Black Friday

edited to add: I figured out how to make my pictures "clickable" so you can click on them and see them closeup. Turns out that when I clicked and dragged them where I wanted them, I lost some of the html code enabling them to be "clickable." Now I just left them where they end up, and typed around them. Yo can click on all of them, except the last one. I accidentally deleted the special "clickable" html code when I dragged it to it's spot. Enjoy!

It's Black Friday today. Who braved the shopping malls? Not me! I worked several years in retail and decided that I would never shop on Black Friday unless absolutely necessary. So, we've just been hanging around the house, doing laundry, stuff like that. Yesterday was a good day. We didn't go anywhere, just stayed home and enjoyed each other's company. Made a modest Thanksgiving dinner, and watched a silly movie. It was a happy/sad day. We had originally planned on being in San Diego visiting family in the morning, then flying to Arkansas to visit family in the evening, but those plans fell through when our orders didn't get cut in time. We were happy to be together, but we were missing our family that we didn't get to be with. I really hope and pray that our orders get us to Italy for Christmas, because I know it will be a difficult day to get through if we're still here and my husband is still in Korea. But enough about that! Yesterday I got a chance to be a little crafty. My oldest son and I made Christmas lists! Andrew made his own list, and I made lists for Ashton and Angel.

Above is Ashton's list. I stamped and then colored Santa from Doodlefactory's Sweete Shoppe stamp set. Then I cut him out and glued him onto the list. I printed the lists out from my computer on Very Vanilla card stock and Real Red Card stock.

I cut the title off the red cs and put it on the vanilla cs. Then I stamped the images around the border of the lists. Andrew colored the Santa on Angel's list. Then Andrew made his own list.

He wanted to have a little section on his list for his "most wanted" presents. He colored the Santa, then glued it onto two circles that I cut out. He also decorated his list with Gio (the gingerbread man) and an ornament from Kim Hughes' set that I paper pieced.

We had a good time making these lists, and they didn't take long at all. The boys have already started filling them in with the toys they want. Notice the gift on Andrew's list? He wants a VERY expensive iPod! lol.

Well, on another subject, Wednesday was Einstein's last day with us. The poor little guy had a bad liver, and it slowly took his life away. He was just 6 months old, but he was suffering. My Mom took him to be put to sleep on Wednesday afternoon. We all miss him, but he was in so much pain, that now he is much better off. Here is a picture of him playing with Angel:

He had a great life, and we are all happy that we knew him.

Thank you again for stopping by. I really appreciate when you all read my posts and comment. And by the way, if you want to comment but don't have a blogger account, you still can if you post as "anonymous." Just click the circle next to "anonymous" and you'll be good to go. Oh, and don't forget to tell me who you are, or I won't know! lol.

Until next post, be blessed.

One more day til Thanksgiving!

Hey Blog Readers! We only have one more day until Thanksgiving. There are so many things to be thankful for. I have a lot of people in my life that I am thankful for. One of those people is my friend Carin, so I made her some stuff to let her know I appreciate her. Here is the little flower vase I made. I just put some Stampin' Up! rub-ons around the vase and added some ribbon to it to top it off. Next, I made her a little notebook. I just received some perfect images from an image swap. As soon as I saw them I knew they were the perfect cartoon versions of Carin and Me!

This image is called Huggybella and it's from Stamping Bella. Do you see the names I wrote along the edges of the ladies? LOL, yup, that's Carin and Me. I have naturally curly hair and Carin has straight hair, and the outfits even match our personalities! Well, I think I would have straps on my dress, but it's close enough. Here is a pic of the whole notebook:

I used the new Banbury DP from Stampin' Up! I love this paper. It has pink pirouette in it as well as some greens, blues, and it looks great with browns.

Another person that I am eternally grateful for is my husband, David. I won't get all mushy here on my blog, but I love that man. Since he's been in Korea for the last 11 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days (about, lol!) I try to send him paper hugs every once in awhile. This is the last one I sent him:

I used the adorable Cuddles and Hugs stamp set illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger for Gina K. Designs. This card was also made for a challenge that Melanie put forth during the last GKD release party. The challenge was to use 3 or more stamp sets on one card, and I did! You'll have to go to my gallery of SCS (link on my sidebar) to read all the details on the card.

So, these are just two of the many people in my life that I am thankful for. I am also very thankful for all my blog readers! Leave me a comment to let me know you stopped by again today, and until next post, be blessed!

Another Post FULL of Pics!!!

Hey there blog readers! I have yet another post full of pictures. This one has more than the last I believe. Do you all remember me mentioning that I was working on a project that I couldn't post since it was a gift? Well, I gave the gift to the recipient and got permission to post it.

I have had the pleasure of babysitting a little girl who has become part of our family, and Angel's First Best friend! Her name is Maia and since I'll be moving soon (and so will they, they're moving to Alaska!) I decided to make a scrapbook for her and her family. I have taken a ton of pictures of Maia and Angel while she was here, so I had plenty of pictures to scrap. I'm not going to explain all the pages (they are pretty self-explanatory) but I may mention a few things about some of the pages. Get ready... here they are: Page 1, MaiaPage 2, The Gang:Page 3, The Casino Table:Page 4, Smile:Page 5, Jealous & Mad:Page 6 & 7, Playtime So Fun:Page 8 & 9, Best Friends:Page 10 & 11, Rides:Page 12 & 13, Coloring:Page 14 & 15, Taa Daa:Page 16 & 17, Dog!:Page 18 & 19, Trapped:Page 20 & 21, Yum Yum:Page 22 & 23, I Can Fly!Page 24 & 25, Stickers!:Page 26, Your Fabulous Eyes:

Well, that's it! I hope you can click on the pictures to see them up close. I'm going to go check my blog setting after this to see if I can make sure that it is possible. I'm going to miss this little girl when we all finally move away, but I've become friends with her parents so I know we'll be in contact for years to come. I hope you all enjoyed the pictures. If you have any questions about any of the products I've used on any of these pages, just ask! I used a combination of so many things that it would take WAY too much time and typing to write it all up.

Thanks so much for stopping by and until next post, be blessed!

The rest of SAR!

Well, I was supposed to post this on Thursday... but for some reason days keep slipping by! Please forgive me for not posting every day, I really want to but I just seem to run out of time. So, I'm going to make up for my absence with a bunch of pictures! Remember that I told you we did a Secret Santa gift exchange? Well, this is the gift that I got:

It's three handmade gift card holders! They are adorable! They are like little wallets that hold money and/or a gift card. Here's a pic of the inside:And see that cute snowman bag in the background? The git cardholders came in that. It's so cute and I keep it hanging off a shelf in my room with all my Holiday Swaps in it.

Next are the Swap cards that I got. This first one was made by the fabulous Christine:

This one was made by the very talented Jan:This one was made by our hostess-with-the-mostest, Jennifer:This one is made by my Amazing Upline, Alisha:This next one was made by the Stupendous Shirley (the top flap opens up, and is held closed with the image panel, I have GOT to try this fold!):And this last swap was made by the Generous Ginger (who also made my Secret Santa gift!):

And Finally, the Grand Finale!!! Jennifer, our hostess with the mostest, taught us how to make THIS wonderful gift!These four cards and enveloped fit INSIDE this adorable little house! I loved making this project. It was a little labor intensive, but Jennifer had mostly everything ready for us... so it was a TON of fun. Here's a closer pic of the house and two of the cards.The window in the house is all sparkly. It's made with packing tape and glitter! Here's an up close of the other two cards and the envies:This SAR was so much fun and festive. It will be the last one I get to go to, and I'm going to miss getting together with these wonderfully talented ladies and paper crafting. I just hope that I can find another group to craft with when we move. Well, that's the whole post for tonight. I hope some of you are still reading! lol! If you have any questions about any of these projects, just ask and I'll try to answer the best I can. Enjoy the new week... only a couple days till Thanksgiving!

Until next post, be blessed.

More Christmas from SAR

Hey there everyone! It's Wednesday night, and I'm tired, so there isn't going to be a lot of talking tonight... But there are pictures! At our monthly Stamp-A-Rama on Sunday, we did a card swap and a Secret Santa gift exchange. I'll post the cards and gift I received later, but here is the gift I made to give away. I put this gift set into a basket (can you see it behind the stuff?). Here are closeups of the parts of the gift. This is the pencil holder and lotion/body spray set. I used Summer Picnic DP and cardstock punchouts (I can't remember what they're really called- I'm tired, remember?) to make simple belly bands for them. The real red striped ribbon was tied in a bow and stuck on with a glue dot.

Here are the lotion/body spray set again, and a covered notepad. Same stuff used, plus real red and pumpkin pie cardstock.

I've had this window tin for awhile and was finally able to use it. I added in the magnets that I made a while ago, because I never used them or gave them away! They actually inspired the whole gift set. In case you didn't read that post (it was a long time ago) I unmounted some of my SU! sets, stamped on the blocks using Tart & Tangy stamp set, added magnet to the back and waalaa! Magnets! There are also two mini snickers with DP wrapped around them in the tin and it's tied closed with the pretty ribbon again. Alisha (my upline) actually picked this gift and she loved it. I'm glad cuz I loved making it and I want to make more now!

I'm not sure if I posted this before:

This is the Christmas card I made for the last SAR. I think I did post about it... Anyway, I used vellum to cover the cardstock which was stamped with the snowflakes from Snow Swirled in Brilliant blue and silver Encore ink. Then I stamped the sentiment from Heart Warmers in Silver Encore and embossed it. It looks so elegant irl, but this pic is fuzzy.

FINALLY, here are the cards I made for this SAR. I'm also sending a few of these out for Christmas to my family/friends so I made extra. If you get one, pretend to be surprised! lol! I used the top note die in my Big Shot for the actual part of the card that opens. Then I just glued it to the real read cs for a background. They were stamped all over with the snowflakes from Snow Swirled in White Craft ink. The sentiment was stamped in real red ink and punched with my cute and curly punch. Again, I used the great striped ribbon. I think that's it...

Well, I really need to "hit the hay" and rest up for tomorrow. I still have a lot to catch up on so I can pack away my stamping stuff. It will be a sad day when I finally tape up the boxes... but it will be a good day also because that will mean we have our orders! Speaking of orders, should I have a celebration blog candy when we finally get them? I'm thinking about it... I have some fun stuff I would like to give away and that may be the perfect occassion. What do you all think?

Until next post, be blessed!

Kim Hughes Christmas Cards

Happy Saturday Everyone! I've been making a lot of Christmas cards lately and I'm almost done. I think I have about 5 more to make, and I'll have enough for everyone I'm sending to this year. Then again... I may make extra just in case. Here are three cards I've made using Kim Hughes stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms. This first one uses U R A Hoot and Heart Warmers. I got this layout from someone's sketch challenge, abut I can't remember who. I made it too long ago...
This next one uses Christmas Critters.

I CASED this layout from a card in the SU! Holiday Mini catalog. This Moose took 3 tries!!! I couldn't decide how to color him, or to paper piece him, so this is the third and final attempt and I think it worked out well.

And this last one uses Heart Warmers as well. CHF also offers a few of Kim Hughes' stamps individually so you don't have to get the whole set if you don't want it. This adorable Snowlady is Snowy Sophie.

I CASED the layout for the Snowy Sophie card for the SU! catalog. After I glued the white panel onto the green panel, I stood it up on the table to look at it and it moved! Oh well, it now matched my sideways ribbon, lol!

Today's going to be a busy day. I finished up my cards for the SAR Swap that is tomorrow, but I still have to finish the Secret Santa gift and bake some cookies. Also, my Mom was moved into a new office at her work yesterday and we're going to finish setting up the office so it's all ready for her to work in on Monday. I better get a move on if I want to get all that done before bedtime today! I almost forgot, I want to update my blogroll. If you'd like your blog to be linked on my sidebar, let me know or if you know any blogs worth linking, let me know that too! Thanks.

Until next post, be blessed!

SAR projects

Happy Wednesday every one! Here are the other projects that we did at last month's Stamp-A-Rama. Enjoy the pics...
So Thankful for you: Lovely as a tree (I think):

Happy Days Hippo:

This next one is actually stamped on gold cardstock, but it wouldn't photograph well.

Snowflake Christmas:

Well, I'm exhausted and I shouldn't even be up this late so I have no words tonight. The stress of our PCS is getting to me. I can't sleep, and yet I'm exhausted. What's up with that?

Until next post, be blessed!