Day #30

Most of my posts are about family and being in the country. This gratefulness blogging is at an end for 2014.  I think this year I've noticed how much more my family means to me. We take every opportunity we can to spend time with family. And the same with our friends.  And I am grateful for our opportunity to have Clayhille. It just brings home how much I enjoy being outdoors. Today I sat in my stand for doe season and it was windy and cold and I didn't see any deer. But I did get to see a bald eagle circling in the clearing over my stand and that made it all worthwhile.  Not everyone gets to see such a beautiful sight. A wonderful way to wrap up my gratefulness diary.

Day 29

We're nearing the end of my exercise. Today I am grateful for the time spent on a beautiful day with grandsons after Codi and a friend were successful at Doe Season (from my stand). We all worked together to get the butchering done. Venison in the cooler!

Grateful Day 28

Grateful we can spend another weekend at the cabin for doe season! 1/2 moon...grandson has a roaring campfire,  woodstove cranking the heat,  and I'm thankful for chili dogs with ALL the fixin's. Life is good!

Grateful Day 27

On Thanksgiving, I am grateful to God for my family and that I was able to spend a happy day with stepchildren and grandchildren and great-grandsons, as well as my sis and her family!  Fun and Food! It was great!

Day 26

Grateful for my families that are not "family". We are privileged to spend many good times with them and be part of their families.  Love them all!!!

Day 25

Grateful for my Dad and stepmother. They are always there for me to provide love and support! Just what I need! LOVE THEM!

Grateful Day 24

Thankful for a job with paid vacation! I get to catch up from our real vacation. ..loads of laundry and time to get it done! 2 loads are already done and folded...and another 1 is in dryer and 1 in the washer. Whew!!!

Grateful Day 23

Grateful for our home with running hot water & showers. We just don't know how easy we have it!

Day 22

Thankful for weather good enough to spend one last day in my stand and enjoying fall / winter.

Day 21

Thankful for husband who is highly skilled at many things and will read to understand other aspects. From designing a solar lighting system to rigging a 12 volt sink pump to designing cabinetry to fixing cars he can do it all and I am proud to be married to him.

Day 20

Grateful for a little quiet time crafting at Deer camp. I needed a little creativeness!

Grateful Day 19

Grateful for skilled doctors and nurses and other healthcare workers who cared for 3 friends and family recently.

Day #18

Thankful for help doing the dishes! It's the small things.  ♡♡♡♡

Grateful Day 17

Today I am grateful for warmth. Feels like 7 degrees outside with the wind. The cabin is cozy, and I am grateful for a full-sized range/oven hubby got fully installed. Grateful he knows how to do so many things.

Day #16

Thankful to be able to enjoy God's creations while walking on our property in a new falling snow.

Day 15

Grateful to God for putting right people in the right place! They saved our friend's life.

Day #14

Ready for 10 days of vacation! Grateful it's here! I need this!

Day #13

Got all my vacation shopping done and grateful!

Grateful #12

Grateful for my siblings in-law. They each are so special!  Tammy is an on-the-go, get-it-done person who provides a loving home for my brother and their children. Eric is a constant in my sister's life and is  really good with their son. Auriel is  the "newest" in-law, perfectly matches my brother and has stepped up to a daunting challenge. Love them all and glad they complete our family.

Gratefulness on Day 11

On this eleventh day of November, I am grateful for my brothers!  I am also grateful for Brad's continued health improvements...and for the wonderful man that my baby brother Josh has become.

Thanks #10

More gratitude. 

Today for my little sister!  

 

We talk all the time and share life's ups and downs. I worry about her, she worries about me. I give her pep talks and she provides me the same. We work things out. We're as different as can be, but we are sisters!  I'm so glad she's my sister!

Thankful Day 9

Thankful today for prayers answered and many positive reports on a dear friend's health.

I am thankful for her and her family.

Grateful Day 8

Today I am grateful again for the help of our son and grandsons in getting the cabin insulated and on the way to being solar-powered. We are warm and toasty and will be for deer season, when the first snow is expected!

Grateful Day 7

I am thankful for many things...including the opportunities to express my artistic side through cardmaking, paper crafts & scrapbooking, and doing so with a fantastic and supportive company, Close to My Heart.

Thankful Day 6

Grateful for my good health.

Days 2-5

Already the 5th and I missed a couple of days. There is so much for which I am grateful. 

These correspond to my past few days.
Day 2 - Sunday
Grateful for my husband. He is capable of so much, from designing a system and installing solar panels to cooking a mean pot of chili. (The best ever). I am grateful for his love and continued health.

Day 3 - I'm thankful for my job. While frustrating, it can also be highly rewarding. 

Day 4 - I am grateful to have a running vehicle with perks that spoil me. (Heated seats, remote start).

Day 5 - I am thankful to have been born an American, and that I have the right and privilege to vote.

Grateful November

Grateful November

I thought I'd repeat my thankfulness exercise this year. It makes me realize that I have a truly wonderful life. 

Tonight I am grateful for how far have come in fixing up our "cabin". 

A little at a time this year, with the help of our family, we insulated,  we built a wall for the kitchen area, installed cabinets, replaced the air mattress with a real bed, brought out a wardrobe, and a storage cabinet. It's starting to be a bit homier. 

So I am grateful for the help of family and friends and I'll leave you with this blazing woodstove in our cozy cabin.

Princess Cards

   Our friend's granddaughters are our "adopted" nieces...and they both have birthdays in August, so I made these butterfly beauties just for them!

   The paper is Butterfly Kisses by Paper Studio. The stack includes matching cardstock which is handy. I used my Cricut and the CTMH Artiste cartridge to cut the butterflies.  The stamps are an older retired CTMH set, Princess Wings. 

On the first one, I heat-embossed the princess crown, tag, and wings with Amethyst embossing powder, which has a metallic sheen, then fussy-cut them. I over-stamped the word Princess in black after they dried. 

On the other card I stamped the oval tag with CTMH Gypsy ink and heat-embossed the word Princess in black.

 

 A little ribbon and bows are the finishing touches,  along with a dab of iridescent glitter on the little butterflies.

Fairy Wishes

September was my niece's 4th  birthday...and I forgot to post this..but enjoy it now. 

She is heavily into Tinkerbell. Since I bought her a "pirate fairy" dress up set (from the pirate Tinkerbell movie), I looked for fairy inspiration on Pinterest as a start for her card.

I was inspired by this design from Tracy at Callmecraftie, and made this sweet 1-of-a-kind card.

The  paper stack is Butterfly Kisses by Paper Studio which has the "just right" shades of purple and green. I layered a magical-looking swish patterned paper on purple for the background.

Of course, with a princess niece, I have the Once Upon a Princess Cricut cartridge.  I found all of the die cuts on this cartridge: the dress, butterfly wings, wand and number.  

Dry-embossing the dress added some needed texture to the layout. I used some sheer shimmery ribbon strips in my stash (previous Dollar store find...and stocked in several colors!), which I taped to a shimmery iridescent glitter ribbon for a sash.

The inside says Fairy Birthday Wishes using "Fairy" cut from the phrases on the cartridge.

I think the dress was cut at 3" and the wings too, but I learned that I should have a notebook by the Cricut to record my cut sizes, so I can come back later and cut the complements at the same size without guessing.

That would be important especially if I'm using a special paper or one that I only have 1 sheet.

I had a lot of fun putting this card together!  Thank you for looking and have a magical fairy day!

Valentine's Card

It's a little late but I've been on  a hiatus from posting as I have been the proposal manager for a project at work that requires 14-16 hour days. That  doesn't leave much time for stamping or posting. So as dear husband says, life got in the way of fun! I'm not done with the project yet but have a few spare moments.

This was my Valentine's card for Dear Hubby this year. The heart is a sticker  on a heat-embossed lace doily in blue.
I couldn't post beforehand... For obvious reasons and then apparently I got too busy to post but it was a nice card that came together quickly and is NOT pink and red, but rather manly.
Thanks for looking!

WOYWW#245

Not much time today so a quick peek at my work desk shows that I was working furiously on Valentines cards for the grandkids nieces and nephews last night. And this is the mess I leave when I work a project in a hurry and on top of another project you can see the Cricut owls I was working on the other night. More to come on them later!  Some Cricut valentine parts int he tray, and an assortment of ribbon. Have a great day!!! If you are coming from another blog checkout the WOYWW blog here.  Gotta run to work!

A Different Bootie

I've been using the same set of paisley pink and brown papers for the baby shower.  I've made a banner, invitations, and the menu cards.  I have enough papers left to make quite a few items, but I quickly made a special baby shower card on Friday night for the Shower, which has finally occurred.

I had a lot of fun making all of the items for her shower. 

The boot is from the internal Cricut E2 cartridge. The oval die cuts (plain and scalloped) are Spellbinders dies. My new CTMH scalloped border punch worked well on the striped layer, and the sentiment is StudioG.

Hope you enjoyed the journey with me over the past month! 

Thanks for stopping by!

WOYWW#244

Tonight, Wednesday night, my workdesk has the pieces of the menu cards for the baby shower that I am trying to finish. The attendees get to select their flatbread - basically a 1 topping pizza. They will circle the topping and sauce selections and turn them in to the server at the winery. The baby shower is Saturday and I can ties the bows tomorrow so they'll be done. 

Then there's a long look at my table because on one end is the banner for baby Clara Ann. This is my extension table. Do you think I have enough scissors?  LOL.

My real table has some owls on it right now...saving for a later project. When the banner is off to the shower, one whole end of my table will be cleared for the next set of projects!  Yay!

Thank you for stopping by and hope you enjoyed WOYWW and all my friend's lovely desks on display at the blog hop at the Stamping Ground!

 

Mojo329

This week slipped away from me...I just completed my Mojo Monday card this morning... which would be Thursday... hmm... been a little busy. However, the crafting must go on.

I was able to create a card using the papers that I've been working with for my friend's daughter's baby shower.

My new E2 internal alphabet cartridge has a beautiful doily in it so I cut it out on the Cricut.

On my first try I am embossed it with and black embossing powder, but then decided that the chestnut embossing powder would go with the papers better, so I redid it.
I used a favorite Stampin ' Up stamp from the retired Illuminations set and a Martha Stewart border punch. 
Not a complicated card. I could easily change up this sketch for other purposes.
Thanks for visiting today!

WOYWW#242

I'm a little late today but it's still Wednesday here, so I've just made it.

A pennant for baby...following the cowgirl theme. (ps - the invitations are done on another post).

I figured a mini-banner was PERFECT for the baby shower!!

The  Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge has shapes that fit the chipboard banner. They were easy to cut and have layers that coordinate. The scalloped circles are also on the cartridge, and the letters are in the Cricut alphabet cartridge that came with the E2. I think I'm loving my new Christmas toy.  I never thought I would make a banner, much less one that coordinated. I don't think I will sign up for the Cricut craft room, though.  It seems like too much work and some part of the creativity is getting away from the computer.

I didn't like all the brown pieces so I cut some coordinating pink (which I selected last week).  You could make this banner easily without the pre-cut chipboard kit that I got from CTMH. I wish I could just have hours to work on the project non-stop.  Durn work, laundry and cooking dinner. LOL.

So, in its halfway state, this is on my workdesk today. I think it will be so cute!!   

Now the shower-committee wants a menu for the lunch at the winery, so I'll be busy this week!

Have a great rest of the week and have fun on the WOYWW blog hop!

Cowgirl Baby Shower

The invitations are complete!  I made 37 of them. One I kept for myself, and I created a generic example without personal or location information to protect my friends.
The flat 5x7 card is heat-embossed with pink glitter powder. 

I may never de- glitterize my craft area :).

I used CTMH Paisley Perfect stamps with Versamark ink. The layered center is die cut on my Cricut using a shape in the CTMH Artiste cartridge at 3.75" for the brown,  3.5" for the pink and 3.25" for the white.

The flourished boot came with the internal Alphabet cartridge in my new Cricut E2.

I created the invitation words layout on my computer and printed them on white cardstock. It took a little while to position the words correctly on the Cricut mat, but once I got it lined up with test sheets it was easy to do 40. I always cut a few extras for mishaps.

So here is the final product (with generic information) ...drum roll....

WOYWW#241

Good morning!!!! Today's WOYWW post is unusually long and provides a backstory :)

 

Do you notice ANYTHING?

Of course you do....

I cleaned ALL areas of my extended workdesk! Yay! 

I cleaned not only my "original" desk...but the extension table for group work AND my stamping tables. Impressive, no?

I was in such danger of being buried under the piles of projects...and due to some ahem...comments. So that was my Friday night project.

Yes, I know...the real what's on my worksdesk this morning is coming up in a few pictures.   Today's post is LOADED with pics!

The cleanup was good because I was ready to get started on putting together the baby shower invitations that I previously posted. 

The Baby Cowgirl Invitation Sample

The new mom selected the pink glitter Paisley background on a deep chocolate brown. 

Coordinating Paper Selection - See the Paisley Perfect Stamps in the bottom right corner?

My dear friend came over with her mother.

We worked on her daughter's baby shower invitation and due to the cleanup, we had plenty of room to work. Before we started [Sunday], I was selected some coordinating papers for the mini-banner.  I quickly put all of the papers to the side and we commenced invitation making.

WHAT IS ON MY DESK THIS MORNING.

I taught great-grandma-to-be how to use the Cricut. She cut out the pieces while mom cut the paisley background paper and card bases.  Then Mom and I stamped and embossed. We finished 36 base cards before they left on Sunday.  We were still playing with the layout a bit, adding a ribbon bow and perhaps a stamped rope on the right side of the wording layer.  We'll see how it turns out in the end.

With the complicated parts done, now its just assembling the little boots and the backgrounds for the actual invitation wording.

You can see all the little pieces ready to go in my "parts tray". 

And the left corner is the sleeve of my robe this morning. LOL.

I will finish tonight. 

Side note:

Boot Parts Awaiting Assembly

I saved some portabella mushroom grocery trays to hold Cricut pieces when I am working a project.  Using trays also lets me tote the pieces into the living room if I prefer to watch TV with DH and continue assembling the pieces, rather than being downstairs in the basement.

The Boot - Cut from the Cricut E2. 
Not glued together straight yet, just stacked for right now.

Wording Layers awaiting assembly

Thank you for stopping by and hanging in there for the whole post.  Check out my fellow WOYWW at The Stamping Ground...I'm off to work!

MOJO328 - Sew Special

For today's sketch, I selected one of my CTMH stamps, but wanted to use it with a different paper. The SOTM is Cross-stitch Wishes. 

I used a card base out of my new Paper Studios box'o'cards. I chose a matching navy cardstock for layering and dry embossed it. Of course, with sewing items I had to use the Tim Holtz tape measure embossing folder for a little texture.  I layered that with *matching* Paper Studios patterned paper. Why did I say *matching*? Well, I went to my paper shelf in search of a good sewing type paper, and viola...there it was, the paper stack that coordinates with the card bases I received last month for Christmas.

[Now I know I have too much paper. ]

I put a little tiny piece of washi tape on the patterned layer, then stamped the sew special box in Pacifica ink. Cute, but then I decided the card was too blue, so I stamped it again in SU Real Red. My mother-in-law's pinking shears put a perfect edge on the layer. (Now I feel guilty for using high quality sewing scissors on paper. My mother raised me to know better). 

A little ribbon and a button tied with WeRMemories twine finished the card. 

It took a little longer than I thought it would.  That's why I generally think the patterned card bases are harder to create from. It's usually too hard for me to select papers for the best effect. I just got lucky with having the coordinating stack. 

I think this card also illustrates that you can use any company's stamps with any other products and have a beautiful finished product.

Thank you for stopping by and have a great week!

WOYWW#240

Well...between the deep freeze, snow, working from home and proposal deadlines (worked 12 hrs yesterday),  what's on my work desk is a mess. I'll show the big mess today...so embarrassing!  I seem to have migrated off of my wood work table onto my extension table -- must be expanding to fill the space! 

I was happily crafting away on my Mojo Monday card yesterday before work and made this huge mess on top of my baby shower invitations parts. 

But that's okay, because that just means that I still have Valentine pieces - scattered and in the black "parts tray" that I can use to put together more cards!! And the bonus is that it's all still at my fingertips!

LOL! 

{That's one way of looking at it that doesn't make you go nuts for having such a mess.}

In the top right you might make out a stack of white chipboard pennant pieces, kind of under the glue dots box. That is the CTMH mini-banner from last summer. I plan to make that banner for the shower, with the baby's name on it.  Watch for that project -- it will probably be on my Stamping Garden blog and FB !

Actually, I will need to move the valentine cards supplies to the side (i.e., my other table) because I need to mass produce 30 baby shower invitations in the next 4 days. And work. And commuting in the snow. (I must go in to work today...I've been able to work at home for 4 days but the main roads are passable, so no excuse).

Fitting all that in will be my challenge! Thanks to Julia at Stamping Ground for the WOYWW fun! Stay tuned, keep warm & craft away!

Hasty Thanks

One of my Christmas gifts was 2 boxes of pre-printed cards by The Paper Studio, along with matching tags and some rubber stamps. I usually don't know what to do with such cards...Although it's supposed to be easy. But the matching tags gave me an idea and I made 2 of these cards.
I punched a pretty Ruby cardstock border and heat-embossed the birdcage with red embossing powder.  I used the same embossing on the large sentiment. Then I inked the edges of the birdcage layer with Tim Holtz distress ink in Worn Lipstick. I layered it on the matching tag, which was inked around the edges with CTMH Pacifica ink.
I stamped random flourishes on the card and tag without heat-embossing to give a bit of depth.
Then it was only a matter of tying ribbon on the tag and sticking everything down.
Perfect for a handwritten thank you note!

STAMPS
Birdcage - Prima
Thanks - Oriental Trading Co.
Flourish - My Mind's Eye

Input for Baby Shower Samples

Howdy!
I've been working on a sample for our friend's daughter's baby shower. She has some pink and brown cowgirl bedding selected for their daughter...so I thought for a while today and made these 2 samples.

The card is a 5x7 flat.  One has paisleys stamped in the background and heat-embossed with pink glitter embossing powder. But I also tried them in versamark with clear heat-embossed for subtle texture.

I cut the label on my Cricut except the white,  which I hand cut because it's just a sample piece.  The boots are also cut on my new Cricut E2.

Which do you like? Leave me a comment!

The vote is out now with the mom-2-be. :)

WOYWW 239 New Year

This Wednesday, the FIRST DAY of the YEAR, I'm making a couple of cards I had lying about to get them off my table and prepare for the NEW batch of projects for 2014.  I picked out the ribbons last night but ran out of time before we went to our friend's home for our traditional New Year's eve fest.

These are pieces left from my niece's birthday card in September. I had cut and stamped extras because I know some other girlies who will LOVE purple butterflies.  Then I will move on to a daughter-in-law birthday card (for Monday) and my Christmas thank yous!

I wish all my friends at WOYWW via Julia's blog a very prosperous and happy 2014 and I look forward to sharing the year's events with you!

An update on the final cards...