Mrs Willis' Shadow Box

Isn't it amazing how a school year flies by. There are actually only 180 school days. Of course a present for the teacher is just a small token of appreciating for the life long lessons she taught my Emma in the past year. It had to be a special one. I searched on the web, and found a beautiful shadow box to make for Mrs Willis.

We had lots of fun making it and even more giving it. She was so happy! She said this would be in her classroom for the next 30 years. What a great thing to make and give to such a wonderful teacher. Thank you Mrs. Willis!

A day off

It is so hard to get back into the swing of coming up with something cute after being busy with work, family and other business. I always have plenty of ideas, but when I finally sit down in front of all the goodies I gathered for this day I planned on doing nothing but scrap-booking, my mind goes blank. I decided to fix up this picture frame I bought for one dollar at Target about three years ago. 

I knew Emma would love to put it in her room with the picture of her and her friends playing dress up. After finishing the frame I decided I need to come up with a way to make flowers to get rid of the enormous pile of fabric I have stashed in my closet. I actually discovered an easy way to make flowers from fabric,

played around for a while and than came to the conclusion that I have enough fabric to make flowers for 3 more generations after me, and quit. My mind wondered off to making cards. 

 I made a few of those and had enough of being crafty and productive for the day. All in all, it turned out to be a great day off. You should see the mess I made!

红线

"An invisible red thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break." 

With that being said I am showing off the layout I made for my first born son, who just spent 10 days with me here in the United States. I turned 50 and he didn't want to miss out being with me on my birthday. We had a wonderful time, but all good things come to an end.This afternoon he will be flying back to the Netherlands. It breaks my heart but I know he needs to finish his study.

Majoring in aeronautical engineering he decided to be an exchange student at the Polytechnical University of Xi'an, China for 6 months. It is there where he met his beautiful girlfriend Lui Xin.

 

This summer Lui Xin will visit him in the Netherlands for three months.I am sure they will take lots of pictures during her stay and on their trips. I bought him an album and added the layout as a start of a journey for them to finish. 

For Bas

Home made "brew"

After a great weekend celebrating my Birthday with family and friends I feel the incredible urge to get creative again. 

I need to make some cards this week since there are birthdays coming up. I have a couple of people I want to tell how special they are to me, and scrap-booking supplies were amongst the birthday presents so I am definitely in the mood!

I absolutely LOVE the shiny mists they sell in the scrap-booking stores, but they are very pricy. I heard of a recipe to make your own, which would work out a lot cheaper than those being on the market. 

The basic ingredients are a little high to purchase, but go a very long way. I calculated a bottle of home made mist will cost approximately $3.- This includes a new-bought spray bottle. Of course reused bottles will bring the costs down to somewhere close to $2.- 

Ingredients

Ingredients:

4 parts water

2 parts alcohol

1 part Gum Arabic

15 drops alcohol ink

1/4 teaspoon Perfect Pearls

1 small spray-mist bottle

Directions:

Poor all ingredients in the small spray-mist bottle.

Shake thoroughly.

SPRAY AWAY!

A sprayed flower

I noticed the ingredients separate after "sitting" for a while, just shake thoroughly before every use. 

Can you imagine how many colors you can create this way, I am so excited! I only bought one spray bottle, so "ADIOS" for now, I am on my way to Michaels!

I want to be on a design team!

I want to be on a design team!

 

You are my sunshine

This week was a very emotional one. Nevertheless, I managed to fix up a page. A little while back I received a big box of left over paper from a couple of friends. Since that day I used 99% of the paper for my cards and pages out of that particular box. What a great gift!

Monday Monday

The past week was a very busy but productive one. On Monday my sweet daughter-in-law Rebecca and my grandson lil' Nick spent time with me as we were going to make cards for my son's 21st birthday. I posted the card I made in my previous blog posting. My neighbor/friend Amy came over with her daughter Ashlyn and we all had lunch together. We worked on Ashlyn's birthday invitations, which turned out absolutely fabulous!

Ashlyn's Birthday invitation

Tuesday I needed to clean out my crib, what a mess one can make! Especially when you're having fun.

Nick

Wednesday was my baby boy's 21st birthday. His pappa(Dutch for dad) came from the Netherlands. They hadn't seen each other in 7 years so you can imagine it was a special day.

Rebecca + Nick on the banana's

They stayed at Panama City Beach for a few days. My daughter Brandi and her two little boys, Carter and Mason, Amy and Ashlyn and my eight year old, Emma, and I went to celebrate with them at the beach for a day. We had a great time together. I just love my family!

lil' Nick

Mason

Emma 
and Ashlyn

I was on an extreme high having such a great day with my children and grandchildren for the rest of the week, actually, I still am. I am so blessed! 

 I forgot all about wearing my daughters 
Disney princess glasses, haha

I stayed busy busy busy, I registered for Summer classes, attended Field day on Friday, took a trip to Georgia on Saturday and worked two night shifts.

Thank God for Mondays!

Happy Birthday Nick!

Tomorrow my youngest son will be 21 years old. Doesn't time fly! 

I made him a card in his favorite color, lime green. 

After having an absolute blast making this card I thought it would be cute to make a matching gift card holder. Tell me what you think.

I found this beautiful embellishment at a Michaels store

The small banner at the right is the same brand as the embellishment at the front of the card. It reads "Joint At The Heart"

This is the front of the gift-card holder and the card fits just snug as a bug.

The back looks like this. I can't wait to give it to him.

Happy Birthday Nick!

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.