Winter Joy.....FMS114

Snowflakes are falling around here and the winter Olympics will be here soon.  My husband is a retired ski coach and can't wait for the events.  In the meantime Emma and I have our own Olympic events.  Every morning we start our day with the dishwasher derby. I open the dishwasher and try to unload it faster than she can reload it with various toys and household items. Then we head to the laundry room for the washer/dryer relay.  I hand her the wet clothes and she puts each one carefully into the dryer.  Of course the light switch on the dryer door must be flicked each time to announce the arrival of a new garment.  Then it's time for rock climbing. She crawls upstairs as many times as her grandfather has the patience to carry her back down and let her climb again. My role in this activity is to divert her attention when the event is over so Grandpa can lock the gate at the bottom. A handful of goldfish works every time!  Here is Emma watching some real goldfish this week at Pet Smart........perhaps that is giving her some inspiration for summer Olympic events!

   Linda Suarez loves snowflakes - and so do I -  and put them in her sweet sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches. (and so did I!)
                                   

The Home Stretch......Merry Monday #85

It's my last week as Featured Designer with the Merry Monday team. They are an amazingly talented group of gals and I have enjoyed working with them this month!  I have also been glad for the opportunity to add some more cards to my Christmas card stash.....I am creeping closer to that magic total of 80!  I write my cards Thanksgiving weekend so I think I will finish "production" just in time. Of course a lot depends on how well Miss Emma naps this week!

Thanks but No Thanks! PPA180

This close to Thanksgiving I couldn't resist making one more thank you card using that gorgeous Sweater Weather DSP and some fibers from the burlap ribbon!  It has definitely been sweater weather around here - perfect for making desserts for Thanksgiving dinner.  First let me say I hate to cook and am a terrible cook - and my daughter is worse than me for which I take full responsibility. But I do make a decent pie and can rustle up some cookies as needed. Erin arrived Sunday as I was dipping molasses cookies in white chocolate. She offered to start the pie dough for me and wanted to use my Kitchen Aid mixer. I always make dough by hand but I told her to go ahead and try the mixer. We wrapped pie shells to freeze for next week and then baked the scraps of dough sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. After we cleaned up the kitchen we sat down to enjoy our cinnamon crusts but something was definitely amiss. They weren't exactly flaky.............in fact they were downright chewy.........in fact they were downright glue-y!  It was like chewing rubber cement.  So I asked Erin if she had followed the recipe card I gave her.  

"Yes," she said. "First I put in the flour, added the water and mixed.  Then I put in some Crisco and salt."  

Guess I never taught her what cutting in the shortening meant so she just mixed at will.............and yep she made paste........

I will be starting over on those piecrusts tomorrow!

                  Margaret has a fun sketch for us this week at Pals Paper Arts!

                                  

Fabulous - FMS113

Taking a break from the Christmas Card production to sneak in a birthday card for Anne Marie Hile.  She entered a new decade this past week and is as fabulous as ever!  Stop by her blog for a look at her amazing creations!  You will also get a glimpse of what she does in her non stamping world, She rescues dogs and cats and works tirelessly to help find them homes.  And every now and then a critter gets lucky and joins the pack at Anne Marie's house!  I am a dog lover and am always in awe of people like Anne Marie who work so hard on behalf of unwanted pets.  I am sure all of her fur babies think she is absolutely fabulous too!  Have a great year Anne Marie!

Cindy designed us a pretty fabulous sketch this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

O Christmas Trees - Merry Monday #84

A Christmas tree with a bit of sparkly bling is the order of the day at Merry Monday.  Some silver glimmer paper and silver cord dress up this sweet tree for the holidays.  We also tagged our real Christmas trees this past week.  Emma had fun surveying the countryside from her perch behind her mother as we tromped through the tree farm.  

I tagged my tree first - the smallest.  Erin tagged hers next - the fattest.  Then my son and his girlfriend went a bit over the edge and tagged this one - just over 9 feet tall - yikes!  

They are having us all over for Christmas dinner this year so I will be sure to take a picture of that tree all decorated.  I think it will be an adventure just getting it into the house!

                                           

Merry Little Christmas....FMS112

Lots of Christmas card making going on around here! The simple triangle trees on my card are from Pennant Parade and just make me smile.  Looks like they are holding up just fine against that snowy background. Making cards on blustery cold days with snow showers have jump started my Christmas spirit for sure! Why is it that the first snows are so much more fun than the ones that come in March?

I turned Jen Brum's wonderfully versatile sketch sideways this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

A Simple Thanks - Pals Thanksgiving Hop

                                                 
                                          

The Pals are celebrating Thanksgiving time with a hop that says thanks!  Hope you enjoyed your stop at Lisa's Queen Bee Creations!  I created my Thank You card using the sketch at Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 197 and kept the design clean and simple.  I will be sending this off to my sister-in-law at the end of the month because she hosts our family Thanksgiving every single year!  She often asks us to tell what we are thankful each year before we eat and the usual responses are of course family, friends, health etc. Last year I believe I said I was thankful for the arrival of sweet Emma!  But the cold hard truth is that every year there is also another thankful thought in my heart that I never really mention.  I am always grateful that I am not the one cooking dinner for twenty people.......



                                    Your next stop is with Diane Roberts - enjoy!

The complete hop line up:

1. Nicole Watt at Pixel Maven's Retreat
2. Ann Schach at The Stampin' Schach
3. Katy McGloin at Just Fun Stamping
4. Carmen Sublasky at The Creative Stamptuary
5. Shirley Sumption at Look at my Cute Stuff
6. Mary Fish at Stampin' Pretty
7. Connie Lindsey at Crafting a Joyful Life
8. Michelle Gleeson at Stampinmojo
9. Shannon Hokanson at Paper Works
10. Colleen Mollema at Uncanny Crafting
11. Lynn Kolcun at Stamping With Avery's Owlery
12. Kerry Willard Bray at Stampgoodness.com
13. Debbie Mageed at Secret Stamper
14. Amy L. Lazzell at Just A Thought...Cards by Amy
15. Lisa Davis at Cherry St. Paper Treats
16. Shannon Jaramillo at ezpeasycards
17. Susan Itell at Simple Stampin'
18. Martie Pollard at The Crafty Bandit
19. Donna Kopenski at craftycardmaker
20. Rae Harper at Wild West Paper Arts
21. Sherrie Gross at Stampin' Sunshine
22. Lisa Ann Bernard at Queen B Creations
23. Linda Callahan at Stampin' Seasons
24. Diane Roberts at Score at Four and a Quarter
25. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
26. Beth Beard at My little craft blog
27. Debbie Crowley at expressivelydeb...
28. Dawn Tidd at Tiddbits from Dawn
29. Sue Becker at Sue's R n R Stamping
30. Nancy Gleason at My Stampin Space
31. Peggy Noe at prettypapercards
32. Marlene Heringer at So Many Toys in Schertz

                                        

Be Merry at Merry Monday #83

The inspiration photo at Merry Monday just made me smile! So I thought little smiling gingerbread men would be perfect to send some holiday cheer. And those smiling gingerbread men made me think of Christmas cookies which definitely made me cheerful already and it's not even Thanksgiving...........

Hope you join us at Merry Monday this week and spread some Holiday Cheer of your own!

Hello? Hello? PPA178, STS#7

I used the sketch at Seize the Sketch this week with the wonderful color combo at Pals Paper Arts to create my card today.  I love that bold sentiment!  A simple hello is sometimes all it takes to brighten someone's day.  My favorite hello this week came from one of my very best friends who lives three hours away. It was cold and rainy when I returned from the grocery store the other day. After I pulled in the driveway I gathered some things up from the front seat, stuffed them into the front pouch of my sweatshirt, put my hood up and started to unload the groceries.  And then I heard a voice in my sweatshirt saying hello?  hello? Honest that cell phone of mine has a mind of its own! Somehow it knew that a quick call to my friend would make me laugh and feel so much better about lugging groceries in the rain.  I am going to toss that phone into my sweatshirt pouch more often and see who "calls me" next!

                                                 

One More - FMS111

I am delighted to be hosting this week at Freshly Made Sketches! I turned the sketch into a Christmas card - ahhh one more to add to my stash! And I have another "one more" to tell you about.  But first let me say that the FMS team is a wonderful group of talented gals - so much fun to work with!  I have been fortunate enough to meet Rita and Cindy in person at Stampin' Up! events and this weekend I got to meet one more person on our team - Jen Mitchell!  We live about 4 hours apart so we met in the middle for lunch at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  We had a great time - no actual stamping, but lots of stamping talk!

As I was driving home my son called and asked for a ride home since his car was in the garage.  When I picked him up he said "I ordered a pizza for us for dinner." Then my daughter called and said "We are headed to your house - we're ordering pizza so you don't have to cook." As we pulled up to the house a pizza delivery guy was just leaving and there stood my husband in the kitchen with one more pizza. "Oh," he said, "I ordered pizza so you wouldn't have to worry about dinner!"  Who was worried?  Obviously not me since I was the only one who didn't order a pizza!


                     Hope you play along with us at Freshly Made Sketches this week!  Enjoy!

                                     

Merry Mix of Holidays - Merry Monday #82

When Lesley Croghan "called" and asked me to be a guest designer at Merry Monday for the month of November I couldn't say no!  I was delighted to join this group of talented ladies to create a round of holiday cards!  

For my first Merry Monday card I used the new photopolymer set from SU called Endless Wishes for the snowflakes and sentiment. So many great holiday sentiments in that set! But before we get too far into the preparations for the upcoming holiday season I thought I would let you see how Emma celebrated last week's holiday.  Here she is dressed as a kitty cat on Halloween waiting for the first trick or treaters to arrive!

                                   Hope you join in the fun at Merry Monday this week!