To the rescue!!!

Well, first, let me tell you about my week.  I said I was going to start blogging again....and then I get sick as a dog!  Picked up some stomach bug and have been asleep since Tuesday morning!  Stomach flu, fever, so weak I couldn't get out of bed, didn't eat for 3 days!!!  And we all know I have to be terribly sick to not eat!!!  But this morning - I'm back on track.   Called Colleen and asked if she wanted me to drive her around to look at houses. Of course....I really wanted to go to garage sales!!!  LOL!!!

I love Willow Tree images.  And today, I found a poor broken angel for just 50 cents!!!  Her ponytail had been glued on and then broken off again....lots of glue build up.

She looked just fine from the front.....but I needed to rescue her!

Started out with undu to remove all the glue.  Some was so thick I used my craftknife to scrape it off.

If you do not have a detail sander that looks like this, you must get one!  They sand in the tiniest places and are just a great little tool!!!    I think it's only $4.00.  Used this to sand both pieces so they would adhere better to each other.

527 is the absolute best glue I have found for adhering broken china, pottery, figurines, etc.  Let it dry for about 20 minutes.  I find it at hardware stores in Colorado.  It's not glue, be sure to get the one that says "multi-purpose cement".

Next, I used 3 shades of ranger paint dabbers and 1 shade of memory makers paint to mix up the perfect match for her hair color.  And it really did come out a perfect match!

I used my detail sander to distress her hair:

And no one will ever know she once was ponytail-less!!!

She is just beautiful!

and won for 50 cents

and a few moments of my time

This is my "family grouping" that I have created over the past year - finding most of them at thrift stores for $.99 each.  The artist is Susan Lordi and I would love to be able to design like she does!

50 cents and a little rescue project.....now you know why I'm such a garage sale addict!  And no, Colleen didn't find a house today.  Dare we try this again tomorrow?  LOL!!!

Jen

Some angels....

come for a second and leave a mark that lasts forever. Other angels stick around forever and leave their mark by the second!!!

What a great stamp! Of course - it's a Lucy McGoo stamp! But I love how it turned out using Spellbinders newest dies - the 12" border flourish and the 6" rose border dies:



A little airbrushing...and some glitter:



This is a great die! I just left the die on the paper and used the airbrush in the stencil openings. So quick, so easy, and so pretty.



A little finangling, but I was able to use the border die on both ends of the paper, and then fold so they did not overlap each other. Again, some airbrushing in the stencil. And if you want either of these, I can order them in for you! :o)



I'm happy to announce that Scrapbook Your Life! in San Diego is going to be stocking copic markers AND refills! How fun is that? I've ordered tons of markers and refills for each one of them. Can hardly wait to get them all in!!!

Angels - I have both kinds, do you?

Don't cry for me......

Today, my youngest son turns 24 years old. So I thought I would write my story about him.

This dear, sweet child was born perfectly healthy and at the age of 8 months, he started having grand mal seizures. Out of the blue. For no reason at all. Other than it was 24 hours after his first DPT shot. Of course, back then, we didn't know there was a risk factor with these shots....and kept giving him his series of shots. And his seizures increased. He would have as many as 7 per day. He would seize, go into a coma, go to sleep, wake up, have another seizure. Because he was sleeping so much of the time, he did not develop, he did not learn. And he acquired a long list of additional disabilities because of this.

He never had the "epileptic spike" in his brain waves and was never diagnosed as epileptic...so none of those agencies would support him. He was 2 before he took his first steps. At the age of 4, he was still not talking. We communicated with sign language. They put him in special ed with kids in wheelchairs and he would come home at night and mimic those kids.

I cried myself to sleep so many nights. My sweet, sweet baby. When something was wrong, he would scream at the top of his lungs because he couldn't tell us what hurt. It tore my heart out. I tried the best I could to comfort him, but some nights he would scream and cry all night long as I held him in my arms and loved him the best that I could between his seizures.



Today, he is 24 years old. He still has seizures. But he lives on his own, works hard, and is a good young man. Because of his disabilities, he functions at the level of a 6th grade student. Of course, I still think he's the smartest 6th grader on the block.

Life was not easy raising this child. But he taught me so much. He taught me how to love unconditionally. He taught me how to be prepared for the unexpected. He taught me how to face my worst fears. He taught me how to be a better mom than I ever would have been. He is my sweet, sweet baby, who turns 24 today, he is the angel in my life that I worry about the most.

Don't cry for me.....I would not be the artist I am today if it were not for the journey this child took me on. He continues to push me to do so much, simply because there is so much that he cannot do.

Angels

On the sheet of stamps with the angels, there are a couple of sayings that you just can't see:

"Some angels come for a second and leave a mark that lasts forever.
Other angels stick around forever an leave their mark by the second."

"She looked out the windows of the airplane and there on the wings sat her angels....laughing at her worries! Right before she landed they grabbed hands and walked into the clouds, never bothering to look back. If you look, you will se them everywhere."

What do you believe about angels? Such a thought-provoking question...we all have our own individual answer. Regardless of any religious beliefs, I like to think that every person I meet has the potential to be an angel in my life. I try to listen to their stories, to learn the journey their life has taken them on to date, and to (hopefully) help them take a bit of time to play as they travel along their path.

This stamp is perfect for cards of any type....but I created it to use on cards so I could tell the angels in my life how I feel about them!




Here are snippets of things I have written about them in past scrapbook pages:

She walked up to me one day and said, “I like you. I want to be your friend.” And she has been ever since. Her daily phone calls get me through whatever it is I need to get through! She is the angel on the phone.

This angel’s son ran out into the street in front of my house and was hit by a passing truck. He died instantly. She said, “It’s not your fault, it could have happened anywhere. Don’t spend your time asking ‘what if’. It’s not ‘what if’…but it is ‘what is’.

The day she got engaged, her fiance's ex-wife showed up at their door and tried to shoot her. He stepped in front of her and took the bullet and died. Her courage through all this, her ability to go on in the face of such sheer devastation showed me that she really is an angel…here to show me how to survive anything that steps in front of me.

Cancer reared its ugly head and this angel denied it permission to grow. She told it to stop and it did. That was 10 years ago. Then she adopted her 10-year-old twin granddaughters because they had nowhere else to go. Amazing things these angels will do!!!

I’ve known this angel for 40 years. We met when we were 15. We live 1000 miles apart…but when I think of her, she calls. When she thinks of me, I call. She is definitely a telepathic angel!

When her youngest son was born, she found out that all 3 of her boys had Cystic Fibrosis. She put a smile on her face and said, “Well, I guess I will just get up in the morning and dress for the doctor’s office.” And that’s pretty much what she did every day of her life. Most CF kids die before they reach 12. Her boys are in college now. What an inspiration this angel is!!!

The godmother to both of my sons, this angel was my pastor’s wife for years. She is the angel who loves my children as much as I do.

The angel who got me through graduate school! Without her sitting by me in every class, working with me on every project, and studying with me for every exam, I never would have made it!

One look at this angel and I just know she’s going to tell me a great story and make me laugh. She can find humor in anything and everything. She has eyes that brighten my world!

My angel from Pakistan. I am her children’s “white” mom and she is my son’s “brown” mom. Together we have taught them to see past the barriers of color.

Just when I thought I was getting too old to have any more adventures…in popped a brand new angel to show me that life happens every moment of every day!!!

She sent me an email one day and said, “would you like to play with me?” I never dreamed I could play so hard at this age!!!
This angel comes to play all the time.

28 years ago this tiny angel was born to me. The hardest thing I’ve had to do was to learn to let this one fly on his own!

My sweet baby son, my sweet joy. Now 23, he is the angel I worry about the most.

What would you write about the angels in your life?



Both of the angels open up and pull out with pop-ups within each "book" filling the pages with photos and stories about the angels in my life.



There are angels everywhere
You don’t have to look for them.
They touch your life with a smile
Their presence will fill the air.
In the darkest deep valley
When your life seems on the edge
They pick you up; dust you off...
Set you back up on the ledge.
Angels are everywhere,
And we are so unaware
That they are always right there