OCC challenge week 23

Denise at Our Creative Corner challenged us to use snowmen and/or snow in our cards for this week. I can count on one hand how many times I've seen snow in my lifetime! But I've got a crap-load of snow/snowman stamps and only ONE "tropical" stamp set! So I pulled out Snowflake Kisses and Winter Memories stamp sets. I stamped the snowman, then stamped him again and cut him out so I could use him as a mask so I could stamp my snow. Then I went back in with Prisma Glitter, Blue Stickles and Blue Liquid Pearls and dotted the snowflakes here and there. I paper pieced the snowman's scarf. I embossed the three larger snowflakes with Winter Magic...it's got glitter in the embossing powder for one less step! Then I cut them out and added bling to the center of each and pop-dotted them with different heights of pop-dots for some dimension. I used the quilt pattern from Evansong paper pack for my base.

Christmas Bows

So friend Jeanne over at silly to sane. . . . posted these ADorABle bows that she found on Splitcoast a week or so ago. And I knew I had to try them! I pulled out Evansong paper pack this morning and went to town! The first few pieces, I was all fumble-fingered trying to figger out how do I fold these dad-gummed thangs anyhow! Talking to myself. Willing myself NOT to get impatient and mess them up. And once I got it figured out and got myself a rhythm going...well...just look out! I was a bow-making fool! I will need quite a few more, but want to try some with the Apen paper pack as well. Here's just a few of what I got done today. Oh, and since I know you'll ask...here's the link on where to find them!

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/dsp_bow

I stand corrected!

My three loyal readers! I was feeling a bit fiesty yesterday morning!

Thanksgiving dinner with the fam was wonderful, as always! Too much food! I told everyone I was not making my asparagus or the beer bread ever again because no one ever eats either of them! There was no beer bread left and people were looking for more. There were three asparagus spears left! I hate it when food goes to waste!

Everybody noshing. Not a whole lotta talking going on. Stuffing our faces! Jan, after cleaning her plate, told everyone that nothing was good and she only ate it all so's no one felt bad. Yeah, right Jan. We got your number, girlfriend!

Just us girls. Mom, Sue, Kathy and Janice. In order of birth! I'm the oldest, then Kath and Jan.

The girls and their kids (or in my case, favorite oldest nephew, favorite youngest nephew and favoite Princess niece!) Mom, Sue, Kathy, Jan, Joy and Jake in front and Kyle in the back...because he's 18 feet tall!

Unka Him (Uncle Jim. Joy had problems saying her "J's" when she was a kid, and I though Unka Him was such a cute name, I still call him that!) and Joy playing dress-up. He's got two girls of his own, so he's quite adept at playing dress up. And is such a great sport about it!

Jan as "Punkin Head!"

Giving Thanks

For all (two) of my Faithful Readers! For friends and family. For being able to live free.

We'll be heading 30 miles south to my youngest sisters house later today. Everyone brings a dish (or twelve) and we always eat too much! I've got roasted asparagus, a blueberry jello salad and Tastefully Simple Beer Bread that I'll be taking. Check back tomorrow for pictures.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

Blooming things

This is one of the great things about living in Florida. Stuff blooms year-round. Went out to take care of the chickens and the pond a bit ago and saw my Abe Lincoln rose is blooming. And our pink seedless grapefruit tree is loaded again this year. Since we're both on Chol meds, we have to limit our grapefruit eating, so John's folks get most of the fruit. And they don't complain one bit!!! We have a cold front moving thru today as well. We were "supposed" to get some rain, but all we seem to be getting is clouds. They are moving very quickly across the sky and I liked the way they looked with the flag in the foreground.

OCC challenge week 22

I used to make all of the month's birthday cards I needed on the first of any given month. Now I wait for the Our Creative Corner to make them! Bil Bruce's birthday is next week, so this week's entry is on it's way to him.

Denise had a sketch for us to work with this week. So I pulled out Good Times paper pack along with Star Struck, Party Blocks, Spot On Background, Say It In Style and Tiny Typewriter Alphabet stamp sets. The stars at the corners were stamped on coasters, cut out and have Distress Stickles on the edges. The party hat has Diamond Stickles and Sassy Strands for the top of the hat.

More Christmas gifts

There are three young ladies I know that have all sorts of treasures. I found these boxes online earlier this year, I don't remember where! I ordered them, along with some other things to alter, not really having any idea of what I'd do with any of them. This morning it came to me! I'd alter the boxes and give them to the young ladies to store their treasures in! A couple of coats of paint, some scraps of paper, some blingy flowers and some glittery flowers and I have three more gifts complete!

OCC challenge week 21

Denise challenged us to use our silhouette stamps this week on Our Creative Corner and since I'm such a bad wife and waited til John's birthday to actually make his card, I figured that would be a great challenge for his card. I pulled out the Sept SOM, Treasure Life and stamped them in Chocolate on textured white cardstock that I cut with my Nestabilities. I used Simple Pleasures paper pack and inked the edges of the paper in Chocolate to give some depth. A bit of Prisma Glitter on one of the flowers for the "required" bling and a bit of Twilight ribbon on the sentiment.

And Happy Birthday honey! I love you!

SheetLoad Shoutout!

I've become addicted to SheetLoad of Cards - Free Monthly eZine! They have such cute sketch ideas. I also love, love, love the Clear and Frosted Card blanks at SheetLoad ShortCuts. You can make such unique cards with their high quality acetate card blanks. I decided to enter this months eZine contest and this is the card I came up with from their sketch. Clear card blank is from SheetLoad ShortCuts. All other supplies are CTMH. Paper pack is Perfect Day. Stamp sets are Gratitude and Say It In Style. Swirl and bird are Dimensional Elements.

Christmas in a box!

Or at least a Christmas gift in a box. There are some people who it is easier to get gift cards for and finding the right something to put them in is always a challenge. When I was at Convention, my third upline Susan gave gifts in small jewelry-type boxes. And I saved them! Not knowing what I would do with them at the time. In a Fit Of Genius (yes, I do occasionally have them!) it came to me! Make something out of the box to hold those pesky gift cards! And this is what I came up with. The gc will go on the first piece out of the box on the bottom. Only the sides of the center piece with the sentiment on it are attached, so the gc will slip right inside and sort of "peek" out.

OCC challenge week 20

Taylor VanBruggen is the guest designer this week at Our Creative Corner. She is best known in the creative blogging world for her Cupcake Friday challenges. And since I have not joined the cupcake stamp world yet, I dug out CTMH Festive Frills stamp set and used my circle Nestabilities to cut the circle, then I stamped the image on vellum using Juniper ink and went back in with my red Stickles for the holly berries. I ran a piece of Cranberry cardstock thru the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder and two pieces of Ponderosa Pine cardstock to simulate the wreath hanging on a front door.

Cards, cards...

and more cards! CTMH is now producing how to video's. You can see them at http://www.closetomyheart.com/ and click CTMH TV. Last week they did cards. Basically you take one design and you can create many different looking cards from one design. This is my loose interpretation of that video. I used my new favorite paper pack, Notebook! Crystal Blue, Hollyhock, Bamboo and Desert Sand inks. Hollyhock and Natural Twill ribbon, Bigger Brads and Bitty Brads, Copper Photo Hangers. Prima Collage flowers and CTMH Big Pinks flowers. Say It In Style and Adorning Corners stamp sets.

Heartfelt thanks

Honoring those who served. And are serving.

A new day

Never again will we be able to say that a Black man has not held the office of President of the United States. I hope President-Elect Obama can bring about some much needed change in our country and begin to heal some centuries-old wounds.

John's on vacation this week. We've been working on honey-do's around the house. He had a Dr's appt on Monday, so that day was pretty much shot in the ass! The chol meds he had John on made his bad chol go UP! So they've switched him to Crestor and will re-check him after the first of the year. I had a dentist appt for my cleaning yesterday. I have Periodontal disease and have some pretty deep pockets where the bone has receeded away from my gum line. While it's not getting worse, it's not getting any better either. My teeth are very sensitive to hot and cold because of the bone loss. When I go back in 4 months, they plan to evaluate and see if I might benefit from having my gums cut to encourage those pockets to close up. Ohhh, fun! NOT!

We had a new mall open in New Tampa last week, The Shoppes at Wiregrass. It's an open-air mall, based on an old-timey Main Street. So after I got done with my dentist appt yesterday, since it was too late to really get started on anything around the house, we went and checked it out. While it's very nice and will do well in the area it is, I won't be going out of my way to go shop there. Lots of later teenage/early twenty's stores. They have a Coach store, and while I am not a bag ho, if I were to get a "designer" bag, I think it would be Coach. They have a very nice Barnes & Noble there and we spent over an hour browsing the store and made a few Christmas gift purchases while we were there.

We're also working in the yard, cleaning flower beds and getting things ready for winter slumber, such as it is in FL!

Today is the day

Go vote. I don't care who you support. Vote. If you don't, you have no right to bitch.

Erin G's challenge

Former CTMH sister Erin at Inky Smiles posted a sketch challenge on her blog and I had to do it! I used one of the frosted blanks from SheetLoad ShortCuts for my base. And since I had the Notebook paper pack out, I went with it as well. I used Gratitude stamp set and stamped three of the flowers in Hollyhock and Crystal Blue, then found a couple of MM (I think!) brads and a small button in my stash to use as flower centers. I used a dimensional Element and Golden Follies glitter from Sparkle n Sprinkle to give it a bit of glitz. A piece of Crystal Blue ribbon completed the card.

OCC challenge week 19

Denise is the hostess for Nov at Our Creative Corner and her first challenge was for us to color! Using whatever our favorite medium is. In addition, one of the members daughter is having a rough go right now with some health issues so they asked if anyone would be willing to send cards to help cheer Ali up. So I combined mine and the card I created will be going to Ali. I used an image that Marjorie, Mommy Scraps sent me last week in a RAK and used my CTMH markers in Hollyhock, Bamboo, Desert Sand and Crystal Blue to color the image. Then I used Notebook paper pack and Hollyhock twill ribbon to complete the card. Sentiment is CTMH Say It In Style.

I won! I won!

Remember I told you about a free giveaway over at SheetLoad ShortCuts last month? If you placed an order and referred to me, you'd get 10% off your order and I could get my order for free? Well, Alicia contacted me (and posted to the blog!) that I won! So I get my order that I placed in Sept for free. How cool is that?!