Still a Classy Clown but Retired

Wintery Bella

gbcloer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:47:59 +0000

Wintery Bella

Bella is another of my favs. She reminds me of my daughter! Metallic paper and glitter on the fur help to create the winter feel. Love the quote. It is my creed! Got the stamp at AC Moore. Enjoy and pray for spring!!!

Holiday Tilda

gbcloer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:43:42 +0000

Holiday Tilda

Another line of stamps that I just love are the Magnolia Stamps. Tilda is this cute little girl. She is already for holidays. I used the Cuttlebug to embossed the pink paper and added a sheer bow and a silvery leaf.

House Mouse with Daffodil

gbcloer — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:56:35 +0000

House Mouse with Daffodil

This was fun! I love coloring with Prisma colored pencils and blending with mineral spirits. I used scraps that I had for the paper and embellished with a flower, ribbon, laugh sticker, and rhinestones. Love House Mouse!

Many media

gbcloer — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:44:57 +0000

alcohol inks

I had a lot of fun with this card. The center design was cut with Nestabilities and colored with alcohol inks. Tear drops and rain dots embellish it. The dark blue was cut with the Cricut, but I do not remember which cartridge. The lighter blue was embossed with Cuttlebug paisley folder. I like blue and green. I want to do more with alcohol inks. The results are always interesting! tfl

Seaside card

gbcloer — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:15:05 +0000

Love this stamp! Card appears to be pinkish or bluish, but the background is really white. I have got to get the hand of photograhing these cards so I can show you more authentic results. Enjoy! Ah, you see no pink? I redid the photo insertion by scanning it instead of photograhing it. The colors turned out more authentic. Whew!

beach card

Fall Birthday cards

gbcloer — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 02:11:05 +0000

: Cuttlebug Happy Birthday Folder

Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Folder

Here are a couple of cards I have made for a Relay for Life 2009 fundraiser. Hope you like them. They are just part of the 800 cards I have made since June! I like the sunflower which was cut with a Cricut cartridge. I am not certain which one. I color4ed the flower centers with burnt orange glitter glue.

The Gospel According to Crayola

gbcloer — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:39:32 +0000

(Read The New Box of Crayolas below first)

A while ago I posted about new boxes of Crayolas. My thought processes have continued and really went a different direction than I originally thought they would. I ordered the biggest box of Crayolas online that I could. 120 brand new, perfectly pointed, clean Crayolas! The only thing that didn’t happen was their arrival in a big box of tiered rows. There is just something that is totally perfect about 120 brand new Crayolas, perfectly pointed and clean, in a new tiered box. All the colors show so prettily! Actually these arrived in several smaller boxes inside of a rectangularly cubed shaped box very similar to a first grader’s pencil box. So the new Crayolas with the perfect points and all clean paper wrappers are in a box but you cannot see all the colors at the same time. So, I guess they are just almost totally perfect!

That is how we are when we come into the world at birth. Just like a a new Crayola! After we go through some of life we get broken. Our paper becomes torned. Our points get worn down. We just are not perfect anymore. But in the right hands–the hands of an artist–we can still make beautiful color!

A few years ago on QVC, they were demonstrating a product by Crayola that would allow you to take your broken Crayolas and put them in this little machine on a tray that when heated would melt the broken Crayolas and then you could tilt the tray and the melted wax would pour into a mold. When the wax cooled, you could open the mold and pop out brand new perfectly formed Crayolas. Like all their past trials had been forgiven and they were like new again. I ordered two of the machines for me and my grandchildren and we have spent many hours making new Crayolas from the box of the broken up pieces. We mixed various colors together and created mixtures of beautiful colors that I am sure even the company Crayola would be proud of.

It has occured to me that we are like Crayolas–we come out of the new box all totally perfect and clean. Even when we get all broken up, we can be used for good if those around us will let us. But the most amazing thing is that God can take the broke pieces of our life and remold then, and interweave special gifts with them and make them like new, almost perfect again, with totally perfect points, clean, and ready to use again. (I John 1:11-13)

There is a praise hymn written in the early ’70′s by Bill and Gloria Gaither that fits here:

Something Beautiful

Something beautiful

Something good

All my confusion He understood.

All I had to offer Him was brokenedness and strife

And He made something beautiful of my life!

In the first part of my thinking I said that I thought Crayolas were the best crayons. Like Hallmark’s motto: When you care enough to send the very best…

That is what God does!

New Box of Crayolas

gbcloer — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 06:37:12 +0000

I have always loved to color. Even now I love to color. It is all I can do to remember to let the grandchildren color on the kiddie menus at restaurants. I want to color!

Maybe I am purist because I don’t like to color with any crayons except Crayolas. The others are simply not the same. The bigger the box the better! I remember that were always the boxes with eight rather basic colors. Then, there were boxes of sixteen crayons–two rows. Then there were boxes of sixty-four crayons–four rows. But the most wonderful thing was the box with one hundred twenty-eight perfectly made crayons. You could open the box–a new box and see total perfection. One hundred twenty eight different crayons! One hundred twenty-eight different colors! Each perfectly made. Each sticking out the very same distance from the box in perfectly tiered rows. I use the word perfect or a version of it over and over because in the mind of me–a child with not a lot material things any size box of new Crayolas was perfect, but the 128 count box was total perfection.

It was because of this big box of Crayolas that I immediately knew the color of the water out from our liani on Oahu in Hawaii, It was the first time I had ever seen azure in person. The name is almost as beautiful as the color.

There is more coming. It is in my heart and my head. I just need time to get it out in the right order….

It just reinforces the thought that we have to fight back…

gbcloer — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:19:36 +0000

I find that almost everyone who has had cancer wants to fight back. I guess personalities play into it. Ann has not had cancer but she has been affected by the cancer of her friends. Marie has had cancer and she has just completed her treatments but she is ready to fight back. Both have organized teams for relay at their churches. It is a good thing because during the past week I have heard of so many more who have been diagnosed with cancer. Julie has melanoma. Jack and Jerry have prostate cancer. Bobbi and Duane have cancer too. When is it going to be stopped! Can we relay enough?

The American Cancer Society is doing a fabulous job with research. We are making giant steps toward stopping cancer but in the meantime cancer is trampling right through lives.

Lord, I pray that you intervene in this fight. In your way, find a way to stop cancer. Amen!

Relay for Life: It is time to fight back!

gbcloer — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 01:54:28 +0000

Well, the last Christmas decoration has been packed. The Bowl game has been played and lost. 2008 is here! I promised myself that as soon as all that was done I would start on Relay for Life. I am so excited! I have been going to events like Relay University in October and executive committee meetings since November. Of course, all that was around funerals—both on the same day– for my cousin Sophia who had leukemia and my dear church friend Fayette who had cancer. I get so excited about the work that Relay accomplishes and then, pow! The reason we have to keep fighting back hits hard!

I imagine that you can sit there and count on your fingers the people you know personally who have been affected by cancer. This year the Relay motto is

celebrate, remember, and fight back!

Will you help me again? Please!!!!! I want to raise over $2500 this year. Even more if possible! Cancer needs to be stopped! I am begging you to help!!!!!!

The site is secure for online donations. I really encourage you to donate that way. It cuts out the processing costs of cash/checks. The URL is http://www.events.cancer.org/rflgreenvillesc. You can click on the John Knox team and then my name to contribute. If you want to donate in memory or honor of someone please include their name either on the site or on your check.