my grandma avery.

thanksgiving. the grand kids with my grandma avery. her last thanksgiving. she passed away from this world on sunday, april 27. she was very sick, but it was quite a blow just the same to hear she was gone so quickly. we had been making plans to celebrate her 90th birthday this june. the doctor told us to move the date up. it was decided to keep the date and give her hope that she would see that celebration and all her family with it. it was not to be. the LORD allowed her to escape the deepening pain she was experiencing with her recently discovered cancer. for this we are all thankful.
she was my last living grandmother. having moved closer five years ago, we all, including my littlest of children, were able to have holidays and summers with her. to get close and enjoy each others company. all this makes her death a hard one for me to journey through.
my grandma avery was a woman of grace. she raised a few of her siblings, as her own mother died when she was only 13. she lived through the depression, as well as the realities of world war II. she raised 3 beautiful children that gave her 9 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren. she is survived by all except for one great grandchild who gave his life for his country 2 years ago in Iraq. i trust they are together now.
i love the photo above. grandma loved to watch the children and seemed to enjoy the hustle of them all. she often chided me that analise never wore socks... and how amazingly special that my oldest was 12 and got to know her like he did. i never knew my great grandparents. we are so blessed.
grandma, i love ya. hope you have a garden plot in heaven to raise your vegetables and grow your beautiful flowers like you use to. i will miss your homemade pies, especially lemon meringue. and thanks for that snickerdoodle recipe...i have loved them ever since you gave that to me. i will miss your notes. even though you always sounded so lonely when you wrote, i know now you are with grandpa and lonely no more. you will be missed.

creative weekend.

this past weekend was spent with 60 crazy ladies scrapping/creating/eating/laughing at a mountain retreat. first time i had ever cropped anywhere. and i will do it again. did not do much scrapbooking, but had several projects/mini albums to work on. this included playing with the may kit from work in progress and use that awesome mother chipboard book and make mom her mother's day gift. i loved doing it. added some k&co papers, but mostly stuck with the fab paper's trish put together from the may kit. so loved this photo of mom...her hair is so 60's...i had to include it...


mom and her daughters a couple of years back. as i worked on this project i realized we do not have many pictures together. will have to work on that in the future.

have a great evening.

off the page.

this layout was a very fun little project of a self portrait! am i vain or what? when you are the one who is behind the camera, very little gets photo'd of you. mainly i did this layout as an answer to an rak challenge over at 2 kids and some paper. she does alot of layouts that go beyondthe borders of her pages. go see! the look is a lot of fun. this was probably one of the funnest challenges i have ever done. of course i hope to win the rak...but exercising a different twist on a simple layout was well worth it.
the chocolate and sky blue cardstock is stampin up. the bracket paper is making memories. the scallop journal spot, chipboard arrow, and brad is from the new ck kit details enclosed. (great kit by the way). large paper flower is also making memories, and the calendar tag is from elles studio at etsy.

giftables.

finished up some gifts for a birthday this week. the colors are a little brighter than what is normal for me, but i received this in a great rak and the theme of it seemed to lend itself to some fun altered items.
the frame was from michaels, i think. i painted the edges in magenta, and covered the front (and back) in the patterned paper from paper loft. i cut the heart out of extra chipboard i had laying around here. the flower is punched from the paper loft paper. i took glitter glue and added to center of flower, and then adhered clear button to the top of that. i hand lettered the name, and then added a bit of the meaning to the bottom. i think i like how it turned out.

love these large clips. again modge podged the pp paper to the front of clip (as well as back). wrapped in ribbon and added a second sheer ribbon on top of that. the heart is heidi swapp that is covered in the backside of the pp. added an american craft thicker letter as well as a making memories gem. simple.
found the cutest mini composition book at walmart. it was just adorable even with out embellishment. added the paper to cover and back and binding. punched a scallop shape from cardstock. covered a heidi swapp chipboard letter in the double sided pp, cut out the middle and sanded the edges. a little piece of sheer ribbon added to that. then a felt flower from stampin up topped with a flowered button that was laying around in my stash.

thanks for looking. have a great day.

this week.

some creative time:


the patterned paper used here is mostly from jenni bowlin and the february kit. i knew then i wanted to use butterflies sometime in the spring to celebrate the new season. so i grabbed this kit, which is hard to do because her's always sell out. but it was a great buy and this wall art came together fairly well. obviously, joy is the word for the month. with a pre-teen in the house, this is a virtue to be practiced all the time.


this canvas is totally lifted from ali edwards life artist book. her canvases in there are to envy. i made the butterfly masks myself, as well as mixed the paint to get that orangy-rusty color found in the jenni bowlin kit. this is my favorite home decor piece for the month.

framed joy...i used heidi swapp chipboard and covered in jenni bowlin paper, except for the 'o', it is scenic route and stamped in really rust (stampin up) with a butterfly image (hero arts). the textured orangy paper is also from the jenni bowlin kit. it has a beautiful shimmer that is not picked up in the photo. the 'j' is dotted with an american craft plastic flower and making memories brad. the 'o' has a butterfly punched from jb paper with a martha stewart paper punch. the 'y' has a bit of dotted ribbon wrapped around it with a felt flower (stampin up) and another silver brad. i forgot how much i love shadow boxes. think before the week is through i am going to case the butterfly art ali e did a while back for weekend creative...so pretty.