Monochromatic Rubbernecker Challenge #17

I used my antique linen and walnut stain oxide inks on this card made with a wide variety of stamps, most of which I am not even sure of the sources. I made this for the Monochromatic Rubbernecker Challenge #17. You can find that challenge here.

Sweet stampin' - Wet Embossing

Just getting back into my stamp room after a week of dealing with Hurricane Harvey. Praise God that He kept water from entering my house. It is good to get back to stamping. I found this challenge at Sweet Stampin' to do a challenge using wet embossing. My stamps I used are from Unity. The ink for the background is Distress Oxide inks and I used Versamark for the embossing powder. I used white and gold embossing powders. You can find this challenge here: http://sweetstampinchallengeblog.blogspot.com/

CFC181

After a week of dealing with Hurricane Harvey, I am trying to get some of my mojo back in the stamp room. I found this CAS-ual Friday challenge #181 using kraft and white as the colors. I used an embossing folder that was inked with versamark on it and smashed the paper inside the folder.  Then I used white embossing powder on it and got the embossing gun on it. Then I stamped this Unity image onto my white circle. I die cut the white leaves and to fill a little more of the white circle I inked the embossing folder with tan ink and used it as a stamp for the edge.  This is the first time I have tried used a dry embossing folder to acheive wet embossing. I liked the results.

CCEE1735 Monochromatic and dies

What a week we have had in the Texas Gulf coast area! Hurricane Harvey came for a visit and many of our coastal towns and cities, and he didn't seem to want to leave.  So, I have lost track of days, have been in and out of my home, and finally realized, oh, it's Thursday. I need to get a card done for CCEE stampers. So, Ann's challenge for us this week was to use a monochromatic color theme and diecuts on our cards this week. I went with all white.

My husband and I did not think we were in an area that w going to be threatened and we had just returned from a week in Louisiana on a mission trip and just were glad to be home. Hubby had to go back to work on Monday, so we just came home to button down the hatches. We did not get the direct hit of the winds in our area, but we were on what they refer to as the dirty side of the storm. So, it rained, and rained and for 4 days it rained. Harvey just could not decide where he wanted to go. To add a little humor to this disasterous situation someone on  FB wrote: " Look what happens when you name a "Hurricane" after a man. He loses his way and he's too stubborn to stop and ask for directions, and he leaves a mess without cleaning up after himself. "

We left our house Monday night fearing our house would quickly be taking in water. I saw water rising higher and closer to our house than I had seen in the 20 years in this house. We had to walk out in the rain, wading through water to get to the point that a friend could retreive us with his truck. What a Godsend this sweet family was to take us in! Our next door neighbor had pets that could not be evacuated easily, and was staying in her house. She kept our cat, and she never lost power while we were gone, so we kept in touch with her. Tuesday, our neighbor informed us that we had not gotten water in our houses. So, Wednesday the water had gone down off the roads into the neighborhood  and we returned home. I have never felt such gratitude in my life to be standing in my house with no water. It was a miracle. When we left, it was inches from coming in our front door. It rained the rest of that night, and the next day, so I was expecting all of that to be all it would take. My sister, Lynn and parents live in the city where the eye of the storm hit earlier in the week, but they had evacuated to the city one of my sons lives. So they were safe, but were not sure how their houses faired during the storm. Today they arrived home and found no significant damage at their homes. I thank God for the grace He has shown my family. My parents are in the 80's and this would have been more than they could have dealt with; my sister had lost her husband this past year, and she has already had enough grief for this year, and I am so grateful God had put a hedge of protection around them.

Please continue to pray for many who have not been as fortunate and whose homes are ruined. The love and support of all who have come to be part of rescue teams and put their own lives in danger to do the wonderful job they are doing, have been God's hands and feet.

National day of Imperfections

Being an avid rubberstamper, I am always in search of a new challenge to motivate my creativity. Recently on one of my favorite websites Splitcoaststampers, the challenge was to make up a national day for something and make a card in honor of it. I recently purchased this great sentiment "This card is handmade and perfectly imperfect." It just seems to speak for me. Although I love being creative mixing colors of inks and making patterns and textures with the use of stamps, stencils, and inks, I never seem to create anything perfectly without a smudge here or there in the wrong place, or things not quite turning out as I had envisioned them in my brain. I have just learned to accept that in my art. I have come to embrace the idea that imperfections are what determines the places for embellishments.

My life is much like my art, so imperfect in so many ways. I hold to the fact that God is not finished with me yet. And my imperfections remind me that I can do nothing alone without the guidience and strength of my heavenly Father. He is always refining me; I just need to be still, listen, and be obedient.

As I write this, we are in the midst of Hurricane Harvey, and life is far from perfect and ideal. But again, I am reminded of just how great God's love is for me. The stuff of our lives too often become our priorities, but situations like this remind us of the real things of importance. Suddenly I become less offended by attitudes and opinions, and when souls are hurting and in despair, it is a game changer. There are plenty of hurting and imperfect people of our world, even without the physical storms of this life. Perhaps it is time to let loving them, accepting them, and  tending to them be our top priority. It is time to admit our own imperfections, and accept the imperfections of others, and let love be the source that fuels us.

Alphabet challenge - L is for lovely lace

I did this for the Alphabet Challenge L is for lovely lace. I wanted to keep this a flat card and easy to mail, so I stamped my lace as a background by repeating the strips. I am not sure the source of the lacy stamp, the chair is Stampendous, and the sentiment is Unity. I used Tim Holtz's distress oxide inks.

Little C's Aloha Friday Challenge - medallions

We are riding out a hurricane here on the Texas Gulf coast and stamping seems to be the best distraction. We have been fortunate this time to have our power. I have just recently gotten into using Tim Holtz's distress inks and oxide inks and they just cease to amaze me what all you can do with them.  I used the smash and spritz method for my background. Then I stamped a partial Stampin' Up medallion on the edge. I also added a little French Script, The cake and sentiment are from Unity.
I colored the cake with copic markers. I also used a silver metallic pen,

This is the first time I think I have taken part in the Little C's Aloha Friday Challenge, but I have been trying to find new challenges every week. The challenge for this week was to use a medallion.