thing had happened to my soap. There wasn't a trace of  tea tree or peppermint noticeable, all the soap smelled like was CHEESE!

Soap curing (yes soap cures, just like cheese!).

Tea tree soap I sold on Ebay.

Egg

Ever since I made my first tag I had an egg on my mind, I made me one. I figured the plain pink  piece of paper would be great to write a little story in.
Oops, I forgot to cut the stems at the bottom!

Cards

I have Spring and Easter on my mind,

can you tell?

I was advised to use ink pads to make things pop out more. I felt there was something missing but couldn't put my finger on it. I will surely try to remember when I make another card.

Lesson 1

Pickwick Tea, Yummie!

I go over to my friend Sandie's (Crisman Creations) house on a regular basis for a good old "cuppa" Dutch Pickwick tea and a chat. A couple of months ago I visited her as a scrap-booking student. We decided ahead of time to make a Valentine's layout, and she had all the goodies ready for me to pick when I got there. She had picked the paper and told me how to work with matching colors. (I still have a hard time with that since I have never been afraid of colors). People who know me from "back in the days" will probably remember some of my bold choices. I learned a lot that morning since I didn't know any of the techniques to start with. Sandie is a great teacher. Here is my first ever real scrap work, I am very happy with it! 

My tag. I learned a different way to use an ink-pad and discovered the Scotch Tape Glider.

Obviously not finished, but this is what I left home with after my first lesson.

Waldorf dolls

Today I decided to post a picture of one of the Waldorf dolls I made since I have been living in the USA. As I am getting hooked on paper, I am very proud of my past "loves". The right materials are very hard to come by and are very expensive in comparison to the Netherlands. But there are some places online that have a great collection of flannel and wool felt. Below I posted an explanation of what the idea is behind those dolls.

From Wikipedia: "A Waldorf doll (also called Steiner doll) is a form of doll used in Waldorf education. Made of wool and cotton, using techniques drawing on traditional European dollmaking, its appearance is intentionally simple in order to allow the child playing with it to improve or strengthen imagination and creativity. For instance, it has no facial expression. Its legs and arms are flexible, allowing natural postures.

Traditional Waldorf dolls are made from cotton interlock knit fabric and wool stuffing. They are often entirely natural. Typically the trademark long hair of a Waldorf doll is made of mohair or boucle. Some doll makers use alternative hair material such as wool, rayon, and cotton. The facial features of a Waldorf doll vary with the maker. Most Waldorf dolls have small suggestions of noses, their eye and mouth colors are generally varied with each doll."

It is very hard to take a good picture with a camera which has a messed up shutter. This "little girl" is 4 years old.

It's a start

Well, I came home from working a nightshift this morning and went straight to the computer to finally post something on my blog. I worked on it for about three hours. Explored the blogger.com site, took a picture of myself (actually about 90 to find one where I looked half decent after a long night without any sleep. Deleted the other 89.), wrote a post, searched for photographs, cropped and adjusted exposure, and guess what….I accidentally erased it all!

By that time I had enough of it and took a break away from all this. And here I am at it again in the hope that everything goes right this time and I can actually publish something.  I am relatively new to scrap-booking. I have put a few pages together, basically sticking photographs and stickers in an album. Then I met my dear friend Sandie (Crisman Creations). She showed me the beautiful pages she made and a couple of techniques, I realized I didn’t have a clue. I don't know much yet, I am anxious to learn, and very excited about the possibilities paper art has.

For now I am just making cards. It is a fast way to practice techniques and see results. Since I am a beginner and don't have as much paper and goodies as the pro's on these blogs, making cards saves me from wasting too many materials and gives me space to make boo boo's. In the meantime I keep viewing the beautiful work being posted on these blogs and will show some of my work on my own. Please send me feedback and give me pointers, perhaps one day I will be good at this too.

I showed this card to my friend Sandie and she told me her instinct told her the card should be up-right. I had not looked at it that way and after keeping the card in different positions I agreed. My birdie would be laying on it's side though, so I posted it the way I made it. I will make another one up-right and probably use another color. BTW. I made it with Easter on my mind, but I think it turned out more like a "It's a boy!" card.