Another photo frame

My eldest son is over with school and I unexpectedly had to go through quite a trial at the end of the school year. By the end of the year my eyes opened to some unpleasant things which were going on. I am reading and learning new things about raising healthy children, specifically training my children in expressing negative feelings and handling anger maturely. One very helpful book is "How to Really Love Your Teen" by D. Ross Campbell. I love to give hand-made gift. This photo frame is one of the such gifts. I'm entering into the Stamp Your Story Hero Arts Challenge. Hero Arts stamps, gold embossing, stitching and K&Company patterned papers. TFV! Maria

The labour of love

This is probably the heaviest blog post pictures. My family were very supportive of my creative work. This is a scrapbook made from scratch for my mother-in-law. She has accepted me as a daughter, loved and encouraged me in my walk as a wife and a mother as nobody else. It took me 4 whole days to plan, select best shots and matching papers, compile, glue and sew altogether. If you look closely, you will spot my favorite Hero Arts stamps used here and there.

Thank you for visiting!

Playing with postage stamps

Hello, friends!

These are my boys. You can see they love stamping too!

When I was growing up, we had a post office on the first floor of our apartment building. So I felt pretty comfortable walking down there wearing slippers. I developed love for postage stamps then. They give me very pleasant childhood memories.



The set used here is Carte Postale by Hero Arts. I stamped the postage stamp images in one go on the prepared background. Then I used leftover pieces of pretty patterned papers of light and medium hues, stamped and cut rectangles, clued, colored the frames with markers and applied glossy accents.



A bit later I tried the same idea but with some pattern papers as backgrounds. I've made quite many.



I played along in the tag grid challenge organized by Jacqueline. Please look at all the beautiful entries here.

Have a blessed day! Maria

Photo frame

I was pretty busy with school and doctor visits, so not much time for creative work. However, my husband's colleague after buying a few of my cards ordered a photo frame for her family. I will not show you their picture for privacy reasons, but it is a family on the skating ring.



I love how it's turned out. Lots of stitching and a bit of embossing. The sign says: "Our family is love".

Thank you for visiting! Maria

An art journal for Jacqueline

This is a project that was on my mind for some time. I wanted to send a gift to a dear stamping friend Jacqueline. She and her husband are missionaries in the South France. I have mentioned her many times on my blog. We've become friends through Internet. I have been encouraged in my faith so many times by her walk with the Lord. She is the one who inspired me to try harder and develop my creativity in cardmaking.

I will be very curious to see how she uses. The pages are cut out of egg shell watercolor paper and are perfect for stamping. Before I go I want to mention one more lady who's become a source of spiritual inspiration to me these last years. It is Sally Clarkson. I have two of her books - The Mission of Motherhood: Touching Your Child's Heart for Eternity and Desperate: Hope for the Mom Who Needs to Breathe. The last book is very practical with lots of sound advice and biblical wisdom on raising children and creating a nourishing home environment. I am thankful for such books as I was raised by a single parent in an atheistic society and received neither training nor discipline in the yearly years. Have a blessed day! Maria

Spring coming and some news..

Hello friends! My last post was so-o-o long ago in the beginning of Febuary. I was not doing much creative work as I had to take naps and rest during the last winter month. We are expecting baby # 4 sometime in September.



Here're some quick gift tags for my son's kindergarten teachers to accompany pots of hyacinths. It's such a relief that spring is coming! I keep my scraps (cut out butterflies, die cut shapes and various stamped images etc) in transparent pockets, so when I need quick cards, I spot the pieces easily. I finally decided to cut into a beautiful self adhesive sheet by Art Accents (I did not find the company on the web) and added pretty stamp images. Thank you for visiting!

To my love

I was playing with some left over strips of DCWV card stock and came up with this Valentine card for my dear husband. Love the fresh colors. They remind me of spring. The paper-pieced birds are made with Hero Art clings, a gift from Jacqueline. The Lattice Background and the twine I received as part of a giveaway at My Inky Corner organinised

She makes beautiful cards and you can enter one of the giveaways if you follow her blog. Cristina Martinez also sells craft goodies at her etsy shop. It was a pleasant surprise to receive her lovely package of goodies and a hand-made greeting card. Thank you, Christina!

I enter this card into Snip-n-stick challenge at A blog named Hero and into Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge: Have a Heart.

TFL and have a restful week-end! Sorry! I am struggling with HTML and need my DH's help badly:)

Maria