Another Christmas Card.

Here is a picture of another Christmas Card I made.  Hope you like it.

Snow, snow, and more snow!  Winter comes in with a bang!  We were hit with a major blizzard.  Here in Barnegat, we got 21 inches of snow.  That is severe enough, but the winds were a major player in this storm.  It caused drifting everywhere.  The roads would no sooner get cleared and the wind would blow the snow back.  Looking out our back windows, you  could see drifts of snow up to or over the windows, while at the same time look at the "alley" between the houses and see practically no snow at all.  Next door, the drifts went up over the window sills (about 5').  In front, the snow was up to our windows and up to the top of our front porch. 

With all this snow time, I have had lots of time to scrapbook.  My daughter is here from the holidays and my girlfriend is too.  We had a great day yesterday and again today.  Tomorrow will be more of the same!

While reading emails, I came across the following blog candy:

  Go to http://www.sunflowers-dragonflies.ca/blog/5595/christmas-holiday-blog-candy/comment-page-1/#comment-31802 to enter this contest.  Maybe you will be the big winner.

Less than one week to go....

Christmas is coming closer still.  Wow less than a week away.  Where has all the time gone?  Where has the year gone?  I thought I would share one of my Christmas cards with you all.  I used the Cricut machine to cut the snowflake circle.  Then I placed packing tape on the backside of the snowflake and sprinkled red glitter on it.  It sure made the snowflake shine!  Next, I cut out cardboard circle rings 1/4" thick.(I cut some out using 2 different sized nestabilites and for others I used the Martha Steward circle cutter.)  I applied green glitter to these circle rings and used pop dots on the rings.  There  is a 5" piece of red cardstock under the snowflake card and I used an EK success border cutter to cut out my saying on the front of the card, and popped it up with pop dots.  I took the whole card front and glued it on a sparkly sheet of ivory white paper that I had folded in half.  I really like this card.  On the inside I found a verse about friends that ws in the shape of a Christmas tree.  I printed that out on a stationary sheet bordered with poinsettias. I then tied ribbon in the middle to hold the inside and outside together.    Below is a picture of the outside of the card and the inside.  Merry Christmas to all!

Christmas is coming soon.

Before you know it, Christmas will be here.  Have you gotten all your shopping done, or at least most of it?  I used to think it was difficult shopping for my children, buying the right present for them, but now that they are older, it is harder yet..and more expensive.  Lucky for me, they are no longer living at home and they have other people in their lives, so I don't go all out like I used to. 

A couple of weeks ago, my friends were over and we mad some Christmas ornaments.  It was a lot of fun making them.  We took glass ornaments and covered them with alcohol inks, blending color choices of our own choosing.  After that was done, I cut out vinyl numbers for 2010 with my Cricut.  We put these on the ornaments, and used glass etching cream to etch the year in the ornament.  I think they turned out pretty cute.  What do you think? 

Have a great week!

I love this card.  It was very easy to make, yet it looks so elegant.  I used a cuddlebug folder to eomboss the cardstock and then used nestabilities dies for the border around the title.

Cards for Children

I came across this website by mistake, but I am so glad I found it.  It is called Cards for Children. 
ADDRESS TO MAIL CARDS FOR HOSPITAL DONATION


Chris Wooten
5135 Sawbill Ln
Gastonia, NC 28052

NEED ANY TYPE OF CARDS

I think it is exactly what is needed, so if you are reading this, and have extra cards, please mail them for the children's hospital. 

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, I had a wonderful time.  We were able to bring Christina home for a couple of days from the group home.  She really enjoyed herself.  My son,with his family, drove up to NJ from Florida and spent 4 days with us.  His children are growing so big.  Tyler, my grandson, is now the tallest person in our family.  The girls, Angelica and Karly are becoming young ladies.  Even Dusty, the family dog, came up for a visit and was wonderful.  (I really enjoyed him.)  They stayed with Dave and me. 

My brother and sister-in-law from Illinois (Rich and Janet) flew in last Saturday.  So did their son, Jared with his wife Kai and daughter Alexis; their son Andy; and their daughter, Julia, with her husband Tilma and their son TJ and foster son Kyrall.  My brother and sister-in-law. Ralph and Bernice, drove up from South Carolina, with their daughter Ashley and dog Lily. This group of people stayed at my mother's house, and it was packed there.

Everyone came to my house for Thanksgiving dinner.  There were 20 people for dinner.  We enjoyed turkey, stuffing, potatoes, rutagaba, creamed onions, peas, lima beans and corn, cranberry sauce, and of course pies....pumpkin, pecan, and apple.  I don't believe anyone went home hungry.     We took lots of  family pictures.  The opening picture is our family who made it to dinner.  Below is a picture of my mom with all her grandchildren (minus 2) and great-grandchildren.

Final pages of Renee's baby book.

Did you enjoy the pages from yesterday?  Well, today I am adding the final pages of Renee's baby book.  I must say, Renee is a cutie, even if she is my great-granddaughter!  In case you haven't seen a pciture of Renee, here are a couple of her with Dave (aka Pop-Pop). 

Now for the final pages of the scrapbook!  Here they are:

Hopefully pictures of Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles will be on this page...all of them with Renee.

Can you see Renee drinking her bottle or eating? How cute the pictures will be.

The final page. I hope you have enjoyed these pages. 

More baby book pages

As promised, I have more pictures of baby book pages.  Now, I could make these much fancier and add more embellishments, but I know for my great-granddaughter, her mother scraps, so when she adds the pictures, she can journal and add more embellishments.

Renee is a jewel in Mommy's eye. She is definitely Daddy's queen. (Most would say she is his princess, but no, she is his queen. He truly worships Renee.)

A look at individual body parts...eyes,nose, mouth, feet, hands, etc.

These pages are for pictures of Renee playing.

  

 

Night-night. Here will be sleeping pictures. Ah...a baby looks so sweet and peaceful when sleeping.










Ok.  Those are the pictures for tonight.  Tomorrow I will add the last few pictures of Renee's book.  After that I plan to post a Christmas hanging that is a class I will be teaching this weekend.  It is really cute.  Thanks for looking, Please leave a post to let me know your thoughts on the book.  Until tomorrow...bye.

Babies are coming out of the woodwork!

Babies?  Yes, babies.  This year I have had 3 new babies added to our family.  Our granddaughter had her first child, Renee, in June.  She is a cutie.  My niece had a son in February and my nephew's wife had a daughter.  I have been trying to make baby albums for each of them.  Let me share a couple of pictures with you today.  I hope you enjoy them.

Back Again

I have some more cards today for you to see today.  This is another retirement card.  

 

The woman is drinking her coffee while in her bathrobe.and this is the inside of that card.

Sympathy cards.Sometimes it is hard to find the right words.

This is the inside of the sympathy card.

This is inside the Thinking of you card

Cards

Here are some cards that I have been making with my friend Sandy.  We are going to be selling these at a flea market or craft show, with many more to come.

   

 This card is the outside of a retirement card.  (I will show you close ups of the cards later.

 This guy is fishing for a retirement and enjoying himself.

 We labeled this card "Uncle Louie" because he reminds of resting and relaxing during his retirement.

 This is a thinking of you card. 

 And here is a thank you card. 

Starting to get busy

Ok....I am now starting to get busy and I am ready to start posting some cards and items I am creating.   I really enjoy making cards, but  I also like to create scrapbook pages.  I will start with some cards. 

This first card is a wedding card I made for a previous student.  I had him when he was in 8th grade, and his sister and I are now very friendly.  It is hard to believe that this young man has graduated and is now getting married!  Where does the time go? 

I made 3 fan fold flowers and put a contrasting color of paper as the center dot.  I then used dew drops as the center of the flower.  I used a Fiskars lace punch on the edges of the flower, before I did the fan folds.  The card looked a lot better in person.  It was made with rich, shiny paper, and looked luscious. 

October is here

The air is finally starting to get a chill in it during the evening hours.  Evenings are getting dark much earlier.  The leaves are losing their bright green color turning into a bright rainbow of colors.  I have been working on cards to make for the sale at the end of the month.  I am hoping that at the sale, my friend Sandy and I can recoup some of our expenditures.  Creating different styles of cards are a creative, yet challenging to do.  If I get a chance to take some pictures, I will upload them here.

Another Month!

Wow!  Another month has gone by.   Where has the time gone?  I know it hasn't been because of work, because I retired from teaching last March.  ah....no more 5AM wake up calls for me.

I have been busy creating cards and some baby books.  It seems that between my nieces and my granddaughter, I find I need 3 baby scrapbooks.  I will be sharing some pictures with you.  I  hope you like them.

Scrapbook Saturday

Saturday was scrapbook day!  There were several individuals who stopped by and spent some time scrapping with us.   Sandy G., Christina S., Kim O., Anna A., Kathy M.,Marcy S., Bev S., Linda B., and Tanya G. all showed up with bags, papers, glue and such. We had a lot oflaughter, fun, and got some pages scrapped. My son called and while we talked he mentioned that my granddaughter had the opportunity to attend a trip to Chicago with the Symphonic Orchestra, to which she belongs.  The students need to raise $1400 each for the trip, and if they take a chaperone/parent, it is an additional $1400.  There will be several fundraisers taking place during the year. First up is a car wash, then a recipe book, and there will be a raffle later in the year.  Students can earn money based on what they sell.  Some funds will be individual earning opportunities, some will be for individual earning opportunities.

Those wonderful ladies I scrap with agreed to share some recipes. In fact, one person recommended we start a "Chub Club" for $2 a session. all will get weighed in and pay $2.  At the end of 8 sessions, the person with the highest percentage of lost weight will win half the kitty.  The other half will be put toward the trip for my granddaughter.

I taught a class for a brag book. Everyone seemed to enjoy making it.  I will take a picture and upload it soon.

More from CKC

CKC had many classes to choose from.  I took some card classes and then some layout classes.  I took 2 album classes, so there was a lot going on.  These are Technique Tuesday card classes that I took.  I loved many of the cards and they showed us ways to use their coasterboard. The first set of cards taught us some techniques...  pleated ribbon, use of coasterboard with mulberry paper, use of swirls, background borders, and layering 

The second set of cards challenged us to make creative borders for our cards.  Really cute cards from both classes.  I hope you like them.

Tag contest at CKC

As I mentioned previousy there was a tag contest at CKC. Everyone in our group decided to try for it. What the heck! Why not give it a try. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Once the tags were passed out, we had approximately one hour to work on our tags and submit them. Here is a picture of my tag.

I used some glimmer mist on white cardstock, then I stamped it with a technique Tuesday stamp that we had received earlier in a class.  I wet the cardstock and wrinkled it and inked the edges.  Next I added a picture I happened to have and a sticker that said "cherish these days". I then created a flower by accordian pleating some paper to make a flower.

There were many tags submitted, somewhere between 30 and 45.  Some were funny, some were beautiful.  They were all creative. The top 2 tags would win prizes.  First place was a lot of items.  Second prize was a set of books.  When the voting came, the judges had a hard choice.  They decided to give 3 prizes out.  3rd place got the books, 2nd place got the goodies, and 1st place got an Epic machine.  I was shocked when they called my name as the 3rd place winner!  I won the books...probably the best thing I could have won.  One book is by Ali Edwards, Steps; and the other book is a Becky Higgins book with ideas forall kinds of things....sketches, borders, tags, squares, etc.  I love them both.

CKC in Valley Forge, Pennylvania

It was time for my annual trek to Valley Forge, to CKC (Creating Keepsakes Convention). My friend Sandy went with me and we had a wonderful time. It was tiring and these older bodies didn't like all the walking they didn't have to do, but we managed to trudge along. We started our trip on Wednesday, arriving at the convention center at Scanticon. There we participated in a crop or the day. Next was our hotel, The Clarion.

We brought only necessary items into our room, then went to get our dinner. During the afternoon we had spent scrapping at the convention, many vendors either finished setting up early, or wanted to some special sales. I couldn't resist some buys, and neither could Sandy. We chatted during the afternoon, scrapped, and made some early purchases,so we were tired. The idea of getting up at 7:00 was difficult, so we went to bed around 11:00 so we would be ready to get started.

Thursday morning started the marathon of classes and running around the vendors. Thursday I took 2 album classes...one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Sandy took the album in the morning, then a different class in the afernoon. In the evening we went to a sketches crop, where many of the various vendors provided us with page kits to create layouts.

Friday included more classes and a trip to the vendor faire, where just about any imaginable scrapbook item was available for purchase. We bought some things, probably more than we should have, and enjoyed ourselves. Friday evenng was fun crop and we scrapped until 11.

Saturday was a repeat of Friday, with different classes. That evening was another fun crop. We sat at a table with Allisono and Marcy Scollay. During the evening, there was a contest for creating a tag. All participants were given a 3x5 card, with instructions to make a tag no larger than this card. Several people participated and there were many great tags created. I was fortunate enough to win 3rd place out of all the participants. I won a magazine; a Becky Higgin book, with different ideas for borders, tags, elements, layouts and such; and I won an Ali Edwars book "Step"

We left at 11:15, tired but happy. We went to sleep and slept until 9:30 Saturday morning. Got up, ate breakfast, and started on our way home. The car was filled with all kinds of goodies. I hope to post pictures maybe tomorrow.

Digital magazines

More companies are adding digital magazines to their line of magazines.  Some times this is to grab your attention to see what the magazine is line, in hopes that you will subscribe.  Some of the magazines that are digital, are considerably less expensive than their paper issue, and you can save them to a desktop, memory key, hard drive, or wherever you save files Here is the link for a free ezine to Altered Arts magazine. Go to http://www.mailboxmuse.com/Current-Digital-Issue_c_43.html to download your magazine.

Time to Scrap and Create

I have finally done it!  As of February 26, 2010, I have retired!!!  That was my last day of work, but March 1 is considered my retirement date.  I will now have time to scrapbook and create cards and other interesting things.  I have plans for classes and plans for sales.  Now, if they can all come together, that would be great!

Today we made two cards in our class.  The first card was a basic scoring card to create a diamond effect. 

Our second card was a stair step card.  Both cards involved the use of a score board or a scoring  blade.  I have examples to show you how they turned out.

Here are the stair step cards and how they came out! I think they all did a great job with them!