My Christmas Projects...

Every Christmas for the last 5 or so years I've been making my mom & sisters something special for Christmas. Things, like card sets, coasters and stamped candles to name a few.

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This year I planned to make these calendars last summer, got crazy busy this fall and only decided I HAD to do them on Dec. 23rd!!! Oh my, how crazy is that! Seeing as each one took me about 3-4 hours that is all I did until our get together!

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I used 4 x 4 chipboards coasters, 2 - 12x12 designer papers and lots of flowers & embellies!

Here is a side view...

And here a few of the pages to show you some of the different, yet very simple layouts I used.

Since then, I decided to make a few more for friends!!! They are soo fun!

As Martha as I'll ever get.... Christmas 2007

I saw this idea in a commercial to use cranberries inside, upside-down glasses and then they become candle holders!!! Make sense!?!?!? Anyway, this is the easiest way to create something fun. Then we got to thinking about all kinds of things you could put inside the glass depending what the occasion is - gumballs, paper curls, tinsel or whatever!

Anyway, this year Christmas was a year of posing and picture taking! Everyone got in on the fun! (This is my beautiful 12 year old daughter!!!)

Even my 4 year old nephew loved his new camera!

Getting lessons on what new camera's can do! Great! Now Chad wants another new toy!!!

Grandma is enjoying her yearly Christmas story reading time to the Grandkids! It looks like they are all enjoying it too!

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Every year I get to enjoy Christmas Eve with my parents, sisters and our families. We eat fun food, exchange gifts and enjoy each others company.

My sister making fun of my re-using a Christmas bag from last year!

My sister Pam and I, before we both got sick! Well, you can't say we don't share!!!

Then on Christmas morning, "Dad" gets to pull out the gifts from under our tree!

This year, he got the gift "wrapping" that never ends! Thanks to an un-named brother-in-law of mine, Kassandra has been dying to wrap Dad's gift with an endless amount of saran-wrap. I think she actualling used packing plastic and doubled the size of the gift with the many layers!

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He was pleased when he finally got the end though, it was his Lord of the Rings extented editions that he has been wanting. (Yuck!) hehehe

Then the girls got the first of 2 big gifts. This is their reaction to finding tickets to the TobyMac concert in February!

Then getting a Wii. Maya was great, she got all excited and was cheering with Kassandra until Chad asked her if she even knew what it was. She has no idea what it was but thought it must be good!

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If anyone is considering some kind of video game, this is most definatly the way to go! I've even enjoyed a few games of bowling!!!

An action shot!

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That was our Christmas in a nutshell! Yes, both my sister and I got sick, missed a few extended family get togethers but all in all it was a great week.

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If anyone actually made it to the end of this post I'm impressed! I posted most of this for the out of province family! Happy New Year!

Copic Marker Class

Yes, I've been infected my the Copic marker bug! I have a set coming to me for Christmas that I snuck in and used to make this sample for a class in January! Ooops! Don't tell my mom! :)

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Anyway, I was going for simple yet playing with some basic color layering. These markers are so easy to create dimension. I also wanted to use some stamps that the shop sells that I've not used in a class yet and that thought led me straight to My Favorite Things. I really like this little coffee set as it has a focal image along with little pieces, like separate mugs and the corner coffee beans, to compliment it.

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Well, on a personal note, I am really working at finding the peace of Christmas today (after I get all the house cleaning done). To relax and be able to enjoy the anticipation of my favorite celebration. To ponder on the gift of Christ and be grateful.

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Merry Christmas everyone!

Background stamps!

I've always loved big, background stamps, collected a bunch of them but not used them as much lately! So, with all the new ones that Cornish Heritage Farms just released (thanks to Lisa) I figured I should use what I have pre-stamped before I get new ones.

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Yes, I have been known to pre-stamp wacks of backgrounds, keep them in a shoebox and pull them out as needed. Saves time when I feel creative and gives me something to stamp when I'm not feeling creative!

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This first card used white craft ink overtop of Rose Red paper. Black mat. Embossed the sentiment and added the ribbon & flowers. I used the same basic layout for the next card too. Except the bg stamp is on vellum and attached with the brads on the bottom and some adhesive under the snowflakes and sentiment.

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I strategically placed the snowflakes over the birds on this stamp to give it a different look. (just in case some of you know what this stamp actually looks like :)

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I'm kinda needing to do something other than Christmas right now and these cards were just what I needed!

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Enjoy your day!

When something is sold out....

you get creative at the dollar store!!! I was so disapointed when PaperTrey sold out of their nugget tins! I bought the Holiday Treat stamps, 10 tins and then realized there are many, many people I want to be able to give just a little something to for Christmas and 10 tins just plain wasn't enough!
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I even went down to Bellingham to buy a ton of the Hersey Nugget chocolates. But now had no containers to put them in!
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So, at the dollar store today I started poking around in all the containers and ended up with these glass jars! Just add some tissue to hold the chocolates in place, ranger alcohol inks, embossing and ribbon!
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Yay! Problem solved and all my friends will be gettin' some chocolate!

Someone Special

I made this card for someone special that was overdue a birthday card! Maybe she will figure out who she is, maybe she won't! Either way, I hope she likes it!

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This was one of those that needed to have some extra touches. So, I started by using my Ranger Inks again to give the background some depth & stamped over to add some lines.

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Then I stamped the 3 flowers (Cornish Heritage's new Silhoutte flowers by Kim Hughes), let them dry and colored overtop with a sparkly gel pen to glitafy (glitter) them! :) Added the ribbon, tag, corner punch and snaps to complete it. The tag has the "Best Wishes" embossed in copper.

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I hope your day included stamping something!

For my Mom...

My mom loves the "Red Hat's Society" stuff so I made her a couple of these to give her as stocking stuffers. (I don't think she peeks in here much?!?!?!)

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Anyway, I started this a blank paper, more alcohol inks and nothing in particular in mind to make. When I finished creating the background paper I decided pretty quick that it would be perfect for this type of card.

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I hope she likes them!

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Enjoy some ink today!

Surprise, surprise!

It's another Thomas Kinkade card!!! Hopefully, you aren't getting tired of them! And hopefully, I will create something soon with stamps that aren't getting as much love anymore!

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Anyway, this is my first attempt at useing Copic markers. They are fun to play around with.

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I also stamped the background with Cornish Heritage Farm's Paisley backgrounder. Then I accidentally wiped some pearlX on a corner. Realizing the versa mark ink I used with the stamp was still wet I decided to brush a light dusting of pearlX over the whole thing.

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It probably won't stay on it handled to much but it sure gives the paper a light sparkle! And who doesn't love some sparkle?!?!?!

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Enjoy your day!

Getin' Inky!

Indeed I did! I've been playing with Ranger Distress Inks & Alcohol Inks lately, thanks to a good friend! And if you have ever played with them you will know what I'm talking about!!!

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I started with plain, ivory paper, a couple distress ink pads and some cut & dry foam. I smeared/rubbed/sponged the ink onto the paper and kept playing with the color until I achieved what I was looking for.

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Then I stamped the TK image in archival ink overtop. Roughed up the edges, used my glitter pen to bring our the sparkled of the snow, tied on the ribbon and then sat there and didn't really like it. :(

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That friend that got me excited about all this ink saw it sort of tossed aside and liked it. So, I'm posting this for her! Maybe someone else will get inspired out there and improve my attempt!!!

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Enjoy your day everyone!

Paper Ornament Class

This is another class I've been awaiting a long time!!! I had so much fun preparing that I just wanted to teach it right away!

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We will be using Basic Grey's new Figgy Pugging line of paper, Stamping Bella baubles, ribbons, die cuts, mod podge, and sanding tools to create 3 ornaments. The angel & the bird are 2 of them. I posted the star a while ago when I first planned the class.

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So, if anyone needs something to do tomorrow (Monday) night, come on out and join us!

No Stamps?!?!?!

Yes, I can make cards without stamping!!! hehehe I followed a challenge to create a card using chipboard, Making Memories product and an avery label!

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Very interesting combo! But so fun to work completly outside of your normal idea pattern. Anyway, the chipboard is from a Basic Grey pack, the sentiment is a Making Memory gel sticker and the label is covered with matching paper and looped around the frame. I was going for using it as I might have used ribbon.

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Then of course attach the flowers for a focus! I took this little close up so you could see the gel sticker better.

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Enjoy your day, even if it doesn't include stamping! :)

Man Cards

Do you struggle with them too? My favorite things include flowers, glitter & ribbon, which are all too girly for good man cards!

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Thankfully, these Thomas Kinkade images, by Cornish Heritage Farms, and some techniques I learned from a good Ranger instructor gave me the tools I needed for some b-day cards for a couple men in my life!

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I used Ranger distress ink on plain manila like paper to create the background. Stamped the image in black over top. Then UTEE'd over the entire thing! A little stitching, more gold embossing, and a few layers and there is not one inch that looks to feminine!

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Ok, so stitching might be considered feminine, but at least I used black thread! :)

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I love the way they turned out, and felt so good to give them away!

Creative Expo!

If you are anywhere near Abbotsford, BC come and check out the fun expo going on starting today!!!

The Creative Expo looks like it will be filled with classes and tons of fun!

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I'll be there tonight and Friday night. Maybe I'll bump into someone?!?!?!

Making the Most!

Making the most of patterned paper! Seems to be something I tend to try a lot!!!

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Anyway, this is paper I received from a friend a while ago and I'm finally forcing myself to use it. It came in 6 X 6 size and I loved it so much (hence the delay in cutting into it) that I had to use every inch! Easily decided to make 3 X 6 cards.

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Then after cutting enough to make 12 cards, I wanted to make 2 different themes. Also something I love to do, use the same layout/paper and have them available for different occasions.

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The birthday card is watercolored with SU! watercolor crayons & a Dove blender pen. The Christmas card is embossed with Kaleidoscope powder but you can't really see that in the photo. So, you will have to trust me that it is all glittery!

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Then I added baubles, like the ones from Stampingbella, and also one of her sentiments.

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Hope you all have a great beginning to your week! I've got a jam packed week of classes, shopping & my office job! Should be fun!

Drum roll please......

What fun!!! You are all so great! The actual count is 163, 40 yards of ribbon & 123 primas! That makes it mighty close but the winner is scrapmomof2! YAY!!! I will check your blog to see if there is an email link!

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Just to show you at least a little something, this is what my fam did this last weekend to have a little fun. (Yes, Laura I did say fam to include you, especially while Pam is gone!!!!) Everyone got into pumpkin carving. Below is our final products: a puppy, a horse & Mona Lisa! Cool eh?

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I hope everyone had a safe, fun evening!

10,000 posts Celebration!

Thanks to all of you out there in blog land, I'm approaching 10,000 hits!!!
And that means I need to celebrate and show you my appreciation!
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The best way I know to do that is to send someone a package of my favorite card making supplies! Can you tell what it is?!?!?! Ribbon, ribbon, & more ribbon! And of course I must include flowers!!!
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So, to be a little different I want to see who can guess how many yards of ribbon & how many primas I'm giving away! I've counted in full yards and will give it all to the person who is exactly right or the closest. To make sure everyone understands the same if I have 10 yards of ribbon and 20 primas my guess would be 30 total.
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Yes, this pile in the pic is exactly what I will be sending along with one more of my favorites.... a couple Thomas Kinkade cards! If the person who guesses the closest would prefer a few plain, ready to use stamped images we could make those arrangements too. You would have the choice. (I'd love to see someone who hasn't tried them yet to fall in love with them as I have!)
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I will post the winner Oct. 31st, probably late in the evening! (Remember I'm on the West Coast kind of late!)
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Happy guessing!

Paper Christmas Ornament

After much fiddling, re-doing, and cutting I finally figured out a way to have a paper ornament class!

This is one that will be included in the class and I've already thought of more embellishing that I could have done to it! :(

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Oh well! This Basic Grey new Figgy Pudding paper is so great! It was the perfect paper to make these ornaments!

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This is a quick post, but I hope you enjoy! The original inspiration is from Card Creme (thanks for permission to do this class Sherrie!)

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Happy creating!

Pocket Swap!

It's long over due but this little card is finally going to be sent on its way!!! I signed up for a swap way back, kept having computer glitches and couldn't get the recipients addresses UNTIL TODAY!!!

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I know that sounds funny but I received my cards a few weeks ago and I feel really bad I couldn't send mine out. Oh well, the joys of the computer age!

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Anyway, this pocket is just simply made by sewing up the sides. I folded down the top to give it some detail, punched the edge and used a brad to hold it down.

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The image, Thomas Kinkade Christmas Village, is stamped with SU! Classic ink on their glitter paper. I roughed up the edges using a scrapper kinda thingy, layered it on the black, tied some ribbon and voila!

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The inside uses one of the TK sentiments, McGill tab punch and misc. snowflake stamp.

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Totally out of my normal box, but it was fun to create!

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Happy stamping!

Edited to add: Blogger is so crazy!! I have no control over how the layout it sometimes! Sorry it looks so weird!

How much paper did I buy!?!?!?!?

I finally got organized to really get down to business on my huge Christmas card order!

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4 packages of white card stock (250 sheets each)

6 packages of blue 12 X 12 card stock (50 sheets each)

1800 snowflake punches

120 yards of 1/2 inch satin ribbon

ink pad & 2 refills

& 1 gorgeous stamp!

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Then I cut out the 600 pieces to stamp on.

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Then I started stamping!!! I ran out of table space and quit stamping at 126!!!

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Only 4 more table fulls and I'll be done! But truly, I get some very odd satisfaction working on a huge assembly line! I'm so glad I get to do this! I love it!!!

Christmas Sparkle

I get to do another Christmas "stack" class! This one is going to be all about the glitter! We are going to be using a couple images from Stamping Bella to make 8 cards.

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In this one I played around for a while trying to figure out how I wanted to color the ornament. The space is so fine in the swirl that I gave up with Copics, gel pens worked ok, but I finally ended up just using a glue pad and covered the whole thing with glitter!!! NICE! I love the sparkle!

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Enjoy your weekend everyone! I'm going to be getting down & serious about working on a huge order! I'll post some pics of my assembly line! It should be fun!

For the Love of Patterned Paper!!!

This last week I have had social activities almost every day!!! Yahooo!!! But then reality hit that was in desperate need of getting some cards ready for the stores I sell to.

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That is when patterned paper can save the day! I stuck with basic layouts, added an embellishment and some ribbon and get cards made quickly!!!

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Can I say enough about these little baubles?!?!? I LOVE them!

Play time!!!

I totally forgot I made this card over the weekend! I got to go out Friday night with a stamping friend, we shopped, we ate good food and we shopped some more!!!

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One of the goodies I picked up was a couple of bottles of Robin's Nest glass ball thingies. These are so great! Anyway, I needed some blank cards and wanted to use this new stamp too! I embossed the flower and layered it all up!

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Nice a easy, but something a little different for me!

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Happy stamping all!

Snow Stack Class

Unfortunatly, I've been under the weather the last couple of days, just a nasty cold, and therefore I've not been able to create anything new to share!

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So, just in case there are any Abbotsfordians who are looking for something to do Wednesday evening, I've got card class at Urban Trends.

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We will be creating these two layouts: stamping, embossing, piercing, sponging and lots of things to put them all together. And you will go home with 4 of each card!

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Hopefully, these classes will help me get more organzined for my own Christmas cards!!! One can always hope! Happy stamping all! (Even if I am stuck with a pot of tea and a box of tissue!)

I've crossed over to the Dark Side!!!

Yes, it was a day a dear friend of mine will be proud of. I dug through the closets, cupboards and everywhere I could think of until I found my good old sewing machine in the garage storage room!

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So, this is my first attempt at applying some dusty old skills to my love of paper! I'm showing you both of these as I'm not sure which one I prefer. The zig zag or the straight stitch. Either way, this took me a while but I'm pleased I finally set the beast up in my work space. Yes, I has found a home once again!

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Another thing I did was use my large oval, scallop stamp to versa mark UTEE over Father Christmas, by Crafty Secrets (WHAT AN AMAZING SET!!!). I pressed it super hard into the granuals and it kinda stuck all over the paper. I wiped some of it off but liked the way it gave a more scattered effect. Don't look too close or you might see some of the edges in a scallop!

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One of the other fun things I did was take out my grandma's old pinking shears to cut some felt. Not sure if anyone else out there has ones like this so took a pic.

Aren't they great?!?!? They work more like a pizza cutter and roll their way along your fabric, so much fun!!!

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Hope you are all having some stamping fun this Thanksgiving weekend!
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More Card Classes!!!

I gathered up some courage, packed up all my Thomas Kinkade stamps and cards samples and walked into a scrap shop, asked if I could speak with the owner and showed off my stuff!

(hehehe)

We chatted about this new line of stamps and talked about what a class would look like, kinds of things I would do and set a date!

I needed to re-work my samples to use the paper she carried and remove things she didn't. So, we are going to talk about basic stamping with these images, kinds of ink & paper etc, and talk about using them without feeling like we need to color like TK!

We will make one card with a cracked glass and another with a shimmer window technique and the third with just stamping. I'm looking forward to it! Wish me luck!

Tagged!

Amy G tagged me a few days ago! Sorry it took me awhile to post this!!!

FOUR JOBS I HAVE HAD IN MY LIFE

1. Mom - 2 daughters, 1 dog, 1 gecko, 1 pirahna, 1 husband

2. Travel Agent

3. Telephone solicitor (don't hate me!!!)

4. Office administration

FOUR PLACES I HAVE LIVED

1. St. Adolphe, Manitoba

2. Winnipeg, Manitoba

3. Burnaby, BC

4. Abbotsford, BC

FOUR PLACES I’VE BEEN ON VACATION

1. Caribbean cruises (Bahamas, Grand Caymen, Cozumel, Costa Maya, Belize, St. Thomas, St.Johns, St. Lucia, Antigua, Jamaica, and I know there is a few more islands...)

2. Montreal, Canada

3. New York

4. Palm Springs (should I keep listing more?!?!? I LOVE TO TRAVEL!!!)

FOUR OF MY FAVORITE FOODS

1. Home made pizza

2. Steak & prawn

3. Cottage cheese perogies

4. Chinese (again I could keep going!!!)

WHERE WOULD I RATHER BE RIGHT NOW

1. sitting in my hot tub

2. back on a cruise ship

3. out for dinner with friends

4. in my craft space

Masculin cards - eek!

It is always so difficult for me not to use flowers on a card! But sometimes I just have to!

Hopefully you will think I succeeded in de-feminizing a card! :)

The coloring is just water color pencils and a blender pen. Sentiment is pieced together using an Amuse stamp and little acrylic alpha set. Background is a retired SU! stamp as well as the bucket & apples, sorry I don't know what they are called off the top of my head! Little apple is a brad from the dollar store.

I also put a little glaze on the apples to make them shine! Hmm, hmm good! Wax on apples!!! hehehe

Fall in Violet

I had about an hour this morning to play at my card table!!! Wonders never cease! It might seem I'm down here ALL the time to my family, but I'm most often taking care of projects I NEED to make, not just playing with paper and ink.

So, I got started with a little challenge over on Splitcoast and this was the result. We had to start with a card we made in the past, keep the layout, papers & just change the stamps. In the spring I made this with flowers and a different sentiment and now I made a quick little fall/leaf version.

Unfortunatly, that is all the time I have today as I'm off to start and "card making club" at my daughter middle school. I've got 2 cards cut and planned for 25 middle school girls! Yikes!!! Should be fun!