Tuesday's {Tip} Got Lace?

I have had a terrible time finding lace. I know Ellen Hutson has some gorgeous lace but everything I wanted was out of stock. I finally found some wonderful lace at a great price on eBay. FancyLinda has a great store on eBay. She combined shipping for me, and my total shipping was only $1.90!! The lace arrived in a nice box, it was all wrapped in tissue paper, and the lace was wrapped nicely on cardboard secured with beautiful pins. Just look at this yumminess:
I was quite impressed. This lace is so beautiful in person. If I need lace again, I will definitely purchase from this eBay store again! So, if you are like me and you need lace, I thought this might be a supplier you want to check out! You can see her store here.

And TWO lucky blog readers will get to enjoy some of this lace along with a ribbon color of their choice! Just leave a comment here by tomorrow night (Wednesday, June 30th at 11:59 p.m. CST) telling me how you use lace on your creations. I will draw TWO winners and announce on Thursday! So, enjoy, submit those comments, and have a blessed Tuesday!

Our Daily Bread Designs {Challenge 19}

This week the ODBD Challenge Team is bringing you a little different challenge. We want to see everyone create a bookmark! I haven't created one in a while so this was very fun for me! I hope you have fun with it too!

My favorite kind of bookmark is a magnetic bookmark. So for our challenge today, that is what I created! I used two different stamp sets from Our Daily Bread Designs. The sentiment comes from the new set called "Scripture Series 1," and the flower image comes from the set called "The Lord Has Risen." The bookmark base is actually recycled packaging. I thought the weight of the chipboard and the green polka dot was too cute to throw in the trash!
Papers: Basic Grey Green at Heart, Making Memories packaging for bookmark base (green polka dot)
Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs Scripture Series 1, Our Daily Bread Designs The Lord Has Risen
Stamp Ink: Memento bamboo leaves, Palette burnt umber, Ranger clear ep
Embellishments: Melissa Frances ric rac, sewing machine, Jillibean Soup journaling sprout, Basic Grey small magnet, Stickles lime green, DMC floss

If you would like to see more fun bookmarks, please be sure to check out the other ODBD Challenge Team creations. And be sure to leave Christine, Natalie, and America some extra love. Sadly, all three of them are leaving the ODBD Challenge Team. I am really going to miss their incredible creations! You girls are amazing!

Chris Olsen
Christine Okken
Francie Gumprecht
Sabrina Jackson

Have fun creating your bookmarks, and to see all of the details and prizes for this week's challenge, see the ODBD blog post here. Also don't forget to upload your creations to Mister Linky in the same post by July 8th at 8 p.m. EST! Yes, you get a little longer for this challenge so I hope to see lots of you play along! :) And finally, remember to use Keyword ODBDSLC19 when posting to online galleries. Thanks for stopping by, and blessings to each of you!

Organizational {Friday} Embossing Folder Reference

Today, I thought I would share a video I found from Christie. This video shows how she organizes her Cuttlebug embossing folders. You can see her video here. While I think it is a great idea, and some of you may love organizing your folders this way--I prefer to organize mine in a binder. Remember, organizing is all about what works best for you! I use this particular binder for all of my stamp ink colors, my Stickles, Spellbinders dies, Shimmerz & LuminArte H20 colors, etc. Click on each name/word to see how I organized each of those items in previous posts. I need to take the word "Copic" off of my binder cover because I now have a separate "Copic" binder after attending class. I may share that in an upcoming post. Now, let me show you how I took Christie's idea and gave it my own little twist. First I cut a lot of 2 1/4" square pieces of Memory Box paper. The reason I use Memory Box is because it has a white core. You will need paper with a white core so that your sanding will work and show you the embossing. I used scraps from my scrap box. You will want to use fairly dark paper so your embossing shows up after sanding too.
Then I quickly ran the paper scraps and all of my embossing folders and plates through my Big Shot. I did this for each embossing folder or plate that I have (Cuttlebug, Sizzix, and SU). After I embossed a piece, I used my sanding block to sand the piece of paper. I then mounted each sample on a piece of printer paper, wrote the embossing folder name down, and put it in my reference binder. Here are a few samples pages of how they turned out:
Pretty wonderful, huh? :) I really didn't feel I needed large samples so the 2 1/4" inch pieces work great for me. I love my little reference binder. It sits right on my desk, and I am constantly referring to it!! If you haven't made an "all encompassing" reference binder, I highly recommend it. It saves me so much time when creating. It's also easy to see what I have and don't have when putting together a shopping list or a wish list.

If you missed how I store my embossing folders, please see this post here. I focus on Cuttlebug embossing folders in the post but if you look in the photos you will see my Sizzix and SU embossing plates are there too and stored the same way. :)

Well, I hope you have enjoyed today's post. Have a wonderful Friday! Blessings,

A {Memory Box} Layout & Some Cards!

Well, can you believe I actually created a layout with photos? I have been doing cards for so long that it felt great to create this layout yesterday! I may do another one today if I get time!!! Here is what I have been creating for Memory Box Co. To see complete details, products lists, and instructions for some of these creations, just click the name of the layout or card! :)

"Fun" Layout
"Happy Birthday" Card
"Wishing You" Card
"Poppy Row" Card
"Let's Catch Up" Card
I hope you have enjoyed these. Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy your Thursday!

{Faith Journaling} Challenge #32

I thought it would be fun today to share:

**What is your favorite New Testament Bible verse?

Romans 15:4 "For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope."

To see all previous journaling topics, please see my post here. Have a blessed weekend!

Tuesday's {Tip} My Test--Colored Seam Binding

Okay, so last week I shared several sites showing you how to color seam binding so that you can make your own matching ribbons. If you missed that post, you can see it here. Well, my Hug Snug arrived, and I went to work. Here is what I found.

First, I used WAY too much water and not enough ink in this first batch. I used old wine glasses that are not used. I wasn't sure if the ink would stain so I didn't want to use anything good. I filled each glass about 1/2 way full with water and added 6 drops of ink. Sure looked dark enough but after an hour in the water, my seam binding was still colored just lightly.
I pulled them all out of the water, squished them in paper towel and started to let them dry. The SU Ruby Red and SU Not Quite Navy were the only two that came out acceptable. The SU Close to Cocoa came out as a soft shade of pink that I did not like, and the SU Garden Green was just too light.
Then I decided to spritz them with Glimmer Mist and/or my own ink that I created using Mini Misters, ink (2-3 drops), and water (bottle half full).
Here is how they looked after spritzing:
The only one "not spritzed" in the photo above is the original SU Ruby Red binding on the upper right hand side. Notice the SU Not Quite Navy binding is missing? I ended up spritzing it with grey Glimmer Mist. The ribbons in the picture have truly been through a lot as I experimented but I was able to figure out what I love and how I will color them in the future.

So, after all of this experimenting, what did I conclude? I concluded that I love spritzing the seam binding best. I will not soak them in glasses again. Spritzing them is the fastest way to color the binding, and you can easily mix colors. You also can immediately see what happens to the ribbon. Also, the interesting part is that the seam binding soaked in the ink is very soft. The seam binding "spritz" with Glimmer Mist is much stiffer.

And a quick note about spray bottles. In my Copic Certification Class, I learned about a new spray bottle that I LOVE even more than the Mini Misters. They are called "Mist-It." They come in pink or clear, they are longer than the Mini Misters which makes them much easier to hold, and they come with cute labels so you can label them as you fill them. Marianne Walker brought these to class, and I really liked them!
So, I hope this is helpful to you as you start coloring seam binding. It really has been fun. I think I might color a bunch more today! :) Have a blessed Tuesday!

{Scripture Challenge 2} Challenge Word #13, Father

Challenge Word #13: Father

“Father.” What comes to mind when you think of “Father”? Loving, provider, protector, comforter, compassionate, teacher? Or maybe those are not the words that come to mind. Maybe you were raised without a father. Maybe you came from an abusive home. Whatever type of earthly father you have or did not have, all of us that have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior have been adopted into God’s family. He is our Heavenly Father. Our earthly fathers may fail us but our Heavenly Father never will.

Galatians 4:4-7 “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba, Father." So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”

He sees our smallest need. He knows our every struggle. He knows our desires. He created us, and He loves us beyond measure!

1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

I love that word "lavished." He has lavished is love on us! Wow! How do you demonstrate your love for your Heavenly Father? Do you live to obey His word or do you go out and "do your own thing"? If we claim to belong to Him, we must follow Him. Your love for your Heavenly Father should cause you to want to obey and follow Him. Do you talk about Him all of the time? It may wear your friends and family out but it will never wear the Lord out! What does being called a "child of God" mean to you, and how does it effect your thinking and your actions?

This week I was unable to get my page done. I was very disappointed because I had a great idea for a page but with VBS this week and Father's Day today, I just never was able to get it done. If you want to study more about your Heavenly Father, feel free to read all of the studies from last year's challenge when we studied God's attributes. You can find a list of each study here.

When sharing your page for this challenge be sure to use Keyword SCRC210 when posting in galleries. Also, please leave a link here using Inlinkz! I pray you enjoy learning more about your Heavenly Father! And to see all of our previous lessons, please visit this post here. I will be back with another study on July 4th. See you then! Blessings,

Our Daily Bread Designs {Challenge 18}

Oh boy, this week the ODBD Challenge Team brings you a recipe to work with! Your challenge is to use three of the items from the F.L.O.W.E.R. recipe below on your creation:

F: flowers
L: lace or lacing
O: ODBD stamps, ovals, or embellishments w/circle shapes including gems, pearls, brads, eyelets
W: watercolor
E: embossing
R: ribbon
S: stitching (faux or real)

Now doesn't that sound fun? For my card this week, I used flowers, ODBD stamps, ovals, embossing, ribbon, and stitching on my card! I guess I just missed using the L. and the W. :) I used the new ODBD June release sets called "Scripture Series 1" and "God Loves You." I used the Bow Easy too (found here in the ODBD store) to create my bow.
Papers: Basic Grey Green at Heart, Cutcardstock
Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs Scripture Series 1, Our Daily Bread Designs God Loves You
Stamp Ink: Memento bamboo leaves, Adirondack shell pink, SU old olive, Versamark, Ranger clear ep
Embellishments: Copic G21, G24, R000, RV11; Zva Creative roses; Paper Trey Ink buttons; Spellbinders scalloped oval; Stickles diamond; misc. ribbon; sewing machine

If you would like to see more of these "recipe" cards, please be sure to check out the other ODBD Challenge Team cards for some amazing inspiration:

Chris Olsen
Christine Okken
Natalie Dever
Sabrina Jackson
Angie Crockett (ODBD DT)

Have fun playing with the challenge, and to see all of the details and prizes for this week's challenge, see the ODBD blog post here. Also don't forget to upload your creations to Mister Linky in the same post by June 24th at 8 p.m. EST! And finally, remember to use Keyword ODBDSLC18 when posting to online galleries. Thanks for stopping by, and blessings to each of you!

My Strawberry Girl!

Okay, I had to take a moment to share this photo! This week has been hard on "the girls" (parrots) since it is the first time we have left them for 6-8 hours each day during Vacation Bible School! Well, I left a skewer full of strawberries, corn, and other goodies for them to eat, and look what we came home to:
Yes, Miss Sugar went a little overboard with the strawberries! LOL! You can see a bit on her chest too. It was all over her! Cute little thing! Thanks for letting me share! Blessings,

Organizational {Friday} Update

Happy Friday everyone! I am volunteering at Vacation Bible School (VBS) this week with my girls. We are totally exhausted but thoroughly enjoying our week as we serve in this ministry! We have 584 kids or so!!! Because I have been swamped, I wanted to encourage each of you to visit my organizational link list of over 45+ organizational ideas. You can see the entire list here. I have an idea for next week's post but certainly feel free to leave your requests for posts here in the comment section! Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate ALL of my subscribers! Have a blessed day!

{Faith Journaling} Challenge #31

Since I was not a Christian at the time my triplets were born and because we had to come up with 6 names since we didn't know if they were boys or girls, we just chose names we liked. Looking back, there are Biblical names I would love to have given my children but they definitely fit the names we gave them! LOL! So, today, let's journal on this topic:

**Did you give your children any Biblical names? Why or why not?

Luke 1:31 "You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus."

I am sure your children will love reading this entry someday! Enjoy! And remember, to see all previous journaling topics, please see my post here. Have a blessed weekend!

Tuesday's {Tips} Dying & Coloring Seam Binding

Do you want to be able to make your own ribbon in any color, and then use it for flowers or bows like this?
Well, Kim on Splitcoaststampers posted a link to her "Hug Snug" ribbon here. She also shares how she colors Flower Soft to make her own colors. I purchased some Hug Snug last week, and it has arrived so I can't wait to try to make my own fun colored ribbons! I purchased my Hug Snug from Zipperstop. Great service and fast shipping!

Tammy Tuttertow also shares a great video on how she colors her Hug Snug seam binding. She goes about it a little differently than Kim. You can see Tammy's great video here.

And if you want to see lots of projects using this ribbon, Michelle Wooderson uses the colored ribbon she creates on almost every project. Look here at all of these amazing pieces. She also sells it on etsy if you don't feel like making it yourself. You can see her informational post about that here.

So, see what works for you, and have fun! And remember to see links to all of my previous Tuesday's {Tips}, please see my post here. Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

Our Daily Bread Designs {Challenge 17}

Oh, this week the Our Daily Bread Designs CT has a very fun challenge for you! It is a summer color challenge. Your creation must be a monochromatic color card with one of these colors or you can use all three of these colors: yellow, blue, and green plus any neutral colors you need to use (ivory, white, brown, or black).

Now this was a challenge for me especially since I don't think I have ever done anything monochromatic. So, I chose to use all of the colors. I used the new ODBD set called God Loves You. I tried to sponge the center of each flower but the Quickutz die was a little thicker than the Spellbinders dies so it didn't work out quite as well. Oh well! :)
Papers: Paper Trey Ink cs, October Afternoon Fly a Kite
Stamps: Our Daily Bread Designs God Loves You
Stamp Ink: SU creamy caramel, Memento rich cocoa
Embellishments: Derwent watercolor pencils, Quickutz scallop circle die, Hero Arts pearls, Bo Bunny double dot ribbon, sewing machine

If you would like to see more of these challenge cards, please be sure to check out the other ODBD Challenge Team cards:

America Kuhn
Chris Olsen
Christine Okken
Francie Gumprecht
Natalie Dever
Sabrina Jackson

Have fun with the challenge, and to see all of the details and prizes for this week's challenge, see the ODBD blog post here. Also don't forget to upload your creations to Mister Linky in the same post by June 17th at 8 p.m. EST! And finally, remember to use Keyword ODBDSLC17 when posting to online galleries. Thanks for stopping by, and blessings to each of you!

Organizational {Friday} Charms & other Small Things!

Okay, so I am totally getting into using charms on my creations! I never saw the need for them until I started seeing my design buddies at Our Daily Bread Designs using them. Then one of the DT members (America) sent all of the ODBD team members an envelope full of amazing charms, and that did it! I became an addict! LOL! America likes to buy her charms from these eBay sellers: mybead88, gem_bead_inc, toppingcrafts. I found a great supplier here in the U.S. and just received a nice order from them (A Charming Place). Not only were the charms all on sale, I also had a 30% off coupon. Then if you buy 10 or more of the same charm, you get approximately 29%-30% off too! So, that is a great way to build your charm collection very inexpensively! Anyway, I didn't mean for this to turn into a "sales pitch." LOL! I know some of you will want to know where I buy them so there ya go! :) Now onto organizing my charms!

At first, I had my charms in a baby food jars because I didn't have very many. I found there were just a few charms in these "huge" jars. They were taking up too much space and they weren't categorized at all! See what I mean? Now if you have a huge collection of charms, baby food jars would work perfectly! I then remembered these perfect "tic tac" boxes I purchased from Whim Beads years and years ago that I used to keep my eyelets in. They work perfectly! I then keep these in a drawer in my antique spice unit my parents got for me. I will be able to keep 34 of these boxes in a drawer! That is a lot of charms! When I had the baby food jars in this drawer, I could only fit 3 jars and my charms were all mixed together.
I used my labeler to label the top of each box. I could cover up the "flip top" if the charm name is long since the charms are too big to come out of the flip top anyway. I take the entire top off to put the charms in each box and remove them. So far my charm categories are:

*Angel
*Bible
*Birdhouse
*Birds
*Butterflies
*Church
*Clock
*Cross, lrg.
*Cross, sm.
*Flower, lrg.
*Flower, sm.
*Hearts, lrg.
*Hearts, sm.
*Leaves
*Music, misc.
*Nautical
*Scissors
*Sewing Machine
*Shells
*Telephone
*Thread
*Treble Clef
*Trees
*Words

If I want to take the charms with me somewhere, these boxes fit in an acrylic box. The acrylic box will hold 24 of the 1 7/8" tubes making this very portable. Such a great piece to take to a crop! You could have your acrylic box filled with a mix of charms, eyelets, brads, grommets, Flower Soft, glitter, beads, etc. Imagine anything tiny going into these boxes! Here is my acrylic box that contains my eyelets in different sized boxes. See how portable this is!
You really can keep anything small in these boxes. They are also very inexpensive. You can buy just the boxes or the small boxes along with the acrylic box. You can see them all here. Also, I do have a coupon code to A Charming Place if anyone is interested. They told me I could share it, so here it is: NEWCUST. You will get 25% off your next order of $10.00 or more. How cool is that?

Well, I hope today's post has been helpful! Enjoy, and have a blessed weekend!

{Faith Journaling} Challenge #30

With VBS next week at our church, I started thinking about little children and the songs and things they learn. So, here is your journaling prompt for this week:

**Do you know the order of the Books of the Bible? How did you learn them? If not, how do you find what you are looking for?

Joshua 1:8 "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

Enjoy your journaling time, and see you next Thursday with another prompt! Blessings,