How I Spent My Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. (Next year I hit the big 6 - 0!) Per tradition, I am posting a picture of my wonderful cards. I know that there are a couple more on their way, but I'm not going to wait for them. :) Such beauties I received! If one of them is from you, I thank you very much!!

On my birthday, I get to do whatever I want. I don't usually have a "plan" - just go with the flow.  This is what ended up happening. I guess first I need to talk a little bit about Thursday. We closed on our new home at 12:30. We stopped over there afterwards and dropped off some bar stools that we had purchased for the new bar. That afternoon, we took down all the Christmas decorations and boxed them up. Rather than putting them away in our current home, we brought them to the new house. Quite clever, I think! LOL! I mopped the kitchen floor and we did some miscellaneous things. So, back to yesterday. We loaded up the car with the rest of the Christmas things and lots of my stamping boxes. We stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and little bit of Words With Friends on our Kindle Fires. Then we headed over to the new house. We got everything into the house. We had to cut off the bottom of a door that was scraping on the hardwood floor, then clean up all the sawdust. Jim worked on some minor plumbing leaks and light bulbs, etc. I had a lot of birthday phone calls, but still managed to get some things done. We left the house and stopped at a city facility where we could do a little walking, then stopped at Home Depot for a few things. Got cleaned up and went to Red Lobster for dinner. Then back to our current home to load up the car again with more stamping boxes. (I have most everything over there now except for the big things - table, chairs, shelves and a couple rolling carts.) Jim did his repair work, and I vacuumed A LOT! Anyone that knows me, knows that I hate to clean! So, to spend my birthday CLEANING is totally unbelievable! I vacuumed the entire lower level (a bedroom, stamping room and a big family room) plus the bedroom on the main level. I was really tired of doing that, so I left the rest for another day. Then I cleaned in the kitchen - the interiors of the cupboards and the countertop. I didn't think I had a lot of cupboards, but I guess I do. I realized that after cleaning them! I was hoping to get the fridge done, too, but that is also waiting for me. We called it quits about 9:45 p.m. and headed home. I opened my cards, did some catching up on the computer and then went to bed. And that's pretty much how I spent my birthday:) It was a great day! (We had already celebrated on Tuesday night when our daughter and family were still here from Chicago.)

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

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone gets to spend time with loved ones. Safe travels to all, too!

We get to spend Christmas morning in our jammies with our kids and grandkids. What could be better:)

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

An Apology, a Thank You, and Some Exciting News

First of all, I'm very sorry to say that I missed some comments on my Calendar Give-Away post:( I had been getting SO many spam comments and had tried "fixing" that. I played around with Word Verification, but I know what a pain that is. What I THOUGHT I had done was to turn off Word Verification and add Comment Moderation to posts older than 14 days. Evidently, I hadn't turned off Word Verification and I had added Comment Moderation to posts over 7 days. I also assumed that I would be notified if I had comments awaiting moderation. Mistake! Last night I discovered by accident that I had nine comments awaiting moderation. Some of them were from the calendar post and so they weren't entered into the drawing. Since I have already chosen the winner and sent off the calendar, there is nothing I can do about it now. Again, I'm so sorry.

I wanted to thank you for your prayers for my mother-in-law. She is still in the nursing home, but she is doing much better. She hasn't been having any "bouts" of confusion and seems to be settling into a routine. We are still hoping she could move back into her home, but if not, at least we're hoping she will be happy in her new surroundings.

I finished up the last of the packing in my stamping area yesterday. What a task, as many of you can imagine! I didn't do a lot of weeding out, but I also think there isn't much that I want to get rid of! When I unpack it and organize it in my new stamping room, there are a few items that may need to find new homes, though. We will be able to start moving some things into the new house next week - we will be closing on it on Thursday at about noon.

Now - the exciting news. We are going to be grandparents again at the end of May! Our daughter and son-in-law in Chicago will be presenting us with a new grandson or granddaughter. They will be finding out if it's a girl or boy about the middle of January. Very cool - can't wait!

I think that about catches you up with what's going on around here. Our daughter and family will be arriving from Chicago this evening. We have plans for every day for about a week, I think! It's all fun, though. That being said, I will appreciate life being "calm" again - whenever that may happen. :)

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

Flutter By Wednesday

Today starts another Flutter By Wednesday challenge. Please check out the details on this post and link up your cards!

Due to Christmas preparations, jury duty, moving, etc., I'm sorry to say that I don't have a card to share:( A couple days ago I took a LITTLE time and made a couple cards for the January challenges. Those will be my last cards for a while. I need to get my stamping stuff ALL packed up and ready to move out. We'll be closing on our new house next Thursday. I can't believe it! So much to do before then. Thank goodness we don't have to be out of our house right away. We do, however, still have lots to do to get it ready to put on the market.

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

Calendar Winner - and a Prayer Request

Random.org has helped me select a winner for my calendar blog candy.

Gloria - yours was the first comment and you will be receiving the calendar!

 Anonymous said...

I always look forward to seeing your beautiful cards and your calendar ideas. Thank you for your generosity of giving one of us one of your 2013 calendars!!!! Hope it's me:-)
Gloria

December 1, 2012 6:24 AM

 

Please email me your address and I'll get your calendar out soon!

Is everyone getting everything done? I can't believe Christmas is only a week away. We still have a little bit of shopping to do.

I do have a request for prayers from you, if you would consider that. My mother-in-law (who turned 95 last month and was still living alone in her home) had a few falls last week and ended up in the hospital. From there, they moved her to a nursing home on Friday. I would request prayers that she can return to her "normal" and possibly return to her home. If she isn't able to return to her home, we would love it if she could just be healthy enough to enjoy her time in her new surroundings. Thank you so much!

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

Miscellaneous

Whew - I'm done with my jury duty. That is really emotionally and physically draining! It was my first time ever and I hope it's my last. I know I won't be called for at least four years, anyway.

That also put everything around here on hold. We're ready to start up again, though. Hopefully we will finish shopping very soon! At least today is my husband's last day of work until the new year. And, hopefully, we'll get to start REALLY packing up and weeding out. We will be closing on our new house in less than two weeks. Amazing!

One more thing - I will be choosing the winner of my calendar after tomorrow. It may actually end up being on Sunday, since we have plans for Saturday night. Please visit this post if you are interested in having a chance to receive a calendar.

I hope all of you are doing well and getting a chance to relax and enjoy this holiday season.

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

Flutter By Wednesday - and more update

Sorry - no Flutter By Wednesday card from me today:( Too much going on for me to be doing any stamping. The whole month of December is open - anything goes as long as you include your butterfly or fairy. Please be sure to link your card up to the FBW challenge blog post.

On top of everything else, I was summoned to jury duty. I chose to be on "Call-In" status, and last week was my first of two weeks. Didn't have to report last week, but Monday noon when I called, I found out I had to report that afternoon. I'm on a jury hearing a case which should be done hopefully tomorrow. Wish me luck! Just what I needed with Christmas fast approaching and trying to get our house packed up and "staged" to be put on the market soon. Oh well, we'll manage!

I hope all is going well for the rest of you:)

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

An Update

Just thought I'd update you on our house situation. We got a call on Wednesday evening saying that we would be getting our new house, but we'd have to close by December 27! Quite a shock to us, as we weren't expecting to hear if we got it until about mid-January, and then have another 30 days to close. So, I guess we'll own two homes for a while! Looking on the bright side of things, we'll have more time to pack, more time to finish getting our current house ready to put on the market, more time to get our new house ready to move into (it needs some painting and appliances), etc. We'll also have a place to put our "extras" while we declutter to get our house listed. 

I already packed up a lot of my stamping things. That was one thing that has been suggested to me - having a very full stamping area is probably not the best way to showcase that part of the house:( So, I'll keep the basics and hopefully still have a little time for creating. Not sure how much I'll be doing, though, as I'll need to be packing and weeding through our stuff, along with getting ready for Christmas! I hope you'll stick with me.

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

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah to those who celebrate!

This is the one Hanukkah card I made this year. I own VERY few Hanukkah stamps, so I went with a free clipart image. I printed it out twice and cut the flames out of the second one. I mounted them on foam squares and added Stickles to them. The card base is a textured blue cardstock. I matted the image with the same color blue. The middle layer is a shimmery silver. I printed the sentiment on the image at the same time that I printed the image.

Just a reminder - you have one more week to comment on my calendar page post for a chance to win one of my calendars.

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

Flutter By Wednesday #217

Time for a new Flutter By Wednesday challenge. Thanks to everyone for their participation last week! This week's challenge (and ALL of the December challenges!) are open - anything goes as long as you have included your butterfly or your fairy. This week's challenge is sponsored by Di's Digi Downloads. There will be a $10 gift card awarded to one random winner.

My card uses another of the pieces I did with my Letterpress a few weeks back. (I think I only have one more piece left to use.) I used a background plate and embossed a piece of shimmery ivory paper with no ink. I brayered over it with olive ink. I used Old Olive cardstock for all of my matting. The card base and the main image panel are ivory, also. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. The border was punched with a Fiskars punch and the butterfly was done with a Martha Stewart punch. I added a small swirl of gems for the butterfly trail. The image panel is mounted on foam squares.

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

Lots of Swirls!

Using this Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder made me think of this tree stamp from Verve. You can't really see them, but it has swirls like the folder. I stamped it with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink and used a marker to color it. The sentiment is stamped with the same ink and is from Papertrey Ink. I matted with olive cardstock and mounted on foam squares for dimension. For the background, I brayered olive ink on the folder before embossing. I matted it with olive, too.

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

Black and White Wedding

Quick post for today using another of the cards I made last week.

The image is from Inkadinkado. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. The patterned paper is from The Paper Studio. The flower is from Michael's wedding section. I added a black gem for the flower center. The main image panel is mounted on foam squares.

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

Wildflowers Birthday

Just a simple post for today. It's one of the cards I made last weekend, when I found time to create!

You've seen this stamp before. It's by Stampendous. I colored with various markers. I added a gem to the purple flower and Stickles to the blue flower. I matted with black and mounted on foam squares. I used a Cuttlebug border folder for the green strip, plus my Scor-Pal to add the lines. The sentiment is from a small Papertrey Ink set.

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

December Calendar Page - and Blog Candy

The First of the month brings a new calendar page - the last one for 2012. My Excel file for 2013 calendars can be found under my blog heading. I'd love to hear from you if you decide to use it! I guess it's time for me to make the file for 2014. :) (Please read to the end of the post if you are interested in the possibility of winning a 2013 calendar.)

I embossed the design with a Cuttlebug folder, then sponged it lightly with Versamagic Sea Breeze ink. The sentiment is from Repeat Impressions and it's stamped with the same Sea Breeze ink.

In case anyone is interested, I found my list of "ingredients" from this year's calendars, so I can now tell you about November. The image is from Melonheadz Illustrating, and can be found here. I arrived there through the Free Digital Stamps blog. The font is a free font called LD Flutter, from Lettering Delights. There, now I feel better!

I'm going to continue with my tradition of giving one of my calendars as blog candy.I will choose a random winner from the comments left on this post. I will announce the winner on December 15. Thanks for your comments and your continued visits to my blog.

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

Embossed Sympathy

A friend requested some sympathy cards, so this is one I made for her. The card base and main panel are ivory. The matting is Old Olive cardstock from Stampin' Up! I stamped the sentiment from Kaisercraft with Versafine Black Onyx ink. I scored the accent lines with my Scor-Pal, then I embossed the top with a Swiss Dots folder from Cuttlebug and the bottom with a Cuttlebug border folder. After embossing, I re-scored the lines to make sure they were nice and sharp.

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

Double-Fold Card - Again

Someone asked how to make the cards that I posted on Tuesday, so I thought I would do another one and give the dimensions. So "anonymous," this is for you!

Cut your cardstock to 11 x 5.5 inches. Score at 4.25 and 8.5 inches. Emboss the portion of your card that is 2.5 inches wide - this is the front. 

 For this card, I added a yellow piece behind the front of the card and I punched it with a Martha Stewart border punch. I added patterned paper (from a Die Cuts With a View stack I got at Archiver's) to the middle section and stamped the sentiment from Papertrey Ink.

I added a greeting to the inside of the card. So, there you have it! And I dedicate this card to Sheri. It seems like a very spring-y card to me, and Sheri's already waiting for spring! 

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

Flutter By Wednesday #216

Today starts a new challenge from the Flutter By Wednesday challenge blog. This week's challenge is to use punches or dies. And of course - include a butterfly or fairy!

I used a Spellbinders die to cut out the image panel. I actually started with a "fancy" border die for the image, but I just couldn't get my layers to look good, so I went "clean and simple." That's my favorite, anyway! The image is a free digi from Sweet Coloring Pages. I colored her with Copics, then cut her out with my Spellbinders rectangle die. Before removing her from the die, I sponged with a soft yellow ink. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up! Her wings needed Star Dust Stickles, of course! She went to my friend, Lucy, whose birthday was the 13th of this month:)

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

Four Cards - Same Card Base

These four cards are all done with the same type of card base. There are three panels to them - the front panel is actually only half the width of the card. (Thanks for showing them to us in Des Moines, Andrea!)

Sorry for this blurry picture. I need to adjust my picture-taking area and figure out how to do it better. I had it set up fairly well until I got my new shelf. Anyway, I believe the embossing on the left side was done with a Stampin' Up! folder. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. The butterfly is done with a Martha Stewart punch, with added black gems and hand-drawn antennae. The black trim was punched with a Fiskars punch. This card is ivory.

The embossing on this one was done with the same folder. You can barely see the sentiment on the patterned paper (which covers the entire middle panel) but you really can see it "in real life." I added black gems on each side of the sentiment. This card is also an ivory card base.

Again, same embossing folder, on white this time. The sentiment, from Papertrey Ink, is stamped on white and matted with black.

Totally simple on this one. Another white base, embossed with a different folder. It may also be Stampin' Up!, but I'm not sure. The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set.

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

Blog Candy Winnings - Memory Box Dies

Lucky me - I won a $20 gift certificate to the on-line store of my choice from Dawn at My Stamping Thyme. Thanks so much, Dawn! I thought about it a bit, and went with Crop Stop. I ordered three dies from Memory Box. I have used two of them on my cards for today. (I had a great weekend and got twelve cards done. It was so much fun!)

This first card uses a die called Country Landscape. I cut it out using a textured black cardstock. I embossed the piece of red with a LifeStyle Crafts embossing folder. The sentiment is two stamps from a Technique Tuesday set. The card base is ivory.

This second card uses a die called Dancing Tulips. I cut it from green and also from the patterned purple paper from Recollections. I glued them on white and matted with black. Then I covered the card front with the same purple patterned paper. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

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

Thanks, Donna!

 I have a blog reader who I was lucky enough to meet in person the summer before last. She sends me the most wonderful cards for many holidays. Since she doesn't have a blog to share her cards on, I thought I would share some of them here. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. I'm trying to convince her to start her own blog:) She has been published many times, though!

 Thanks, Donna, for all of these beautiful cards.

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