Petrus

The search party for Petrus yesterday found nothing. Co-workers were able to contact another family in his area by radio yesterday, and those people were going to take the news to his wife Yuhana and the children (Kristina, Christian, Kristianna, & Kristianty) this morning...they obviously knew that the boat did not arrive as scheduled, but otherwise had no idea what had happened, or that the other passengers were safe while Petrus was gone. His traveling partner Frans will continue on with the remaining supplies when he is able, but he is understandably devastated. Poor guy...such a hard situation all around. This picture was taken about 2 years ago for their family prayer card.

Checking in...

We went ahead with our scheduled trip to Jakarta and since my son had sustained a temp over 103 overnight Saturday and through the day Sunday we dropped him and DH off at the nearest hospital and I went on with the other 3 kids to the guestroom we had reserved. As soon as we got there I had a call from my husband - the doctor that had examined Evan was sure it was appendicitis and had called in their best surgeon to remove his appendix that night. The surgery ended up taking 2 hours as his appendix was slightly perforated, tucked up behind his intestines, and stuck. He was doing well when I talked to him yesterday but was still waiting for signs that his bowel function had resumed. I haven't checked in this morning but will be headed out there today to see him. We're staying at our mission's guest house now, where we have co-workers that are willing to help 'however' and watch the kids, so that is a huge blessing and relief.

Last night I received word that one of our coworkers was discovered missing after a boat accident (the smaller boat he was on collided with a larger one) - the boat was able to make it to shore, but upon arrival they realized that Petrus was no longer aboard. A helicopter search was scheduled for this morning. His wife is pregnant and they have 4 children...sad and scary situation, but definitely didn't take God by surprise.

I have a couple blog posts scheduled this week, so don't be surprised to see them pop up! I'll check in with updates if there are any. Thanks for checking in on me!

Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace....

Always something here....we ended up taking our oldest son to the ER this evening (I do use the term "emergency" very loosely...)...he has had a fever (up to 102.5 F) and lower right ab pain since yesterday...earlier this afternoon he started in with chills, so we thought we'd better get him checked out. They ruled out typhoid and malaria but the blood test also showed high white cell count, so 'something's infected'. They wanted to do an ultrasound but (alas, and not really surprising) won't have a tech there...until Monday. We are planning to go to Jakarta tomorrow (Sunday) for the kids' passport aps, so if he doesn't improve with the antibiotics we will get him checked there. Sigh......
These special edition verse sets have been such a blessing to me - each verse is one that has been a blessing and stronghold to a member of Our Daily Bread design's creative team...how neat to be able to use them to encourage others through this medium as well. This verse is on vellum backed with double-sided tape, torn, and adhered to a printed photo that I took in Northern Montana last year. Putting these words here for me:

Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace,

Over all victorious in its bright increase;

Perfect, yet it floweth fuller every day,

Perfect, yet it groweth deeper all the way.

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,

Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,

Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Every joy or trial falleth from above,

Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love.

We may trust Him fully all for us to do;

They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest;
Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

*yawn*

I normally enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning, but I don't usually feel like I NEED it to wake up or function.

Today is different. I need. Sigh...we have 4 different sizes of ants in our house, and the teeniest ones for some reason were in my bed last night, mostly on my pillow and then in my hair... The students are on break, too, so a bunch of the boys were over till 3 am watching movies with a light on, and the fan in our bedroom was ticking...you get the point...not a good night.

But...life goes on. We are taking a trip to Jakarta next week to renew the kids' passports, so there are lots of things that need to get done before we go. (cue "Break my Stride," my recent theme song...and pray that I don't burn myself out!) I have a recent obsession with chair stamps.....this stamp is from Impression Obsession - it's Garden Patio Set. I used some other stamps and sets to create the watercolored scene, after masking the chair and table with a frisket. Other stamps are from the Garden Fence Set (cobble stones, stamped with Adirondack Slate ink) and Leaves and Garlands (flowers and grass in the background, stamped in chalk ink onto spritzed watercolor paper).

I love that stripe background too, by Basic Grey, but can't figure out for the life of me why they made the stripes crooked. Grrrr. Here's a close-up version where you can see the Diamond Glaze on the tabletop...if you look very hard you may be able to see me with laptop and my cup of coffee too! :) Have a good one.............

Tiny tea time

Welcome! Hard to believe it's time for Tea already. This week it's Donelda's turn to host our smARTworks Tea Party, and she challenged us to use "inchies" on our cards - 1" square panels that could be stamped or serve as embellishments.
My card was actually pretty simple - I stamped the large daisy from the "Buttoned Up" set on a piece of white cardstock, then spritzed it with water to let the colors run a little. (I used Adirondack Stream ink.) When the piece was dry, I cut it into 1" squares, then arranged them on some Bazzill cardstock. The sentiment panel is watercolor paper, which I stamped with the medium button daisy and spritzed, then filled in a bit with ink and a waterbrush. The sentiment is from the Cookie Plate.

Be sure to check the rest of the teams' links over to the left to see who else came for tea! Thank you for stopping by! If you played along, be sure to leave us a link!

Potter's Hands

Just wanted to share a project I've been planning for a while and finally got to sit down and work out this weekend! A couple years ago when my parents came to visit, we took a drive 'up the mountain' to a pottery village. Pulutan is a clay-rich community where the Dutch have taught the people how to make pottery as a cottage industry. It was a really interesting experience, and I loved being able to visit there - we'd like to go back again soon.

When the "You are the Potter" set came out from Our Daily Bread designs, I immediately remembered these pictures. Perfect match. I converted the photos to black and white, and printed them on cardstock, then added a patch of white acrylic paint to stamp the verses on. The rest of the base color is added with stippled or sponged ink, and a brown blow pen. The hands are shaded and highlighted with Prismacolor pencils.

(On the card above, I actually peeled off a layer of the paper - this one's not painted.)

This was my first and favorite one - I love how the hands look sketched instead of a photo. I'll definitely be making more of these! I haven't worked much with mixed media, but these were fun to do.

.....and I will have this Hillsong chorus in my head the rest of the day.......

Take me, Mould me, use me, fill me
I give my life to the Potter's hand
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me
I give my life to the Potter's hand.........

Mortise masking

I played with a mortise (or reverse) masking technique a couple weeks ago and wrote a tutorial for smARTworks..... sooooooo...here are a few cards made using the technique, and you can shuffle over to the smARTworks site for instructions! If you try this, send me a link or leave a comment here so I can see! Instead of covering up the main image to stamp around it, mortise masking covers up the area around the image so we can color in or stamp inside the image itself. When you cut out a traditional mask, you always have a mortise mask left over! Something to think about when you want to look at your stamps in a new way.

This first card is the one I made for the tutorial. All stamps are available from smARTworks. Card #2 uses the same stamp sets, and a free downloadable/printable damask paper from Jak Heath's gorgemous blog, Crafter's Kitchen.

My third sample uses downloadable/printable papers from Gina K.'s newest release. Cute cute stuff! More to share with that later too...but for now, a "bird-day" card!

All stamps used on these cards are from the Indigo Bunting set and the smARTbucks-only Cookie Plate. Clicking on the set names will take you to our design team blog, where you can see other ideas for using these sets and many others!

Thanks for visiting...let me know what you think of the tutorial!

Impression Obsession challenge - friendship cards

The I.O. team challenged each other to a card theme this week - cards that focus on friendship.

I'm laughing at this photo - if you've ever tried to photograph a round card you know what a challenge it is...it rolled over to rest on the leaf, so I thought I'd just alter the angle of the photo to make the card straight - but now the ground is crooked! So I still want to tip my head. Funny...does it bother anyone else? This floral image is soooooo fun to color - it's one of the soon-to-be-released summer images from Leigh Hannan. I started coloring from the middle and just went with whatever colors amused me - on the days I plan stamping projects in the back of my mind while I'm supposed to be busy working on other stuff (heh), the colors tend to be brighter. That teal pencil has never been used before, I don't think! Not a favorite of mine, but I actually like the way it made the other colors pop.
One more just for fun..I love this image but looking at it once, the bird to the far left looked like he was looking down after a friend that had fallen off the line, maybe one he'd bumped off on accident. :) Thought it'd make a good 'sorry' card, so I added a couple 'motion' lines around the telephone lines, and a single word stamp from the Sentiments 1 Add-on clear set. The grid lines on the main panel were done with my Scor-Pal, and the birds are colored with Prismacolor pencils.

Be sure to check out the rest of the team's creations as they post throughout the day!

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

Michelle, huge thanks for a great quarter as our guest designer, and welcome to Shirley - she's the new I.O. blog coordinator!

Fruit Basket Winner!!

Congratulations to KATHY H.!

Your name was drawn as the winner of the Fruit of the Spirit set from Our Daily Bread designs! Please send me your mailing address so I can forward it on to Kelley. Thanks to sooooo many of you for visiting and entering to win!

upcoming Tea Party challenge

Donelda's our next hostess and she wants us to use "inchies" on our cards. Inchies are one-inch-square panels. I'm looking forward to this one...thanks for the challenge, Donelda! If you'd like to play along with us - do it! You don't have to use smARTworks stamps to join in, but if you've got them, ink 'em up. We'll look forward to seeing what you come up with!

Let's get this party started!!

It's time to celebrate the one-year Anniversary of Our Daily Bread designs! It was one year ago today that owner Kelley Holland began her adventure. What a fun adventure it has been, and look where we are a year later! Great products and inspirational stamps! I've even had the privilege of designing some of the stamp sets available from ODBD - I think that's pretty cool!

This is the first stop for the team's blog hop, so whether you meant to start here or not, you are in the right place!! There are goodies for you along the way as you move from one team member's blog to the next, and it's important to hit the blogs in the order of the Hop. There is blog candy along the way too! Make sure you visit the blogs in the order we send you, or you may miss it.

For a special grand prize, we are playing "Scripture Scramble!" Each blog has one or two words that you can collect at each stop and put together to make a scripture verse (NIV edition). Once you have collected all the words, send the verse in the correct order, along with the scripture reference by EMAIL to our DT Coordinator, Judy Rozema, at lidaroseroz@gmail.com. Correct entries will be put into a Bread Basket and the Grand Prize winner will receive a set of their choosing from Our Daily Bread designs AND a selection of cards made especially for this celebration by some of the Design Team members. How cool is that?! Be sure to enter by midnight CST on March 19th!

Here is my Scripture Scramble word: ONLY

Speaking of scriptures, today is the release of two new sets: Scripture Collections 1 & 2. Each of the Design Team members chose a verse that is special to them and Kelley made those verses into stamps, and split into two special anniversary sets that are available for purchase today! This is my verse - it's always been one of my favorites. A reason for hope - the FACT that no matter what I face, no matter how hard I fall, no matter how much I think I have failed - the Lord is faithful, and never changes. In fact, although His compassions are bottomless, every morning they are NEW, and directed toward me. That's an amazing God!

My first card shows the verse in an oval frame, which I cut with my Coluzzle. I actually stamped on the ribbon, but the image bled. I still like the look - sort of faded and vintage - goes well with the vintage floral paper and the pearls. Here's the verse in more detail:

My second card features a photo I took of a Oregon sunrise - my Aunt lives on gorgeous property on a hillside overlooking a river, and I took so many pictures there when we were home last year. I love the thought of a sunrise with this verse - the newness of God's compassion every morning. The verse is stamped on vellum and stitched to the photo. The corners are hand-cut, and the flourish in the corner was part of the design of the paper.

Here's another angle for you:

Now, to continue on, next you'll be visiting Holly at Toy's Haven. Wait until you see what she has to show you!

new new new!

Just wanted to share a couple of the new images now available from Heart & Soul Rubber Stamp Co. Sue has been creating inspirational and encouraging stamps for waaaaaay longer than I've known about her company, and she's got a huge collection of verses and sayings I just love, and that have been such a blessing to others. Her heart for the Lord shows through each image she creates.

How cute is this bloomin' kitty? This is some artwork that was purchased from an Etsy shop called Gingerbread Cat (I'm increasingly fascinated with Etsy), and it comes in 2 sizes, this being the smaller one. I stamped the cat in sepia ink and watercolored the image with Twinkling H2Os. I used a liquid mask (called a frisket) to mask the flowers and features, so they wouldn't get painted over. I love that stuff! I added a few gel pen highlights when everything was dry.

Here's a closer look - love those big round eyes...
On the next card I want you to see this sentiment - Sue created it just for me! I had been wanting this one for a long time to go with Fall stamps, snowflakes, comfy chairs, etc. I love it, and I love the way the words seem to be falling down as well. Thank you, Sue!

The chair is from Art Impressions and I paper-pieced it - reminds me of those comfy-but-just-a-little-scratchy chairs that Grandmas always seem to have, and it made me miss my Granny, especially the armrest covers, which she keeps neatly pinned to the chairs. This is cool too - I lined up the pleats and deeper parts of the chair on my Scor-Pal and scored along those lines to create a little visual dimension. It's hard to see in the picture, but it's pretty neat. I was impressed anyway! Shading is done with pencils, and that little flourish is from Impression Obsession. The wood paneling is a scrap from my paper stash - embossed by hand using a Fiskars texture plate.

Be sure to check out the Heart & Soul online catalog if you haven't done so...there are sooooooo many treasures packed into it. And when you can get any unmounted rubber stamp (any size) for only $1.50, precious stamping money goes a long way! Hope you enjoy what you see. Have a great week!!

Fruit of the Spirit

Exciting things coming up for Our Daily Bread designs' 1st anniversary! It's hard to believe it's been a year since Kelley contacted me and asked if I'd be interested in working with her new company. It has been a real blessing to work with new images each month, to have a part in creating new sets and seeing my stamp designs become a blessing to others, and to work with such an amazing design team - not only is this team full of talent, but full of compassion and life as well. Happy Birthday ODBD!!!!!

Well, this week each team member is featuring one of the sets that has been released over the last year...and some of us even get to give a set away! Guess what?!! You can win the set I used on the cards below - Fruit of the Spirit! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post - I'll make it easy on you. ;) I'll draw a winner March 18th at midnight EST. Good luck!Here's a card I made just for the occasion...using the Fruit set and several products available from ODBD - be sure to check out their 'accessories' section, because it's really growing! Did you know that you can now purchase Shimmerz, Prismatics cardstock, flat-back pearls, Basic Grey paper pads, Glimmer Mist, Ornare templates, Distress pads/reinkers...........I could keep going! I used some metallic cardstock, scored with my Scor-Pal (you can get that there too...!) for the background panels. The main panel is watercolored with reinkers and watercolor pencils. You can mix Shimmerz with reinkers when you paint, for some major sparkle - a little bit goes a really long way!

Here are some other cards I've made over the last year with the Fruit of the Spirit set - you can click on each one for more info. Be sure to check out Betty's blog, Stamping to the Wright, too - she's showing off this set today as well! But don't forget to come back and enter the drawing!

I'm here!

We have been without internet for 2 days now - it is driving me nuts! Thankfully a co-worker's wireless reaches across the soccer field to our front porch, so I can finally check in and post some updates. (heh, heh...)

Still not extremely well...but living out the song "Ain't nothin' gonna break-a my stride, nobody's gonna slow me down - oh no - I got to keep on movin'..." I was up last night with some kind of stomach 'thing' and now I feel hot...sigh...the irony is that the whole time I have been working on this health course I HAVE BEEN SICK!

Come back in a few hours or check in in the morning for blog candy from Our Daily Bread designs! Did you know we're having a party?!

Just in CASE...

Are you ready for Tea? This was a fun week as the smARTworks design team searched each other's galleries for a card to CASE. CASE is such a strong term...it traditionally means Copy And Steal/Share Everything...let's just say we find each other inspiring. :) So we wouldn't all pick the same card, each Cookie was assigned a gallery to choose from. I chose this card by Donelda. Donelda blogs at Wiggy's World of Crafts. We first 'met' over at Splitcoaststampers almost exactly 2 years ago, and that was because she had found inspiration in my gallery! So we've come full circle. How cool is that?

I used stamps from 4 sets on this card:

Cookie Plate (floral silhouettes)

Grass Hoppers (grass)

Daisy Trio #2 (sentiment - inside and out)

End/Begin (butterfly)

I created the clouds first, using a punched out scalloped circle as a mask. Then I began to stamp the flowers, inking the bloom and stem separately with Versamagic inks. These remind me of the agapanthus flowers my mom always had in the yard when I was growing up...wow, I've been sentimental lately... I stamped the grass and blended with a Dove blender pen to fill them in, then sponged the same green ink along the bottom edge. The inside of the card is done the same way.

The rest of the card is similar to a card I made about 2 years ago, based on this card by labullard on SCS. The original inspiration featured a double pop-up butterfly inside, but I just went with one this time.

To achieve the pop-up here, score and fold the inside panel in half, then measure 1" out from the fold, and 1" down. Score a line between those 2 points, then fold the resulting triangle in. Hopefully you can get the idea from the picture below.

Then just attach the butterfly to one side of the pop-up so it tucks down in when the card is closed. Click here for a template for making a double pop-up. Those are fun too! Be sure to check out the other team members' creations as they post throughout the day......
Trish @ Tah-Dah!
Susan @ In the Works (for Peggy and Sarah too?)
Giovana @ A Place to Praise and Craft
Donelda @ Wiggy’s World
Donna @ Dee’s Studio

...and if you played along be sure to leave a link in the comment section so we can see your creation!

Penciled Lily collage

One more card using Our Daily Bread design's I Am the Way set. I stamped the large lily image on a shipping tag, masked it, and used some Versamagic pads to fill in the background. With the mask still on, I stamped the flowers from Sing to the Lord, and also the Lord's Prayer stamp. I then removed the mask and colored the lily with Prismacolor pencils. There's no paper-piecing or layering on it, though it looks dimensional...my husband was sort of impressed with that. :) The ribbon is not that bright in person...but it was a good find the other day - 25 yards for about $2! Good thing I like orange, huh... I didn't actually tie a bow there - I should have taken a picture of it before I put it together. The 'bow' part is held in place by a loop of ribbon through the hole of the tag.

I'm still fighting this virus - probably not helping anything by refusing to be sick...but other than a scratchy voice, Elliot is fine fine fine. No Dengue. Thankful for that today!