Memorial Board for My Baby Sister Patti

I never would have thought that the next memorial board project was going to be for someone near and dear to my heart.

My baby sister, Patti Golden-Olmeda died on October 25th, 2009. She was 43 years old. It was sudden and unexpected and left all of us in shock and just devastated.

Going through the memories of pictures of her short life and the love and laughter we had together as a family has helped in my grief and in dealing with the first two weeks following her death, the viewing, the memorial service, and now the holidays without her.

I am posting the pics of the memorial boards from her memorial service. I have since added pages such as her Memorial Service table containing her ashes, the Memorial Service card that was given to all guests at her service and pictures of her internment.

I have put all my pages in a 12x12 album as a wonderful celebration of her short life on this earth. She is now dancing in the arms of Jesus.

I will miss you DeeDee and know that I will see you and Mom again with no more pain, no more tears. I love you to the moon and back again. Your Big Sissy - Deb

For the Love of Our "Kids"

One of the wonderful women in our bible study had to put her poodle down after many years. I had these dog bone frames from the $1 store and altered it. I used pink and black as the theme. I had purchased a leather bracelet in the clearance section at M's and cut it in half to put at the top and bottom of the frame. At the bottom of the frame I used the alphabet beads and added the dog's name. I used other embellishments that were dog themed. Since the little poodle was named "Gidget" I made it very girlie looking. She loved it.

Some of us do not have children and our dogs become our "kids". In honor of all the "kids" that give us unconditional love as soon as we walk in the door we know that we will meet you again at the Rainbow Bridge.

Here is the link to the poem: http:/rainbowsbridge.com/poem.htm

Altered Canvas

Today I thought I would post a couple of altered canvas projects I have done. I love altered canvas as you can do ANYTHING you want. It really gives you an open canvas (no pun intended) for mixed media.

You can paint, sand, decoupage, embellish with wood, metal, ribbon, anything you want. Give an altered canvas a try. Another place that has wonderful altered canvas is http://www.canvasdiva.com/ you will love her website and ideas! Crop on... Diva Deb

First ATC Swap! ** Updated Post **

Hi All! Well I finally got my first ATC cards done for my very first swap. We started out having to do 12 and then it was up to 20. I am hoping we split into 2 small groups when we meet tomorrow night. The first ATC theme was our name. We could do anything we wanted. So I did a small fold out on top of the regular size ATC card. That was the only way I could get the meaning of my name on it. It turned out really cute. I don't know what the next theme will be but will be posting as we do these each month. Crop on..... DIVA - DEB



Update to Post: We met last night and we have a group of very talented ladies. The cards were adorable. So I now need to get organized.

1. A basket to put the cards in to pass around to the group.
2. Get going on the next month's cards.
3. Something to keep all my stuff in.
(Like I don't have enough organizational tools in my scrapbook room.)

I don't need to go shopping for sure. However, I am going to Walmart to get a binder to alter to keep my ATC cards in. You use Baseball Card sleeve protector pages (cheap at Walmart). Anyhoo - during the meeting, we pulled a name out of a bucket and each person's name that was called got to pick the theme they wanted from the group. So the themes were chosen by all of us and in order of the names that were pulled from the bucket. That way we can start thinking about the theme and how we want to do our ATCs. We have the next 20 months planned out as we have 20 in our group. I will post them as we do them.

I also created our Logo and a group for us in Yahoo groups. I love how the logo turned out. It is just too cute and totally fits us!

If you haven't done one of these ATC cards or have gotten involved in a swap, I highly recommend it!!! You can go to www.youratcstore.com to get all the stuff to get you started. Tim Holtz is a biggie with these ATC cards and all that goes with them. Crop on....

Don't Throw Out That Old Princess House Lamp!!!

Remember Princess House and that old lamp that you got as a hostess gift with the etched bottom "ginger jar" and the shiny brass parts. You may have one stuffed away in a closet or the attic. Well get it out! I took the lamp and created something totally awesome for my scrapbook room.
I took the lamp apart and spray painted all the parts from ugly shiny brass to shiny white. Then I put it back together. But before I put the bottom piece back on, I shoved silk hydrangea flowers in the glass bottom part of the lamp. My scrapbook room is Greens and Purples, and some Aquas. I had already had this purple lamp shade that I had been using on the lamp for some time. I had seen a lamp shade done like this on twopeasinabucket.com so I knew the direction I was going. I punched holes all around the bottom of the lamp shade as far as my punches would go. I used a regular hole punch, my crop-a-dial to punch the holes as I used different width ribbons. Then for 3 DAYS I sat and tied ribbon after ribbon around that dog-gone lamp shade. It was kind of tedious but I just popped in a few movies and tied and tied and tied and tied. When it was all said and done it turned out fabulous! This would make a cute idea for a baby's room, a toddler's room and even a teen's room. The possibilities are endless. Enjoy and crop on....

You have to check out Design Her gals site!

Hi All. I wanted to share my avatar I made on DesignHer Gals website. It is so much fun and you help raise money for stage 4 breast cancer patients. You can create these avatars and print them at home or order really cool stuff from the site. I chose to print it at home and added a little scrapbooking sign I found on the web. It was sooooo much fun. Give it a try. Visit their website at: www.designhergals.com

Altered Canvas and Mixed Media

Hi all! I did these little altered canvases with mixed media for a Crop I went to in October 2008. It is a flat canvas (about a 5 x 7 or 6 x 8). Chalked on the edges and then a CD glued in the corner. The holes were drilled with my drill as my crop-a-dial kept cracking the CDs (maybe they were old or something). Anyoo - add paper of your choice and ribbons and then we used chipboard for the CROP and then used alphabet stickers for the "til you drop". You could use a Cricut to cut out the letters, but I like to give my class choices when they are doing one of my projects. I will always mix it up. I used copper wire to use for hanging them. We twisted some of it around a pencil/pen to give it some curly-cues. I took silk flowers from M's and took them apart and got two canvases to each flower. You don't want it too bulky. We used a rhinestone brad for the center of each flower and added some stickles to the flower petal edges. In the center of each CD we used a copper spiral clip with a little ribbon tied to it and glued it to the center. They turned out so cute. The purple one is for my scrapbook room and the leopard print is for my BFF. I did hers and then sent it to her. She loved it. So give it a try! Do an altered canvas and some mixed media. It is fun and looks great when you get it all finished. Crop on....