My Wish My Boyssss

This is a really exciting week @ SOUS...We have a paper challenge....Yes, all the designers are using the same papers from one of our fabulous sponsors Generations Crafting. Floren generously provided all four of us with the same paper to see what we could come up! We also have a fabulous sketch from pagemaps and some yummy blog candy!
I chose a picture of my four boysss from my 45th bday....most of you know the relationship with my 3 older boys is estranged and the title My Wish says it all....my wish is to spend many more bdays with these 4 wonderful blessings. God willing, that will happen.

The secondary theme to my wish my 4 boysss in time in a bottle. I have added little clocks that I cut from DCWV At Home paper...aren't they lovely!

I added some beaded ribbon layered with some black eyelash yarn. The papers are all from Generations except the plain pink, black and gold card stock. I used the reverse of the main papers we chose for the challenge to add some extra punch. The marquee cuts are all from Sentimentals and I distressed them with some black acrylic paint. I added some handmade roses and the ivy from Paper Doll Dress Up, accented with some craft wire.

The candle for the I is from A Child's Year stretched in DS....I'm lovin the butterflies from Sentimentals...cut from a book page with the layer cut from black card stock. My Memories alpha stickers and a few adhesive pearls.

another close up...

This bottle is cut from Oceans of Words and the words from Time In a Bottle by Jim Croce are printed on vellum.

My is from lyrical letters and w,s,h are all from Plantin.

These butterflies look like they could fly right off the page.

A close up of the small butterfly and the vellum label. A heart paperclip to hold the vellum in place.

So this is my wish...

I hope you will pop over and check out what the other DT members did and play along....try for our fun blog candy giveaway too!

Take a minute to check out Generations Crafting....I have some exciting projects in mind with some of the fab things she sells at her store!

The Rest of the Story....

Hi everyone...just wanted to take a minute and post the rest of the mini album I've been working on. Just to share a bit...Mcauley has had a rough couple of weeks and so this is dedicated to him....I just want him to remember how special he is to me. I also want him to always place more value in his faith in himself than what others may think of him...something I could work on too...LOL...
DCWV At Home paper stack. I have to give a big shout out to Beatriz for the inspiration for this album. She recently showed how she took a plain inexpensive child's $1 board book and altered it...I could not wait to try it....check out Beatriz's amazing work @ her amazing blog...AMAZING GRACE.

When I go to M's I always check out the end cap clearance items, these Blue Moon charms were among the treasures I found on my last trip. They are attached to key clasps and then looped on to some wire that I embellished with some beads and attached to the blue satin ribbon by Offray.

There is a key hidden behind the marquee....the key and keyhole are both from Sentamentals, the key hole is the negative cut from the lock with a bit of trimming.

On these 2 pages I added the title of stay faithful....I used Memory Makers alpha stickers and Plantin for the title font....

Knock Knock is from Sentimentals as is the door knob. The door is cut from My Community and the wooden accents are from part of a layer cut again from Sentimentals. I added some little hinges I picked up at a discount store and some bling. The door is embossed and chalked.

The row of beads is from the dollar tree...a necklace type holder for eyeglasses...i glued it into place before cutting away the wire strand.

This is an over sized cut of the same doorknob....I used some Aileens paper glaze to accent the knob and the edges of the cut. The tags are from Plantin....I used my Fiskars border punch for the corner pocket and Sentamentals again for the keys.

From Matthew 7 I have paraphrased some reminders to my son...Knock and the door shall open...along with a pic of him on the inside of the door.

Seek and ye shall find is in the K&Co mini frame and behind the tags....ask & it shall be given unto you.

I embellished my tags with the words Peace, Hope and Love and some question marks from Plantin....a safety pin with a mini button and some little charms finished off with a bit of ribbon. I will put additional pix on the back of these tags.

These pages are called Sonlight to reference Christ and to also remind Mcauley that he will always be a light in my life. The fence, tree and lamp are all from Heritage. Frames from Sentamentals, Sun cut from Life's A Beach and path from Mickey and Friends.

The Bible is from Heritage....I printed this verse on vellum and added a bit of silver paint on all the edges.

The fence is embossed with my Cuttlebug, added a bit of blue pearl accents to the frame and some starlight stickles to the lamp.

The tree and sun are also embossed...the birds are from Sentamentals...starlight stickles accent a few of these cuts as well.

Plantin and Heritage for the title fonts on these pages....another Sentamentals frame, old world ribbon by DCWV, The boys profile cut is also Heritage, tags from Plantin and compass from My World.

Another piece of inspiration I found while I was out bloggin about was this flower....Amanda had a great video tute on these flowers with crepe paper...I chose to use a very sheer wide ribbon and add a button to the center....Check out all of Amanda's creative inspiration HERE.

I want my son to remain unique...I loved this quote " The white light streams down to be broken up by these human prisms into all the colors of the rainbow." My personal interpretation of this is God is the white light and he did not create any of us the same....and how beautiful would a rainbow really be without all the shades of color...as our lives would be quite boring if we were all the same.I added a bit of garland to this page to accent the flower.

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no ones definition of your life. Define yourself." What a fab quote and something I hope my son takes to heart. I have added a little charm to complete this title....be you.

When the butterfly paperclip is removed it opens a little tag album that is attached to the last page...the world map has a bit of Romans 12....be not conformed to this world but be transformed. I used my photo impact program to wrap the text...you can kinda see it in white on the map. The tags have been embossed and will hold additional photos.

Hope you enjoyed the rest of my mini album....I will be back later to do a bit of blog hopping...Have a great day!

SOUS weekly challenge and some exciting news!

Happy Friday everyone! Another reveal @ SOUS! For this weeks fab challenge I decided to create a mini album. I used the challenge sketch from Becky Fleck @ Pagemaps and lots of creative freedom to design the cover of my book. I took the liberty of turning the sketch and played with the paper placement. I had hopes of posting the whole album but that will have to wait a day or so. I used Plantin for the squares and title font, Sentimentals for the marquee and a fab dollar frame from M's with one of my fave pics of Mcauley and I. We have added bling to the challenge this week and I ran across these fab blue swirls @ M's for 1.99, the blue rhinestones where included in the package...what a deal! I also found some wonderful blingy dragonflies, perfect for boy pages. The alpha stickers are by Making Memories. I used the new DCWV At Home stack....wonderful papers with lots of glitz and fabulous creams, browns and blues. I created a little wire embellie with beads to hold the key clasps...the little charms are by Blue Moon. I will include a little more info and close ups when I post the completed album.
I also would like to share some really exciting news. I had decided not to put anymore on my plate but then was asked to join the DT for Generations Crafting. Floren is a doll and made me an offer I could not refuse....LOL...so with school almost over I have decided to join her team. I hope you will pop over to her store and check out all the fab scrappy goodness she has....her papers and embellies were a perfect fit for me and I am sure you will love them too. So watch for some fun projects featuring the products from her store.
Head on over to SOUS to see what Nanne, Leah and Sandi came up with plus a wonderful surprse from this weeks guest designer Debbie.
I'll post the mini album soon so keep a look out!!!! Thanx for stopping by and have a great day!

So Blessed!

I am so touched to receive two more awards from some of my wonderfully bloggy friends. Brenda, Sheila and Kim have passed me the Beautiful Blogger award and Staci has shared the Sweet Friends award with me.

All four of these ladies are incredibly talented and generous. They share not only inspiration with us but also their kind support and encouragement. I cannot say enough about these ladies, they have truly touched my heart.

I have been so busy with life lately I have not been able to be the bestest bloggy friend....I love visiting and commenting on all the wonderful blogs out there...all the projects I see and fantastic inspiration I receive is just beyond words fantastic. That said I am breaking the rules a bit and sharing these awards with everyone....please take one and share the love with some of the wonderfully creative people you know in the blog world....we all need to get a little love everyday.....I know it means the world to me......so I am to share 10 things that make me happy for the Friend Award and 7 things about myself for the Beautiful Blogger Award.

10 things that make me happy....

1. God

2. Mcauley

3. My Job

4. Children

5. Days Off

6. Coffee

7. Chocolate

8. Jammies

9. Scrappy Goodies

10. My Friends...bloggy and IRL

7 things about myself (I loved Barbs take on this so I asked Mcauley and he said...)

1. You're nice.

2. You have a kind, beautiful heart.

3. You always want to find out whats bugging people and make sure that they are ok.

4. You never give up...you always do your best no matter what it takes.

5. You will give up anything for someone else.

6. You're beautiful.

7. You're amazing.

After asking Mcauley his view of me and listening to his answers I am ready to cry. What else could I want when I have a fourteen year old son who sees me this way?

Don't' forget to take your awards and stop by and see my lovely friends who shared these with me...you wont be sorry!

Madalyn Mae...Precious Gift

Alrighty then another Friday reveal @ SOUS. I'm headed out of town to the Oklahoma Aquarium and Tulsa Zoo, we have a long weekend from school, yeah! I am so happy I get to share this post before I leave...
This is my sweet new grand niece....isn't she lovely...she was born on the 16th...another precious baby girl to bloom on our family tree!
This weeks sketch by our lovely Aymee Gandy. The background paper is from Fancypants....a gift from a dear friend. The other papers are some pink card stock and My Minds Eye.

This beautiful butterfly heart is from Love Struck...I added some xtra butterflies from Sentimentals and lots of stickles.

I used alpha beads and wire for precious and Lyrical letters for the rest of the title...a little pink heart paperclip just for fun. I adore this sheer ribbon, I added some heart beads to gather it in three places.
Some more wire, ribbon and a couple of tags.

I love, love, love the butterfly on Sentimentals...isn't it just the bomb...some bling and stickles to add a little glitz!

This fancy little square cut is from Sentimentals as well....I added another bead, a little charm and some more ribbon to the corner of the frame. The frame and scallop squares are all from stamping. I also added some dimensional paint to the title.

I threaded some beads onto a straight pin and stuck it through the ribbon. Hope you like....and hope you will have a chance to check out the rest of the DT's fab projects @ SOUS...maybe even show us a little something of your own.....cya later!

Expandable Photo Box & Cut File

Hey Hey Hey!!! Okay, here I am with the project and cut file I promised earlier this week. This is a photo box that the lovely Marion Smith created. I found this tute while visiting her blog, A Piece of Craft. Marion is simply amazing and if you have never paid her a visit I hope this encourages you to. To find the tute for the box click HERE for her blog...then got to kit boutique and then to videos....look for the expanding photo box, it is a two part tute. I am including a cut file for my cricut friends so all the measuring for the box and the papers are all done for you. I would like to give a big shout out to Judy for helping figure that out...check out Judy's awesome blog candy....click on the link on my sidebar. One cut file will be the box only and the other will include the box and the cuts for the flowers and some of the other embellishments I used on my box.
The front of this memory box is embellished with a button closure...Heritage for Memories, offray lace, and some fun beaded trim.

I used my K&C0 Life's Journey stack to create my box...just love those papers! I adore how the postcard paper looks for the expandable sides.

another view....

This pic shows the top inside of the box where I added some lace ribbon and this also gives a view of the dividers and tabs.

I decided I want to embellish my tabs and have not had time to finish them...but did not want to put off this post any longer.

Just some pics of what I have done on the tabs so far. The corner flourish is from my new Heritage cart...this is the first project I've used this wonderful cart on.

Thank you Barb for using vellum for your butterflies...it inspired me to try it again~These are cut from Sentimentals and then the edges are sponged with gold acrylic paint.

The flower was created with several cuts from plantin.

These cuts are also from Heritage....so much fun!

More of the Tim Holtz roses....click HERE to see how fun and easy these are to make....

My larger flower is the Tim flower with the xtra heart cuts from Home Decor as the bottom layer...all on the cut file. The wonderful flourish again Heritage. I am not sure if I want a pic or a quote in the K&Co frame...so it is empty right now.

My pink flowers are accented with Frosted Lace stickles while the newsprint roses have accents of Scattered Straw distress stickles. I also found this fab stem @ M's and knew it had a home on the top of my box.

Here are the cut file links....first time I've done this...hope it works!

Expandable Photo Box with flowers and flourishes

Expandable Photo Box

Some more sunshine to spread and a little peek!!!!

Hi everyone.....I started the coolest project yesterday and wanted to give you a little peek....I'm lovin it....I have an awesome tute to share that I found on the net from an amazing artist....I am also trying to figure out how to share cut files for DS so I can share this with my cricut friends...it makes the project so easy and relatively quick to put together....can't wait to finish and post!

If anyone has any how to tips on the cut files....please leave a comment and let me know...I've never done it before.

I also want to spread some more sunshine.....My original post for the Sunshine Award follows this post....I was so excited and touched to see that Kaye has passed me this award as well....I think that means God wants me to spread a little more too....so 6 more friends to share with.

Sandi....an amazing artist and wonderful encourager

Judy...xtra talented and so generous to always share her files with everyone

Damaris....cheerful and full of talent, she shares some awesome inspiration on her blog

Kelly....makes the most amazing cards...always super cute for the little girlies in her life

Margie....super inspirational and very talented

Leanne....such a sweetie and another awesome paper artist

I'm going to sneak one more to my kiddos at school....you may know they started a blog in class and I think they would be tickled.....

ESOL Cool Kids....because they bring a ray of sunshine to me everyday!!!

Thanx for helping me spread some more love Kaye!!! Please hop on over to Kaye's blog and check out her awesome work!!!!