Hope House Home for Boys

The cards that I sell here in Chapala and Ajijic, Mexico benefit the dental program for the boys at Hope House in the nearby village of Ixlahuacan. There are close to 30 boys at the home and many of them come to the home having received no dental treatment. If you live here at Lakeside and would like to order a quality, hand crafted card for a special occasion and help me contribute to this worthy cause, please e-mail me at bettyinchapala@yahoo.com Card price is 50 pesos; the entire sales price is donated to Hope House.

Followers -- Some of my favorite people!

Monday, January 28, 2013

A Case of Cheri's Card




Hi everyone! My card today is a CASE of Cheri's card that was posted yesterday on her blog Stamp'n Boomer. I thought her white on white card was so elegant and classy looking and I was totally inspired to do one of my own. I did want to add a little color, though, so that's were the dark blue mat comes in! At first I intended to stamp the sentiment in dark blue, but it takes so long to dry on the glossy paper (I always end up smearing the ink!) that I decided to emboss it in silver and add a few silver pearls.

Here's Cheri's beautiful card.....


Don't you just love those pearls that she added above the sentiment and to the scallops? Thanks for the inspiration, Cheri!

Betty

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Roses Fancy Fold



This month was my time to choose the challenge for The Roses. I chose to make a "fancy fold" card -- anything other than a standard fold.

I chose a Center Step card. You can find the tutorial here at Splitcoast Stampers. I used older papers from Stampin' Up, which I love, but I only have small pieces of it left -- (insert a sad face here).

Patti has come up with a very interesting challenge for next month but I'm keeping it a secret -- you'll have to wait another month to find out what is is!!!

Betty

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Floral Birthdays


I have two cards to share with you today. Both use my newest stamp set from Flourishes, Bloomin Aussie Florals. I used watercolor crayons and a blender pen to color each of the images.



I have heard that my Aussie friends are experiencing very hot weather, while those in the US and Canada are experiencing just the opposite -- extremely cold. Whatever your weather, hope your day is truly wonderful!

Betty

Friday, January 25, 2013

A Valentine Birthday



Here's another birthday card I made for my friend. Her son was born on Valentine's Day and she's always told him that he is her best valentine! I'm hoping that I kept the heart masculine enough that he'll like it. Both tags are popped up to give the card a more dimensional feel.

The sun is shining today so we'll probably have temperatures in the mid 70's. We broke down and bought a portable propane heater for the cooler weather. It can be moved from room to room and it takes the chill off the bathroom when I hop in my new tub!!!

Hope your day is filled with all things nice!
Betty

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Birthday Sunshine



I'm making cards for my friend at church again!  I CASE'D this design from the PaperCrafts blog. I jotted down the name of the designer but can I find it now?????? Of course not!

Bonnie is a nurse and at the bottom of the inside of the card it says: Nurses bring rays of sunshine into the lives of their patients.

Betty

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Sebastian's Motto



This card was made to honor a young boy named Sebastian who lives in North Miami Beach, Florida. I was first introduced to Sebastian about a year ago on his teacher's blog, Ginger's House. Ginger posts free word art on her blog most every day so some of you may have run across her blog. If you happened to miss Sebastian's story, please click here to read about him; you won't be sorry you did!

Sebastian thinks that everyone should "Just be nice" and I think that's a pretty good philosophy to have; if we could all "just be nice" to everyone around us, how much more beautiful would this world be!!! Sebastian has been through a lot of trials in his young life, and I suppose this is what gives him a wisdom beyond his years.

Sebastian had another surgery in December. You can read about it here. His doctors are hopeful that this surgery will help him to be able to bend his arm. He is back in school now. Although he's in the first grade now and no longer in Ms. Brown's class, she still keeps up updated on his progress. The following is her post on January 11......

Look who was back in school today!

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

I asked how he was doing and he answered, "I'm good.  I'm really good."

He's holding some of the cards that were waiting for him at school and he said to tell everyone thank you and that he is still reading them with his mom.

           **********

This young boy is very special to a lot of us here in "blogland" and I hope you will be inspired by his story!

Betty

Thursday, January 17, 2013

I'm in Heaven!


Yes, everyone, I'm in heaven! My bathtub installation has been completed and I took my first soak yesterday! Well, to be truthful, I had two soaks yesterday -- one in the morning and another at night!! Our house had two showers but no bathtub so I had one added to the shower area of my bathroom. Here's the picture:


Taa-Dah!! Can't you just picture me soaking in a tub full of bubbles???? It sure did feel good -- after almost two years without a tub, I'm a happy camper!

Betty

Saturday, January 12, 2013

A Pair of Pears



Here's my card for the challenge at Annabelle Stamps. The image of the pears printed out after I cleaned my printer heads (or something similar -- it was a while back!!). This is the second time I've been lucky enough to get this image and I just had to use them on a card both times!

Annabelle's challenge this week is a color challenge. My colors may be a bit off but hopefully, close enough!
Bye for now,
Betty


Friday, January 11, 2013

New Challenge Spot -- Seize the Birthday


Here's another attempt to get my blog up and going again! I haven't played in any challenges for a while and decided to start with a brand new challenge spot -- Seize the Birthday. They provided a sketch to follow and the only other requirement was to make it a "girly" birthday card. I guess you probably figured out from the name of the challenge is that all the cards will be birthday cards!

Here's their first sketch.....

I've been making birthday cards for our church family lately and I thought that this would be a perfect challenge spot to help me keep it up. Check it out -- this week's winner will receive two digital stamps from Whimsy and Stars Studio!

Betty