Christmas is coming!

My mom comes down each fall to make her "secret recipe" for fruitcake with my daughter Susannah, the only other person now who knows the recipe! For those of you who are thinking "Why would anyone want to make fruitcake?", my mother's recipe really is awesome. I think most fruitcake is really cardboard with gunky colored things in it, but my Mom's fruitcake is something to be fought over! Honest!

But it's going to be a busy couple of days for me too, as she has asked me to make 4o of these Noel cards for her. I was horrified to realize as I started on them the other day that I had no more of the cream colored cardstock I needed to make them. I had a package of 40 8.5 x 11 beige cardstock, but I did not realize it was from a paper auction, and was NOT what I needed. It's a very thin cardstock, and the embossed image shows through. I have enough of another cardstock, but it is much, much lighter than what my mom is expecting. It's not white, but barely has color. Unfortunately, neither of the two places I order from have the right shade. The one I had has been discontinued! It's amazing that in the hundreds of options these two companies have, neither have the cream that I need! So, her cards are a mix of the few pieces I had left, some of the thin stuff that is the right shade, and some of the light stuff that is the right texture!

Anniversary gifts

My husband and I love "adopting" teens and college students. It's been easiest, of course, with our daughter Abbie at nearby Houghton ... Sunday morning a bunch of students drive down for church, and about twice a month they eat at our house (the trip is 40-50 minutes, depending on the weather). However, we have managed one "adoptee" from Karen's former college, Patrick Henry. Ben Fan came to visit Houghton a year or so ago, and had surprised us by coming to church with Abbie. We came to our house afterwards, and fit in perfectly with our family. He didn't end up transferring after all, but thanks to xanga & facebook, the connection has remained. All of that to say that he was in the area for the weekend, and knowing that it was our anniversary, he connected with our kids and well, we had a couple of great surprises.

We started a tradition years ago of using sneaking clothes pins onto people's clothing. We primarily did this in church and at family get togethers. Friends at church, paricularly our friends the Herr's, also got into the act as did my side of the family. We also tried spreading it at college, so Ben had been "pinned" a few times. So, the engraved giant clothes pin will have a place of honor forever. (Becca, what do you think?!)

I had planned to post this yesterday, but I couldn't find the clothes pin. It was found in the cupboard, where my son had thought it ought to be put to use. :-)

My daughter, Susannah, loves creating videos (not an easy task with a dinosaur computer!), and Ben is a gifted composer. This is what they came up with:

Last, last minute anniversary card?

I can't believe that after that last post, I did not think about an anniversary card for my husband until the day before! And as it was late at night when I remembered, I was too tired to complete it until the next day! Oh, brother! Maybe I'm doomed to forever making cards last minute!

Last, last minute birthday card?

It's sort of a family joke about my last minute cards. Now that the business in which I sold is no longer, perhaps this will be my final, last minute card?

Probably not.

:-)

Note: the pinks really DO blend, the scan just altered them a bit, and finishing it the night before gave me no chance to photograph it in the daylight, lol!

smARTworks Tea Party

I have rarely been able to do challenges of any sort in the last few months, but I got to do this one over at smARTworks.

I had this giraffe stamp for awhile, but hadn't wanted to take the time to figure out how to color. Paper piecing, which I somehow missed the existence of, solved that problem. It's not an especially patterned paper I chose, but it works great for color. I love the leaf stamp that comes with this set, and using it with my memories sage and pine tree greens make a great background. (Memories bleeds a little, so I rarely use it, unless I'm doing forest or foliage). Unfortunately, it was a bit to busy for the giraffe. I could have continued stamping the image in forest, but I really liked how it looked. So, I tried sliding the giraffe head a little above the print, as you see in the card, and that solved the problem. I embossed the mane in brown on the white cardstock, and added some color to the eyes to make the stand out. My daughter pointed out that giraffe's have really big eyelashes, so I penciled those in as well.

I didn't get to cardmaking until later this evening. I actually went shopping and TOOK MY OWN SWEET TIME! Everything in the past few months had been done as quickly as possible to get back home to work on projects, or house/family stuff. I can't believe how free I feel! Still very busy, but the pressure is gone. :-)

Coloring with Jacki

I've never tried posting a video before, but thought I would at least see if it were possible. It was, wow! This is a clip of some of the coloring technique Jacki showed me while I was at her house. I wish I had thought to get the camera earlier, because I have a hard time remembering stuff like this. Jacki had let me go through some of her stamped images that she hadn't done anything with, and I thought this image would be really neat to see colored.

Pray that Jacki and I still have a friendship after she sees what I've done, lol!

I'm back...

...and with a deeper understanding of Who God is in my life, His regard for me, and a peace that I have not had in awhile. It was an amazing time.

I spent five days at a Christian retreat center, four days with a woman with an amazing ministry (she was ordained while I was there), and three days with Jacki Jones (The Card Castle). Actually, I missed one day with Jacki as I was not feeling at all well, so that was hard. But we did have a good time otherwise. Jacki gave me some great tutoring with colored pencil technique, which I was desperate for, lol!



I discovered Sunday that the gift shop in which I had been selling cards, journals, etc, went out of business! I knew the owner was really struggling, but was very startled nonetheless. I have to admit my reaction was one of relief, not disappointment. Selling there forced me to learn cardmaking; I really was pathetic in the beginning, and got into stamping to SELL STAMPS, not make cards. When the business for which I had bought tons of stuff to sell along with (they provided stamps and stamp pads only, no papers, few embellishments, etc) went under, selling cards seemed to be the only way to bring in some money. So, it's been good for me. But I have for quite some time now felt like the amount of time I spent creating for the store was now limiting me; there was NO time for just playing around, mastering techniques that did not come easily to me, etc. All cards needed to be within certain parameters in time spent, size, cost, etc, in order to keep them at one price.

Now, I am released! Does it mean I begin to design stamps as I'd been hoping all along? Or maybe go a new direction once I've reduced some of my sale inventory? No idea! But I am going to enjoy a stress-free fall! My schedule is much freer now, though I still need to prepare for the annual craft fair I do at a local college in December. I have tons of stamps to sell, and now, tons of cards and a few journals, so I have plenty to keep me busy!