Seems like just yesterday I was writing up a post about my grandpa and how much I missed him.  Now it's sad that just over a month later I'm doing the same thing for my grandma...

Losing family is hard.  With Grandpa Veldink it hit me instantly.  The emotions rolled over me for days and I felt a part of me gone.  I'm not sure if it was just because I had mourned so much for both of them when grandpa died that my reaction was delayed or something, but it took a few days for the loss of Grandma Veldink to really sink in.  My grandparents...both gone...

I've sat here reflecting over the memories of Grandma and Grandpa Veldink the last few days.  They always made me feel like family.  Being adopted, sometimes there is a separation that may not be known, but is always there.  I never felt that way with them.  When we were together, we were family and that was the most important thing.

Grandma was an incredibly strong person.  She never complained about anything and always put other peoples needs before her own.  She loved to crochet and put that talent to good use making hats, mittens, and scarves for orphanages that were sponsored through her church.  That woman had talent!  It never ceased to amaze me the things she could make, and I'm thankful that I have a few of her masterpieces in my own collection to proudly display.

My memories of her will live on forever.  I know right now she is with grandpa again and they are both at piece together. 

I found this sentiment in my folder and thought it was perfect to go with this card I made to honor grandma.  It's from A Piece of Heart and reads "When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure."  And that is so true. 

I will forever treasure the memories I have of my grandma, and my grandpa.  Live off of the life morals and deep devotion they taught me.  Smile when I think of grandma's funny little sayings and how she always yelled at grandpa to fix his hearing aid.

Great memories of a wonderful person...a person that I am deeply going to miss...

I'd like to share this story at the following challenges:
    Crafty Catz #188-Anything Goes
    Creative Inspirations #220-Anything Goes with Option of Ribbon
    Deconstructed Sketch #106
    Sentimental Sunday #160-For the Girls
    Simon Says-Anything Goes
    Word Art Wednesday #86-Anything Goes

The heart border is from Tiddly Inks.  I trimmed around it and then added a piece of lace that I pulled from my grandma's sewing cabinet to the top border.  The hearts have been brushed with some MicroPearl Pearl Ex so they shimmer.

Thanks for stopping by <3

I'm extremely late with my Paper Makeup post today!  So sorry!  It hasn't been the best day here :(

So this week we are challenging you to tie it up!  Let's see all those knots and bows on your creations!
I had a rough time with this challenge.  I didn't want to just do the normal little bow like I put on most of my cards.  It's a challenge, so I wanted to go bigger.  With some help from Matthew, I finally got something to work.

I used Nole from Paper Makeup and colored him in with  my pencils.  Then added stickles to the lights so they twinkled.  I didn't want it to be a Christmas card, so I added a fun color scheme and sentiment to the whole thing.

Then punched a border with my MS Lace Edge punch and wrapped some twine through some of the holes.  Turned out colorful, just the way I wanted it.

Hope you will join us this week at Digi Makeover!  Thanks for stopping by!

Ever since moving into our new apartment in Longueuil at the beginning of May, Matthew and I have become quite the active couple.  It's been pretty fabulous and definitely helps fight off the daily blues that I always suffer from.

During the week, about 3 days, Matthew will run home from work and I will meet him half way on a trail right next to the seaway.  It's a lovely run, full of nature and the water.  I'm much better at running outside, it gives my mind something to look at instead of a boring wall in front of me when I try to run on the treadmill.

Normally things are peaceful and it's just me with my headphones smiling at the people passing me by.  Except for Monday....I had just started my run to meet Matthew when I noticed a turtle on the side of the trail.  At first I thought it looked all cute cuddled in the weeds with some flower petals stuck to it's shell...until I stopped and looked closer...my heart sank...

The city had come through that day, probably only a short while before I came running through, and mowed the grass that was well over 3 feet tall...and in the process ran over this poor sweet turtle.  I was crushed!  I know it probably wasn't intentional and they probably had no clue it happened, but I was frustrated that something like this could happen to a sweet innocent little animal.  And the way it looked up at me as I stood there staring at it in shock...broke my heart.

I knew I had to keep running to meet Matthew, hoping that maybe we could look up some sort of animal rescue on his phone.  But my run was filled with tears and heart ache for that turtle.  I balled as soon as we met up a mile later...my heart was so heavy for that turtle! 

After digging through his phone only to find nothing for wildlife rescue, we spent a little time trying to decide the best thing to do.  I couldn't just leave that turtle there in misery...so with Matthew's help we managed to scoop it into a garbage cage and carry it down to the river.  It crushed me all over again to see it's shell completely smashed up close and see it snapping at Matthew as we tried to help it.

Whether it survived or not, I don't know...we did what we could.  We got it to food and water and away from the busy trail.  My heart is still heavy, seeing an animal suffer like that...it crushes me...but I know that we did all that we could and I pray it was enough...

So with that sweet creature in mind...I made a card:

It's hard to get the vision of him out of my head.  But I hope what we did was enough to get him some strength to recover, or at least know that there are still good people in the world willing to help animals that are injured.

The image is from Bird's Cards.  I didn't do too many fancy details on this card.  Just cut some squares to put behind the image and wrapped it with twine from The Twinery.

Thanks for stopping by!  I know this was a crazy long post...just had to speak my heart. <3

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Artistic Inspirations-Ribbon or Twine
    The Corrosive Challenge #176-Animal Antics
    Delicious Doodles #40-All Creatures Great and Small
    Tuesday Morning Sketches #203
    The Twinery-Anything Goes

Happy Tuesday everyone!!  Cloudy and cold here this morning...kind of strange since I thought this week we were supposed to scorch :)  Oh well, I'll gladly take the cold!

We're starting a new challenge today at Tuesday Throwdown and it's Fantasy!  We have the perfect sponsor for this challenge as well, The Paper Shelter!  I can't help thinking of fairy tales, pixie dust, and all things fantasy when I look at their images.  They provided our design team with some super sweet ones to use, and I just loved it!

I actually made 2 cards with this image.  The first card I loved, but wasn't completely wild about...so I tried again :)  I used the Enchanted Ocean image and just cropped off the little scuba dude.  It's such a dreamy image...I love that!  I looked up a few water coloring techniques to try and really make it stand out.  Most of what I found was for Copic markers, but since I don't have any, I tried to do my best with my pencils.  I think the sun streaks turned out awesome!  Perfect to go along with this image.

I added some white gel pen dots to all the highlight areas, and some glitter to her bubbles.  The sentiment is from Create with TLC and I strung some die cut starfish on twine below it.  The final touch was some purple liquid pearls around the scallop frame!  Totally love it!

Be sure to stop by and see the rest of the design teams creations, they are fabulous.  Then join in the fun with your fantasy creation!!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Sweet Sketch Wednesday #210
    There She Goes #212-Anything Goes
    Timeless Tuesday #225-Scallops

Thanks for stopping by!

I can't believe it is Monday again.  Weekends go way too fast, and when the week before doesn't go the way you want it to, having a long, slow weekend is what you beg for.  But it never works that way it seems :)

My "go-to" pick me up last week was chocolate.  I can't get enough of that stuff on rough days...or any day really :)  Good thing we don't have a ton of it in the house or I'd really never be able to stop.  So I decided to make up a card to show my appreciation for this delicious stuff that I love so much.

Our challenge this week at Digi Makeover is to use punches and/or dies.  This was pretty easy for me since I use those all the time on almost every one of my cards.  Not that I have a huge collection of them...but I love the ones I do have.  So I set out to make my card.  I used the PMS Fairy from Paper Makeup and her super yummy looking bowl of chocolate ice cream.  She is cut out with a Spellbinders label die and chalked around the edges.

I layered her on top of a double row of my MS Lace Edge punch and a scallop circle I cut with my Silhouette.  The flower is another Spellbinders die from the Anemone set.  I punched up a couple paper buttons and added twine to the centers. 

Then printed off and flagged my perfect sentiment from Create with TLC and it was all done!  It says exactly what I was feeling :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Color Me Creative #70-Gorgeous Brunettes
    Crafty Catz #187-Let's Go Pink
    In the Pink #22-Pink with Flowers
    Melonheadz Friends-Die Cuts
    Nutcrafters #45-Food and Drink
    The Twinery-Anything Goes

Stop by and join in the fun!!!

Wishing everyone a fabulous Friday!  I'm excited that it is finally the weekend.  Not that we have grand plans or anything, but I just love being able to snuggle with my hubs and not worry about anything.

But it has been a relatively nice week for me.  I've met some fabulous crafty goals, and spent some time working on new projects.  I also ran a mile for the first time in forever last night!  My knees are killing me today, but man that felt so good to hit that marker.

So I figured I'd share one of my "out of the box" creations that popped into my head this week.  It's not quite what I was going for, I will have to keep practicing, but I'm pretty darn proud of it anyhow.

It's a very simple card.  But that's okay because I wanted the focus to be on the image.  In the past I have turned regular images into zombies...it's pretty simple, just add a few blood streaks on their face :)  So this time I challenged myself to make a white walker from the Game of Thrones series (also known as the others).  It took me a few tries.  Most of the walkers that you see are all shriveled and pale white.  But it's kind of hard to color in all white.  So I had to go with some greyer tones, but I think this one turned out awesome!

The piercing blue in her eyes and the dark grey shadows under her eyes...seems just about the right representation of a white walker :)
I also stretched my coloring talents a little by coloring her outfit to look like fur.  Absolutely love it, and think it is the perfect look for her.

 

 Of course, I had to make the cute little birdie into a crow.  Just didn't feel right making it anything else.  Oh, and the image I used is Rose Red from Saturated Canary.  Amazing how a cute little image can be completely changed with the right colors.

What sort of things have you done lately to stretch your crafting skills?  Tell me in the comments, I'd love to see what you've done!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    7 Kids College Fund #75-Just Wrong
    A Creative Romance #1-Anything Goes
    Robyn's Fetish #163-Die Cuts or Punches

Have a fabulous weekend!  And be sure to follow me on Bloglovin or Facebook so you don't miss out on anything!!

This week has been dragging on for me...I'm not really sure why.  All day yesterday I could have sworn it was Thursday...so naturally today feels like Friday, and I keep getting bummed out when I realize that it's not.

Even with my messed up clock, I've still been able to get some cards made up.  As I've mentioned before, I have fallen in love with Doodle Pantry!  These images are so cute and perfect for just about anything.  So I whipped up a sweet one this week.

I love these little cuties!!  I've used the Spring Song Birdies image for my card and colored it all up with my pencils, with a few glittery details.  The rest was pretty simple.  I used the Deconstructed Sketch for the layout and paired up a sweet blue flower print paper with a bold purple.  They looked fantastic together sitting in my scrap pile so I snatched them up :)

A few pieces of purple twine were wrapped behind the Doodle Pantry sentiment, and I added a few purple liquid pearls to the upper corner.  Sweet and simple, just the way I like them :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Charisma Cardz #23-Digis Only
    The Corrosive Challenge #176-Animal Antics
    Deconstructed Sketch #104
    Doodle Pantry #35-Use a Doodle Pantry Image
    Send a Smile 4 Kids-Anything Goes
    The Squirrel and the Fox #45-Summer or Winter
    Word Art Wednesday #84-Anything Goes

Be sure to follow me on Bloglovin or Facebook!  I don't want you to miss anything once Google Reader disappears!

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!  Not much happened here.  The weather went back and forth from rain to sun, but overall was good enough to get a nice 6 mile walk in yesterday.

That was after I spent the afternoon baking up 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies, per a request from one of Matthew's co-workers :)  So my card for today fit's well with the weekend events.

Our new challenge starts today at Digi Makeover and it's to use Kraft paper!  It took me awhile to really get the hang of using Kraft, and I'm still no good at it.  But I have found that I reach for it more and more now days so this was a fun challenge to try out.

I made a cute little pocket card!  It's pretty simple but turned out so cute!  I used Duncan from Paper Makeup Stamps and colored him in with my colored pencils.  And of course, decorated his platter of cookies with chocolate chips :)  I've been playing around with combining a few chocolate chip recipes to get exactly what I want.  It's almost perfect, so maybe I will share that with you some time soon :)

The little sentiment on the tag was stamped from the Here's the Scoop set from Lawn Fawn.  I love how you can bend those stamps so they work on circles!  Then I just trimmed it out with a scallop cut black background.

Duncan is mounted onto an embossed oval.  The frame for that has been cut with my Silhouette.  The final details were to add all the pretty blue gems to everything.

Be sure to stop by and see the rest of the Makeup Artists creations!  And join in the fun!  All you have to do is use a digi!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    A Gem of a Challenge #83-Emboss It
    Artistic Inspirations #45-Stitching
    Fussy and Fancy #90-Bling it On
    Mayzy Art #19-Polka Dots

Thanks for stopping by!

TGIF!!  The weekend is here again and I'm so glad!  My weeks always start out strong and productive and by Thursday I seem to be at a snails pace...so I love when the weekend arrives :)

I made up another quick card this week that I just love.  It turned out so darn cute!

I really love all the browns in this card.  They blend together so well and are just lovely for a wedding card.  I used You and Me from Tiddly Inks and colored them in with my pencils.  All the edges are distressed with my scissors.  I kept the layers pretty simple so that the card is relatively flat.  Been trying to do that more for mailing convenience.

Lots of pearls have been added around to help add an elegant wedding feel to the card.  I have really fallen in love with using pearls.  Seems I shied away from them for so long and now I use them on almost everything.

The last little bit of detailing was the hand cut heart in the upper corner that I stamped to help pull everything together.  Simple and sweet :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    A Creative Romance #1-Anything Goes
    Sketch Saturday #261

Have a fabulous weekend!!

I totally agree with that title...Disney is just too awesome to grow out of.  I still love watching the Lion King and Beauty & the Beast.  Gives me a little break from adulthood to go back in time and watch something from when I was younger.

Matthew's brother and his wife took our sweet little nieces to Disney World this past week.  We loved seeing all the fun pictures of the girls with characters like Minnie Mouse and Cinderella where they are all smiles (mostly Natalie...Clara is only a few months old :) )!  And the not so smiley ones like the pic with Goofy :)

But I wanted to send Natalie a fun little card that she could pack away in a scrapbook of this fun trip and remember that she is never too old to live a Disney life.

This card came together so perfectly I just love it to pieces!  I used the Mousey Mo image from Saturated Canary, which I have been dying to use for so long!  She's just so cute, and perfect to put on a card for Natalie.

I used papers from the Cold Hearted digital paper collection from Mindy Baxter.  The sweet colors worked so well for me to through in the pink in the image.  Then I just added a few Mickey embellishments, some glitter and paint dots, and a fun sentiment from Ginger's House and it was done!

I really hope Natalie likes it and will be reminded of all the fun she had whenever she looks at it :)

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Deep Ocean #53-For a Girl
    DigiStamps4Joy #68-Oh to be Young Again
    Send a Smile 4 Kids-Anything Goes
    Sketch Saturday #261

Thanks for stopping by!  I'd love if you would follow me on Bloglovin and/or Facebook!! <3

Wow...what a morning.  Let's just say my night was haunted by the scenes from the most recent episode of Game of Thrones...yeah..

So I needed a little pick-me-up.  I think my card for this week's Tuesday Throwdown challenge-embossing-will help a little.  It's sort of bright and cheery and has a sweet little image on it.

Robyn's Fetish is our sponsor this week and they have graciously given our design team some sweet images to use on our projects.  I have used Loretta Angel and colored her in with my colored pencils.

The background was embossed with my D'vine Swirls folder and then I sprinkled some sparkly kaleidoscope embossing powder on top of it and heat embossed it as well so it sparkled.  Her wings have also been embossed with the same powder.

I punched the border with my MS Lace Edge punch and then stamped a simple sentiment.  Oh and the background frame is embossed with my Swiss Dots folder.  So lots of embossing on this card!

Hope you will join along with us!

Happy Monday everyone!  I'm so happy that the heat and humidity have moved on for now!  The nice cool breeze flowing through my apartment is a welcome relief.

We're starting a new challenge at Digi Makeover today and it's Sentiment Focus.  We want that sentiment to be the main focal point of your creation.  I've sort of fallen in love with these types of cards.  An easy sentiment can be either jazzed way up into a elaborate card, or kept sweet and simple and both are still gorgeous!

I've used a sentiment from Paper Makeups Be Still set.  It's a verse that I really love and need to focus on more in my life.  So I thought making up a card with it would help me remember that :)

I cut out the frame with my Silhouette and layered up the sentiment on some printed paper.  Then I used some ribbon to criss-cross behind the image and topped that with some orange twine.

Overall, very simple card, but I think the sentiment is all that needs to be on there :)
Be sure to check out the rest of the Makeup Artists creations, they are absolutely fabulous as always!
Then join in the fun with your sentiment card!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    The Crazy Challenge #146-Use Sentiments
    Deconstructed Sketch #103
    There She Goes #210-Clean and Simple
    Word Art Wednesday #82-Anything Goes

Happy Sunday!  Wow...what wicked weather we are having!  It's like I'm swimming through the air.  And I don't like it.  Nights have been miserable here for sleeping...even with our air conditioner.

But with so much moisture in the air, the thought of swimming ties in great with my card!
Addicted to CAS has started up a new challenge for the next 2 weeks, and the theme is circles!  I have been trying my hand a little harder at doing clean and simple cards.  They aren't easy, but I like to think I'm getting better at them.  Paper Makeup Stamps is their sponsor, so I am thrilled to be guest designing for them on this challenge!

Here is what I came up with for circles:

Isn't this just so cute!!?  I saw this background technique done by Kelly at Lawn Fawn where she used the backs of her circle stamps to make a background.  (you can watch the video here)  Anyway, it looked so fun I decided to try it!  I made a different card first to see how I liked it and had so much fun I went on to make this card. Now, I didn't have any varying sized circle stamps so I had to cut out my own...lol :) 

To make the bubbles I just stuck the "stamp" to my finger and the pressed the outside of the stamp into the ink, then dabbed it onto the paper.  I love the bubbles effect it gave and the card turned out so cute!  I added a little glitter around the bubbles so they sparkled a bit.

Then colored up Angie the Angelfish with my pencils and a few stickles and mounted her onto a stamped scallop circle with a sweet printed sentiment tag.  All done!
Super cute and pretty simple :)

Stop on by the Addicted to CAS challenge and join in the fun this week!