It's a Jungle in here!

I stayed home today instead of helping out at the kids school. Everyone is scared of me! Go figure, got a funky throat, and they all act like ya gonna kill them or something! LOL! Test came back positive for strep. Oddly, I'm happy about that, because it means I can fix that quickly with some good germ killers! Thanks for your well wishes and sweet comments to my last post! Thinking tomorrow, I'll be feeling tip top, and can't help at school, because I won't reach 24 hours with the antibiotics, so I'll have a lot of free time tomorrow! Woo hoo!

Today in my spare time, I stamped! I've talked about these two paper lines before from DCWV. One is Animal Crackers, the other Green. I had to use Green after we had Earth Hour on Sat. I almost thought about making the card by candle light, but I'm sure that would have been scary! It got made today. I used Forrest Friends from The Greeting Farm. This would be one of the Mastercard cards, cost more because I had to have the papers that were on sale! Now, I hope you can see enough of the background paper, do you see how cute those animals are? Don't you think DCWV should have made stamps to match? Doesn't the set from The Greeting Farm go so well? To cute, huh?! I popped one out as well as the acorn. Added some shimmerz, and stickles. Used Amy R's sketch from last week. The metal tag I got from a girl's crafting set on clearance at Target. They were full of tags all about being Green. Perfect touch for this card.

The bright card I started weeks ago. I had the papers pulled out, but never finished the card. Got that done today. How fun are these papers? They are the Animal Cracker line. This set has glitter on them, not sure if you can see it on the crazy pattern sheet, I tried to turn it to show it better. I love the bright colors. And look at the little monkeys at the bottom...love them! I was wishing I had some brown fun flock. I've seen so many of the monkeys with that on there, and it's the perfect touch.

Supplies: DCWV Green, Animal Crackers, and cardstock, SU Tangerine cardstock, nesties, prima flowers, lyra water color crayons, Greeting Farm stamps, shimmerz, blingz, stickles, scrappers floss.

New WOJ Stamps

I was so happy to see the new Angel release from Whiff of Joy, and they had arrived in my mail box today. Woo hoo! My throat is killing me, so it gave me something to think about outside of not being able to drink without being in pain. I think I'll be seeing a DR tomorrow to check for strep!

Back to Whiff of Joy, I was also excited to see the bench that she just came out with, as I think it will work perfectly with the Spring Kit stamps. I already have plans for that bench with a few of those cuties! I loved Musing Melinda from this newest release. I ran across the grass on there, somehow I had missed that in past purchases, so I had to snatch it up too.

I followed the sketch from Mojo Mondays. Due to the size of my image, I made my card square at 5.5. I don't often make square cards. Are they harder to mail? I used Two Scoops from Basic Grey, DCWV cardstock and Regal Rose cardstock. Martha Stewart double scallop punch, and SU's word punch, but I ran out of room, so the round part got covered up! I had also added brads to the end of the word punch part, but took them out to fit the image, and forgot to stick them back in. I added shimmerz and blingz to her wings, flowers, and hearts on the shirt. I wasn't able to capture a good photo of that tonight. I used Regal rose ink with So many scallps, and SU's scallop punch. All in all, what a stinking darling image! I love those stamps from Elisabeth Bell!

Three in One!

Dudes, I did three challenges on these cards! The layouts are the Friday sketch challenge from Amy R's blog, Sparkle's Christmas Challenge, and completed Barb's challenge use scraps only! (Only one card is made from scraps.) No idea how I pulled it together on one of the cards, but I did! LOL! After peaking in on Sparkle's cards for the day, I grabbed TAC's Perky Penguins. Than flipping thru my binder of stamps, I saw some snowmen I haven't used in ages, so I used one of those sets. I used the same sketch on both cards, and both cards were colored with Primsa colored pencils, and Koh-i-noor pencils.

My blue card uses only scraps of DP paper. They were scraps left over from Gabi's Nutcracker scrapbook page last week. Than I used scraps of cardstocks to mount the pattern paper. The pattern paper is from DCWV Christmas Glitter Stack. The snowflakes were buttons I found at Joann's, and forgot I had picked them up. They were a perfect touch on this card. I used some glitter from Martha Steward that I got on clearance. I like it's bigger for the snow under my penguin.

The snowman card is paper pieced from a retired line of TAC paper. I think I'm down to my final sheets of this stuff too. This paper has a nice traditional feel to it, a little different from my bright colors. I dusted each cut piece with SU's Close to Cocoa pad. I used one of the new EK punches from Michaels for the bottom piece. I always love when Trudy uses TAC's Running Stitches, on cards, so I pulled out today. It adds just a nice touch to a card. I need to use it more often. I used SU's Ruby Red, Old Olive, and Creamy Caramel cardstock.

And one quick shot of Gabi today. She had a birthday party to go too. Anyone with little girls knows how popular American Girl dolls are. The party was for a tea party, and you bring your favorite doll. Gabi wanted to dress like doll, so I took a quick photo before she left the house. Note the matching shoes. I helped pick out the dress, as she has one that is exactly the same, but I knew the birthday girl had the same dress and was wearing it today. Gabi's so funny, as she's walking down the stairs she goes, "Oh, it is the same design." I wanted to say back, "Yea, why do you think I picked it out for you to wear?!" I was nice and I didn't say it! She even picked out matching shoes for them to wear. So cute!

Mimi Mouse

Kim was sweet enough to send me some of these images from TAC's Mice Day, and I had just under an hour to play today. I haven't had much free time this week. Book fair at the school so I've been helping out there every day, and had to be back up there at 5:30 for round two. On top of that this week, we redid our bonus room, which meant I had to re-organize my stash. That's a total chore for me! I added more storage to my area with a dresser we had altered to be a tv stand since we had gotten a new tv stand on Monday, so the extra storage is good for me, but figuring out should go where is so not my thing. I know some folks love to organize and get things in place, but that's not me! I'm still working some things trying, but the desk was clear enough for me to use this afternoon.

I pulled out my Mimi SWIC pack from TAC. Mental note, I need more. That gave me the title for the post, Mimi Mouse! Hee hee, love that title! I love this this paper pack, it's one of my favorites. Pink, green, shades of brown! It's heavenly! Perfect for my little mouse friend too! It's also a nickname for one of my sisters. Back to the card, I use Primas colored pencils to color her. Followed a sketch on Monday Mojo. Than I added pink shimmerz to her coat and ears, and stickles to her purse and eyes. Such a fun image! Thanks, Kim!

Supplies: TAC Mice Day, Mimi SWIC, SU Rose Red and Close to Cocoa cardstock, Mimi ribbon, prima flowers, punch from Michaels, shimmerz, stickles.

Quick photo here, I always find our cat Blondie passed out on Trey's pillow at night. She is the best cat ever as far as kids are concerned. This cat has been shaved by him, stalked, hunted, chased, flung over the shoulder, sprayed with Oderban-that happened before he tried to shave her one day, and she still loves this boy! I had to take a photo of them for him. She got disturbed by me and looked up. Aren't they were so sweet in the bed together?

Two in one.

Finally got a Christmas card done today. I pulled everything out this morning, and got side tracked with Mario Kart Wii. Gabi is killing me on that game! She's won all kinds of stuff, and when ever I get something, she goes, oh, yea, I've already got that! Geez! She's nine and kicking my rump on the game! Such a fun game! I don't know if you all have a Wii, we love our Wii, and find it's great entertainment for us! Mario Kart is a favorite in our family. Than we had to head out to get Trey some baseball pants. His first game is this weekend! I can't wait to see him play. He seems so into it, and Daddy is coaching!

Anyhow, Sunday's are Sparkle's Christmas Card Challenge. Today I only manged to get one card made, and I used TAC's Joy of Christmas. I thought this set would work well for scrapbook pages as well. Than I used Amy R's sketch from Friday. I found some Martha Stewart glitter kits on clearance after Christmas, so I put some of that on the bigger snowflakes cut out with nesties. It's a chunkier type of glitter called snow. I sprayed the Joy image, and the smaller punched snowflakes with Glimmer Mist. The DP is TAC's Reese SWIC. The card base is SU's Ruby Red. Ink is SU Ruby Red, and Chocolate Chip.

Gabi and the Nutcracker

Did some scrapping last night. I'm a bit behind and need to do some to catch up. Like I still have the First day of school to do for both kids! This page is for Gabi's scrapbook. Gabi's dance studio did the Nutcracker over the holidays. Normally, Gabi's not a big fan of ballet, as she likes "music with words". Two Christmases ago, we watched her friends dance the Nutcracker, and she decided this past year she wanted to do it. She tried out, and was selected to be an angel. That meant I had to use TAC's Just Dream set for this page. I love when stamps and scrapping go together so well! The best part is being able to color it to match your papers. I hate finding stickers that are great, but they're in off colors from what I need to work with my page. Stamps makes it so I can make it how I need it to be! Makes me happy!

All went well with the dance,and this year they had professional dancers join them for this show. The girls were silly about the male dancers. Guess they saw too much of the goods, and they thought they needed pants. Oh, to hear them talk was so funny! The professionals did such a nice job, and the ladies costumes were so pretty! Gabi had a sweet part in the show where she got to walk out with the Sugar Plum Fairy. The worst part of the dance was that the angels all managed to tear their wings. Gabi tore hers during practice. Momma wasn't happy! By the end all four angels had holes in the wings!

They hosted a sweet little tea party to meet the professional dancers. We took some photos while we were in there with the ballerinas. The young girl in the lavender costume was the soloist for Gabi's group. I lose track of who is who in this ballet, so I'm not sure what her part was. The young ladies in white are Gabi's friends from school, who were in a different routine than Gabi. Those little white outfits were so pretty!

The buttons on the faces of a few of the girls are because I wasn't sure if the parents would mind me putting a photo of their kid on line. I called two of my friends to ask before posting the page to make sure they wouldn't mind having their kid put on here. My snowflakes are done with nesties snowflake dies. I used that cool glitter paper I found at Target. I love that stuff! I added shimmerz, and man, I always want to call this something wrong, blingz on the angel wings and dress. The papers are the Christmas Glitter stack from two seasons ago.

Cuties Galore!

Man, I've had the best morning! I haven't done a darn thing, well, outside of the kids bathroom. I went to my crafting desk, and just had a good time! I've been dying to play with these darling girls from Mabelle's Dear Friend set in the TAC Serendipity. Kim was sweet enough to send me some images to play with a while back. These girls are darling! I didn't want to cut up any of the ones she sent, so I used the balloons off StampinBella's Balloonabella to get the extra popped up balloons. The paper is Lilly Anna from TAC. Love the bright colors in that paper pack! This card measures 4.5x4.5.

For my next sweetie, I used a sketch off SCS's sketch challenge. I used Caitlyn papers from TAC. I love the colors in this pack of paper. I added some punched out butterflies to her. I have a blank spot in the top, which will hold a sentiment at some point. I'm not sure if I'll use it for Teacher Appreciation week or a Mom's day card. I think it would work wonderfully for both.

Last for the day, I feel in love with this set when I saw it in the new SU catty. I think it's got something to do with the cats with the little girls. I think the cats in the hat is a precious concept. Reminds me of when our cats were kittens hiding in the laundry basket! I made this one last night, but couldn't get a good photo of it. I found a layout on Mojo Monday for it, but something went wrong with my card! LOL! That happens often! I used Basic Grey's 6x6 Two Scoops.

Supplies: TAC Dear Friend, Lilly Anna and Caitlyn papers, SU Kind Day, dew drops, shimmerz, stickles, nesties, EK punches, lyra water color crayons, MS punch, Wild Wasibi, Rose Red cardstock, stampin bella stamp.

Gabi's Anya, along with Momma's

Gabi must have enjoyed making her card the other day so much, she started without me today! To the point where she applied her background paper with wet tube glue, and cut it by hand with scissors! When she handed it to me, I was like, kiddo, you don't want to use that type of glue! Bless her heart, she didn't think it was safe to use the paper cutter without me, and didn't dare touch my tape! Smart girl!

Mental note, must look for a kid safe paper trimmer for her. Does any one know of a kid safe paper trimmer? Or do you have kids who use it without any problems? But she had the card all ready to go before I even sat at my desk!

Tammi was sweet enough to send me some Anyas to play with. I shared one with Gabi, as I figured they'd be her style. She was so proud of herself when I put her last card on my blog, and saw the sweet comments about it. Thanks for making her day, ladies!

Than since I was sharing Anya with her, I had to play along too! My, oh my, I can see these girls are on my list! They are way darling! Gabi says this one looks like her friend, Krista. I used Sabrina paper pack from Michaels. I got the layout off Monday Mojo. I love how this card turned out! I used my circle nestie to cut the bottom. Added some shimmerz on her purse, shirt, and stickles to her headband.

Please forgive the blurry-ness to the top two photos. I have a flashing battery light, but figured it would still be okay to take a few more photos. It looks like its really time to change them!

Supplies: SU pretty in pink, Sabrina paper pack, Anya image, shimmerz, lyra water color crayons, nesties, velvet ribbon, stickles.

Sparkle Trees for Week 15

Sparkle's challenge this week for her Christmas Card Challenge was to make a monochromatic green card. When I saw that, I knew what TAC sets I would want to use. I love so many of TAC's Christmas sets. I think those are my favorites in their catty. Her challenge today made me think of Christmas trees, so I grabbed Simply Christmas, Holiday Magic, and Joy of Christmas, giving me three trees to use. (When I pulled out my sets, I kept thinking I had a new tree, but couldn't figure out where it was. Had to pull out my catty to see which set it was, and remember it was the Joy of Christmas. So not telling hubby that story! He'll tell me I have too many stamp sets!) Anyhow, years ago I made a card using just greens, and those trees, so it meants I would be remaking that card. This is that card. It's hard to see the double stamped trees in the background. I had fallen in love with Chartreuse Palette Ink pad. Still love that color!

For today's trees I used Versamagic spots in Pesto, Sage, and Nigra Mist. I used Willoughby SWIC paper line from TAC, and DCWV cardstock. This card is very soothing, and much softer on the eyes! I like the bright colors you can find in stores at Christmas time, but my hubby is more traditional when it comes to Christmas decorations, so this card would suit him perfectly. One of my favorite paper lines from TAC was Merry Wishes, I loved those bright colors! Possibly because I scrap too, and the daughter always wears pink! Back to the card, I masked off the trees to get the laying look. I embossed them with sparkly embossing powder, so they have a little shimmer on them.

Supplies:TAC Magic of Christmas, Joy of Christmas, Simply Christmas, Willoughby SWIC, Versamagic ink Hint of Pesto, Nigra Mist, Sage, embossing powder, DCWV cardstock, Haystack palette ink pad, close to cocoa ink pad,

Another Lily Card, and a Gabi Creation

I saw a fun layout over on Amy R's Blog. It's a cold, rainy day here today, so I had to make a card that was the total opposite of that! Since I had gotten my Lily stamps from Amy's website, I figured I'd used the Lily set for the layout. Plus, my first round with this image, which came off Pink Cat Studio's blog off the printer, I ready to take her on again, hoping I'd do a better job coloring her today than the last time. I don't have Copic markers, so water coloring off printer ink, not an ideal situation for me! I'm pleased as punch with this card! Also, please check out Amy's Blog because this layout is also a chance for a drawing from her! So, check out that blog, and try the layout. The layout was fun, the flowers were a nice touch too. I have a ton of flowers, but seems like I never grab for them. And cool fact, most of the flowers on this card came from Kim, when she had me as a secret sister. I put them to good use on this card!

My daughter, Gabi, has ADHD, and one area where she seems to struggle is with her handwriting. It's not neat by any means. It improves with her meds, but she could still use some encouragement. So, I told her, sneaky momma here, I'd give her some lessons on coloring and making cards. That got her excited, but the secret plan was maybe if I got her coloring images in smaller circles, I could get her muscles and concentration better, which will help with handwriting. I let her look at my papers, and normally she'd go for pink, but she grabbed the pack that Linda surprised me with. Than she picked out two sheets, and the striped sheet because it pulled you into the center. So, this was what we came up. Hoping this type of encouragement will reap rewards with school work as well. Oh, side note, took her to the DR for a wellness check up. She's nine, and I have 9.5 inches before she's as tall as me! LOL! Than I had to use some bling on her card, because the girl is all girl! She was in awe over the cuttle bug, and watching the nestie cut it out, and in her words, oh, I love scallops! So funny! My friend, Dawn, laughs at the kids, because at our Kids Nights, she can't get them to leave the crafting table. Says they're just like their momma!

Supplies: Lily card-DCWV Spring Stack, SU Old Olive cardstock and ballet blue, lyra water color crayons, PCS Lily, Ribbon Joann's, nesties, stickles. Gabi's card, paper pack from Linda, Gingersnaps Valentine stamp, nesties, stickles, sentiment from TAC tag tidbits.

Lily is Stinking Cute!

Goodness, got to play today with Lily from Pink Cat Studio. I love this Fairy set! So stinking cute! I went a little over board from what I normally do on a card. I love how it turned out! I used the Spring Stack from DCWV. The cardstock base is PTI's Raspberry Fizz. I found the ribbon at Joann's. They have this end cap thing full of it, and it's all of a dollar. They have loads of different colors, sheer, satin, some have plaids, dots, I just love this ribbon, and for a buck, ya can't beat it!

I am a little disappointed that my lilly pad is off center. I ran it thru the nestie trying to crop out part of her head, and I guess I didn't line it up well enough. Oh, well, the joys of handmade! I added Pixie Dust Glimmerz to her wings, Pink Shimmerz to her dress, and some stickles to the ribbon on her dress, and the flower. Layout is based on a Monday Mojo Challenge, but I never seem to leave room for sentiments on the front of my cards. I need help with that!

I popped up part of the lilly, the froggie's head, flower, and part of her arm is up, and the other end is glued down. I also layered the flowers on her headband, but they're glued on, not popped out.

Supplies: Enchanted Lily from Pink Cat Studio, DCWV Spring Stack, PTI Raspberry Fizz cardstock, nesties, glimmerz, shimmerz, stickles, lyra water color crayons, nesties,

Edited to add: You all need to go peak at this link! TAC is holding a contest open to all paper crafters, but you must use their products! So, be sure to click on that link to find out more. Could win $100 worth of TAC stamps!

70 Big Ones!

Been a busy week this week. Trey started T-Ball. Man, how cute are 4 and 5 year olds excited to play the game? Trey's six, his first time playing T-Ball, and his Daddy is coaching for the first time with him, too. Than Paul asked me to help out this week training a new Office Manager, so I haven't been able to play along with some of my favorite Blog Challenges this week. Things should calm down some next weekend, but than I have to catch up on all the things falling behind at home from being out of the house so much this week.

I had to take some time out to make a quick card for someone special. We have a host at our Chick-fil-A named Mr. Wade. He and his wife both work for us hosting in our dining room. Such sweethearts. Anyhow, his birthday is Monday, and he's turning 70! I just had to make him a card. I saw on Kim and Tammi's blog a way fun layout from Mojo Monday, so I tried it. Got my buttons in the wrong spot, but the image took up alot of space, and it would have been too crowded on that side. I used Basic Grey's Boxer line, and Brocade Blue cardstock. I used an image sent to me by Linda, from Whiff of Joy. Thanks, Linda!

Supplies: SU scallop punch, brocade blue cardstock, Basic Grey Boxer paper, nesties, crystal glaze, scrappers floss in black.

Simple and clean

One of my sets of in laws lost their pet this past week. Taz was a big boy. He weighted 28 pounds! He was greatly loved, and lived 14 fab years being spoiled by them. He was my FIL's baby. It was a little sudden, as he got sick on Sunday, had surgery to fix what looked like a cyst, poor thing didn't make it thru the recovery after surgery. I had seen the With Sympathy set from Paper Trey Ink, and being a pet lover, I knew I wanted the set for pets as well. I sat down tonight to make them a card letting them know we're thinking about them. It's so hard to lose someone you love, and fur babies touch your lives in ways that can surprise you sometimes. I thought this cat from TAC's Playful Kittens made for a sweet cat to put with the nice sentiments from PTI. I used Sand's of Time paper line from TAC.

Trey had a birthday party on Sat for a fellow classmate. I love this boy set from Elzybells. Trey loves skateboarding. Makes for perfect cards for little boys. I didn't put a lot of bling on there, because I have yet to find a male in my world who appreciates that! LOL! The paper is from a K&Co set that I haven't seen at Michael's recently. The sentiment is from a retired TAC set called Hang loose. Solid cardstock is from SU, Ballet Blue, and Tangerine In color.

Both images where colored with Koh-i-noor and primsa colored pencils and rectangle nesties.

For everything else, there's Master Card!

This is one of those golden cards! Ya know, you find the cutest paper on sale 40% off, but none of your stamps 'go' with it! So, than you just gotta get a stamp set to 'go' with the paper that you got on sale! So, in the end, you really spent 40% more than the paper started at full price! LOL! This would be this card. I found this darling line from DCWV at Joann's called Green, made from recycled papers. Such cute animals in there. So cute I wish DCWV had made stamps out of them! But I didn't see that any where. So one day I was lurking around online, and found a darling forest set at The Greeting Farm. It went perfectly with the paper! (Man, let me tell ya, she's got some super, uber fast shipping too! Showed up in no time! Gotta love that!) Anyhow, I'm looking forward to making another card with these two things. Oh, I grabbed another one of those cool new punches at Michaels. I used it on the card.
Supplies: DCWV cardstock, and pattern paper(Green), EK punch, nesties, dew drops, stickles, koh-i-noor and primsa colored pencils, paper piercer-hard to see in photo, Greeting Farm Forest Friends stamp set.

Bling on, Baby!

I'm so loving my free time from having completed the yearbook! I had some Pink Cat Studio stamps come in today. I got Enchanted Lily and Lily and Tweet! Such cute sets! So hard to decide which ones to play with first! I had another set come in from another company today too, and I'm hoping to make something with it tomorrow!

I paper pieced all the presents with a Winter stack of DCWV. I love some of their smaller pads, which are just 6.5x4.5 because the patterns are smaller, and ideal for cards. Plus, I found it on clearance at Joann's so I just had to get it! Than I use the Koh-I-Noor pencils, and primsa pencils to color in the image. I put on Pixie dust glimmerz on the bows, and added stickles to the swirls on the biggest package. It's shimmers so nicely! I also added Liquid pearls for her earrings, and Tweet's necklace. I got the layout off Mojo Monday.

Than I have to post this card. It came today from my MIL, who is a new stamper. I love getting people excited about this hobby, and giving them a creative outlet that they've been looking for. My FIL says I've created a monster! LOL! He has no idea! Wait til she starts to hoard papers! But I was so proud to see how she's doing, and trust me, my early cards didn't look this nice! She hasn't been shown anything in about two years, as we live 14 hours away and own a restaurant. On this card she dry embossed, water colored, added stickles, and ribbon! And in a cute layout! She should be very proud, and I knew you all would give her some big woo hoo's on her lovely card! I gave her some links on line to help her learn more about paper crafts.

Supplies: Nesties, Pink Cat Studio, glimmerz, stickles, primsa and Koh-I-Noor pencils, DCWV Winter stack, prima flowers, liquid pearls.

Editing this, because I'm seeing a blank page....has this ever happened to someone before?

Fluttering Willow

I turned in all the yearbook stuff today, sent it off on line to be published, so I'm free at last! I love doing the yearbook, but it amazes me how much time it takes. Could be I'm just overly particular about how it comes together! Anyhow, I think it turned out really nice, and hopefully, the parents and kids will all love when they get their hands on it too! I did have a reading engagement with Gabi's class as a guest reader for Dr. Seuss week at our school, so I started my card before three, and I'm just now finishing it up. Lost was on today, so not stamping when Lost is on!

On A Whiff of Joy Challenge it was Lavender and lace. I didn't have a lot of lace, so the most I had was Martha's punch. Lavender Lace is one of my favorite SU colors, so my card base is that color. Than it's got an itty bitty butterfly on there, and a butterfly charm, so I think it might barely make it for Danni's Flutterby cards! Barely though! LOL!

Supplies: SU Lavender Lace, Old Olive cardstock, SU ink-baja breeze, bordering blue, lyra water color crayons, shimmerz, Whiff of Joy stamp, TAC sentiment-fixed after the photo was taken, nesties, Martha punch, papers from Linda.

Funky night with a snow day!

Last night the news was all about the snow heading up from the south. We were watching to see if it was actually, seriously gonna get near us. They called for a major snow storm back in Jan, and it never happened! Funny thing was the news was all hyped up about it that they called off schools to have nothing land on the ground in the form of snow! Well, at ten-ish last night we lost power. House went dark!

I'm not the most organized person, and the kids tend to grab flash lights. Paul and I spent 20/30 minutes looking for flashlights or matches with our cell phones! Such a funny sight! He had left the lighter stick outside, so it was wet from all the rain yesterday. I haven't had matches in the house in the longest time, so there was a small shot of us having them, and them being in the junk drawer.

Yea, that was fun going thru with a cell phone! I didn't find any. Paul found a flashlight in the garage. At some point he passed it off to me, and I found a pack of matches in the junk drawer, and we had light again via candles. But I was right in the middle of Brothers and Sisters, and I have no idea what happened to Hottie Rob! I hope they didn't kill him off! So, we passed the time playing Phase 10 until I was ready for bed. Hard to sleep without my white noise making fan! Power stayed off until 9 this morning. Coarse I was all worried about waking up, and making sure we made it to school on time, and Paul was concerned about the openers at the restaurant, so he was set to get up to be at CFA by 5. Neither of us slept well. Image trying to find out if you have school with snow on the ground and no power! Can't watch the local news, and the phones are connected by powercords too! Paul ended up calling me from Chick-fil-A, so I had him look it up on line there! LOL!

Kids where exited when they woke up to the snow! It's was that fun, wet, fluffy kind of snow too! The trees looked so pretty! First snow all season, will surely be the last one this season, and for the year. Note Trey's 'snowball' he made! That boy is full of tall stories! I need to write these down and make a book out of it when he's older! Hope you enjoyed the lovely photos of our adventure today! Gabi had to make a snow angel. That's her favorite thing to do when it snows outside. And one kitty was brave enough to venture into the snow. Miss Blondie! I swear, that cat is part dog! She was out about the entire time the kids were. Thankfully, the county made the call today to open later tomorrow, so they don't have to be at school until after ten! That'll be nice for Momma! Coarse, I'm already trying to figure out how I'm gonna get these two to blend on a scrapbook! Trey's got red and orange and Gabi's decked in pink, with a splash of purple! Sheesh! That's gonna be an interesting scrapbook page!

Lovely Trees in the Old World

For Sparkle's Christmas challenge this week, we were given free reign. I love those cards you see with the naked trees in winter. Funny story to share about SU Lovely as a Tree set. I've been a SU customer for many years, and years ago, they ran a special with that set at a discounted price. I thought, ugh! A tree set?! (Wait, this gets better!) A friend was at the workshop, and she was gonna get it. So, myself and another friend, who were "more experienced stampers" picked on her selection for a good hour, telling her not to get it because she'd never use it. Coarse she stuck to her guns, and she purchased it. And what showed up in the gallery next at SCS? Tons of lovely cards with that set! Smack on the forehead with a big D'oh! Than I don't think my friend who got the set has ever inked the sucker! I tried to 'borrow' it once, but she didn't know where it had gone in her house! Isn't that just ironic?

Anyhow, I'm way cheap, so since years ago they had it on special, I have refused to buy it. I'm such a nut! And I love how the cards always turn out when people use that set. So, when I saw a stamp at Joann's recently that looked close enough to the naked trees at 40% off, I grabbed it. I've talked about Michelle's Zindorf's style before, love it, so I had to make a pretty sky. I didn't use the brayer, just sponges today. I used a sketch from Amy R's blog on that card. What I really like about this card is that I used two sheets of DP that aren't wintry at all. The blue sheet is from TAC's Caitlyn paper line, which feels like spring time to me. And the other is from DCWV Green line of recycled papers.
Than for my second card, I used an image that was sent to me for my birthday. Tammi sent me this one. I know she'd do a much better job on this cutie, but I had fun coloring her today. This style reminds me of the Old World from Europe. I used some TAC paper called Reese, and some Basic Grey paper. I had a hard time getting a clear looking photo of the image. Sorry about that.

Supplies: TAC papers, Basic Grey, DCWV, PTI Ripe Avocado cardstock, lyra water color crayons, stickles, silver bells shimmerz, punch from Michael's, ink from SU-pink pirouette, bordering blue, baja blue, cameo coral, night quite navy, close to cocoa, creamy caramel, so saffron, Palette Noir, Martha punch.