Are you ready???

   I know I'm not and I'll bet I am not alone.   I've had an awful week as far as my darn Fibro goes and that has put me even MORE behind, but this will be okay and I'll do what I can and will not worry!!

    Hubby offered to do all the final grocery shopping today and even dropped of my meds for refills, thank goodness.  I did not sleep well and had a lot of hip pain. Also had new Xrays on Tuesday after Chiro and learned that there is no degeneration in the silly left hip, and of course, it's basically arthritis and not much else I can do, other than the things I already do!!  UGH!!

     Today, I just felt like crafting and did actually make three new ... very clean and simple cards...but I assure you none are Christmas cards...I'm so done with them and sad that I only have about ten cards here and not one is handmade, which is kind of sad to me!!  Oh Well -- such is life, but I should have one coming when my Secret Santa package from my Hero Arts Swap arrives and I'm sure it'll be really awesome.  I was kind of surprised that two friends who always make their own amazing cards, sent something different.  One was a very pretty store bought card and the other is a photo card, which I admit are NOT my favorites...I love see pics of family, friends and the kiddos, but prefer to see them inside the card.  Even Kim, my friend who sent the card, wrote on it, that it was "Not" her idea, which made me laugh.  It was a cute family shot of their family getting ready to "Zip Line" and I'm sure they LOVED it, so the kids may have chosen the card for this year.

    Oh, and I also have a wonderful gift that is sitting here from another Secret Santa swap that I was part of with another group of friends.  I'm saving it for at least another day and may wait until Christmas, but will be sure to share pics with that group!!   My gifts to both swaps have now safely arrived, as have my gift to Brian and Meg...who I am missing very much!!

   So that's about it....we never did any Christmas decorating and when hubby came in the ladder today I just gave him that look, like NOW...you thing is a good time to start...No thanks....I'd rather give it up for this year and hope next year is much better.   I am so not into this year and that's due to illness more than anything else, so I really need a break.  I also miss the kids and it's just not the same, without your entire family, especially when it's as tiny as mine is!!

   Anyway....these are my three cards...and all will soon be put to good use!  They were ALL inspired by the newest sketch at Cas(E) This Sketch and I'm submitting to the the challenge today!!  It's about time that I finally played and I've missed all my challenges very much, so I'm looking forward to a new year and more time to create!!

CTS #58

My Cards

  As you can see these were both done in the same colors (Pool and Aqua) which I love and I used a simple digital sentiment on the first card and then used a fabulous new "thanks" die, one of the SSS Exclusive that is actually the handwriting of Kristina Werner, which I happen to think is fabulous!!

  And my last card, which is another Thank You card also features another style "Thanks" die that is again from Simon Says Stamp.   I love almost every die they have designed and also am a huge fan of the thin dies, in general.  I first started my collection when Memory Box started coming out with them, and I have never stopped!!

  It's at this time I want to Thank YOU, all of my friends and followers for being part of my blog and for taking the time to stop in and leave so many wonderful comments.   I do hope that 2014 will have me back to posting a lot more frequently and also more importantly spending more time relaxing in my craft room.

  I also want to wish you a very MERRY CHRISTMAS and hope that you all enjoy special times with your family and friends!!

Fun in the SUN !! Birthdays!!!

....After the days of bitter cold, it was so nice to see the sun back out yesterday and even more fun to see how the puppies played in it.

   Typically, they don't like the cold at all and they run out and back in a seconds to do their business.  But, with this fresh new coating of snow, they had a blast running, jumping and playing.  It was also the first day that the temps were up on the 30's so it actually felt so much better.

   I thought I'd share some pics of them having fun.   I haven't had any free time to create (and I miss it like crazy), but have been working hard to finish up my Christmas Shopping and getting the gifts wrapped and mailed.  

   For now -- I hope you'll enjoy the latest pics of my crew --  Scout, Skye and Zeva.

They ran and ran and playing and jumped and had 

a lot of fun....!!   They also love eating snow!!

Zeva...she was so fun to watch!!

After a while, they little coats were so full of snow, they wanted them off, but 

were still very Happy in the warm sun!!

This is my Senior Boy -- Scout!!  

And the two Sisters!!  Zeva in Purple and Skye in Pink!

   And I have two more pictures to share on this very special days, which is the day my first son was born.   Brian turns 27 today and the year he was born, he was the best Christmas Gift I ever could have asked for.  THis picture, is him and his very first "Teddy" and was taken on Christmas Morning, 1986, at six days old!  

   I LOVE YOU Brian and wish so much I could Hug and Kiss you today.  This is the second year that I could not do that and I miss it.   I can't wait to see you again and will looking forward to coming back out to San Diego sometime in 2014!!  Have a wonderful birthday, so happy I talked to you today!   XOXOX!

    And tomorrow, we will be celebrating another birthday -- the puppies will turn one.   They were born on December 20th and I can hardly believe they are already a year old!!   Two more wonderful gifts in my life who bring me lots of Happiness and Love!!

Skye joined our family, at four months in April and we decided we had to adopt Zeva too and she joined us in September!  On the 20th, they day they both turned 9 months old!    Tomorrow we will PARTY!!!

Joy!!!!

 .....Joy!!  The word of the day and a word that makes a wonderful sentiment for Christmas Cards, including my last several that I finished up today!   It's also a JOY to know that I am done with creating Christmas Card for 2013 and that the last batch will be going out in tomorrow's mail.

      If you are a crafter and love to make you own cards, as I do, you know that you really need to start early and build up your collection over several weeks, even months and while I did have some done, I was behind this year and it made this task take a lot longer than normal, but I sure did enjoy it!  Many of the cards I'm sharing today were created while taking some fun new card classes, as well as making more at the monthly Card Club I attend at my LSS!

      With so many to share, and such a long time since I have even had time to blog, I'm not going to give you too many details on each card.  However, I'll be happy to answer questions if you would like to know about a certain image, technique or product.  All you have to do is ask.

       I'm starting the several cards that were part of this month's card club, which I attended on Tuesday.  I love this group and it was especially fun at this meeting as many of the others had taken a Friday night class and there were only three of us in class, giving us lots of space and time to chat -- a shout to Ellen and Diane for being such great classroom partners this month!!

      Out of all the cards were created in card club, the first card below, is one of my favorites.  Not only did I like the fun technique we used for the background, but I also love how using simple die cuts can really make a nice card.  I'm a huge fan of die cuts and found that I used them often in many of my cards this year.  I hope you enjoy them, as much as I do!

This next card, is also another one I adore.  I think the sweet little animals of winter make it extra special.  Don't you?

  And this cute little square card is simply a matter of cutting a variety of "frames" and then adding a simple sentiment, which I did with this cute little felt -- JOY, which is from Hero Arts.

   Another card that I never would have thought about making, was this one, where we simply cut out the "Song" from some 12" Paper, added it to a card base and then added on some Embellishments.   And while it may now be my style, it turned out to be a very nice "traditional" card!!

  The next several cards were more that I created in the "Christmas Stash" classes, where the basic idea was to build up a nice Stash of cards.  I took all three sessions of this class, taught by Terri and really LOVED it.  One of my favorite things was that you had a choice of the cards you wanted to make, based on some samples that Terri had put together and they you could choose to make all, or say two of each and so forth.  I picked my favorites and these are some of those I have left over!  Many are in my last mail batch, because I loved them so much.

   As you can see, this first one, is not even quite finished!  It still needs a sentiment that I'll be adding on the top in a rich red ink.  I loved this stamp from the first day I saw it, and it too is from Hero Arts.  I also loved using the Hero Arts Paint Dabbers to actually color the sweet little wreath --- super easy  and a great results!

And once again, some of my favorites from these classes, also were cards where die cuts, were the perfect idea!!  I really loved how simply it was make to a nice card using this fun new Merry Christmas die, which is from Memory Box and has now made it's way to my collection!!

   Combining dies with Embossing folders also is another fun idea and that's exactly what we did for this card!!    

Next is another favorite and it's also a truly CAS style card.  We simply picked out two pieces of matching Patterned Paper, cut it down and adhered it to the card on an angle.  We finished it off by cutting a matching "Merry" sentiment, in this case in red!   Love it!!

   

    And last, is another super easy card, that looks even better in person and it took only minutes to make.  It's a deep blue Bazzill Cardstock, embossed in a snowflake embossing folder.  And the best part of this fabulous idea that Terri shared for snowflakes, which is actually a roll of Ribbon.  We simply cut three in a row and adhered them to our card and then cut a sentiment of our choice in Silver Foil Paper!   A wonderful card that I actually will make again.  It's perfect to do at the last minute and you can make it in basically any colors to match the silver snowflake ribbon!!

   And now I am officially done with creating and mailing our my cards for this year and that makes this girl very JOYFUL and happy to have that task done!!  Tomorrow we shall start on wrapping gifts and HOPE that I have everything I need!!   I hope you too are finishing up your cards and also hope you are one of those who still loves to send them.  It's another JOY for me and I only wish that more people kept up the tradition.  Seems I get fewer and fewer cards each year and to me, a cardmaker, that's a bummer!!

Snow flurries....brrrrr!!!!

   It's another very chilly day here, but the good news is that now I'm seeing is certainly nothing major and it looks almost like a sun snow shower, as the sun is coming out at the same time.

   I'm very happy to be in my craft room and got up nice and early to do all my chores, So that I was done in time to play in the latest Scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group.  It was also a fun challenge, hosted by Cindy where we were asked to create cards using patterned papers, along with Hero Stamps and the fun part is that the idea was to make something other than another Christmas/Holiday card, something it seems like I've been working on for days.

   Both of my cards ended up in a Hugs theme, which is always a favorite for me, because you can use these cards in many ways.  I also used my pad of Hero Arts Patterned Paper on each of the cards, along with a variety of Hero Stamps.

    The first card was done in assorted shades of green and started on a Hero Grass Note card  I then added a piece of the green dotted paper and cut a matching green banner, with my PTI Die, that I stamped in Field Green Shadow Ink, using a new "Canvas Background" stamp.   I then used a variety of punches to create the circles and hearts and also used the "Many Dots" stamp set to add a fun effect to the middle circle.  The sentiment is from the Big Hugs Clear Set and was stamped on Layering Paper and then mounted on the same dark green EP Patterned Paper I used for the largest layer.  I finished off the card, by popping up the little black heart and added the matching bling.

  I used most of the same stamp sets for my second card, only this card was done in a Pink Theme, where I also started with a Carnation Hero Note card.  This time I picked a pink floral pattern from my Paper Pad.   I used the same Big Hugs and Many Dots sets and put everything all together to finish this card just in the nick of time.

   I also have a fun little card to share that I worked on yesterday for my God-Daughter who just purchased her own home this week.   It's also her Birthday tomorrow and I have a card done for that too, but forget to take a picture before I sealed the envelope....OOOPS!!   This little card was inspired by a design I purchased from the Silhouette online store and I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the shapes I used on my little "Housewarming Card".  

And this was the sentiment I

created and added to the inside of the card!!

I used the little red bow and some washi tape

to hold onto a gift check I am including in her card!!

And I even have this cute little matching envelope,

to make it a nice little set!!

  And I also have two new pics of the puppies to share!!  I found the MOST amazing "Weenie Pockets" online and when I saw they were done is an adorable little "Doxie" print, I had to order them for the dogs.   I had planned to only buy two, and give Scout back his original one, which Skye kind of took over -- but, once I had them and felt them...oh my -- I had to get one more for him, which should be here any day!  These are BY FAR the nicest, softest and more comfortable little pockets I have ever bought and I highly recommend if you are in the market to purchase one, (or more) you visit this store - Dog Inspired Rag Quilts, on Facebook and tell Wendy, that I sent you!   I am so impressed and just LOVE the quality of her pockets.   The dogs love these pretty much as much as I LOVE my awesome Polar Fleece Sheets, which are very much like sleeping on soft fluff!  Heavenly!!  

 
   Please stay tuned for pics of Scoutie (the big brother), when his pocket arrives next week!   I had planned to save these for Christmas, but could NOT resist once I felt them!  I also bought them each a new bed for Christmas....yes, they may be a teeny bit spoiled, but I LOVE them!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

   Wishing everyone a very Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!   May you all enjoy a wonderful time with your family and friends.

    Hugs and love to all my amazing online friends, I am very lucky to have met you all and have you in my life.

Brrrrrrrrrrr!!!.....The chill is on....!!

....and it feel awful!!    I am not sure of the exact temperature, but all is know is it's COLD today and super windy, making it seem far worse.  I pity anyone who has to be outside and can't imagine what it's going to feel like for those heading to the Patriot's Game later  -- Brrrr!   And to think it's ONLY November and things are going to get a lot worse before the warm spring and summer sunshine are back! Oh how I miss Summer ....

    Luckily, I do not have to go out at all today and that makes me a happy girl.   We went out last night for Dinner to celebrate our friend, Mike's Birthday.  It was not nearly as cold and all our dinners were all awesome -- fresh seafood is my favorite and last night every one of use ordered seafood!  Yummy!!  I'm glad that we went then, instead of tonight as I know it would have awfully cold going back into the car after dinner!!   Next, Sunday I also will be hoping for a warmer day, as I'm heading into Boston with Julie and Patty to see Bill Cosby!  Patty and Mike saw him last year and said he kept them laughing for day, so when Patty found out he would be in Boston, she called and invited me to go along, I think it will be fun and who doesn't love to laugh!  We're making it a full day and going out for Brunch first, then taking the train to Boston and the T to the Theater!  It will be December 1st, which is also my God-Daughter's (Julie's Daughter) Birthday!  We are meeting Amy for Brunch and I'm looking forward to see her new house, which she closes on tomorrow!!  Congrats Amy -- I am so happy for you !!

    Oh, and speaking of cold and winter...when I changed our sheets yesterday, I put on a brand new Polar Fleece sheets that I had ordered from the Q last week -- And they are fabulous.   Super soft and comfy and I was not a bit cold last night, which was wonderful!   We can no longer use an electric blanket with the pups around - I would be afraid to run the cords under the bed, especially since they often run under there to hide or play.   I'm so impressed with these sheets that I'm asking Santa to bring me another set for Christmas!   I also ordered a brand new down blanket today and think that be all we need to stay super warm through the worst of the winter!    I like a cool room for sleeping, but with Fibro, my body needs to be very warm, or I ache even more.  Now, with these wonderful fleece sheets and a nice down blanket coming soon, I feel like I'll be all set!  If you don't like being cold at night, I highly recommend these fabulous sheets that are by Malden Mills --- they'll make you sleep like a baby and are so soft and cozy!
    Today is also the kind of day when I love being cozy and warm, spending time creating and that's what I've been doing.  I'm here now to share a few new Christmas cards that I have finished!   They didn't turn out as I had kind of hoped, but they are pretty, especially the two done in lavender and purple.

   This is the first one, which is another Memory Box Die Cut Tree that I cut with some rich purple foil cardstock and then added to a lavender shimmer card base!!  A very simple card, that actually looks better in person!

  My second card is also done in the same colors and both were inspired by the new Dies and Punch Challenge being hosted over at The Outlawz Challenges in the Paper a la Mode Challenge!  

   For the second card I went more with a Snowflake theme and all of these were cut with a wonderful little die set from Paper Smooches.   Not only do I love the wonderful stamps from Paper Smooches, but I've also now grown to love their dies and this set for only $9.99 is a great value!   I also love this wonderful banner die set, which I bought a while back from PTI, another store that carries fantastic die and stamp sets.

   I also decorated the inside of this card, with another matching snowflake and a sentiment stamped in a deep purple ink!  

  I am submitting this pretty card to the challenge over at Die Cut Divas!  I wish al the gals there a very Happy Holiday!!  

  That brings me to my final card today which is the easiest of all and was basically created using 'stuff' that had been piled up on my desk.  The burgundy card base was something I started earlier in the week and was a leftover.  And the red felt snowflake is from a large set that I picked up from Stampin' Up awhile back, when they were on clearance.  The patterned paper, was from an old scrap piece of patterned paper, that just happened to match very week.  I simply put them all together and then stamped my sentiment directly only the paper and embossed it in white.  That sentiment is from one of my favorite new stamps sets, that I bought a few weeks ago from Mama Elephant.  I love the font and the style of the letters too, making it quickly moving into one of my favorite stamp sets for Christmas Cards!   

  

   Heading back to my desk now to see if I can get another one of two done, before it's time for supper!   Hope you are all having a great weekend and staying warm!!

Happiness....

   .... is a day when you feel good and I am sharing my Happiness today by being back to sharing some of my recent cards, as well as a new blog post.    After being hit with a nasty Fibro flare and a winter cold, I am thrilled to finally be feeling a bit better and to be able to create again, which I have missed terribly.

    I'm also happy to be sharing a nice selection of cards to share and I'm going to start with three of the newest, which I created today at a fun "Christmas Stash" building class that I took at my LSS today!!   It's the first of a series of three classes, all designed to help us quickly create a nice little stash of cards for Christmas.  There were actually five different options that "Terri" out teacher had designed and we had to the option of choosing which we wanted to create for our own stash.   These are the cards that I re-created for my stash --

    Being that this is a long post and I have many cards to share, I am not including a lot of the details about each product and design.  But, I'll be happy to let you know about any of the products, or answer any questions you may have.  Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a little note.

    These next few cards, were put together yesterday, all pretty much from a variety of designs and images I had sitting around but had not quite finished.   The first two are fun little whimsical cards, both created with digi images I colored with my Copics.

  And this next card is a very simple and easy card that was created using a pre-colored image that I simply enhanced by rounding the corners, adding a green mat, adding lots of sparkle with Glitter and a Wink of Stella marker.  Easy Peasy! 

   Next, are two Fall themed cards that were my favorites cards from the November Card Club, another fun class that I take each month at AE!    

    That brings me to two more Christmas/Winter cards that I created yesterday, using one of my Memory Box Tree Dies.   I wanted to use both the positive and negative of the same die to create two different cards and I love how both turned out.  

   

   That brings me to this cute little Baby Card that I had started some time ago and never completed.   I think the image is adorable and it made me smile simply to color it!!

  And speaking of cute, I had to share a few new pictures of my precious little Fur-Babies, in particular the two puppies, Skye and Zeva--who make me SMILE every day!

  

  For anyone who may be a new follower, these two little pups are sisters and are both Dachshund Mixes.  I adopted them both through Furever Dachshund Rescue and I love them both to pieces.   I actually adopted Skye, back in April and sweet little Zeva joined our family on September 20th, the day they both turned nine months old.   Zeva was the only puppy from the litter that had not found her forever home and I just could not resist her another day!   I'm also very grateful and thankful to her Foster Mom, Arleen, who raised her since April.  She's one amazing lady and still loves Zeva very much.  I'm so lucky that we were able to adopt both sisters and just love having them in our home.   Yes, three dogs can be hard at time, but they bring you so much joy that they are well worth it!   If you are looking to add a wonderful dog to your home, I strongly suggest you look for a Rescue Dog, there are so many wonderful dogs who need a loving home and I am so happy that's how I found these two girls!  

    Now that I'm finally on the mend, I'm more excited than ever to get back to creating because of all the awesome new things I have learned from two fantastic Classes that I have been taking for the past three weeks.   Even though I was not well enough to participate daily, like I normally do, I did have lots of down time, and that gave me time to watch many of the fabulous videos that each provided. I also have all the PDF files printed out and already know some of the projects I want to start now.   I'm excited to start on batch of cards using my Silhouette, using the awesome new ideas I learned from the latest class I took from Kerri Bradford, in her online classroom.    The latest was an intermediate 'card themed' workshop called -- "Hello There"!!    I am amazed at what can be done with this fabulous machine and Kerri is a wizard at teaching and sharing all kinds of fabulous designs along with many valuable hints and tips on all the projects that you can create with a Silhouette!  WOW!!   I have taken several of her online classes and loved them all, but this one, being focused on cards, is a favorite for sure!  If you own a Silhouette and want to learn all the in and outs, along with so MUCH more, then you definitely want to takes some classes from Kerri.  She Rocks and her classes with teach you more than ever even imaged you could do with your machine!!   The card and envelope below, are just ONE of the ten cards that you'll learn how to create from scratch when you take this class!   Awesome, with a Capital "A"!

Photo from Kerri Bradford

"Hello There" Class Preview Page

    

    When it come to card-making and all type of Paper Crafting, my all time favorite Online classes are those that are hosted over at the Online Card Classroom, which is the creation of Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner, who are two of my favorite designers.   They offer a wide variety of craft classes and I'm fortunate to have been a student in every one, including the current -- Holiday Card Workshop-2013, which I am loving.   I plan to spend my weekend working on cards from both the wonderful classes and also can tell you must how much I have LOVED every class I've taken with Jennifer, Kristina and all the fabulous designers who also provide fabulous instructional videos for each class.   

   Phew!!!   And that brings me up to date and I can't wait to hit my desk again and catch up on all the I have missed in both of these awesome classes.   I tend to LOVE being in the classes during the "Interactive" time, when each lesson is first posted and you can interact with the other classmates, talk in the forum and add cards to the Galley, that's extra fun for me.   But, it's okay, because all of these classes have Lifetime Access and I can go back to any of them at anytime, and re-watch a video, print out a PDF or simply browse the Gallery for a new idea!  They are the best!!

   My special thanks to everyone who has been wondering about me and left comments or sent me nice little notes.  It really means so much to know you missed me and believe me, I have missed my creative time more that you can imagine.  Spending time in my craft room is my favorite thing to do and it really is very rewarding and therapeutic for me.  I'm grateful for each and every day when I can create.   It's again served to remind me to cherish EVERY day when I feel good and my Fibro if under control, because you never know when it can changed and good health is truly a gift.   Something I know even I took for granted for many years...!  Oh how I wish I could have ALL those good days back...to wake up daily without pain and fatigue and never have to think about living with a chronic illness.  Life can change for any of us in a heartbeat and I'm thankful that I'm learned to accept my illness and to have found this amazing hobby that I love!!

   Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!