CHRISTMAS 2015

Well, we didn't have a white Christmas this year, but it still was a very nice holiday.  I wanted to get my card for this year posted before we get into the new year.

All of the pretty red cardstock is from SU and called Cranberry  Crisp. I added a bit of Always Artichoke for the leaves, and a strip of Silver Sparkle, also by SU. The designer paper is from My Mind's Eye, the Merry Little Christmas collection. The white card layer was embossed with the Textured Impressions Stripes Embossing folder and I added the Textured Impressions Designer Frame for the greeting, both by SU. Also used were MFT Die-Namics Fishtail Flags STAX, and a poinsettia die by Memory Box. The Merry Christmas greeting is by Hero Arts. To finish it off, some SU Dazzling Details Silver Sparkle was used for the poinsettia center. I think that just about covers it all....

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and wish you a safe, healthy, happy new year!!

Happy 2016 to everyone!!

Until next time...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUCY!

I just can't believe it's Lucy's 10th birthday today! By my thinking, she should only be about 4 years old. Lucy, you're making gramma feel really old today.  :)

Lucy had indoor soccer this morning and she was very determined that as it was her birthday today, she WAS going to make goal in celebration of it. Great job Lucy, with all your determination this morning, you DID make that goal. WOOHOO...

This is the card I made for her to celebrate being 10 years old!

Using a green card base, I added a white panel. The designer papers are from MFT and the solid card stock is from Stampin' UP. MFT die-namics are Party Balloons, Bright Lights Numbers, and Pop-Up Happy Birthday. The small amount of stamping is done using the Party Balloons stamps by MFT and the Celebrate Everyday set from Hero Arts.

Lucy is a very sweet little girl who does cheerleading and plays soccer. She loves to do crafts and also to cook. She loves school and recently made the honor roll at St. Louis School. WAY TO GO LUCY!!

I hope you have the best birthday ever.

Enjoy your special day to the fullest!  XOXO

OPERATION CHRISTMAS CHILD

Each year, I like to find different charities looking for help around the Christmas holiday to donate or volunteer at. I found that The American Heritage Girls, troop 1716, that both Lucy and Lily belong to, were participating in Operation Christmas Child. I had never heard of this before but found myself interested in learning more about it......

Operation Christmas Child is a very worthwhile organization, helping children from around the world, and a project of Samaritan's Purse. You fill a shoe box with small toys, candy, healthcare items and school supplies, along with other items of your choice.

Lucy and Lily showing all the items we purchased for our Operation Christmas Child gift shoe boxes. We chose to buy the plastic shoe boxes so the children would also have a sturdy storage box to use.

We squeezed all those items into our 5 shoe boxes! There was a mini assembly line going on in the dining room. Also included in each box was a letter and picture, so the children who receive the box will know a little about, and be able to see, who sent them their gift box.  Jocelyn, their mom, bought and printed out a special shipping label so the girls will find out what country their shoe box arrives in.  I really was happy to see the girls so involved in this and setting a personal goal for next year to double the amount of shoe boxes they put together. This is a great way for children to help other children who are much less fortunate then themselves. Most of these boxes go to orphanages and very poverty stricken countries.

Jocelyn, Lucy, Lily and I have already decided to participate again next year. We will be picking up supplies all throughout the upcoming year for next years Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes.

Until next time...

WELCOME BABY

Where does the time go???  Someone very special to me, who I haven't seen in quite a long time, is now the new mother of a beautiful baby girl. I can't wait to see her and baby Yadaliz Ariel. The baby gifts are all bought, but I needed a special card to go with them. I really like pink and gray together, so decided to use these colors for the card.

Starting with a white panel for my card, I added Stampin' UP's Positively Pink and Going Grey cardstock, along with DP from Recollections Little Princess paper pad for my paper selection. MFT's Beautiful Baby stamps were used for this adorable image and greeting. Spellbinders circle and scalloped circle dies were used around the images. MFT's Fishtail Flags STAX, and Horizontal Stitched Strips were used for the remaining dies. To add the finishing touch, I used a little rhinestone for the elephants eye.

Congratulations Brooke!  I wish only the best for you and your new baby daughter. I can't wait to see you both very soon.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

We always look forward to Halloween at our house. Autumn is my favorite season and Halloween is my favorite holiday! The weather was mild this year for a change which made it nice for the trick-or-treaters not having to wear heavy winter coats like often times they have to.  We had 80 excited little trick-or-treaters this year. I love seeing them all dressed up, kicking through the leaves, and yelling "Trick-or-Treat".

Here we all are...
Clara, Steven, Lucy, Lily, and Casey in the doorway.

Steven and Clara
Wow...what a good looking couple!

Lucy & Lily are all decked out for Halloween.
They were so cute and excited to be going
trick-or-treating.

Even Casey got into the Halloween fun.

Here is my youngest granddaughter,
Claudia, with her mom Kattaleeya.
They may not be very scarey, but they're
 the cutest tigers I've ever seen.

TRICK-OR-TREAT BAGS

How cute are these! I like to try and do a little something special for my 2 granddaughters each year for Halloween. This year I decided to make them little pumpkin shaped treat bags for their goodies.


I cut out the pumpkin shapes and sponged Pumpkin Pie and Close to Cocoa ink over the pumpkin and stem. The next step was to use my MFT Paper Bag Peek-A-Boo die to make the black jack-o-lantern eyes, nose and mouth, followed with using MFT's Starry Night Stencil with More Mustard ink. I layered vinyl on both sides of the pumpkin shape, giving the back extra vinyl so it became a pouch to put the candy into. Now I thought the easy part was coming.....to just get out the sewing machine and stitch around 3 sides of the pumpkin.  WELL.... I should've known better! The sewing machine was not having anything to do with the vinyl so i was left having to hand stitch them. After filling them, I tied some twine around the stem to keep all the candy inside.




This was definitely a handmade project, but a fun one. I was really happy with how they came out, and so were Lucy and Lily!

HALLOWEEN 2015

 Hello everyone! I have a few things to post for you today. Unfortunately, Blogger has been misbehaving and wasn't allowing me to post ANY photos until now. Anyway.....this is my Halloween card for 2015.  The fun stamps are from Studio G and Hampton Art. The designer papers are Stampin' UP and K&Company. MFT's Horizontal Stitched Strips die and MFT's Stitched C-U Companion die was used for the frame. Copics YR23, E99, E55, E31 were used for color, and my final thing to complete my card was to punch out the witch on her broom. The punch is a Martha Stewart one.  

Broom rides are only .25 cents... any interest????  :-)

THANKS SO MUCH

Over at CardCamp  for this weeks challenge, was to make a card using lots of bright colors. I think I nailed this one...... love all these bright colors! Thanks for the challenge Paula.

I used Tempting Turquoise, Pixie Pink, Yo-Yo Yellow, Lavender Lace, Only Orange, and Green Galore paper all by SU. Unfortunately, some of these colors have now been retired. Ride the Wave and Wavy Greetings by MDF were also used to create my Thank You card.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Happy Birthday to my favorite (and only!) daughter, Jocelyn!  Yesterday, June 20th, was her birthday and this is the card I made for her special day.


There is very little stamping to this card but I like the simple look it has.

I started out with SU's Ruby Red card stock, adding a white panel and then added a somewhat distressed look piece of polka dot green designer paper by My Minds Eye. The rest of the paper used is also from the same paper pack called Dolled Up. The little bow is made from MDF's Blueprints 3, along with the pierced strip on the bottom. The circle is Spellbinders Round Die and the outside pierced circles are MDF's Pierced Circle Stax. The simple Happy Birthday greeting is an image from Penny Black.

Happy Birthday Jocelyn, I hope your day was as special as you are!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEB!

My co-worker and good friend recently had a birthday.  This is the card I made for her to celebrate her special day!
I started out with a 5x5" white base then added a black panel. Next was a black and white striped paper by My Mind's Eye. The large white circle was done using MFT's Pierced Circle STAX and the pretty flowers were made with Upsy Daisy, also by MFT. The bright colored card stock is Tempting Turquoise, along with Pink Passion by Stampin' UP. The stamp is an oldie made by Stampin' Up. I then added 3 small sparkling jewels, just enough to give the card a bit of bling! 

Happy Birthday Deb. I hope you had a wonderful birthday!

THINKING OF YOU

It was my turn to select the challenge of the week over at Card Camp. It was an easy choice for me as I had just been thinking about how I used to stamp all my own backgrounds on my cards. So that was my challenge to everyone for the week.... to stamp their own card background.

 



I decided to make a 5x5" card starting with a white card base. I added a panel of Chocolate Chip on top of that, and then my Pale Plum stamped panel. I stamped it using Pale Plum ink with the Houndstooth background stamp from Stampin' UP. Another smaller layer of white card stock was used for my greeting of "Thinking of You" which is a favorite image of mine by SU.  I love each and every one of the MFT blueprints die-namics, but I think my favorite is the Blueprints 14 which was used exclusively on this card. I used Chocolate Chip, Pale Plum and Perfect Plum cardstock, all by SU, to make the flower and a small white piece for the button center. To finish it off, a piece of twine was used for the center of the flower.
  

BE MY VALENTINE

This is the card I made for my daughter for Valentine's Day this year. She has always loved sparkly, glittery things, so I wanted to use this gorgeous red glimmer paper by Stamping' UP! for her card.

I started out with a white card base, adding a scalloped panel of the red glimmer paper, a panel of black card stock, and a white Swiss Dots embossed panel on top. I chose the hearts image by Inkadinkadoo and mounted it to more black card stock. The square scallop die used for the image is from Spellbinders. The rest of the dies used, including the small hearts, are from MFT's Blueprints 20. Unfortunately, the glittered red areas of the card don't show up nearly as shiny as they really are!
I hope you liked your Valentine Jocelyn!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

BE MINE

I always love it when I'm able to use paper scraps to make cards, although I usually can't remember who the manufacturer of the patterned papers are.  This Valentine card was made with some scraps from my paper bin along with SU's Real Red cardstock.  MFT Blueprints 3 and Tag Builders 3 die-namics were used, along with a die cut of an old rotary telephone made by Sizzix.

It's been ages since I've been able to put my watermark on my cards.  Thank you Vin for your help in getting this working for me again!

FRED

Here is another picture of Fred taken just 2 days later!  Here in New England we had a major snow storm that dumped 32" of snow in this area. Poor Fred, he was being buried in all the snow. Doesn't it look like he's waving goodbye??

FRED THE SNOWMAN

Old man winter left us with 6-8" of snow yesterday.  Lucy and Lily made a snowman in their yard, then came over to my house and we all worked on "Fred", my first snowman of the season! He sits in the front yard looking towards the house. Each time I look out the window, Fred is smiling back at me.

There was enough snow to make a snowman, but 6-8" of snow isn't very much for New England.  However..... they are predicting a major snow storm starting tomorrow and going right through the following day. The forecast today is showing a prediction of 28 - 30" of snow for our area. Now THAT will be enough to make "Fred the snowman" an entire family of friends!! 

HAPPY WINTER!

CAFFEINE

There's a new challenge over at Card Camp this week.... make a card using bleach. I had no idea what I was going to do, but liked the challenge.  I started out searching for an image that I thought would work well. I decided I wanted a large image and Darcie's "Coffee Mug" fit the bill....


Sage Shadow, a retired color by SU, was used for my card base along with the layer used to stamp the image on. After stamping and embossing the imagine, I used the bleach, along with a small brush, to bleach out the color of the card stock to make the coffee mug white. Adding 4 patterned papers by Kaiser Craft and Really Rust card stock by SU.  The dies used are all from MFT. Stitched Strips, Blueprints 3, Stitched Rounded Rectangles STAX and Pierced Rectangle STAX. Inks used were Really Rust, Close to Cocoa, Not Quite Navy, Garden Green and More Mustard, all by SU. I added 5 little candy dots from the Regal color line by SU. Oh....I almost forgot, that cute little saying is from a great little coffee set called "Morning Cup" from SU.

WRAPPING UP 2014

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with family, friends, and anyone near and dear to you.

Now that we have wrapped up 2014, my wishes to each and everyone of you is that you all have a safe, healthy, prosperous, and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015!

   May it be a great year for all of us.

CHRISTMAS CARD FOR 2014

I did pretty good this year in getting all of my shopping done and wrapped, some baking done, making a few things (including Casey's treats), and even got my Christmas cards made. I know not everyone got them in time for Christmas..... but this year I was able to get them made, unlike last year.

Real Red by SU was used as the card base. An embossed layer, done using a Cuttlebug embossing folder, was placed on top. The pretty holly patterned paper is from "A Christmas Carol" paper pack made by KaiserCraft. The mitten image is from "Make a Mitten" by SU, and the little greeting is from a set called "Stampin' Words" made by Rubber Stampede. Real Red and Wild Wasabi inks by SU were used. To finish off my card, a little plaid ribbon was placed on the mittens. I think it added just the right touch...

SNOWMAN CROSS STITCH

Because it's so hectic around the holidays and there is so much to do,  I wasn't able to finish my Lizzy Kate cross stitch project for the month of December. Instead, I displayed another small 5x5" cross stitched piece that I stitched a couple of years ago. I just love snowmen and  thought the little kitty in this one nuzzled up next to the snowman was just adorable!

This pattern was one I had found in an old copy of a Leisure Arts magazine way back from 1983!!! I loved the pattern so had ripped it out of the magazine and kept it for all those years. The good thing is....I still like it as much as I did way back then.  :)
I'm working on my project for January and will post that one this month. I'll go back to the Lizzy Kate one for December and work on that when I've finished the rest. I have them all done now except for February, March, and April. I'm getting there.......

CASEY'S CHRISTMAS GIFT

Well it just wouldn't be right to not include Casey on my Christmas gift list.  Casey is the furry member of the family who is most definitely part of our family! This year I decided to buy her a new Christmas scarf and make her some home made treats.  I put out a request on my Facebook page for a recipe for making dog treats, one that someone had already tried that had come out good. Just minutes later, a friend Dannette, sent me a recipe for making peanut butter dog treats. I bought a little cookie cutter in the shape of a dog bone made by Wilson and started my present for Casey....

They really came out good. I'm sure Casey would agree....

MERRY CHRISTMAS CASEY!

CHRISTMAS PJ'S

I have bought my granddaughters, Lucy and Lily, matching pajamas/nightgowns each year and given them to the girls Thanksgiving evening since 2007. I then get a picture of them sitting by the Christmas tree together wearing their matching pajamas. Now that I have several years worth of these photos (oh my, have they changed!) I want to do a double layout scrapbook page with the photos, with openings for several more years of photos to come...

Designing this layout is one of my crafting goals/challenges for this year. I just love looking at these pictures of them in their matching pajamas taken since Lily was born. They are growing up so quickly.....  wish me luck designing the layout!  :)

LUCY'S GIFT

My oldest grand child just turned 9. She loves coming to "play" in my craft room with me. We decided it would be fun to work on a project this year making a small gift for each of her classmates at school.  She would come over for a few hours at a time over a period of a couple of weeks and work on her project in steps. Here is the finished project!

The clear 1" bags were used for the holiday M&M's. She used Garden Green and Real Red SU card stock that matched the candy. On the back of each one was another round circle that said TO: and FROM: so she could put each classmates name along with hers. She took her time and did a great job coloring the images. The candy cane and tree images are from SU's Scentsational Season stamp set and the Santa image is from another SU set called Holiday Helpers. The cute little snowman with his broom is from the Snow Much Fun set by Gina K Designs. After making all of these circles and scalloped circles using MFT die-namics, she considers herself an expert with the Big Shot.  :)
I was so proud of Lucy, she took her time and did a great job! The best part was she told me how good it made her feel when she gave one to each of her friends.

   Bless you Lucy, that is the true spirit of Christmas!