One more card for 2008

I designed one more acrylic card for Christmas this year. I die cut the circle for the front of the card and embossed the words "joy" with an acrylic stamp. Added a few holly leaves, red rhinestones and some gold glitter for some bling. I also added background paper that I had embossed with my "Merry Christmas" texture plate.



TFL!

Acrylic Christmas Card for 2008

I love the new look of the acrylic cards so I decided to attempt using acrylic for this years' Christmas card. I cut a transparency to size using my Fiskar's cutter and then the score wheel for the fold line.

The mirror paper is embossed with a Sizzix embossing plate in a snowflake pattern and is attached to the front of the card. I die cut the snowflakes and then embellished them with crystal glitter and crystal stickles.

The "Happy Holidays!" is stamped with black Stazon ink on the front of the acrylic. The snowman paper was attached to the front from the underside so it would show through. I just love the Basic Grey Figgy line from last year!

The mirror paper is from Club Scrap. This is the first time I have used it and I love how easy it shows the embossing and reflection. It is truly like a real mirror!

For the inside sentiment I just diecur a circle and again used the black Stazon ink with an acrylic stamp....added a blue satin bow with a mini glue dot and it was complete.

This is the inside of the front top cover. I added some contrasting patterned paper from the same Basic Grey line and embossed some white cardstock for a textured effect throughout the cover.

TFL!

A Fun Packed Saturday Night

We all had a blast this past Saturday night. Heather and I planned a trip to our local apple orchard Erwins Orchards in South Lyon. This is only their 2nd year for this light display and they did an wonderful job. Lots and lots of colors and it was very different to go through an apple orchard with decorated trees. Very unique idea! Here is the website if you live around South Lyon, Michigan and are interested in a visit http://erwinorchards.com/elf.html. They put alot of work and expense to entertain all of us. Thank you so much Erinwin's!!!!

When we first arrived we were greeted by two snow plows clearing the parking lot. Of course Heather and I picked a night that was very wintery. We had snow all day and then just very pretty flurries during our visit to the light festival. It was very windy and pretty cold so we wore layers and layers of clothing, our down coats, boots and a snuggy blanket for the wagon ride.

The first lighted sign we saw after the entrance was this "elf" sign so I asked Tom to stand behind it. Somehow it just fit his personality!

We headed up the sidewalk to pay for our admission tickets (VERY reasonable at $5 for a fun night and a 25 minutes wagon ride through the orchards) when we came upon THUNDER the reindeer. He was just adorable and very happy to be in the cold windy snow! We asked the elves how old he was and they said he was 6. They said most reindeer only live to be around 8 years old.We entered this wonderfully decorated pole barn where the admission stand was set up. They had picnic tables and hay bales set up everywhere as well as a nice patio heater and gorgeous christmas lights. We stopped for a bit to get warm and took these pics.

Heather and Reon

Tom and Me

Reon and Tom at Santa's entrance

We then headed off to another building to get some of those great "pumpkin" donuts and hot chocolate. Yum...they were great! Some had carmel glaze and some had sprinkles.

Erwins did a wonderful job decorating this building also! Much to our surprise we even had a chance to talk with Mr. and Mrs. Clause. They were just adorable! Santa even offered to take a pic of all of us. Here are a few pics of the decor inside. It was very pretty and cozy and of course the donuts made the smell even better.

We hopped on the wagon and off through the orchards. We weren't able to get many pictures of the lights because the wagon was quite bouncy. Here is a pic of the Land of the Dinosaurs.

After our night outside was done we headed back to Heather and Reon's home and played a little Wii. She made us some great hot Frappuccino with mini marshmallows.....

Ummmm Ummmmm GOOD!

As my husband always says....A FUN TIME WAS HAD BY ALL!!!!

Enjoy the simple things in life!

or "Stop to smell the roses." ...that's what we've all heard from our parents for years. This morning I was enjoying a wonderful hot cup of coffee that my hubby made for me, sitting on the couch sharing conversation, when I looked out the East window in the livingroom and saw this beautiful sight. I wanted to share it with you. I kept snapping shots because every time I blinked the view changed until (within 4 minutes) it was totally gone and just blue sky with white clouds. I hope you get views like this on special mornings in your life as we did today.



Yesterday our "little" (I say that sarcastically!) 5 month old puppy Gretchen was doing her usual romping and playing in the yard with her Brittany sister Sadie. They were in and out most of the day enjoying the snow and all the sticks they could find! I went in the kitchen to make a cup of tea and peeked out to keep an eye on them. They are just like little toddlers always getting into trouble so I never know what is next!!!! To my surprise I caught a movement out of the right corner of my eye through the diningroom doorwall and this is what I saw....
Since when did this little adorable puppy decide she can climb up on our covered patio table like it was a platform for viewing the local neighborhood? From the look on her face she wasn't even ashamed of herself either! I grabbed the camera and snapped this pic. Hmmm........I may have a behavior problem here LOL! I had to turn my face so she wouldn't see me laugh (just like you do with your kids) because I honestly couldn't believe my eyes. I told her I'd come outside and help her down because I thought she couldn't get down. Yeah right! Just like a little gazelle she gracefully popped down to the deck floor and frolicked off into the snow. I hid around the corner to see if she would do it again because she has needed help (or at least we thought she did) getting up on our bed to snuggle in the early evening. Of course she did! She hopped back up with absolutely no effort and was again very proud of herself. What a little stinker we have! Who would have thought that our bird possessed dog Sadie would have better behavior than this German Shorthaired Pointer! Now I have two crazy bird dogs. I don't think I'll be bored anytime soon. Enjoy your day everyone!

LOVE LOVE LOVE these!

Now that the Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone......

(we had a WONDERFUL time visiting with our little grandson Eli and combining his first birthday party with turkey day)

it is now time to stick my nose to the grindstone and work continually on this scrapbook room. I have just finished the deconstruction.

WHAT A MESS! I tore down all the moldings from inside the closet and spackled, sanded, respackled, sanded....repeat until it is ready for paint. I put two coats of a moisture barrier on the ceiling of the closet to keep all the insulation dry up there. I had already put 2 coats on the room ceiling when it was a bedroom and wasn't crazy enough to try to even touch that closet disaster.


Let me tell you the history of this closet!!!! First of all this home was new when I was 12 years old. We moved here (my parents, grandmother and me) from Detroit in 1967. Yes...that makes me 53 years old now :-) Wow has time flown. My father retired and moved upnorth to his home in the woods (mom had previous passed away from brain cancer) and I purchased the home back from him. Actually my first husband and I had purchased the home. Then after 25 years of marriage that came to an end, we divorced and I repurchased it again to keep it in the family. I am now remarried to an awesome man named Tom and he has helped me redo this whole house and make it a home me so it feels like a new place for us. Only good memories now ;-) The work he does is just beautiful. I'll have to post some pics of the decks he has put on our home and then he dropped an awesome spa on top for a relaxation spot. He's a super duper guy!!!! With children coming back home from college, or just back home back and then back again, with and without grandchildren accompanying them, this "guest" bedroom has seen many visitors. It actually was my bedroom at 12 years old. You can imagine the accumulation of goodies that closet has had. I found material and patterns for suits that I never made LOL! Funny thing is that I still love the pattern and the material but not enough to come out of retirement and wear suits and heels again....nope no way !!!!

I took one entire day and emptied that entire horrid closet. It was a step back in time to say the least but here it is when I was done...ugly, empty and very small but I have BIG plans for this area.
I am now in the process of putting on 2 coats of paint and the storage shelves. I will take a pic of that when it is complete. I will continue moving onto the room with paint and wallpaper next. It's been fun actually seeing some progress.

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I know I'm a bit behind the times and most of you have all the fancy electronic cutters (I'm sooo envious) but I still just have the Sizzix BigKick and love it. I know there is a Pazzles in my future though LOL! I was cruising around the Joann fabrics website a couple weeks ago and found Sizzix's storage boxes on sale for a pretty good price. For those of you who don't know about them they are not cardboard but heavy duty wood covered in a nice linen fabric. They come in 3 colors....I chose the beige because the room is going to be dark walnut with warm pumpkin colored walls. I love the plastic dividers inside to keep each die seperated. Pretty cool design and I just LOVE THESE, hence the title to this post.

TFL...have a super week.

The "girls" and their 1st snow

Here in Michigan you never know what the weather will be! We woke up the other day and had at least 1" of packable snow on the ground. The dogs just loved it. We have a 4 year old Brittany named Sadie and a 5 month old German Shorthaired Pointer puppy named Gretchen.I couldn't get them to come in the house. They played for hours chasing their "jug". They have the cutest toys but choose to play with an old plastic jug! Who would have guessed ;-o.

Scrapbook Room Update:

I've really been working hard on my scrapbook room this week. It took about 3 hours to completely clean out the closet. It was a craft room for many years after my son moved his bedroom to the downstairs bedroom. I kept collecting more and more craft goodies and that's BEFORE scrapbooking became so popular. I have drawn a diagram of what I have in my mind for closet organizing and then also a diagram for shelving units for the wall area in the room over my work top. I will be painting soon and I can't wait to see this room finally become an organized pretty space that I want to go into and be creative. I'll post pics every once in a while so you can see how it develops. I'm always multi-tasking so this room will probably take me a couple months with holidays coming up. A little work here and there will always get me to the goal eventually.

Have a great week!

Jada Layout

I did this layout of my grandaughter Jada for a challenge on YMBD. We took a trip to the Detroit zoo (Jada, Aunt Heather, Grandpa Tom and Grandma Darlene). There was this beautiful metal butterfly chair right outside the butterfly house so of course we had a perfect background for a picture. Jada couldn't wait to just hop on up and pretend she was this graceful, beautiful butterfly!

On YMBD the challenge was to use "texture" on a LO. Here's link to the actual challenge

http://yourmemoriesbydesign.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1802

Give it a try!!!!

I used grungeboard for the butterflies and inked them and blinged them with Ranger distress inks, glitter and rhinestones. I even stamped a butterfly on a transparency for a different texture.

I added a bit of blue Stickles to the patterned paper and also stamped a butterfly cardstock and bentd it for dimension. I added some thin silver wire and ribbon to the Lo and picture corners and glued alot of beads for the flower centers. MORE texture :-}

A little foam leaf or two and...

It was done! I really like the blues and greens together.

TFL!!!! Have a super day :-}

Santa Baby

Here's a little glimpse of someone that everyone is at least aware of at this upcoming holiday season. This is a picture of some details on HIS hat. I'm sure that eye will also give it away and of course the title of this post. I'll be posting more pictures on Monday.

Enjoy your weekend with family and friends!

A GREAT recipe

My husband and I agreed last night to set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. We weren't sure how long the voting lines would be since Michigan is a swing state. We showered, had our coffee and headed off to our precinct. We arrived at 6:15 a.m. with no lines outside. A few people were lined up inside the building and everyone was cheery and very polite. We were number 16 and 17 and our experience was the best we have ever had. I don't know if that means we were super early or if that means that the voters figured it would be a mad house early so they are going tonight. Anyway....





and now I can play with all my scrappin' goodies and paint the WHOLE day...woohoo!

I have felt like making some peanut butter cookies too and I remembered that I did this LO a few years ago. I'd like to share this recipe with you....it was a favorite of mine as a little girl.

I scanned the original recipe (with my mother's writing on it) so I had a memory of her too! I always have a hot cup of tea with these cookies in my English bone china cup and saucer. I hope you like the recipe. You may want to make a double batch!


Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup Crisco
1/2 cup Jif creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cup sifted all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt

Cream shortening and peanut butter together until light; add sugars gradually and blend well. Beat in vanilla and egg. Sift flour with soda and salt and blend into the first mixture. Shape dough into small ball and place approximately 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten the top of each dough ball with the tines of a fork dipped in sugar. Bake at 375 degrees for approximately 10 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.

Note: To keep cookies crisp store in a loosely covered container. If they absorb moisture from the air you can crisp them again in a 300 degree oven for 5 minutes.

ENJOY!!!!

Some of my favorites!

I started going through some of my fall decorations and thought I would share them with you. I just adore this ceramic pumpkin. This was a great find when my husband and I stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the way down to North Carolina. I've had it for about 5 years. We were traveling south to visit my son who at that time had been in the Marines (just returning from his first tour in Iraq. He had 2 tours total.) They had such wonderful choices of these pumpkins I couldn't refuse to buy a set of 3. One was a quaint teapot and also a smaller version of this large pumpkin. I love them because I can put them out in Sept. and leave them for all to enjoy until Dec. 1st without anyone getting tired of them.

I also enjoy this wonderful pinecone wreath that I have displayed in my bathroom. The walls are a warm gold and it compliments the border paper so well. There are touches of maroon and green in the border also. This wreath didn't come with the dried ivory glitter baby's breath. I had a package of that left over from my wedding favors so I just spent an afternoon hot gluing it to the center. I like how the light hits it from the side and it glitters just perfectly!

TFL!