CardPatterns challenge

We recieved a box of goodies from John's cousin in Japan the other day. Akiko-san sent green tea, soup, crackers, seaweed sheets, candy. Trick or treat candy at that! Who knew they trick or treated in Japan?! She also sent some really cool scrapping stuff; crochet flowers, lady bugs and leaves. Stickers and the sticky ribbon trim that's at the bottom of the card. But best of all was a picture of her adorable little boy! I don't know the correct spelling of his name, but phonetically it's Show-aye. He is almost 6 months old now and just adorable. Love those toothless baby grins!!

I had to make a Thank You card to send to her, so what better place to find inspiration than CardPatterns?! And since it's going to Japan, I pulled out CTMH Aspirations paper pack! Along with CTMH Aspiration, Thank You and Intrinsic Backgrounds stamp sets. I used a CTMH crochet flower as well.

CPS challenge

Another Thank You card for mil to send to another of her favorite nurse at the Rehab Center. Actually, it's ME sending the cards. Mil still doesn't have enough control of her right arm to be able to write yet, so I'm her acting social secretary!!

For this one I used my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder, along with CTMH Sweet Home pp and Thank You sentiment stamp set. The crochet flower is CTMH and the heart brad is one from my stash. A pretty simple card, but I hope Janis likes it.

CardPatterns challenge

Yes, it's been a while. Still pretty sore from my periodontal surgery last week. The "play dough snake" is gone and in it's place is exposed nerves that hurt like a.......well, never mind! It hurts 24/7. Something I'm gonna have to get used to because the Perio says that due to the extensive damage it's probably going to take me a good 4 months to heal completely. I've been having some problems with the up close and personal work required to craft, so posts may be few and far between for a while.

On the good news front...we brought my mother in law home from the Rehab Center late yesterday. While she is not 100% (and probably never will be again), she wanted to go home. And the therapies they were doing at the Center can be done with home care nurses. So that's the path she chose. And we have to abide by that.

And that brings us to today's challenge. She needed a couple of Thank You cards to send to her "favorite" nurses and of course she asked me to make them! Who am I to tell her no?! This card uses CTMH Twitterpated pp, Thank You and Grown With Love stamp sets. There are buttons from the CTMH Basic Buttons collection as well as Crystal Blue and Colonial White Waxy Flax. CTMH Dimensional Elements-Organic and Sorbet brads and hemp. The tree and sentiment are pop-dotted for added visual effect. I hope Nurse Teresa likes it!

Meeting an old friend

After "knowing" her for almost 5 years now, I finally got to meet Jeanne and her dh Frank AKA the 9TS (Nine-Toed Sloth after he had to have one toe removed with cancer) last night. Frank's cancer has come back and they've been part time residents at the Hope Lodge at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa for the last 6 weeks while Frank has been having chemo treatments. This morning is his LAST treatment and thankfully so far the results have all been positive.

Jeanne and the 9TS have found some pretty awesome restaurants to dine at while they've been in the area and we joined them at one last night. Broadway Ristorante & Pizzeria Welcomes You! and man was it good! Jeanne raved about their brick oven pizza, but with me still on my soft food diet, pizza was out for me last night. I had fettuchini alfredo and it was wonderful. John got stromboli that he said was great. Jeanne and the 9TS split a pizza. Tomato and basil for Jeanne's half and anchovy, onion and red pepper for Frank. LOVE that Frank got anchovy on his half!! Dinner passed all too quickly and Frank was getting tired, as was I, so we called it a night. It was so wonderful to finally be able to meet both of them. Now we'll have to get together again, and hopefully not have to wait 5 years to do it!

When you've nothing else to do...

How about a little Periodontal surgery for laughs?

I have bad Periodontal disease. Really bad. To the point where yesterday began a year long oddesy of splitting open my gums and grinding down damaged bone and injecting cadaver bone to meld with the remaining bone so that hopefully I won't lose all of my teefs. Surgeries will fall once every four months or so, depending on how quickly I heal.

Once our co-pay was in the books, I was given a little blue pill and within 20 minutes, I was very relaxed and didn't really care what was going on around me. Susie, my nurse helped me float to the surgery room where she then hooked me up to the Nitrous Oxide tank and I got to sit on a toadstool whilst fairys and butterflies danced around my head. It was a lovely trip!! I was awake during the entire procedure, but neither cared nor could do anything about anything! Surgery took a little over an hour. We started with the upper left side, since that's where the worst damage was. I have a "play dough-like snake" in my mouth, surrounding those teeth to keep any small bits of food out. I have lots of "good drugs" to keep the pain at bay. They make me really loopy and I feel like I'm drunk and I haven't had anything to drink. Good thing I don't have to go to work or operate heavy machinery! I promised John that so long as I'm on the pain meds, I won't be driving anywhere. Yesterday my diet consisted of pudding cups, jello cups, yogurt, watermelon and canteloupe chunks. All cold foods. No hot. Today I can graduate to soft foods and I've already put in my request for sushi tonight since sushi's soft! I can't talk so good right now. It hurts to open my mouth to form words, so John is in his glory with a mostly silent wife!

CPS challenge

Such a fun sketch this week at http://www.cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com/! There's so many directions you could take with this sketch. I'm sure it's one I'll go back to time and again.

I was needing a birthday card and even though the thermometer in Florida is still in the mid 90's, I'm also feeling "fallish" so I pulled out CTMH Grace paper pack. I love the colors in this paper pack. I used my Nestabilities to cut the B&T and also the tag. I used an old CTMH stamp set, Delight In Everything for the flowers on the printed B&T and CTMH Happy Birthday for the sentiment. Three buttons with Crystal Blue Waxy Flax complete this simple card.

Wait'll next year!

After failing to live up to the World Series team of '08, our Tampa Bay Rays finished their '09 season yesterday. There were highs, like having our entire infield elected to the All Star Game and Carl Crawford's MVP catch to win the game for the American League. There were some lows, like the bullpen collapsing coming down the stretch. But there's alway next year. Hold your heads high boys. We've nothing to be ashamed of. 162 days til Spring Training starts!

Double Duty

Love it when I can combine challenges!

I'm using the sketch from CardPatterns and the challenge from {capture the moment} to incorporate a Japanese theme in a card.

Paper pack, ribbon and flowers are Prima's Tea and Silk collection. The magnet (yes, it's a magnet!) is one of a collection that sister in law JoAnn gave me for Christmas.

Another card I can take to my mother in law to brighten her bedside.

CardPatterns challenge

Great sketch again this week at CardPatterns.

I decided to use it to do my CTMH Nov Stamp of The Month swap cards with. This set is called Around The Block and has a house, two roofs, doors, windows and other "house" stuff! I paired it with CTMH Twitterpated paper pack. The coloring was done with my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I found yet another use for common household string! It's become one of my new favorite embellishments! And a bit of Stickles for the required bling! See the heart brad in place of the "a" in "heart."

CPS challenge

Lovely, simple sketch this week at http://www.cardpositioningsystems.blogspot.com/! That's good, cuz it's been a crazy hectic week.

My mother in law has had a series of strokes and falls over the last couple of weeks. She is now at a rehab center to hopefully get some physical, speech and occupational therapy so she can go back home. There's been a lot of running back and forth between our house and the in laws and now the rehab center. She needs some soothing things to help ease her mind so she can concentrate on getting better, so that was my thought in making this card. The image is one I got at the Kodomo booth at CHA. The sponged ink on the cream cs is really grey, but it photographs a funky greenish color. There's some Washi Tape and some black grosgrain ribbon on there as well.