'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus

I have loved music since I was a young child. I remember singing my first songs in church when I was about three. Usually, I sang songs in children's church, but if I was in grown-up church and I recognized a song, I remember standing on the pew next to my parents and singing all the parts I knew with joy. With those experiences is it any wonder that I've been in love with the old hymns for over 60 years?  The songs and their words are deeply ingrained in my being and rise to the surface often to encourage me, to remind me of truths I need to remember.

Here's an encouragement card I made with the first line of one of those old hymns that reminds us that we can trust Jesus to help us through life's trials:

'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, And to take Him at His word. Just to rest upon His promise, And to know, "Thus saith the Lord." Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him! How I've proved Him o'er and o'er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust Him more!

I used the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches #331 and the colors from Color Throwdown #487:

 

Thank you for visiting! May you, too, be blessed by the Lord as you trust Him more and more!

I'm Sharing this card with the following challenges:

Color Throwdown #487 - pink, red, mint

Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper April Challenge - anything with patterned paper

Dies R Us #94  -  anything goes with brands of ies they carry

Freshly Made Sketch #331 - clean layout using sketch

Simply Papercraft #56 - anything goes
Word Art Wednesday #328-329 - anything uplifting

5.5" x 4.25" Card Recipe:

Papers - retired CTMH Sugar Rush and Lollydoodle

Stamp - Sweet 'n' Sassy Stamps Timeless Hymns

Embellishment - CTMH Black and White enamel dots

Tools -  Tim Holtz Thinlits Alterations die, Spellbinders Foliage die

Freshly Made Christmas Card

Last night I was listening to our local weather track tornadoes near our home.  As it grew closer, it also grew in strength. You can believe I was praying for the safety of everyone in the area. I also gathered a few items to take to the basement with me if I needed to take cover. My husband was a mile away working on the roof of a daughter's new house he's helping to build. He and the roofers waited until the storm was on top of them before they quit. I was making frequent phone calls giving him the latest update on location and timing. In the end the only touchdown of the tornado was 9 miles from where he was working. What a relief when it was over! Thankfully no one was injured! For me, tornado weather is like drinking a pot of coffee. I had so much adrenaline in my system I needed to start cleaning and organizing my craft room to burn off the excess energy. I began finding old papers tucked away and naturally got side-tracked into crafting ideas.

Here's a card I designed using some of the long retired papers I found that screamed, "USE IT UP"-a theme I try to regularly incorporate in my crafting! The fun sketch from Freshly Made Sketch #251 was the perfect design. I was in the mood for something clean and simple!

The pink papers are from CTMH 2004 B&T Bubblegum (dots) and Orchid (stripes) packs of papers. The tree is cut from the recently retired CTMH Penelope paper pack, using the Christmas Cheer Cricut cartridge. Because it's rather whimsical, I gold-embossed the Merry Christmas script using the retired CTMH stamp "Merry, Merry Holiday."

Thank you for stopping by! May God bless you as you create projects that will bless others! (And may He keep you safe in times of storms!)

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

ABC Christmas Challenge - Q for Quick layout

Crafting By Designs - get ready for Christmas

Crafty Gals Corner #86 - emboss it (mine has dry embossed background and gold heat embossed sentiment)

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge #296 - use a sentiment

Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra - anything goes

Crimbo Crackers #114 - anything goes

Freshly Made Sketch #251 -  sketch

Holly Jolly Christmas #79 - Non-traditional colors

Pile It On #115 - Die Cut embellishments (tree)

Happy Trails Camper Card

This week I'm taking care of my three grandsons who love our camping and hiking trips. I think that influenced the subject of my card. I adored these fun images from Doodle Pantry called Happy Trails Camper.


I used one of the scenes Laurie made and added one extra tree behind the tent. The nice thing about using png digi files is that you can stack them into a scene. The word "UnBEARable"  was part of the set. I typed and added "When life becomes" and the inside sentiment "pray. . . and I'll pray, too."

I rotated the clean sketch from this week's  Freshly Made Sketches. I thought the clean look of this sketch was great for a masculine card.

Thank you for visiting.  May you, too, draw near to God for strength, help, and wisdom when times in life become unBEARable!

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:
Crafting for All Seasons #83 - feature a creature
Freshly Made Sketches #148 - sketch
 Ooh La La Creations #162 - scenic card
The Paper Players #207 - buttons
Whoopsi Daisy - "B" items (bear, buttons)

Freshly Made Back to School Card

Most of my life I was excited in August to get ready for the school year. I loved going to school as a child and teenager so it was natural for me to choose teaching as a career. This week my "old school district" started school. I had lunch with another retired teacher yesterday and we agreed- we didn't miss it enough to want to give up retirement!

When I feel those wistful yearnings to teach again, I either visit grandkids or remember that the 30 years I spent teaching reading laid a foundation for many young lives. I also remember that I need to pray for my grandkids to do well, pay attention, and work hard and for their teachers. It's an overwhelming but important job to meet every child's needs in our education environment today.  I chose a sentiment to remind myself and my retired friends of their teaching influence.  I used apples showing their seeds and some that aren't because that's the way our influence seems. You can't always see the results of what you've accomplished in young lives, but the seeds are always there, even if they're hidden for a time.

Freshly Made Sketch #49 was perfect for this card.

 

I modified the sketch from a square to 5.5" x 4.25."

 

 

I wanted to use my Quikutz embossing folder to make the apples. I brayered red ink on the raised side of the folder which debossed colored apples. (Since they're colored, it's hard to tell that the apples were debossed.) I colored between the thin lines of the "peel" on the four outlined apples using the Ruby alcohol marker. I cut them out and pop dotted the middle solid apple.

 

By the way, we all had teachers, too. I'm sending this card to my 6th grade teacher whose address I recently found. I want her to know she was the one who influenced me to teach.

 

And even as we age, their influence lives on in us. May we never stop learning!

 

I'm sharing this card with the following challenges:

Crop Stop Challenge 86 - Back to School

Freshly Made Sketch #49

Fussy and Fancy Challenge #70 - Back to School

Going Grey with Scrap-Creations - Back to School

Simon Says Stamp - Simon Says Back to School

Simply Create Too Challenge #20 - Back to School

Tuesday Alchemy Challenge #28 - Learn with Joy

 

5.5" x 4.25" Card Recipe:

Paper - The Paper Studio "Linen Closet"; Close To My Heart Cardstock

Stamp - My Favorite Things "Clearly Sentimental About Teaching"

Ink - CTMH Cranberry, Black

Markers - CTMH Alcohol Ruby, Ponderosa Pine

Accents - MME baker's twine

Tools - The Paper Studio "Notebook Paper" embossing folder, Quikutz embossing folder

 

Freshly Made Christmas in July with Cricut Artiste

I stayed up late making this card so that I could pray and hope we would really get rain tonight. It's been many weeks of extreme heat and no rain here. I was finally rewarded with the happy sounds of thunder. I'm hoping that the light shower will continue through the night. In my heart I'm singing "There shall be showers of blessings. . ."

Here's another Christmas card using a shape from the new Close To My Heart Cricut Artiste cartridge that will be available for purchase August 1st. This one uses the Freshly Made Sketch #45 and the challenge at Holly Jolly Christmas to use non-traditional colors. I was also inspired by the Christmas challenge #101 at 2 Sisters Challenge Blog to use an animal on the card. The sketch and Clean and Simple emphasis of the Freshly Made challenges made this card a quick and easy card!

The Cricut shape behind the bird is from Artiste, page 67 "M", Accent 3 shift, cut at 2.5" Real Dial size. If you don't use Real Dial size you get a tiny shape meant to be the embellishment on a 2.5" card. I love this new cartridge, so I intend to keep introducing some of its 700 shapes. If you're interested in getting your own cartridge, you'll be able to find it on August 1st using the Shop with Me button on the side.

Close To My Heart is introducing some new colors of cardstock in their paper packs that will be unique only to that paper pack. The ones I used come from the Flirty pack and are called Flirty Raspberry and Flirty Yellow, definitely not typical Christmas colors. I combined them with silver trim and lightly retraced the tops and left sides of the dove and the letters with a glitter gel pen.

Challenges for this card:
2 Sisters Challenge #101 - Christmas in July, optional twist - use an animal image
Freshly Made Sketch #45
Holly Jolly Christmas - Use non-traditional colors

4.25" x 5.5" Christmas Card Recipe:
Papers - Close To My Heart "Flirty" paper pack (coming Aug. 1st)
Stamps - CTMH "Blessings of Peace" (coming Aug. 1st)
Inks - black, Garden Green marker
Accents - CTMH Silver trim; glitter gel pen

You Are God's Masterpiece, Loved Beyond Measure

Ever since I was a teenager (many, MANY years ago) I've known young women who don't recognize their own self worth or their worth to God. Sometimes they feel that way only when they're down, but other times they feel alienated from God all the time. I've known some who feel out of place in Christian circles and others who feel they don't have any good traits. So often this happens from the negative input from other people or from comparing themselves to someone else. I always believed God wanted me to encourage them the way His word always encourages me.

Sin in our lives definitely pulls us away from fellowship and blessings from Him, but even then, He loves us beyond measure. That's why Scripture says, "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us," taking the punishment for our sins through His death on the cross. Once we have believed this and received that gift, we need to understand that nothing we do and none of the things done to us can separate us from that love. Yes, we have to confess and repent of the sin we continue to commit due to our human nature, but we can gain victory over so many bad habits and attitudes and maintain our fellowship or closeness to God through such confession and help through prayer and His Spirit living inside us. We don't have to continually feel like He's not there for us.

I made this card to encourage someone who feels God could never love her because of all the bad things that have happened in her life. I love this verse from Romans 8:38-39 because it means that not even the worst sin or circumstance can separate those of us who follow Christ from the love of God:  "For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." I felt this verse implies that we are God's masterpiece, which is the challenge this week at Stampin' Sisters in Christ. The verse is from Clear Dollar Stamps "Value Verses 1."

I was inspired by this sketch from Freshly Made Sketch and the color palette from The Play Date Cafe, asking us to use black, white, and a splash of blue.

May God bless and encourage your heart as you realize how awesome you are to Him.

Challenges for this card:
Stampin' Sisters in Christ #144 - something that reflects how you are God's masterpiece
Freshly Made Sketch # 40
The Play Date Cafe #137 - black, white, and a splash of blue

6.5" x 5" Encouragement Card Recipe:
Paper - Bo Bunny "Enchanted" collection; Close To My Heart White Daisy, Black cardstock
Image - Clear Dollar Stamps digi "Value Verses 1"
Ink - CTMH "Moonstruck"
Accents and Tools - Sizzix Swirly Vines with Hearts embossing folder; Spellbinders Nestabilities "Labels 10," Lattice Rectangles; Making Memories navy blue ribbons; Close To My Heart My Legacy writer, black button brads, stipple brush

Feel Better Soon

Here's a bright, cheery get well card inspired by the following three challenges. Perfect Sentiments Challenge today wants us to make a get well card using words other than "get well." DYSU Challenge is "Circles," so I used the paper from Lime Rickey and made some circle embossed paper, too. The wonderful sketch from Freshly Made Sketches, #34, incorporates a circle so it was the perfect choice.

I inked a brayer with Cranberry Ink and rolled it over the side of the Cuttlebug folder that has writing. (I call it the top.) Then I embossed the Sunflower paper as usual, being careful not to shift the paper against the ink. The rest of the papers and the row of stickers come from the Basic Grey Lime Rickey collection. The flower is from CTMH. The stamp is from Verve. Thanks for looking!

Mother's Day Love

If you read my previous post, you would have read about the tornado warnings where my son lives. I just watched the evening news with lots of photos of the tornado near their house. How thankful I am again that no one was hurt and there was no damage. Olathe, Kansas, is a very populated area with so many homes and businesses. Both tornadoes stayed aloft, but they certainly looked ominous.

I have a few more Mother's Day cards to make, so I was glad to see the challenge at Paper Sundaes. This card uses the great sketch at Freshly Made Sketches, #33. I used the color scheme from The Play Date Cafe, Challenge #130. It worked really well with the My Mind's Eye "Love Me" paper collection.

I used an embossing folder that has diagonal lines like the plaid paper. I cut out two hearts from the paper and pop dotted them. The gray heart on the sentiment circle came from a gray doily pattern on the back of one of the papers. Ribbon and sparkles were simple embellishments, but maybe with the embossing, my card isn't quite so Clean and Simple. It certainly was simple to make and I know my oldest daughter will love it.

May God bless your cardmaking for the special women in your life.

Challenges:

Freshly Made Sketch #33

Paper Sundaes Challenge #119 - Mother's Day

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #130 - pink, aqua, gray

6.5" x 5" Mother's Day Card Recipe:

Paper - My Mind's Eye "Love Me;" Close To My Heart Crystal Blue cardstock

Stamps - CTMH retired (sentiment)

Ink - CTMH Hollyhock

Other - Cuttlebug embossing folder, CTMH pink sparkles, Crystal Blue organdy (retired), Spellbinder's Nestabilities Heart Circles

Love You Forever, Mom

This is my second post this evening using the same paper and the stamp from "Love You Forever." I love the way the shapes look stitched. Stitching always gives me that "homemade" warm fuzzy feeling. The kind you get from moms.  That's why this one is a Mother's Day card for the children's hospital in Iowa. (See Send a Smile 4 Kids for more information.)This time I showed more of the striped paper and more white. I used this great sketch from Freshly Made Sketches:

I made mine more rectangular, embossed the front with a wood grain embossing folder, and cut out the stamped images after coloring so they could be pop dotted on the circle.

I chose the thin red line of red  in the patterned paper to be my accent color for the flower, twine, and mat for the letters. The 3" white circle for the nest image was made a little smaller by attaching a thin 3" open circular mat of Kraft cardstock that I cut out on the Cricut. That allowed some of the image to overlap. The pop dots were cut into thin slivers so they wouldn't show. Such a fun sketch and actually quite simple. I wanted it to be Clean and Simple for CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week! The sentiment letters were stamped on 1/2" circles then matted on 5/8" circles.

Challenges:
Freshly Made Sketches - Sketch #32
CAS-ual Fridays Challenge #50 - Spring creations with flowers or trees

5.5" x 4.25" Mother's Day Card Recipe:
Paper - Close To My Heart (retired Fun-tastic pp - very old!), White Daisy, Cranberry, and Kraft cardstock
Stamps - Love You Forever, Tiny Typewriter
Ink - Tuxedo Black-Memento
Other - My Mind's Eye Lime Twist Twine, Sizzix Wood Grain embossing folder; Copic markers; CTMH Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge

Peaceful and Holy Easter Vintage Card

Colour Create Challenge #93 has this lovely photo inspiration to go with their challenge to use deep purple, bright green, and cream. This color comgination is one I've loved since I was six years old. Freshly Made Sketch Challenge #29 was perfect for adding a touch of color on the side and plenty of white space so that the image is the focus. Because the papers are from Basic Grey, I'm also entering this card in the Basic Grey Challenge #65 to make Easter cards.

The colors led me to use a vintage Easter card image that was surrounded by purple violets with their green leaves.  The angels are making music and in the background is a church.  All of those details together speak to my heart of the joys of Easter celebrating the gift of Christ's death and resurrection.

I used the bottom square on the right to place two violets. They had a little too much red in their color so I sponged some Pansy Purple ink on each petal so that they'd match the Pansy Purple cardstock I used to mat the image. They're darker in the photo than in real life. Here's a photo of that detail taken with flash.

The organdy is also Pansy Purple with a small charm that says "Love." The embossing folder that I used is rather architectural in design with goes with the church theme of the image.

May God bless your heart as you celebrate Easter tomorrow.

5" x 6.5" Easter Card Recipe:

Paper - Basic Grey "Indie Bloom;" CTMH Colonial White, Topiary, Pansy Purple cardstock

Ink - Close To My Heart Pansy Purple

Other - CTMH organdy; Cuttlebug embossing folder "Mary Ann;" charm and flowers unknown form stash

Freshly Made Sketch with Butterflies and Basic Grey

Ever since I read on the blog "Send A Smile 4 Kids" about the need for cards for a children's hospital in Iowa, I've started making more for kids. There current challenge is to use things with wings for kids. I saw that they need Mother's Day cards by April 30 for the kids to give to their moms. So this Basic Grey challenge #65 to make Mother's Day cards using Basic Grey was perfect. This sketch from Freshly Made Sketches Challenge #28  is also perfect for so many possibilities. I'm sure I'll use it multiple times. I love making Mother's Day cards even though my mom is home with Jesus now, so I enjoy finding others I can give one to and I remember good things about my own mom while I make it. I hope some of you can send cards in this way, too. May God richly bless you!

4.25" x 5.5" Card Recipe:
Paper - Basic Grey: Indie Bloom; CTMH Blush, Hollyhock, White Daisy cardstock, scrap of black cs?
Stamps - CTMH all retired - Dream Big, A Little of Everything (sentiments), Butterflies and Celebrate Life (two different Monarch butterflies)
Inks - CTMH Black, retired Watermelon, Goldrush dabbed on wings
Other - Sizzix embossing folder, ribbon from Michaels

Freshly Made Sketch #24 with Butterflies

Last week I cut a piece of Basic Grey Curio paper into sections. One of them was this collection of butterflies. Freshly Made Sketch #24 was perfect for displaying this collection. Living in the country with a wide variety of flowers made me passionate about butterflies. I would take caterpillars to school with their food source and let the kids study their life cycle, then release them outdoors. Here's the sketch I used today.

This is also my card for Flutter By Wednesday's Challenge #192 and Ribbon Carousel's Challenge #42, both are "Anything Goes."

 I chose Close To My Heart Stella paper for the background and middle band. It's reversible, so I used the same sheet for both patterns. I thought the background paper gave the card a CAS (Clean and Simple) appearance and looked like the pattern of scales on a butterfly's wings.

I stamped the words in a border on each side using a CTMH set called Classmate Alphabet that has tiny words for each letter. Now, if the weather will continue to warm up here, we'll have more flowers than my snowdrops and with the flowers come the butterflies!

Freshly Made Sketch #20

I really liked the "clean and simple" feel of the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. I wanted to try the bright "Stella" papers that are new from Close To My Heart and this sketch was perfect. The bright scallops on the thin strip is something called a zip strip that they put on all of their papers now. this one gives a splash of color, although I didn't cut it into scallops because I wanted all of the brightness to show. I don't make too many elongated cards. The designers at FMS gave their card sizes which varied from 3" x 6" to 4" x 9." Mine is 3.5" x 8.25."

More Vintage Christmas

At Christmas, I prefer giving cards that keep the focus on Christ. These two cards came together so quickly. After finding free vintage Christmas cards/clipart earlier this week, I just had to make one more card using vintage clipart for the challenge at Little Red Wagon. The rules at Vintage Holiday Crafts say that you can't use more than five on a blog, so I'm still safe. 

I took Freshly Made Sketch 14 and lengthened it vertically to accomodate a rectangular picture instead of a square one. I used 4 rectangles from Basic Grey's "Curio."  The papers are heavily "inked" on the edges already so I cut the pieces from two corners for each design. I used some long-hoarded gold cardstock that CTMH used to sell to mat the vintage print. A simple poinsettia that has a gold-rimmed pearl brad in the center provided the one embellishment. Easy and simple!!

The next card was also easy. I saw Kaboodle Doodles Challenge today to use Christmas colors: red, green, gold, and white. I had a pad of the Paper Studio paper at hand with those colors and knew that the Clean and Simple Stamping Sketch would be great with those colors and 3 stars.

I tried to combine a rustic look of Kraft cardstock signifying Christ's humble birth with elegant gold embossing to show his glory. The inside verse is simple: Wise men still seek him. Merry Christmas.

I used stylus to emboss a line .25" from all four edges on front. I had made the middle star a little bigger on white paper embossed with gold, like the sentiment. I cut the stars on the Cricut with the Art Philosophy cartridge. The two side ones were 1.5" with a one inch star stacked on top. The middle star was cut at 1.75" to match the star in the stamp set "Love Life." It's too bad the design doesn't show up as well in the photo.The embossed sentiment comes from CTMH "Everlasting Life." I think I'll make more of these!!