A New Grand daughter and Missing Don!

Weary from days of several flights, we finally arrived in SE Asia on June 24th to be greeted with shouts of "Grandma!" and "Grandpa!" as 2 little girls pushed through the crowd and ran toward us! Bouncing & skipping partners led us to the van, all the while chattering and giving detailed stories of their hopes and planned activities! Glancing out the windows we saw familiar sights of a tropical island, yet it was the squeezes and "My grandma!" whispers that cuddled my heart.
The girls had grown so big in the past year, but those hugs were even better than we remembered!
Eventually, one of them announced, "Mommy had our baby sister yesterday!" She was a week early, but in a hurry to join the world and very much welcomed!
When we pulled into the drive, there stood our daughter with our new grand daughter in her arms!
What fun we've had these past 14 days, but now, it is time for my husband to return to work. His plane departed Friday for the 37 hours of travel back to our home in the USA. I stayed behind with the family and will return home in August.
While "Foamie" creating with my grand daughters, my heart prayed for the jet planes that carried my Don further and further away. It is bittersweet. Being with family, but separated from my dear Don. I wanted to tell him how much I love him and miss him and remembered the best method to send a message has always been to "post it".
So.....
I took a white piece of foam and colored the background with markers. Then I added little sticky-backed foam palm trees to add dimension. Finally, I colored this Tilda with copics and placed her in the midst of tropical foam flowers.
With this card posted, I send lots of love to my dear Don who just arrived home safely and also know that this little piece of foam will become a keepsake I'll add to my scrap book memories of this summer spent doing crafts with my grand daughters!

You picked me

Many times we must wait for His timing to give us the gifts we so desire. This is true of a friendship blossoming in my life this year. I knew this lady for several years; our paths crossing occasionally in common interests, but this year, we've found our commonality has developed into a mutual friendship. I praise God for the encouragement Jan has brought to my life "at such a time as this", and hope that in some small way, I am thanking her and the Lord with this little card.

All things beautiful in His Time

Making new friends is like finding silver! I found a treasure in a new friendship! This wonderful friend has been teaching me the patience and art of hand quilting! Just before I left the states for the summer, she gifted me with a birthday card. It was a small touch, but I didn't even know she knew the date of my birthday! I created this little card with hopes of thanking her sweet spirit for all the wonderful little touches she's added to my life.
"He has made all things beautiful in His time" is definitely true and so wonderfully demonstrated even in new friendships. Just as God placed beautiful flowers to show his handiwork, so He plants his sweet children in our lives to point our hearts back to his glory and grace.
I used my new Cricut to cut the lettering, and found felt floral & butterfly ribbon at Michaels to cut apart for the garden, adding pearl ribbon for "baby breath" touches and green punched leaves for filler. The ladybug is a stamp placed against a splash of stripes to show the early dawn in this garden friendship!

With Much Love

Showering much love on a bridal niece caused me to display my hope for her marriage on this card. I followed the color scheme in her upcoming wedding to represent the extremes of personality and show their marriage could be built on a solid force, giving it a good foundation. Nothing describes marriage better than the stark contrast of black and white being brought into unity by the accenting force of red.
In marriage, neither personalities actually change, yet they dance together because they build one life moving with a flexible love which desires each step to support the partnership. My ribbons represent the necessary times of transparency or compromise needed to keep the knot securely tied. Finally, it takes many baskets of love and the conscious distribution of heart to cause unity to grow and flourish to completion. Through marriage, two vastly different scripts are brought to the same page to compose a new story built on the gift of love.

Pink & Bashful Comfort

Finding this soft pastel pink pleasing to my eye with black/white DP, I decided to create a THANK YOU card to a new friend who has gone out of her way to make me feel comfortable in her craft group. The softness of pastel whispered thanks while the popping out of garden flowers brightened memories of a day recently spent with her colorful group. Because the Teddy speaks of the most cuddly unobtrusive dragged along friend, and is usually welcomed by everyone, so I hope this one gave the message of comfort I felt by her kindness, and relayed more than the simple words "thank you" could.

Skootch & Doodle's Village

Skootch & Doodle created a village for the “maggies” and friends. They spent the morning coloring each image with pencils, learning to outline and shade a little bit. Grandma drew a larger village including a church, and some more houses which added to the houses Doodle colored. We glued the village inside a shoebox and put velcro on the characters to move them about as we pleased. They also colored and attached a magnolia tree to the edge of the box to give some dimension.


Grandma was very happy when Skootch colored in the lines, although she was a little confused at blue faces! With lots of giggles and funny stories, they decided that blue faces were the little kids who had just finished finger painting at pre-school! Grandma could picture that mess and happily accepted the colored pencil look of little girls' imaginations!