WPlus9 Mood Board

Last Friday, I got a lovely happy email. And, thank goodness, I only have to keep it a secret for 3 days. Did you see THIS announcement on Paper Crafts blog yesterday? I am so thrilled and excited to have my birthday card picked up as one of the winner for 2013 World Card Making Day. What makes  this even sweeter? I got to share it with these amazing talented ladies, Erin Lee Schreiner and Maria Fischer!

It was a total surprise and I am very thankful for this. I think my heart skipped a beat when I scroll through my email and saw the email from Holly Anderson. Even when I was reading it, I was like really? Hah... 4th time trying is a charm! You'll be able to see my card on Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking March 2014 issue.

Now, that I can finally stop pinching myself, let's move on to today's card, shall we? I have this card that I made for i {heart} papers post inspired by Wplus9 Monday Mood Board #22. I love the soft, ethereal look of it.

Not your usual color combo for holiday card, but that's exactly what I made.  With Caring Hearts Card Dive going on in full gear, I need lots of holiday cards!

The sentiment is from Wplus9 Silver Bells set and the bird is from an older Wplus9 set called Spring Post. i {heart} papers carry lots of Wplus9 sets, so if you love Wplus9 make sure you check out the store. The stripe patterned paper is from Echo Park Bundle of Joy Boy 6x6 paper pad. To add some festive feeling to the card, I added some spotlight/disco gold sequins. Love these sequins! They are sparkling like crazy.

I hope you are working on some holiday cards as well. If you need some more inspirations, come join us on Friday as I'll be hosting Caring Hearts Card Drive Blog Hop and of course... many awesome prizes. Stay tune!!

Stripes & Dots

There's just something very sweet about ducky. Since I was a kid, I always love duck images, including the classic hot temper Donald Duck. In fact my subscription Donald Duck magazine was the longest subscription I ever had.

Anyway, the reason I am talking about ducks is because my latest card for There She Goes Stamp is using these super cute ducks from TSG Lucky Duck set. I made this card this week TSG Pattern Power challenge. Basically the challenge is to create a project using both stripes & dots pattern. 

I hope you will play along. You can enter the challenge & check out the prize detail HERE.

Thank you for swinging by here and may your Monday starts off wonderfully!

Blog Hop for Torico

Happy November! Today, I am joining some other talented ladies to surprise Torico the owner of Birdie Brown. If you arrive here from Jenny P then you are on the right track.

In case you didn't know, Torico is one of the talented stamp designer at There She Goes Stamps. Her stamp sets are always so cute & delightful. She also own a digi shop called Birdie Brown. However, she has decided to close the shop at the end of November. You can see her store closing announcement HERE. So, if you want to get some of her cute Birdie Brown designs you better hurry and get it before the store close.

I love her sweet designs, so when I got the invitation to join the hop to surprise her as we say farewell to Birdie Brown, of course I said yes. We were asked to create a project using our favorite Birdie Brown's image. And, I know right away which image I want to use.

Sweetness, right? Somehow for me this image seems to call for soft coloring, so I am combining chalk and Copic coloring for this. The pretty silk ribbon is from May Arts. Best ribbon, ever. 

I hope you enjoy our little hop. From here, your next stop would be Tracy Mac blog. If you miss any of the link, you can find the complete list of the participants at Lesley's blog.

BOOYAH!

Happy Halloween everyone! I am not one into scary stuff, so I stick to cute. And, yes this particular skull is trendy and like to be different. Instead of just saying "boo" it prefer to say "booyah!". And, mind you, if he had hand, he would say this with jazz hand. ;)

Have fun celebrating to those who celebrate the day. 

Hello Sweet

First of all, I want to say thank you so much to all the kind words you all left on my post for Ollie yesterday. Your kind words do bring me comfort. It's only been 2 days and we are still feeling the pain. I know it will takes time, but we'll heal. Please know that I really, really appreciate your heartwarming words.

At first, I really didn't feel like creating. I actually hadn't touch my crafting desk for a week as I had been worrying about Ollie. But, last night, I forced myself to sit and create. Not to dwell on my sadness. 

The vet gave me a book on dealing with the loss of a pet. The book said take your time to grieve. Acknowledge your loss. Give yourself 20 minutes to cry a good cry and then do something that makes you happy. For me, that would be creating.

As I was looking for inspiration, I found Avery Elle sketch challenge and I do need to create a post for i {heart} papers, so it was perfect. Good inspiration and duty are good incentives.

Hubby always said Ollie is such a sweetheart and it makes me think of the sentiment "hello sweet". :)

I used three Avery Elle sets to create this card:  the word hello from Oh Yeah, the word sweet from Celebrate and the leaves and flower are from Laurels set (along with the matching dies).

I want to create a soft look, so for the layered circle, I created a mask and color it with distress ink. Once the inner circle done, I cover that and use another larger circle mask and again fill it with distress ink. Then I added the black polka dot patterned paper (from Simple Stories Say Cheese 6x6 pad) and stamped the sentiment. Finished it with leaves, flower and sequins.

Thank you for swinging by here and again thank you so much for all your kind words.

My Dear Ollie

Yesterday, I had to make one of the hardest decision I ever have to make. We said goodbye to our pug, Ollie. To many people, a dog is just a dog. That's definitely not the case in our family. In our family, our dogs are our kids. So, to have to make that decision of life and death was painful.

I had Ollie since she was only 8 weeks old. She was my very first puppy that truly belong just to me. I grew up always having dogs, but Ollie was the first that I got to choose and really mine. She taught me how to be a mom, to be responsible for another being. I remember preparing myself and learned about pugs as much as I could before I decided to get her.

She was feisty and bossy. But, she is such a loyal companion. Besides my family, she's the only being that never let me down. Always there for me trough the good and the bad. When I went through the lowest point in my life and feeling all alone, she was there. She's the reason I got up in the morning. When I thought of giving up and move back to Indonesia, she's my reason to stay, because I wouldn't want to leave her behind. If I hadn't stay, I wouldn't have met hubby.

When I met hubby, he had 2 dogs, Hank, a yellow lab & Nick, a sheltie. And, everything just clicked. Hubby loves Ollie like his own. I mean, he truly loves Ollie with all his heart. And, Nick, who was a rescue never wanted to play with other dog, met Ollie, and he was prancing asking Ollie to play that even hubby was astonished.

Nick & Ollie - spring 2009

Ollie shared my life for over 15 years. She was my brave, strong girl. Even when she was hurt, she didn't whine. I had all kind of funny stories about her. One of my favorite, was this one time when I was in my craft room and hubby was in his man cave and next thing we knew, we heard this noise... clunk, clunk, boink. We're both like what the heck is that? And, next thing we know here comes Ollie:

Busted!!!

Yep, caught red handed.  She was checking through the trash can and somehow got the lid on her and she was walking out of our bathroom with that lid. Her antiques like this always made me laugh. 

I always think pugs are the cutest and I always said Ollie was so photogenic. I am her mom, so I can say that. :) For Halloween in 2010, I got her this costume because I thought it matched her personality. This li'l red devil costume was totally perfect for our sweet trouble maker.

She loves the sun. On sunny days, she likes to go outside and lay on the grass sunbathing. Like this. She looked so happy, didn't she? I just love this pic.

This past year, she lost weight drastically. On her healthiest time she was 25 pounds. By the time we had to let her go, she only weighed 12.8 pounds. She had arthritis that causing her to loose strength on her back legs. There's time where it  just broke my heart when she just suddenly slip as she walks. She was going through cognitive issue (like Alzheimer in human), chronic arthritis and about three weeks ago we found out that she also had gal bladder. Between the two weeks period of visits to the vet, she lost another pound. 

The vet gave her 2 kinds of pain medicine and he also prepared us that it may be kinder to let her go as just looking at her posture and the way she walked he could see that she was in pain.

On Friday morning, when we did our usual 3a.m cleaning routine, I saw her slipped, pooped (she no longer can control her bowel movement, her nerves causing her to loose sense), and struggling to get up. I had to help her to stand up.  That scene really broke my heart. It pained me to see her like that. It's also been over a year where she couldn't go up and down the stairs. We always have to carry her.

We decided to call Last Wishes In-Home Hospice & Euthanasia. For second opinion and also, we decided that if it's time for Ollie to go, we want her to be comfortable, at her home, with us her family around her. Dr. Cornelius helped us with our decision. She was compassionate and she helped me in making the decision.

Hubby left the decision completely in my hand, because she's mine to start with. I went back and forth, yes and then change my mind again. How do you decide that's it's time to let your love one go??? It's when the vet said that if I want to delay I should take no longer than a week as so not to let her continue to be in pain that with heavy heart I decided to do it. It'll be different if she said she still has six months or a year to have decent life.

Dr. Cornelius was so gentle with her. When we decided to go ahead with our decision, a band start playing on the park behind our house and the words that stick in my mind was take a piece of my heart with you. Yes, she took a piece of my heart with her.

We went outside as Ollie loved the sun. I cradled her in my arms. We sat in front of the flower bed where we buried Hank & Nick. We have this Buddha statue there and the whole scene was just peaceful. The weather was gorgeous, the sun was shining brightly. Dr. Cornelius sedated her first. And during that 8 minutes, I kept whispering to Ollie of how much I love her, how she's my first kid, for her to wait for us on the other side. I told her that I pray Hank & Nick are meeting her at the rainbow bridge and they all can play together now. Running free, no pain.

I just keep repeating  myself that I love her, for her to forgive me for all my mistakes, that I will never ever forget her. I kissed her repeatedly. Hubby kissed her repeatedly. Once she's sedated, Dr. Cornelius gave her the final injection. I kept touching her. Looking at her. I want to memorize every single piece of her. I physically felt as if someone took my breath away.

I know it's the humane thing to do, the kind thing to do. But, saying goodbye to your baby is heartbreaking. I am heart broken. Yes, I know time will heal the pain. Right now, I just want the world to know how much I love this fur ball that gave me so much love. Right now, I am mourning the loss of my spunky girl. 

Rest in peace my baby girl. Know you are loved always. You will always have a special spot in our heart. I love you. Your daddy loves you. Your daddy always say you're daddy's girl. You are ours and we are yours.

Congratulations Carnation

Happy weekend! Today I have a quick post for i {heart} papers. 

I made this card using Avery Elle Ikat set. Yep, this is the set that started my love for ikat pattern. The pretty ink pads color are from Memento Sorbet & Gum Drop collection.

Now, the flower... I made it from tissue paper by layering 8 tissue paper and fan folding it. Once you finished the fold, tied a thread in the middle and gently pull out all the layers and you'll end up with this gorgeous flower. I love this technique as simply by changing the end of the flower tip, you'll end up with different kind of flowers. You can get daisy, carnation, etc.

That's it for me today. Thank you for stopping by here. And please don't forget that Caring Hearts card drive is still going on. For all the details please click on the top tab or on  the badge on the top right. :)

Snowman Soup Blog Hop

This set from Chaitali is perfect for all sorts of holiday gift giving needs, from bag toppers, to mini cards, or whatever else you need…with 25 images to chose from, there is something for everyone!

Snowman Soup is a 4x8 set that includes a total of 25 stamps and will sell for $18.00.

Would you like to win the new Snowman Soup set? Here is what you need to do-visit the Trendsetter’s blogs that are participating in each of the blog hop challenges below and comment on their creations as you go. One of the Trendsetter’s blogs (from each hop day) will be randomly chosen as the ‘it’ blog and a winner will be picked using a random number generator from the comments left on that Trendsetter’s Blog Hop Challenge post.

You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning new stamps! The Blog Hop Challenges will be open until 5 PM Eastern Time Saturday, October 26th with the winner being announced during the release party chat.

Pugalicious Blog Hop

We love our animal stamps here at There She Goes, and we love it even more when you can dress up your animals for the holidays!! Who doesn't like putting antlers on a pug, anyway?! (Psst... yours truly might or might have not begged for this pug set. Not that I am obsessed with pugs or anything like that... haha...)

Pugalicious is a 4x6 set that includes a total of 25 stamps and will sell for $15.00.

For my card I combine the pug with the Snow Globe set and cover the snow globe with stickles. An, the neat thing about this card, the pug is movable. Yep, you could twirl the pug on the snow globe.

This second pic showing the pug move to the side.

To make the pug movable, I punched a hole in the middle of the snow globe, attached a pop-dot to the pug, put it through the hole and adhere the pop-dot to a button.

Would you like to win the new Pugalicious stamp set? Here is what you need to do- visit the Trendsetter’s blogs that are participating in each of the blog hop challenges below and comment on their creations as you go. One of the Trendsetter’s blogs (from each hop day) will be randomly chosen as the ‘it’ blog and a winner will be picked using a random number generator from the comments left on that Trendsetter’s Blog Hop Challenge post.

You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning new stamps! The Blog Hop Challenges will be open until 5 PM EasternTime Saturday, October 26th with the winner being announced during the release party chat.

Give Thanks Blog Hop

Our second release from new designer, Chaitali, will have you ready for all your fall cards. The simple clean and simple images, and sentiments will help you create gorgeous cards for fall.

Give Thanks is a 3x4 set that includes a total of 7 stamps and will sell for $9.00.

Would you like to win the new Give Thanks set? Here is what you need to do-visit the Trendsetter’s blogs that are participating in each of the blog hop challenges below and comment on their creations as you go. One of the Trendsetter’s blogs (from each hop day) will be randomly chosen as the ‘it’ blog and a winner will be picked using a random number generator from the comments left on that Trendsetter’s Blog Hop Challenge post.

You will not know which blog has been chosen so the more you comment on the better your chances are of winning new stamps! The Blog Hop Challenges will be open until 5 PM Eastern Time Saturday, October 26th with the winner being announced during the release party chat.