Tiddly Inks & Stamping Bella

I am glad this week is OVAH - I did not have a good week.  HMPH  :(  I found myself in tears several days in a row this week, and realized yesterday that I have a bad habit of letting situations and feelings control me. I over-react sometimes or take things too personally, but even when I know it, I just can't help it - I can't help who I am.  And when I have more than one crappy thing happen at at time, I tend to just turn into a blubbering fool.  LOL  But I am trying to find better ways to deal with life and the unavoidable crap that gets thrown at us.  Most of you know that my brother is an addict - well, I haven't spoken to him in several weeks, but I heard he got arrested recently.  Yesterday afternoon, he started sending my sister and I suicidal "goodbye text messages" - I don't know how to explain  how this made me feel.  I am always brutally honest on here, so I guess I'll just say it the only way I know how.  I felt... sad, angry, disgusted, relieved, scared, and helpless.  I am so tired of him.  So tired of the ups and downs of addiction.  It literally hurts my heart.  I hate him.  I love him.  I wish, I wish, I wish... it doesn't matter.  You can't help people who can't help themselves.  I can't save him.  This is not an easy thing to accept when you are the big sister, the oldest child of the family.   So add this on top of anything, and the "anything" seems 10 times worse, know what I mean?

Sooooo....I decided to spend yesterday doing things that I wanted to do, like make a project for one of my very favorite challenge blogs:

Tiddly Inks - Inch My Way Along

I used the too-cute-to-be-scary Shhhark! set - my "No Swimming" sign is punched from a one-inch square punch.  I fussy-cut the "No Swimming" part and adhered with a pop-up dot.  The rest is colored with Prismacolor pencils & mineral spirits.  The background image is from Make It Crafty - I just used a craft knife to cut slits into the water and inserted the sharks in them.  The seashells were from my stash, I stuck them on with Glue Dots.  I really had fun making this card, this is why I call crafting my therapy - it really calms me and makes me happy.

Next up is my card for this week's Bellarific Friday Challenge:

Stamping Bella - Use a Huggabugg!

I used the royal Queen Bee Huggabugg, colored with Prismacolor pencils & mineral spirits and SU! markers.  Flower is from the Sticky Sweets set of stickers from SU!  Cardstock, DP, punches, and glitter also from SU!  Gemstone stickers are from my stash.  Enjoy your weekend, Summer is almost over (well, here in New England anyway!).  Peace.