Creating.....

I've so been neglecting my poor blog.  Well thankfully I have been inspired to create I just need to get back to making posting photos a priority again & making it a habit.

I love Teresa Collins and her paper lines.  Not only are they beautiful & very well thought out design wise but they are also really economical.  I have said it before but I love how she gives us an entire sheet of jouranling spots that can be cut out for just the price of a piece of patterned paper.  I've noticed that a lot of companies are also doing this (Cosmo Cricket, Echo Park, & Fancy Pants to name a few).  The diecut punch out sheet of different elements and folders adds so much pipizazz to any page or mini album - these too are very budget friendly. 

Susan at Emi Scrapbooking always carries all the Teresa Collins lines... Look at the TC section of the store!

Even a tree decorated with Teresa Collins embellishments!

Teresa Collins lines also make super fast mini albums that are loaded with style and interactive elements.  I'm not a fast creator so I shocked even myself with creating this sports mini album & kitting 6 in a day.  That's a record for me!  This kit using Sports II is for sale on the EMI Scrapbooking Store Etsy site here

I like a chunky mini with lots of stuff sticking out the sides & top

Here are a few of the 12 chipboard pages (not including the insert cards)

I challenged myself to use Teresa's "On the Edge " boy line in a non-masculine way for a store sample.  I often hear that "I like that line but only have girls...." so I wanted to show the versalitility.  The colors of this paper matched our sofa that Maddy was sitting on.  Adding some decorative border punches, bling & a bit of toille gives a feminine touch.

One last Teresa Collins line project was a banner I made for our fireplace this Christmas that is now on display at EMI. 

Another mini album that has been re-kitted since it sold out is made with Pink Paislee Old School line (love the distressed vintage theme & colors of this one.

This is the way that our kits are packaged.  Everything is precut & packaged individually by page complete with color photos for ease of assembly.

Here's a couple of the pages in the album.

(I love that pocket stamp by Unity Stamps)



Making Memories Jet'adore was a big seller & is a beautiful Valentine's line.  Here's a huge album made with Teresa Collins for Zutter 9x9 fiber board cover.  Lots of pockets, fabric, tags, & pages for your photos and journaling about your honey.  The cover even has a porcelain knob!  It's for sale here.

Several of the pages

Finally one of my favorite mini album kits I made.... using Graphic 45 "Once Upon a Time" line.  I love the beautiful soft colors & fairy tale theme (Peter Rabbit is one of my favorite books - I'd love to travel to England to see Beatrix Potter's home site).  Did you see the movie "Miss Potter" - I just loved it!

I die cut hinges & painted them to look like old metal.  The "door" opens to reveal titlework.

You can see all the pretty colors & elements

Lots of spots for photos & journaling.  Unexpected tags hanging from rings.

Well I guess I've shared enough.  I will be dropping off a couple sample pages & 4 new mini album kits (using lines from My Mind's Eye, Webster's Pages & Jenni Bowlin) at EMI tomorrow so I'll share the photos in a day or two.  These are some of my favorites so far packed with lots of fabric in addition to the beautiful papers.  I hope you will like them as much as I do.  Susan will be putting them up for sale soon.  Can't wait to pick up all the new goodies that have come in (Pink Paislee, Girl's Paperie, Melody Ross, Cosmo Cricket, Fancy Pants & Teresa Collins).  I'm still working on mini kits using Studio Calico Elementary & Basic Grey Wanderer.Wonder what new lines she will give me to create kits with next?  I can't wait.

Here's a sneak peek of "My Boy" mini album made using My Mind's Eye Stella Rose.  I adore the colors & can't wait to use more of it for my grown "boys".  This one has a spine made by accordian folding a sheet of cardstock.  Something different - I liked the way it turned out

Hope you have a great Wednesday & remember to do something creative....

Creating

 The Brave Girls Club Soul Restoration I  is winding down - it's been an amazing journey of accepting the past & finding out about what truly brings me joy.  This class is also filled with lots of creative techniques which were a bonus & could easily be in a stand alone class - thank you Melody & Kathy for sharing your wisdom gained from your heart breaking trials of life.  It's been life changing.  Integrating the creative part of the course really helps to make the lessons learned concrete in my heart & soul as I worked thru my past issues, weakness & unhealthy relationships.  I'm so thankful that Lori gave me the class & looking forward to part 2 in June.

I've been designing mini album kits for EMI Scrapbooking (my LSS in Cumming GA).  Here is a photo of the cover of one I made using Pink Paislee Old School.  It has lots of tabs, foldouts, and interactive pages.  Check the blog for a slideshow of all the pages here.

I've completed 3 others & working on 4 more!  It brings me joy to have my creative mojo back again.  I also am working on 3 layouts samples of the new Teresa Collins lines for EMI.  Her products are so amazing and well thought out for ease of designing.  I can't wait to take her classes in a couple weeks.  Teresa is a fantastic teacher & her kits are filled with so much product that there is always plenty left overs to create with in addition to the class.  There are still a couple spots left if you live in the Atlanta area call Susan at 770-888-2417 or email emiscrapbooking@aol.com.

Have a great weekend... hope you are having the beautiful weather we are here (finally warm & sunny)... and don't forget to take some time for yourself to get creative.

Being Creative Restoring My Soul

Happy Monday,

It's been a while since I felt that way... I'm doing so much better since taking this time for myself & working thru things with the help of Brave Girls Soul Restoration online course (already halfway thru the 6 week class).  Melody Ross is a fantastic teacher - making tough topics easy to understand in a highly visual way.  This is no boring self help class - incorporating the creative aspect really makes a huge difference.  There are many videos filled with artsy techniques for painting, texture, Mod Podge, etc.

I told my son that "I feel like the truths are now Mod Podged it into my heart, mind and soul". 

Here's a page I created during the class

 I am already looking forward to part 2 of Soul Restoration in June.  Melody & Kathy will be offering part 1 again in April -I encourage you to sign up -  it is a great investment in YOU.  All details here.



My son & I went to Ikea on Saturday just to look around.  We love their storage/organizing items.   Fueling up for the walk thru the showroom by eating lunch of  their meatballs & mashed potatoes. Yum.

While looking for some cooking utincels I stumbled upon these cake decorating templates that I thought would be great to use with texture mediums, spray inks or paint.  At only  $0.99  it's worth the shot.

I'll play around with them & post a review for you soon.

Thanks so much for visiting & hope you have a blessed week.

I Owe YOU an Explaination....

I need to explain why I've vanished off the face off the blogging universe.  (I'm not going to go back and reread. or I may not post... so hope it makes sense)

The last year was a rough one for me/my family (sister & mom's illnesses) & the who knew that doing the challenges with Rhonna Farrer for change & thankfulness would throw me for a loop. I love visiting all your blogs & so many other ones on the web seeing all the amazing creations.  Taking time for my body to be down doing nothing make everything even worse.  I like to keep busy even while watching TV I usually have knitting or scrapbook page going.  I have so many ideas & things I want to do but my body was fighting me tooth and nail with extreme fatigue, pain & other symptoms. This really pooked me off.   I felt extremely depressed.   But even something simple was just too much.  This was compounded by feeling guilty & that I was a failure for "allowing" myself to become depressed.  This just made things worse since no one allows themselves to become depressed it just doesn't work that way.

I try to not share a lot of "life" things on the blog sticking mostly to crafting.  I have always been torn by this since I love so many blogs that effortlessly do both in such a brutally honest way.  Stephanie Howell is a shining example of this.  But her life has so many funny moments with the escapades of her "chicks"  to balance out the hard things in life.  I'm at a different stage in life with family & my life just isn't that interesting lol..  The bad things in life seemed to be piling up on me with numerous health issues & I didn't want to turn it into a downer or pity party for me.

As a Christian I feel the pressure to be positive & "salt & light" during those trials.  I'm always amazed by those people that can just shine during the worst things in life - I think that is God shining thru them with His strength.  You know the people I'm talking about... at a funeral they can get up and talk about a loved one during the service so eloquently or go through cancer treatments never missing church until they are in hospice.  I only felt my own weakness & not His strength in me and was questioning why.  I'm naturally a person that pulls away when sick - I hate being a burden or showing I'm sick.  So with so much of this year being sick and not able to do what I want it seems I was isolated more often than not. 

October was a hard month health wise - pain & sickness can really wear you down.  Simply accepting the challenge to choose 1 thing to change in my life & focusing on what I was thankful for in November mushroomed that lack of strength.  I felt a tremendous pressure along with emotional issues being brought to the surface at a time when my body needed to heal.  Then I just "ran away" hiding out from you.  The days turned into weeks and every day I thought about what to do about the blog & those of you who are so sweet to encourage me in my hobby.  Then getting back to the blog became a burden that I thought about often I wanted to come back but didn't know how to...  It really hung over me & could bring me to tears. 

After many tears, prayers & reassessing... I'm just going to be honest - not try to hide what's happening to me anymore.  I think that is when I'm willing to share that is when God can give me that miraculous strength.  This is still going to be a creative blog but I'm not going to hide things:  in hopes of getting on a design team, not wanting seem a selfish "I" "ME" person, or a gloomy downer.  Stephanie Howell was again a catalyst for tweaking my thoughts on this.  I think her honest sharing is a way God can get thru my fat head and work on my heart. 

So here goes

First I want to say how sorry I am for just leaving things.  So many of you have been so sweet to encourage me by leaving sweet comments on my posts & even missing me while I've been gone sending emails.  Thanks so much for your thoughts and concerns they were bright points in the darkness of depression.

I'm going to come clean about my illnesses... I've shared briefly that I've dealt with breast cancer & the treatment of that has been complicated by other disabling illnesses that I've had for years.  I have rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, sjogren's syndrome, fibromyalgia & crohns disease - yep I'm an auto immune nightmare.  The symptoms have a tendency to cycle and build.  When I'm good I'm good & when I'm bad I'm bad not a lot of in between since I consider any good day as one that I can get up & do things.  The medicines help but as the years have gone on & the costs of those meds gone up I am not always able to take them as prescribed so if you don't take them they don't help.  Not taking them really makes the doctor office visit costs go up since I'm there more often & it takes more medicine to calm down the symptoms.  It's a sad reality of so many people today who have insurance but still can't afford all the co-payments/out of pocket expenses when I'm forced to take 20+ different medicines a month just to maintain.  I try to weigh the side effects before taking them because I was never an Rx person - I'd rather do herbal/holistic treatments but I had no choice.  The breast cancer on top of that really was a lot to handle.  Lupus has given me lots of kidney problems so even just simple anesthesia can cause my kidneys to "freak out" and stop working properly.  I will never be able to be on the list for a transplant and have been close to dialysis several times (which I want to avoid of course) so that made treatment tricky to say the least.  This is all out of my control but I can choose how to deal with it.

With all that I'm still so thankful for all that I CAN DO on those good days and for my family & friends.  So much of life (with or without illness) is about choices.  I choose to be thankful for what I have & make the most of each & every day that I am given.  I am slowly recovering both physically and emotionally - feeling stronger every day.  There is a lightness streaming into the darkness that I was closed in.  I really pray for people who struggle with depression as it's such a misunderstood thing & so debilitating.  I have had periods of it thru my life but am thankful for always being able to come out of it.  Depression really sucks the life out out of a person robbing them of all joy, interests and more.

One of the ways I'm going to recover is taking is Brave Girls Soul Restoration online class. (now that I have gotten some help for the depression this class for change shouldn't throw me into a deeper depression as the challenge I was doing with Rhonna before the holidays)

My friend Lori gave me the tuition & I'm so thankful for her friendship, love, support, and encouragement.  It starts today at 11:11 am pst & I'm so ready for a change/restoration.  The women that come back from the Brave Girls Camp have that lightness, shine, and joy so since I will probably never be able to attend the physical camp I'm thankful to be a part of the next best thing.  Melody Ross is incredible at combining art with life changes.  I'm excited to incorporate creativity in an effort to get over the things in my past & be the best person I can be now even with all the things on my plate that I have no choice but deal with.  I know when I create for me it can de-stress from the pressures of life and I just love it.

I'm still designing mini album kits & display pages for EMI Scrapbooking ( my local scrapbook store)& thank you Susan for being such a great friend & so patient with me.  You're the best!  The creativity has been a lifeline to me and really saved me from feeling so useless.  It's such a blessing.

Thanks again to each of you & I hope this helps you understand why I left the blog unattended.

Thankful for... creative outlets

I remember as a child wanting to be an artist but couldn't draw at all.  I don't know why I didn't think of other forms of art but for whatever reason that thought stuck with me.  So I gravitated to crafts - they gave me a chance to be creative & I've tried just about every one out there lol   Some of my favorites are scrapbooking (of course), & all other paper crafts, knitting, quilting, jewelry making, and working with clay.  Working with my hands is an instant de-stresser.  I love the entire creative process whatever I am working on.   I still don't think of myself as an artist but I'm branching out into more artsy ways to be creative.  I guess it's age but I feel I can try anything & if I like it that is good enough for me.

Here's a mini album kit sample I designed for EMI Scrapbooking Store.  The kit is selling well.  It's filled with lots of stitching & stamping.  I loved making this one (even with the inches of glitter lol)

Home Sweet Home - My Mind's Eye Lost & Found paper

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Blogger grrrr...

 I staged my week of thankful posts because I was trying to be on the ball and for some reason none of them posted....so I'll put them all in one post today to catch up so I'm not flooding email followers mailboxes with multi posts.

Tuesday - Thankful for you my followers & readers...

 

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I haven't met many of you but it really is a blessing when you leave me a comment or word of encouragement.  They really seem to come at just the right time. I hope that I am giving you some inspiration even though I've not been the best blogger this year.  You know life sometimes gets in the way & I am bad about feeling like what I have to share isn't as good as what others are blogging about and health/pain really can fuel that. So accept this BIG THANK YOU to each of you.

Wednesday - Thankful for old family photos especially those of my Grami...

they really have the power to transport you back to another time.  Remembering those who may no longer be with us is bitter sweet (as the years go on more sweet than bitter) but all part of life.  We can learn from the past.  Looking at this photo of my friend Lori & I with my Grami really takes me back to a day of sight seeing in Baltimore and Washington DC during a visit a year after moving away.

I am reminded of how much I miss my grandmother and how much she meant to me.  I was named after her & we were so close - sometimes it seemed we shared the same heart as she would know what was going on with me before she could pull it out of me.  We liked the same things - she taught me everything that I think is good about me.  She was an amazing cook - she had the smallest kitchen (couldn't even have the refrigerator in there) yet she managed to make such elaborate from scratch meals.  She taught me to make bread, cavatelles, pitzells, nut rolls, cabbage rolls, spaghetti & meatballs, thanksgiving stuffing & so many other dishes (all of which I've tweaked a bit - she even said they were better & started making them that way).  She loved "junking" & finding second hand treasures.  So creative - at age 55 she started painting - storing her brushes in a cleaned Pringles can.  Taught me it's never too late to do what you love & to follow your heart.  Loved BINGO and would always go wherever it was played - Catholic church always had one going on.  Love the beach and traveling.  Taught me how to grow flowers & how much joy playing in the dirt could bring.  She was a prayer warrior & close to the Lord.  Was a letter writer - showered me with cards & notes that I treasure today.  I love seeing her handwriting & often put it in layouts today.  I could go on and on about her...she was so sweet, caring & gentle natured.

She lived with Alzheimers for many years before passing (such a horrible disease).  Even with that she always had a smile for people & loved music.  When I would see her I could catch a glimpse of her - like she would bubble to the top for just a moment then the disease took back over.  I pray they find a cure for that very soon - as it really cruel & so hard for the family.

Thursday - Thankful for the sunshine
It is amazing how just standing out there in the sun can change your spirits.  I can feel it in my bones.  I love sitting out back in the garden with my breakfast watching the dogs rough house playing and running just soaking in the sun rays.  My dream one day will be to live near the beach so I can walk in the sunshine each morning with my feet in the sand.  That would be heaven on earth.

Friday - Thankful for Brave Girls Truths

I've been visiting the Brave Girls blog for a while now & wanting to go to one of their retreats.  It always seems sold out & the women who attend seem transformed and so happy when they return.  It reminded me of when my friends and I went to Bible camp when we were in jr. high.  Melody & Kathy share truths each day on the blog and they really have the capacity to touch hearts.  They are so honest and truly brave in sharing such personal things.  Thanks to them for these posts that touch my heart.  I'm saving to take the 6 week class in January - a gift to me in the new year.  They are giving away 10 spots so head over to the blog & leave as many comments as you want.

Hope you have a fantastic weekend and are able to do something creative