It's That Time of Year! PPA184

I did a lot of internet shopping this year and the packages are arriving daily.  In the middle of the LLBean and Amazon shipments was an early Christmas gift to myself.......my Stampin' Up! order containing some products from the new Occasions catalog.  I love the silver vellum paper used here - so classy!  The bold silver stripes provide a convenient place to hide the glue......always a problem when using vellum! And those bold silver stripes were a great time saver in creating my card this week for PPA - the stripes were already built in!  I will be posting some sneak peeks of other products soon but right now I plan to kick back and enjoy the season - hope you do the same!

                                      

Joyful Tidings.......FMS117

                                     



One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is decorating the Christmas tree!  We decorated our tree Saturday and then had a family dinner to celebrate my daughter's birthday - a perfect day! But about 1 am Sunday morning there was a crash in the living room........the tree fell over!  We jumped out of bed and found quite the mess to clean up -shattered ornaments, broken lights and water everywhere! An hour later we went back to bed with everything cleaned up but the tree still needed to be redecorated.  I went to bed thinking "Ugh now we have to decorate the tree again."  

As we started restringing the lights after breakfast I thought why am I so annoyed? I do love to decorate our Christmas tree........and wow I got to do it twice this year!  Just a simple attitude adjustment was all I needed...........I may need a few more adjustments before the holiday season is over!

       Amy's trendy sketch at Freshly Made Sketches this week gave me a chance to use Perfect Pennants - a set soon to be available set from SU!

Silver Bells........FMS116

Just had to add some tiny silver bells to go with the silver embossing and glimmer paper on this card.  Those words "Silver Bells" make me smile........and remember.  Way back in the mid-70's my husband and I operated a small ski area in upstate New York called Silver Bells. About this time of year we would be praying hard to the snow gods for a white Christmas so we could open during the holiday season!  No snowmaking back in those days - only Mother Nature!  A friend of ours recently sent us this link on lost ski areas of upstate NY. You can see our little area which never reopened after we left it in 1977 and is now a private residence.  But I learned a lot in those three years.  If you ever need someone to load t-bars or to ride shotgun in a Tucker Sno Cat while you groom trails let me know!

Narelle designed a delightful sketch for us this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

Wish List - Pals Christmas Hop

                                 

                                       


Welcome to the Pals' Christmas Hop where we are featuring items you may want to put on your Christmas list!  If you arrived here from Studio Elaine you are right on track!

My favorite part of Christmas day is first thing in the morning when we are all just sitting around having breakfast and opening our stocking gifts!  My family can be very creative - or very practical when it comes to stocking gifts.  Those gifts can range from concert tickets to toothpaste - you never know!  So my recommendation to you today is to add some stocking stuffers to your wish list. If you are the practical type ask for the stamp-a-ma-jig that I used to line up my chevrons or ask for some packages of those hard working but never seen dimensionals!  Accessories are always fun too! Ribbon, twine, clips and those fabulous candy dots should be in everyone's stocking!  And save some wishes for January when the new Occasions catalog arrives!  Today you are getting a sneak peek of a set called Says It All from that new catalog. That's the best thing about wishes - you can always add another one!




Your next stop is at Kerry Bray's Stamp Goodness blog where I am sure a fabulous project awaits!

                                   

1. Amy L. Lazzell at Just A Thought...Cards by Amy
2. Peggy Noe at Prettypapercards.com
3. Lisa Ann Bernard at Queen B Creations
4. Colleen Mollema at Uncanny Crafting
5. Sue Becker at R n R Stamping
6. Nicole Watt at Pixel Maven's Retreat
7. Debra Simonis at Deb's Stampin' Grounds
8. Diane Roberts at Score at Four and a Quarter
9. Michelle Gleeson at Stampin Mojo
10. Kelly DeTommaso at Kellys Creative Corner
11. Connie Lindsey at Crafting a Joyful Life
12. Angie Blake at Angie's Musings
13. Katy McGloin at Just Fun Stamping
14. Debbie Mageed at Secret Stamper
15. martie pollard at The Crafty Bandit
16. Marlene Heringer at So Many Toys Sol Little Time
17. Elaine Fleming at Studio Elaine
18. Linda Callahan at Stampin' Seasons
19. Kerry Willard Bray at stampgoodness
20. Shirley Sumption at Look at my Cute Stuff
21. Dawn Tidd at Tiddbits from Dawn
22. Beth Beard at My little craft blog
23. Rae Harper at Wild West Paper Arts

Peace on Earth...........PPA182, Unscripted Sketches #233

I wish it were that simple...............to give

 this world Peace on Earth all tied up with a simple bow...........

I combined the classic colors at Pals Paper Arts with the sweet sketch at Unscripted Sketches this week.

 

Chalk Up Another Holiday! FMS115, Merry Monday #86

I figured I couldn't miss when I combined the challenges of two amazingly talented designers!  Jen Timko's wonderful graphic design at Freshly Made Sketches plus Lesley Croghan's charming chalkboard challenge at Merry Monday equals one sketchy, merry Christmas card!  

                                                    

                                                 

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!

                                            

Falling Leaves...FMS110

Easy to find inspiration for today's card!  I just looked out of my upstairs craft room window and watched countless leaves float by all week.  A forecast of wind and rain should bring the rest of them down and set the stage for a perfectly stormy and spooky Halloween night!  In the meantime Miss Emma Lin has been busy scooping and decorating pumpkins for Trick or Treat night at her house!

Happy Halloween!

Rita has a wonderful sketch for us this week at Freshly Made Sketches!

                                           

Head Over Heels! PPA177

My supply of birthday cards is getting low so I am making a few before Birthday Season hits!  It seems the majority of my friends and family have birthdays in the last three months of the year.  By the time it gets to my birthday a few days before Christmas we are all "birthdayed out" and thinking about the holidays.  So this year I announced to my family that they had between now and Christmas to give me a gift.  I asked them to provide an experience for me that I had never done before - and to spend as little money as possible. There was some moaning and groaning but I think they will all manage something.

In the meantime I stopped in to visit my son and noticed a new piece of exercise equipment.  Time to get in shape for ski season you know!  When I asked what it was he said, "Hop on and I will show you!"  

So here I am hanging like a bat on his new inversion table! Yikes! After he snapped the picture he leaned over and said "Happy Birthday Mom!"  That kid still makes me laugh!  I will let you know what my daughter and husband come up with!

I followed the sketch at Pals Paper Arts this week.