Woohoo!! I WON a Challenge!!

  I am so excited to find out that I won Challenge # 60 over at the Crafty Catz Blog.   I had entered into the fun 'Christmas' challenge and I actually WON!!   Yippee!!  

  This is the card that I had submitted to the challenge and here is copy of my blog post from that day!  !!  I am still so excited to find out I won!!

 
  With all my Holiday preparations and such I am been behind on keeping up with challenges, sad to say.  I was so excited when my new Design Team partner 'Tammylee' told me today that I had won.  My thanks to her for sharing the great news and also to Crafty Catz for sponsoring this challenge.  I have not had to much time for challenges and can't wait to get back to them.   I'm going to try extra hard to get a card done this week for the current challenge which is Challenge # 62 - Birthday Bear Challenge. 

    The best part is that I have so many wonderful new sweet Bear images from StampFairy and this one I just bought yesterday and I thought right away it would make a super cute Birthday Card!!  WOOHOO!  I'm off to get right to work on it and I hope you'll all join me in this fun new challenge!

    My thanks again to Suzie at Crafty Catz and Tammylee for sharing the wonderful news!  I'm so glad I did not miss it!!  

  

A special Friday!!

   I love Fridays, always have and always will, but today is a special day because I have two fun new announcements for you all relating to  Baby Bud Designs.

   My first announcement is to introduce you to the newest addition to the Baby Bud family, a brand new sweet little Baby Bud named - 'I Believe'.   Today is her official release day and she's is wonderful.  You can find her in the Etsy Store at a special price of ONLY $1.00 for the entire month of December!   How sweet!!

   I've had the opportunity to have her for a while and I have two fun cards to share with you today.  This is my first card and for this card I chose to use all the pretty colors that remind me of winter.  Lots of light blues, aqua and white. 

  I think she is so sweet and makes such a special card.  She's being released just in time for the Holidays, but also perfect for any day.  For my second card, I had to use my favorite color, (of course), and I started by coloring 'I believe' in a lovely lavender outfit.  I then chose to create a  Christmas Card and put my card together with all my my favorite colors -- lavender, teal, white and purple.  The papers are from my new favorite Christmas collection, Winter Joy by Bo Bunny.  I fell in love with this paper set and have used it often this season.   I love all the colors and it makes it's even more perfect for me!

    

   My second big announcement is the honor of introducing you to the new Baby Bud Design Team, who will start sharing their amazing talents with you in January!  We are all very excited and thrilled to announcement our new team members!     Please welcome the newest members of the Baby Bud Design Team --  The Lady Buds ~

Debbie

Ildiko

Jenn

Jennette

Kerry

Stephanie

TammyLee

Tanya

  Also, we are so I am thrill to be staying on and with these other wonderful gals from the first term -- staying with us from our first term --

Calypso

Lisa

Margie

Maria

 And me...(Lis)

   It's also time to say a bittersweet Goodbye to Ellie, Giovana, Jennifer and Silke who are leaving the team and moving on to other creative endeavors.   You are all very talented, friendly and supportive and it was a joy to have met you.  I wish you all lots of happiness and as always,  Happy Crafting!!

And lastly, I am also very thankful to Mary Ann and Krista for giving me this fantastic opportunity and allowing me to stay on for a second term.  I feel very lucky to be part of this team and totally enjoy working with these adorable images and very talented designers.   You are both very sweet and kind and it's been an honor to be part of your team! 

  I hope you will all welcome the new team and visit their blogs.   They are all very talented and it's going to be a lot of fun creating together with the adorable Baby Bud images!

Woohoo! The Shopping is done!!!

  I am very HAPPY to announce that I am now all done with my Christmas shopping.  Woohoo!!!   Today, Alex (my son), and I headed up to the Mall for what I hope will be my very last trip, until well after the Holidays.  We manged to hit three stores, which is great for me and we were back home with a trunk full of bags before 3 PM.   It's so awesome when you kids are grown and they can do all the driving and lifting and for me, that's a blessing!   

   I spent the first hour back home, with my feet up and Alex put away the bags and even did his wrapping.  That boy is good, but I was much to beat to wrap.  I'm just thrilled that we did so well today and that I think I'll be all set.  Of course, they will be more groceries to buy, but hubby does our shopping, so that is one less chore for me.    It was kind of fun to go with Alex and just spend time together.  We also have a nice casual lunch and had a few laughs at some of the fun toys and gadgets we saw.  Tomorrow, I'll be back to wrapping and will also take some time to create!

   And speaking of creating I have a few new cards to share that I made in the past couple of days, but have not had the energy to post.  I'm sharing them now and hope you'll enjoy them.  I'll slowly be winding down my Christmas Cards but have lots of fun new things coming up, so stay tuned!

  This is my first card and it's a cute little digi image that I found online.  Only problem is that with my awful memory (Fibro Fog) - I can not recall where I found it.  If anyone knows who the artist is, pleas share, so that I can give them their due credit!  It's a sweet little Christmas stock and was a lot of fun to color.

 
  My next car was created with another wonderful image from StampFairy, and if you LOVE them, then hurry on over to the store now and you can buy them ALL at 50% off!  Woohoo!   The magic word is SALE!!   Love it!!
   
 This is 'Ice Skating Donny'!   Isn't he just the cutest.....I keep telling Gerda that it's really easy to make fun sweet cards, when you have these adorable images to work with!!  I just LOVE them and as you know I have fallen in LOVE with Digital Stamps.  They are pretty much all I use and the storage and ease of use is awesome.   If you have never tried them...you can find a Friday Freebie HERE on the home page of the StampFairy World Blog to try!   Gerda also is very generous with her Freebies ,which you can find in the store -  HERE!!

  And here is another cute card I also created with one of my new StampFairy images, a sweet little Gingerbaby, who is happily hanging on to a big Candy Cane.  If you are a Gingerbread fan, you an find this a sweet collection of Gingerbabies and Candy Canes in the store HERE!!

  Update:  I realized that I had double posted one of my cards, so today (Thursday) and I making a correct, or two!!  LOL!!   That's 'Fibro Fog' for you and what happens when I write too long of a post, especially when I am tired!   Geesh!!

  On a fun note, I am now happy to be sharing a preview of the newest images that were added to StampFairy today.  I was so excited when I saw them and since I just LOVE teddy bears, I have already been over to the store and bought all five of the images below.   There is also a set of Sentiments that go along with them, that I may have to add later!   You can find out all about the new release Here!    I just love Lenny and think he may be one of my NEW favorite bears!!!

  And lastly, I have one ore card to share and this card was created for a Guest Designer Spot for Claudia &Company for their new challenge, which I thought had started today!  Update:  (My second correction tot his post) --  I found out that this challenge actually starts on Friday....!  Oops!!  Sssssh....don't tell anyone you saw it here first!   LOL.  My mistake!!    I had won their November challenge and then was asked to create a card using the Spotlight Technique for this month.  I picked this sweet digi from the store (Die Cuts R Us) and it's one of Lori Boyd's adorable Puddle Jumpers.   This cutie is Ella and you can find her HERE !! 

   And before I sign off, I wanted personally send out SPECIAL THANKS to all of my followers for all the wonderful comments and sweet notes you leave for me.  I'm not always able to get back around to all your blog, but I do read every message and I truly do appreciate you all !  Thank you!!

   Lastly, I also want to say thanks to those of you have have sent me a Blog Award...and I've been very fortunate to have received many, even in this past week.  My thanks for taking the time and effort to select my blog for the award.  Sadly, I have had to make it my personal choice,  not to accept ANY blog awards, simply because I can not keep up with the follow-up that is required to pass them along.  This week alone I received three of the same award and I'm deeply touched.  Thank you again and I do wish I could easily accept them, but I can't.  It's too difficult to keep up with all the work and typing needed to make it fair to all.  I don't feel right about taking them, if I can't follow up!  :(

  To me - my awards are the wonderful comments you all leave daily and they mean so much to me.  If I could easily accept the awards, I would, but I can't and that's why I decided to stop accepting them.  It's NOT at all personal, it's just too hard for me to do all the typing.  Many of my posts were scheduled in advance when I feel well and when I can type...many days it's too much!

  Thanks you all for being you and for stopping by and for being such good friends.  My friends are my greatest gifts and I am sending out a BIG HUG today to one of the best and that is Colleen Holmes!   I adore her and and I'm very sorry that she will no longer be hosting her wonderful Copic Challenges at SSC!  She will be missed, but I know she'll move on to bigger and better things and ultimately that's what matters!   She's a joy to know and create with and and I can't wait to see what wonderful plans she has coming up!!    Please stop over at her blog and show her some LOVE!!

Monday.....and moving slow!!

Brrrrrrrr!  It's getting colder every day and today was one of the coldest we have had...the first day I actually wanted to put slipper on my feet, instead of my normal flip flops!

  I started out the day by sleeping in and knew my task for today was to get moving on my gift wrapping.  But....there was this dreadfully messy wall in our bathroom that I had been waiting for Hubby or DS to re-paint for weeks now!  Grrr!    It's been driving me crazy, so today, I finally dragged out the can of paint and supplies and touched up all the bad spots all by myself.  I actually used to paint a lot and have painted tons in this house, but it's a killer with Fibro and something I rarely do, but this was not like painting a whole room, it was a touch up and I was sick or waiting for the "guys" to do it!   You know how the saying goes!  If you really want somethign done.....then do it yourself.

  Of course, it wasn't too hard and because I only need on small brush and about only about a cup of paint, if that, but it's done and NOW it looks SO much better.  I'm much happier to have that done and glad I finally just did it!   When Alex came home from lunch, he noticed right away and said,
" Mom...I told you I would paint that for you before Christmas"...and I just smiled and looked at him and said....'Ya, I know, but which Christmas did you mean?'...?   LOL!!

   Right after that, I had planned to move onto my wrapping, but decided to check my emails first--and then of course, that led to some online shopping, which worked out quite well and checked off three more gifts from my list.   Then I quickly checked for a few sales and stopped by some of my digi stores--and that's when I ran into a little trouble!!    I just happened to go to StampFairy and found some adorable new images that Gerda had just released!  And YES....you caught me, I bought two already, (still loving her 50% off SALE), and instead of wrapping-- I said, the heck with that...I want to color and so that's what I did instead.  This is the first card that I made from the newest Lenny as Santa images, or so I named them.  I have a second card in the works, and will post him tomororw!  

  Imagine my surprise, when I sent him off to share with Gerda and later found out that she had featured my card with the New Release post!   I'm so touched!!   You can find the release post over at the StampFairy World blog!   I was so excited when I went into the SSC group and saw it in the news feed too!   Thank you Gerda - You made my day!!   

   I was also playing around with Photoscape and found these really cool new features and frames that you can use when you edit your pictures.  I use Picasa to upload all my pictures, but it's so limited ant I could not use a custom watermark with it.  Krista, from Baby Bud Designs, and introduced and recommended that I try using Photoscape to add my watermarks and it's been working great.  I Love it and now the more I using it, more the fun features I'm finding it has.  And these best part is that it's a FREE....Yes...Free!!   If you are looking for some fun and new photo editing software, your can download Photoscape HERE!!

  This is another pic of the same card, but I used a cool 'gradient frame' on this one and really loved to the soft focus look.  I found a ton more and spend about two hours playing around with all the new fun frames and edit I can now make to my cards!   Yippee!!

     So...how many gift did I end up wrapping today ?    Well that would be Zero, Zip, Nada....None!!  But, I sure did get some things done and also had time to craft and to me....that's a pretty good day and I have no complaints!

    Tomorrow....I shall wrap ALL day....!!  Or at least that's my plan!   On Wednesday, I am heading out of town with Alex,  to make one last trip to the Malls ...and after that, you will not see me near any Mall between now and Christmas!  I will do any last minute things here in town and will avoid the Malls until after Christmas!   They are simply too busy and crazy as the shopping days wind down.   I decided to go with Alex, because he will drive, he can carry my packages and mostly because I love spending time with my kids...and it's a joy to have them offer to take me along!   He can also help me pick out a nice little gift for his girlfriend and maybe something else he wants too!

     Hope your day went as nicely as mine!!

Happy Sunday...

   I am not feeling so hot today which is not so good, because I had planned on getting out some of my Christmas decorations and now I don't have the energy.  On the upside, I am slowly getting things done and taking some time away from my blog and a lot of my challenges, has been hard--but has helped me keep up.   I really LOVE Christmas and that is my main focus now, but I know that Christmas will be over before we know it, so I'll have a very long winter and plenty of time then for blogging and challenges. 

    This afternoon,  I hope to finish stamping my Christmas cards and then that will be one task that has been completed.  Woohoo!  If that goes well I will have them all in the mail within the next day or two.  I am also planning to start on some wrapping and that is a big project, so I will simply do a few packages each day.  I really do LOVE to wrap, but it become uncomfortable very quickly with Fibro and I've never found a easy way to do it.  I also LOVE lots of pretty ribbons and fun colors, so I try hard to make all the gifts look lovely.

    So..that's my plans for the next few days...what are you up to?   Are you working on Holiday plans?  Did you finish your Christmas shopping?   Luckily, I think I am almost done with shopping and what is not done, may end up being easy last minute gifts...like gift certificates and cash, which are gifts that are usually loved by all.

    I also wanted to stop in and share a few new cards and also update you on some fun events.    I have exciting NEWS coming up at the end of the week, so please be sure to stop by.   I am designing a card for a new challenge over at  'Claudia and Company' and that will be posted this week.   I was the lucky winner of last month's challenge and as part of my prize I won this Guest Designer spot for the December challenge! I also wanted to share a new card I created today for the current challenge, which is Challenge # 6 and is a color themed challenge -  The colors for this challenge are Brown, Cream and a color of your choice, and I chose blue!  You still have time to play along and can find all the details on the challenge blog.  This Challenge ends on December 7th, and the new challenge will begin on the 8th!

   And speaking of challenge, I also want to remind you ll that we have a really fun challenge going on right now over at Baby Bud Designs.  Please HOP on over to the blog for more details!!  I would also like to invite you all to join our Baby Bud Group over at SSC or at CDAC!   Both groups are open to all and we'd love to see your Baby Bud Creations!   And speaking of Baby Bud creations, this is one of my most recent cards and this one features 'Holly' the latest addition to the Baby Bud Family.  

  And lastly I have a few more of my recent Christmas Cards to share and I hope they will inspire you to create some fun new cards.  Have a wonderful Sunday and Happy Crafting!!!

 

This cute little Candy Elf is a Digi Image is

from 'A Day for Daisies'

And this adorable snowman, is George and
he's from StampFairy!!

  If you love this sweet image or any of the StampFairy digi stamps, you'll want visit the store now, as ALL of images are ON SALE (my favorite word), and they are all 50% off for the entire month of December!  Yippee!!

  
   And lastly, before I forget, I am very excited to be submitting my application this weekend to StampFairy for their Design Team Call.   I really have fallen for these adorable images and Gerda is such a sweetie and a joy to have met.   Please WISH me luck!!