ROMANCING THE CANVAS: January 2011

THE COMPLETE IDIOT'S GUIDE TO....

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HAPPINESS!.....THIS truly is the name of the book I am reading. OY!

Laughing Your Way To Happiness...This seemed an appropriate reading for the scrapbook page I am doing for my daughter's book of her travels around the world. My posts will be sporadic, as scrapbooking takes me much longer than card making.

In This Chapter (Chapter 7)

- Discover the power of humor to transform emotions
- Finding humor and social bonding
- Opting for humor in frustrating situations
- Assessing your humor capability
- Creating more laughter opportunities

The ability to appreciate and generate humor is a character trait that has attracted special interest from those who study happiness - no doubt because humor has so many beneficial effects. There is nothing like a good, hearty laugh to make us feel both instant emotional cheer and immediate physical release. (I immediately think of my son Jordan and his finance "Our" Laura, who can make me laugh SO much just listening to them kidding with each other and watching them with huge laughter smiles and their eyes dancing with each other as they laugh at each other's jokes and make fun of each other in the most loving ways.)

But humor is also a way to bond with others and enhance our social connections. Perhaps most significant of all, humor can help us rise above our troubles, maintain perspective and flexibility and even reevaluate our circumstances in a new, more positive light. (The page below is when my daughter just finished her stint of school in Australia and her friend Eric went and met her in Thailand and well....you can figure out the rest!!! They are currently travelling around the world together again, loves of each other's life, and at this moment are in Israel. I am working on an album of their travels...so this is what I will be posting for a LONG while) I hope you enjoy my two pages below...

The First Page and the Last Page (below) of Ayla and Eric's Adventures Around The World!

Please click on picture to enlarge it

This is my favorite part of the entire page...I love the textures and even found the cutting enjoyable and relaxing, surprisingly!

Well, this proved itself to be right!

Oh, to be young again! And in water so beautiful!

NOW THIS IS HAPPINESS!!!!!

Very much what this book stresses...

The stitching felt risky, as I was afraid to ruin their picture so I used my Tim Holtz ruler for the precision! I am currently working with W.W.A.D! A funny thing my daughter drummed up - to keep "little Ayla" in my head! haha. She is SO great! For those of you who know I am VERY faithful to God, and W.W.J.D....and that I revere that, I am working with "What would Ayla do" for some help with my social life and for help with my sanity in general! My Oldest Son has always had the burden of that one...now she is ready to share it! Oy...what a burden children take on for their parents. Ayla is a social bug...and I am a loner. I am attempting to change that, just a wee bit, but in a healthy, moderate way. My daughter is helping me....so W.W.A.D. worked perfectly to quell my fears on the stitching each time I just looked down at her laughing!lol

and...keep scrolling down please...

The Last Page of their Album

I'm dyslexic, so I have to start with the last page and work backward (I'm A Messianic Jew as well, so the Torah works well for me!)...so here I have the last page below to match up with the first page. In between you will see pages all across Canada, through the US and all through the Middle East and Europe and below. I hope you enjoy my daughter's travels, and hers and Eric's expression of THEIR LOVE!

Oh yes, my scrapbooking too! haha

LABELS

Ayla and Eric!

Stampin'Up!

Bo Bunny

Basic Grey

Michael's

CTMH

CHALLENGES ENTERED

The Gingerloft Challenge

Tip Top Tuesday

Paper Crafting Journey

craft your days away

Glitter Babes Challenge

Cooking It Up with Katie

If The Shoe Fits Scrap It

Crafty Purple Frog

Totally Gorjuss

My Partner in Crafting Crime

The Beary Scrap Design Team

AIFactory

LOVING GOD

Samara

MY 8 STYLISH BLOGGER CHOICES....

AND THIS WAS A TOUGH JOB!!!

Congrats to all of you. If you scroll down, you will see my yesterday's post, and what this award is about. With THE STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD, we are getting to really know each other! Nice!

So spill women! We want to hear 8 things about you, things that really speak about "you!" as you announce ON YOUR BLOG that YOU received THE STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD. I love this! Real life that goes beyond our art...how great is that. Thanks Ann for including me in this honor! It was a pleasure to do and I love the opportunity to be in our community in a more expansive way. I can't wait to read about the women that I have chosen! Oh, and don't forget to link to where "you" received this award from....ummm.....I guess that would be me! lol *wink*

I HONORED, and this was VERY difficult, with all the talent out there...

Julie
Linda
Karen
Tracey
Hazel
Sarah-Louise
Brene
June

Have fun hopping over to the blogs...these women, in my eyes, are FANTASTICAL~!

And again, thank you ANN from THE STAMPIN' SCHACH for gracing me with your award. Ladies, pick up this wonderful award below and "wear it proudly" on your blog, because "YOU", my darlings, ARE VERRRRRRY STYLISH! Squishy Hugs, Samara

LOVING GOD

Samara

TIME.....

WAITS FOR NO ONE....BUT LOVERS!

My card below shall explain the above. As part of receiving the STYLISH BLOGGER AWARD from ANN SCHACH of THE STAMPIN' SCHACH I am to write 8 "things" about me...so here goes:

1.   I am a nut bar! Some people will agree this is for real, lol, but other's will merely think I live just off the map! I live my life in likely the most spontaneous way possible for someone of my age (54) and quite proud of it, I might say - hee hee - see what I mean! Humble too...kidding.

2.   I am crazy in love with my 3 children! They have taught me more in this last week than likely in the 25 years that I started having them. They are the ones that "bring me home" when I have wandered too far off into space and sit me down and tell me to "get my feet back onto planet earth" and wisen up! They are also the ones that "bring me home" to the greatest love I have ever felt in my entire life...the only greater but very different being G-d, of whom they were created anyway!

3.   I am unable to navigate my way through the day without "color." All the technicolor commercials, I swear, were made directly for me to see! My eyes live in colors, as does my heart and head. When I see colors, my heart races and all kinds of creative things happen to the neurons in my brain. The synapses begin and go a bazillion miles an hour. One time I looked at a painting I had of Arizona. It was an "Op Art" painting. I said "I wish I had a shirt in every color!" I trotted off to the second hand store (which is item 4) and came home with 5 sweaters, one in EXACTLY the hue, saturation etc. of each color in the painting. Color is what makes me tick and what I can memorize and how I see and navigate. Lay down crumbs of colors and I'd follow it anywhere! I'd wilt in a world of Black and White.

4. I am totally and always "out of style!" ...it annoys me to be "in style." Thus, I LOVE shopping at second hand stores and places I know are NOT "with it". My tiny town in the country makes THAT effortless!!! Besides, I'd be running around naked because I can't afford first hand stores.

5. I love living in the country and walking around on my property in the pitch dark. My son (25 year old Jordan) taught me to "love the stars" and appreciate their beauty as seen in the country without street lights and not in the city where he lives, Toronto. I can't resist seeing them now, and his name comes into my heart when I look up. I remember he and I going out on my porch one evening and his complete amazement at what he saw. That brought new eyes into me....his!

6. I am a complete INTROVERT. An off-the-edge introvert! YUP...believe it or not. Shocker ey...for everyone. Throughout my life I've been tested many times and same professional result, whether for a job, school, or psychological testing. Complete and total introvert and complete and totally socialized (but reluctantly so) extrovert. I LOVE being alone.

7. In the native culture I am a Dog! That doesn't sound too good! haha. But true. I'd rather sit on the floor like my 2 labs, am COMPLETELY kinesthetic, tactile (pretty much the same thing), love eating out of bowls and not plates (always) and truly - not kidding, curl up on pillows when I sleep, loyal to a fault, deep from the heart, (but silly from the head - not SO dog), am at total ease with using the woods as my "natural facilities" (too much information), and can lay still (or sit) for hours (meditate) for hours.   I had to do a 30 day silent retreat, yearly, as part of the requirement for my job, so the "hours" part is a snap!!!! I must assure you I don't fetch bones, pee on carpets or lick people's faces (much) lol.

8.  My pre-retired job was an Institutional Chaplain (Ministry.) Probably the wackiest one around...patients often asked "me" if they could see the Chaplain! I worked in Psychiatry and Detox and was a Psychotherapist for a bazillion years. I have far too many years post secondary education, including 2 years of Law School (which I attended only to see if I could pass the LSATS - rebel too.) I was a professional Graduate Student - Full Time and Part Time. When G-d yanked me into Ministry, that was it! My last and most enjoyable bout of Graduate School (Seminary) having a fire beneath my butt to do what I had always loved to do....help the sick, work with the dying, and understand and give compassion to the addicted and mentally ill. I was Director of Pastoral Care at a Major City Hospital and Nursing Home Facility and lived in a Convent. Now, doesn't that just knock your socks off! The Bohemian and A Convent...

Oh, I have to add a 9th.

9.   My Grandfather, Mr. George Grant - Ship Builder - who died when I was 12 and he was 94, was and still is (on my shoulder) my HERO!

Now...on to my card. As part of being honored with The Stylish Card Award, tomorrow I shall pick MY 8 lovlies for you to visit and know! Thanks for reading and thanks Ann. Please visit Ann's site for the most creative use of solely Stampin' Up! products - Always. xox

Please click to enlarge photo

Labels:

Stampin' Up!

CTMH

Twisted Papers

Starbuck's

Ecstasy Crafts

Please email me for further details if you like.

Challenges Entered:

Stamping Sisters In Christ

Scrapbook Sisters

Creative Cottage

Cute Card Thursday

Crafty Inspirations

Crafty Sentiments

Paper Play

Crafty Creations

Sweet Stampin

Crazy 4 Challenge

Craft Your Passion

Whoopsi Daisy

Moving Along with the Times

Craft Your Days Away

Secret Crafter

Rainbow Lady

Stamping B's

Pixie Dust

Crafty Purple Frog

Card Making Mama

Delious Doodles

Crafty Ho's

2 Sisters

Aly's Sunday Challenge

Dutch Dare

Fab N Funky

Gingerloft

If the Show Fits

Lil Red Wagon

Karber Weekly

Our Daily Bread

Papertake

Sparkles

Send a Smile 4 Kidz

Stamp Something

Paper Crafting Journey

Simon Says

Do it With Digis

Fun with Shapes and More

Quirky Crafts

Creative Card Crew

PILE IT ON

LOVING GOD

Samara

PERPETUAL DISSATISFACTION......

RADICAL GRATITUDE

It is the ingratitude that blinds us.

Our failure to see what we have

on the way to getting more

Our disregard for what we step over

on the way to somewhere else

Our lack of attention to the person by our side

on the way to someone else

Our dismissal of the good that we do

on the way to something greater.

All that we take for granted

falls through our hands

and disappears from sight.

And we too fall away

from ourselves and from You.

We walk by ourselves

by the wayside a

and do not recognize You

on the way to something better.

I CHOOSE RADICAL GRADITUDE!!!

....Therefore, today, I would like to say

THANK YOU to Ann Shach over at The Stampin' Schach

for the

Honor of "Stylish Blogger Award."

Tomorrow, I will fulfill the agreement of the award and tell you 8 things about me...

I think I need 24 hours to think up what to reveal *wink wink*

Please double click picture to enlarge

Today, I appear to be onto the theme of LOVE

and VALENTINE'S DAY and very ambitious!

Card One

Card Two

Card Three

Labels:

Stampin' Up! and Stampin' Up! and Stampin' Up!

Inkidinkidoodledandy (my crazy way of saying a crazy stamp name) sorry company! please don't sue me

Dollar Store

Please email me, if desired, for specific information re: cards.

Challenges Entered:

Scrapbook Sisters

Creative Cottage

Cute Card Thursday

Paper Play

Crafty Sentiments

Crafty Creations

Creative Inspiration

I finally added a 2011 New Year's "FOLLOWERS" gadget at the top of my blog!

Thank "YOU" for visiting me!

LOVING GOD

Samara

IN GOD'S HANDS....

In God's Hands

In your journeys to and fro

God direct you;

In your happiness and pleasure

God bless you;

In care, anxiety or trouble

God sustain you;

In peril and in danger

God protect you.

Archbishop Timothy Olufosoye (1918 - 92), Nigeria

Challenges Entered -

Creative Belli Blog Challenge

Moving Along with The Times

FabNFunky

Paper Play

Crafty Sentiments

Moving Along with the Times

Craft your Passion

Rainbow Lady's

Tuesday Throwdown

Creative Cottage

Labels -

Stampin' Up

Ecstacy Crafts

Papertrey Ink

Please email me if you have specific questions

LOVING GOD

Samara