Purple Birthday

Another birthday card for a March birthday that I made on Saturday.

Once again, the sentiment was cut using a Memory Box die. Gotta love 'em! I stamped the present on the white square and again on patterned purple paper. I cut the one out from the patterned paper and glued it to the one on white. I matted with purple cardstock and mounted on foam squares. I matted the dotted paper with a darker purple, too.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Celebrate - With Flowers

Here is another of the cards I made on Saturday. It's a birthday card for a friend.

I was using up some more of the die cuts I made while I was in Des Moines last June. I really do like the Memory Box dies - wish I had even a small fraction of the ones that some of my stamping friends have! Anyway, the swirly piece and the "celebrate" were cut with Memory Box dies. I cut the white piece and a black piece to mat it with. I scored the lines with my Scor-Pal. I added the swirl between the scored lines and then the flowers. Then I added the sentiment.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Pink Anniversary

I spent a while in my stamping room on Saturday and made five cards. It felt wonderful! Two of them are the same, but still ... I'll be sharing them over the next few days. And hopefully I'll be making some more very soon.

This is an anniversary card for some friends. They don't check my blog, so I'm safe to post it. I used up a few of my die cuts from last summer on my cards. This die cut is done with a Memory Box die, I'm pretty sure. I embossed the pink panel with a Sizzix embossing folder and matted with black. The sentiment is stamped with a Papertrey Ink stamp and matted with pink and black and mounted on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Butterfly Birthday

A birthday card for a college student. It's hard to be creative when it's been a while since I did any stamping. I cased a card of mine for this card. And unfortunately it's going to be late, as her birthday is today. :( Oh well, better late than never.

I sponged Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Dusty Concord and Iced Spruce) through a die cut opening for the butterfly. The sentiment is stamped in Dusty Concord and is from Impression Obsession. I sponged the same purple ink around the edges. The card base and image panel are ivory.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Remembering Joanne

This is my good friend, Joanne. She was a member of our Yahoo! stamping group - one of the founders. She passed away on February 27. We loved her and will miss her a lot. Our Group Gathering will not be the same, but we will still have a great time and we will reminisce about Joanne. Six of us were able to attend her funeral last Monday. Several of the group were able to visit with Joanne one last time in January, but the extremely cold temperatures prevented me from attending, which made me VERY sad. However, that was the day that my dad called to tell me that my mom was being transferred to a different hospital and I was able to be with him at that time, so things worked out for me.

Here is a picture of our group last year in Des Moines at Archivers. (That will be another change for us, since Archivers is no longer open.)

Finally, here are a couple of the many cards that Joanne made. She was a fabulous card maker.

I'll see you later, Joanne.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thank You

I finally took some time for stamping. Making Thank You cards came to the top of my "to-do" list.

The leafy branch is from a Papertrey Ink set. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up! The border on the black matting is punched with a Fiskars punch and the butterfly is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. I added a pearl for the butterfly's body and drew in the antennae with a fine-tip marker.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thanks for the Cards

Thanks to everyone who sent cards to me and my family. We appreciated them all, very much. Today I am sharing with you the handmade cards we received. I knew they would get some some well-deserved ooohs and aaahs if I posted them here.

From Harriet

From Georgia

From Leslie

From Sheri

 From Bonnie

 From Vicki

 From Kris

From Donna

From Andrea

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Remembering My Mom In Pictures

Today I wanted to share with you the photo boards my daughter and I made for my mom's funeral. My daughter did most of the "work" - I just supplied the tools. The boards were framed for the funeral and looked very nice, but I couldn't get a good picture of them there without glare.

I'm sorry for my personal posts lately, but that is what my life has been about for more than a month. Tomorrow I will post about my friend who passed away, and then I will get back into card-making. I promise!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

March Calendar Page

March 4th and finally my March calendar page. The image I used was a clip art image from the Microsoft site. I added the "Welcome March!" and printed the image and sentiment at the same time. I colored the image with Copic markers. I matted with patterned paper from a Recollections pad. I added Star Dust Stickles to the clouds and the sun. Might I say - it sure does NOT seem like March out there!!!! Sunday was a high of below zero - crazy! And it's snowing again as I type this post. Oh well, spring will come some day - I'm quite sure of that.

Thanks to all of you who so thoughtfully left me comments and sent cards in memory of my mom. I appreciate them all so much.

I hope to return to stamping some day soon, also, when I get a bit caught up. I have a couple of blog posts in my head that I plan to share with you. I plan on showing you the photo boards we made for my mom's funeral. I plan on sharing with you the handmade cards we received. And I also plan on sharing with you some photos of a very special friend who passed away last week. I miss you, Joanne.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Remembering My Mom

My mom passed away peacefully this morning around 7:20. She was never in any pain that we were aware of, so that was wonderful. She was too young (83) but that's the way it is. We have our great memories of her to last forever. Thanks for all of your prayers.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

For You, Mom

As I said in my last post, I bought this file for my Cameo Silhouette with the intention of making my mom a Mother's Day card with it. Since it appears that I will not be making her a Mother's Day card, I made her this card instead. It's not really a valentine, just an "I Love You" card.

I matted the pink piece with red and mounted on foam squares. I embossed the background piece with my Swiss Dots folder.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Grandkids' Valentines

I took a few minutes today and finally made valentines for our grandkids. I used two from a few years ago and then made three new ones. VERY simple and not my best, but here they are:) The hearts are all cut using Lifestyle Crafts dies. They are all mounted on foam squares. The patterned paper is from a stack from Recollections.

My mom is still doing about the same. Eating VERY little and sleeping a lot. She will finish up her radiation on Friday and move to a nursing home on Monday. It still seems very surreal. I'll keep you posted. I made a card for her, too, today. I bought a "MOM" file from Silhouette and was going to make a Mother's Day card for her. Had to use it sooner. I'll share it with you tomorrow or Friday.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

February Calendar Page

Funny how having your mom in the hospital (and being away from home) can make you forget about life's unimportant things. So, here is February's calendar page.

The heart panel was cut using my Cameo Silhouette from pink and red cardstock. The background was embossed with a Swiss Dots folder and I used my Scor-Pal to add a line below the embossing.

Update on my mom: She is about the same.  She is not eating (well, VERY little) and they are not giving her any nutrition. She is only being hydrated through her IV. They did start radiation on her brain on Monday, so she'll have her fourth treatment of ten this afternoon. She is still fully aware of everything going on around her and can talk to us and let us know what she wants and doesn't want. My dad brings her a little something from home every day. She has had lots of visitors and lots of phone calls. Both of my brothers and my sister are in town from out of state. We just take things day by day, but I believe she is comfortable. That is the goal - to keep her comfortable. If she makes it until next Friday, we'll have to figure out where to move her. Thanks again for your continued prayers for my mom, my dad and the rest of my family.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Update on my mom

Short update on my mom. She was unable to start radiation on her brain last Thursday, per the plan. She had a stroke when they came to pick her up. She is basically on a "keep her comfortable" plan. However, it was decided this morning that she will get a try at radiation starting today. It's not a "cure" but it MIGHT help make her more comfortable. Thank you all SOOOOOOOO much for all your kind thoughts and prayers. We appreciate them so much!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Prayer Request

If anyone has any extra prayers, my family and I would appreciate them. My mom is in the hospital right now. They have found masses in her heart, brain and lungs. She had already had a couple biopsies on her lungs and the samples had come back with no sign of cancer. However, it is assumed to be cancer. She will begin radiation on her brain today. Other than than, the course of action will probably be to do nothing other than to make her as comfortable as possible. If you feel so inclined, would you please pray for her comfort and also guidance for us as we decide how to proceed. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Mint and White (and Stitched) Birthday

I've had all the pieces for this card cut out and ready to put together for about a week or more. I finally decided to put it together and post it. I'm still not sure if I like it or not!

I greatly admire Leslie's cards. She often has stitching on her beautiful cards and I keep meaning to try it again. I've had my sewing machine out on my stamping table for a few weeks, and even got the tension all adjusted for cardstock:) I think I'll have to try again, though. The die cut shapes are Spellbinders. The flower is two pieces put together with a brad - from the wedding section at Michael's years ago. I also added mini white brads to the sentiment piece. The sentiment is mounted on Pop Dots and so is the flower.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Simple Stair-Step Birthday

Well, this is my last daisy like this. I did it - I used something up! Of course, now I will be missing them:) I wanted to do something a little different with this last daisy - different than my usual white, yellow and black daisy cards. I happened to have some stair-step cards cut and scored and decided to use one of those. (You can find the directions and videos on-line, but if you want to check out my previous stair-step cards and instructions, you can find them here.)

I embossed the matting on the card front with my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder. I had this die cut sitting on my table from when I was experimenting with new dies and my Grand Calibur. I really didn't know what I would do with a piece like this, until I realized it kind of looked like leaves, if I covered up the circle part:) I added another die cut piece in the middle section. The sentiment is from an old Stampin' Up! set. I added some scoring and some more Swiss Dots and matted with the same green as the die cuts.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Christmas Thursday

I almost didn't get a card done for today, but I "snuck" some time while Wyatt was napping this morning. 

I made this card for three challenges - the Christmas Card Challenge blog, CAS(E) This Sketch, and my own personal challenge to post a Christmas card on Thursdays. The Christmas Card Challenge this week is to make a one-layer card. As much as I love Clean and Simple, I very rarely make a one-layer card. I used a Nestability to cut the square out of some scratch paper. Then I positioned it over the card front and sponged on two shades of blue ink. (Buckaroo Blue and Soft Sky - SU!, but likely retired. Not sure and too lazy to check right now!) The ornament is from a Recollections set. I stamped it with Midnight Muse and embossed it with clear powder. The sentiment is from a Stampin' Up! set. Edited to add: Actually now this card is for four challenges. I just checked SplitCoastStampers, and the challenge (for me, since it's cold!) is to use cool colors. This qualifies.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Another Guy Card

I have lots of die-cut pieces to use now, after experimenting with my dies and Grand Calibur. Here is a card I made using one.

I stamped the sentiment on the die-cut piece with Versamark and embossed with detail gold embossing powder. I mounted it on Pop Dots. The matting is shimmery gold. I added some Washi tape near the bottom and scored beside it. I also scored lines on the sides and the top. I matted that piece with black.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Poppies Again - and my thoughts about my Grand Calibur

OK - so here are two more cards I made using a Poppies die from Spellbinders. I wasn't able to cut through anything using the die and my BIGkick, which I have always loved and had no problems with, so I ordered a Grand Calibur from Amazon using a gift card I received for my birthday. I'll give you my thoughts on that at the end of the post.

For this first card, I cut the poppies out of olive cardstock and then again out of reddish-orange. I glued the red flowers over the olive. I cut a panel of white and added Washi tape around the edges and mounted on foam squares. I glued the poppies on the panel. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

For this second card, I cut the poppies out of a black, shiny, textured cardstock. I cut a circle out of red and glued the poppies on that. Then I cut a square from white and matted with black. The sentiment on this one is also from Papertrey. The base is kraft.

OK. My thoughts on the Grand Calibur. I'm not really sure what to say. Although it cut the poppies a lot better than my BIGkick, it still didn't work perfectly. I had to do just a little bit of cutting with my scissors. Then I tried cutting pieces using all of my new dies and the Grand Calibur. I hadn't tried them all in my BIGkick, but I had tried several of them and had failures with lots of them. I will say that for the most part, the dies did cut all the way through using the Grand Calibur. That was the problem with my BIGkick - not cutting through. So, that was better. I've heard from others about not being able to get the cut pieces out of the dies. That certainly was a problem. I used parchment paper between the paper and the die and that helped. And I would much rather have that issue than not cutting everything out. The Grand Calibur requires a lot more winding to get the platforms through. So, overall, I'm satisfied with the Grand Calibur. Honestly, though, I wish I hadn't bought the dies that I had problems with, and then I wouldn't have "needed" a new machine! And I just bought new plates for the BIGkick, so I'm not going to quit using it. I'll just have to use two for awhile. When I'm ready to give up my BIGkick, I'll have to get another plate for my Grand Calibur, as it doesn't come with a plate that you can use with embossing folders.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!