New Member of The Hens Den

Merry Christmas everyone !!  I hope you are all enjoying this wonderful day - I am just blessed beyond words and thank God daily for each of them.  This year has given me and my family many obstacles but with the help our faith, family and friends, it has gotten us through.  I am excited about the new year and ready to  get started.

Speaking of excitement and the new year, I have some very wonderful news to pass on.  A few weeks back, I received an email from Charlie over at The Hens Den asking me if I would be interested in being a part of her design team and I couldn't say no :)  I am so excited about getting started in January because I can see this is going to be a new beginning for me with regard to my creative process.  There are some great ladies on this team who have different styles and know I can learn so much from their creativity.  Thanks Charlie for letting me be a part of this great team and can't wait to get started.

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas and enjoying your day with family and friends.

Janet

Crafty Friends Challenge Take Two

Good morning everyone:

It's time for another challenge over at Crafty Friends Challenge and I love this challenge (but then I love them all).  It is to create a white card and "add a splash" of color.  I was asked to make some cards for a friend at work and one of them was to create a card for her grandmother with purple in it and this is what I came up with.  Now, after I look at it, it may have too much purple in it for this challenge, but I'm going to go with it.  I have found a new love for lace and can see myself using it more often in the coming days.

Well, I'm off to go learn how to use the inlinkz link manager (I have seen everyone using it and want to give it a try) and then do more creating.  See you soon. Janet

Kidney Christmas

Funny title, uh?

Yeah, that's what I thought when I was asked by a lady from work to create a card for her where "kidneys" was on the front of the card.  She wanted it to be a Christmas card with lots of green, red and glitter, but when she told me what she wanted on the front, I literally asked her 5 times if I was hearing her correctly.  I know she was frustrated when I kept asking her :)  She explained that she has a friend who needs a kidney transplant and she wanted to let him know that she would be willing to give him one of hers if needed.  Now that is true friendship, isn't it?

I didn't have any problems designing the Christmas aspect of the card, but it took me forever to figure out how to get "kidneys" on there, but after several tries, thought of taking stickers I have had forever from Creative Memories (I was telling my friend Stephanie today that I have been using a lot of stuff I have had in my room for ages but haven't used - I am doing much better at using forgotten stuff), putting glitter around the letters and then smudging around them to give it this type of look.  I thought it turned out okay.  I do see after looking at the picture that I need to go back and touch up around the ornaments with some gold as well.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying your weekend.

Janet

Carlene's birthday

Hi everyone:

It has been a very long week for me and I am very glad Friday finally got here :) but I am sitting here thinking Saturday is over already and Sunday is coming way too fast.

My great friend Carlene had her birthday a few weeks back and made her this card.  I used a sketch challenge for this card, but can't remember which one.  I did a new technique (well, to me it was) in that I took some seam binding, wet it and crumbled it up, but it doesn't look like some others that I have seen.  I will have to keep working with that.

Well, I am off - I have been going through my photos to try and clean them out again :)  It seems like every time I sit down to do this, I go, goodness, when did I take this, it's been so long since I have looked through them :)

Have a great one

Janet

Crafty Friends Challenge

Morning all:

Today I was talking with my great friend Beate on Facebook and she showed us a beautiful card that she created for the Crafty Friends Challenge she is hosting this week.  We had talked a while back about Simon Says Stamp because she had created a card using one of their exclusive dies (they are all so wonderful) and of course had to head over and take a look.  I purchased a few of the dies and am finally playing with the curvy snowflake die and thought Beate's challenge would be a great way of breaking it in.  Beate's challenge was to create a clean and simple card, which I thought would be so easy, but to be honest, I don't believe I have created too many clean and simple cards before.  I am so used to layering and putting so much on my card, but must say, I do like doing these.  After I figured out what I was going to do, it took me no time to put this together, which is great.

I hope you all will head over and participate in Beate's challenge.

Have a great day.

Janet

Supplies -    SU whisper white cardstock, SU champagne glitter paper, 

                 SU silver glitter paper

                 Curvy Snowflake die from Simon Says Stamp

                 Small folded banners holiday stamp and banner die

                 SU cherry cobbler ink

                 SU dimensionals

                 want2scrap pearl

Wow, what a day :)

It has surely been busy here, grocery shopping this morning, cleaning up the house, putting up Christmas decorations, creating with Elizabeth, Madison & Halie and cleaning up the house again.  Elizabeth has a craft fair coming up at college this Friday and she asked me to make her some things to sell; so she came over to help me get started.  Here are just a few things we made today.

My good friend Stephanie showed me an ornament she was going to make last week and knew that I must make it for the craft fair Elizabeth was having.  After figuring out how to work the Rosetta die in my cuttlebug machine, I think they turned out very nice.  Thanks Stephanie for letting me borrow them as well as the idea. 

My other good friend Jennifer let me borrow her pillow box die and I am going to work on some fun things tomorrow that I'll be sure and post.

I'm exhausted after all the fun, so I'm going to call it a night :)  I hope everyone has a great evening

Final design team post :(

Today is a sad day for me because it is my last post as a design team member for Cardabilities :(  Karan has been so wonderful and her sketches are always so much fun and amazing to work with.  She has truly made me think outside my box with the ones presented to us.  I do hope you head over and join in all the fun.  I wish the best to the new design team and hope you have as much fun as I did.  Thank you Karan for the opportunity you gave me in being on this great design team.

 

I hope you all have a great weekend.  I am in store of creating some fun projects with my daughter and two wonderful little girls this weekend.  I'll make sure and post pictures of what we do once finished.

Janet

The Pink Elephant scrapbook challenge.

Well, lookey here :)  I was going through some blogs after I did my last post and came across The Pink Elephant's scrapbook challenge and since I have been wanting to get back into that again, decided to drop everything and make a layout.  Now mind you, this isn't the perfect layout, but it's a start and can't wait to do more this week.  My Memories Suite is a wonderful program and is so easy, so if you have been thinking about going digital, give this a try, you'll love it.  TPE's challenge this week is a theme, Happiness.  When I hear happiness, I always think of the Peanuts cartoon and those little books that are titled "Happiness is ..." so I decided to create something like that.  I RARELY put a picture of myself on a layout, but at the beginning of this year, my great friend Lori (who does the TPE challenges) and I were talking about just that thing, so I decided to take a huge step and put my picture on this layout along with a few of the things that make me happy.  There are so many more, but I just couldn't put them all on there, but I can say that God has truly blessed me and I am thankful knowing that He loves me enough to do that.

Have a great Monday.

Janet

Finally ...

Hey everyone:

Man, it's been way too long since I've been on my blog and I have truly missed it.  I do have some good news to start off with - my mother-in-law is doing much better and is now in a rehab center working on getting home.  She didn't suffer from a severe stroke, but does have some loss in your left eye vision, which is okay.  She is a strong lady and determined to get home within 7-10 days.  We thank you all so much for keeping her in your thoughts and prayers and ask that you please continue to do so.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful and so relaxing, which is something we all needed.  While Jim worked in the yard, I worked in my craft area making some cards and little fun things.  I went over to my friend Jennifer's house on Saturday and tried to do something for about 3 hours.  I didn't do much, just watched what she was doing.  She did, however, use my Lovely as a Tree stamp set and what she did was so beautiful, I had to try it out today.  I have come to realize that I have way too many stamps that I haven't even used yet - how sad is that.  We have an abstractor at work who suffered from a heart attach last week and I was asked to make him a get well card, so the Lovely as a Tree set came to mind.  I love it and using it with the blue is just wonderful.

The other thing I did this weekend was something new for me.  I made some 3D projects.  The first is a tiny triangle box using a tutorial from my awesome friend Deb Felts and the second is a note card holder using the tutorial from another awesome friend, Beate Johns (both of these ladies are amazing at what they do and I alwasy enjoy talking with them.  Head over to their blogs and listen to the tutorials and give them a try - they were tons of fun.

Well, I have talked enough, so I'm going to head off and go create some more - I have some baby cards I need to work on.  More soon.

Janet

Patriotic card using Cardabilities Sketch #63

I can't believe it has been two weeks since my last post - where does the time go?  It has been so busy here that I just haven't realized it until today.  Patrick is now finished with marching band (so sad to see it end, but am so excited about next year) and we are trying to get back into an afternoon routine, which is a little more difficult with a 13 year old :)  My mother in law suffered a stroke last week so we have been worried about her and sleep hasn't come easy this week; but I can report that it wasn't a severe stroke, she is doing well and even got up today to do some physical therapy, which is wonderful.  Lastly, my boss is being deployed for six months and tomorrow will be his last day at work until his return.  He was deployed for a year 5 years ago and was so missed, but this time it seems so much harder to watch him leave.  When I looked at my calendar last weekend to see what was going to happen this week, realized that I had a deadline to meet on my design team responsibility so busy I got :)  Monday, November 11th was Veterans Day and it is very special to our family because Jim is a veteran; he served for 4 years in Germany as a military police officer and I couldn't be more proud.  Since my boss is leaving tomorrow, we had a going away get together today for him and his family, so I made a patriotic card for Veterans Day and my boss using Karan's Cardabilities Sketch #63.  I have been enjoying creating with Karan's sketches because each one has allowed me to think outside my box.  This was one of those cards, but I believe it turned out pretty good.  I do hope you will grab this sketch and have fun creating something wonderful.

 

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and I have so much more to post, but for now, I'm going to head out for a while.

Janet

InLinkz.com

Boo and bats ...

It's that time again :)  Are you wondering for what?  It's time for a new sketch over at Cardabilities :)  I do hope you will head over and join us because Karan provided us with another awesome sketch and as in my previous post, our creative design team member Sonia is the sponsor for this month, so I used one of her creations as the background on my card.  Since Halloween is tomorrow, I decided to make a card to celebrate.  I usually don't make Halloween cards, but after seeing Sonia's spiderweb frame, just had to create one.  I used the Spellbinder bats die and it was fun to use.  I have had that thing for almost two years now and this was the first time I used it - I have really got to do better about using things I have :)

 I hope everyone is doing well and will have a great Halloween eve and that you will head over to join us at Cardabilities.

Janet

Marching season is over :(

Gilbert Marching Band season is over :( Our kids did a great job and I'm so proud of each of them. South Carolina sure does have some great bands out there and every single one of those kids, band directors and everyone involved in getting the performances together deserves a big CONGRATULATIONS. As a second time band parent, I am looking forward to another 4 years of wonderful fun and getting to know some great kids. Patrick had a wonderful time his first year and I not only enjoyed the competitions, but just watching him be a part of a great group, was heartwarming to me - there is a permanent smile on his face from all the fun he has had.

Elizabeth came to watch yesterday and here are some pictures we took afterwards - they are such silly kids :)

I won and happy anniversary

I am a little late in posting my awesome news but Patrick had a lower state competition yesterday and a football game Friday, so today was really the first day I could get on to post.  I recently commented on a post from Cas-ual Friday Challenges where Michele had a big announcement coming on October 19th and you could possibly win a big prize.  Well, can you guess who won that prize - I did :)  My friend Michele has started her own line of Cas-ual Friday Stamps and I won the first 5 releases.  I am so excited to get them and start playing with them - I promise to post some pictures of completed creations.

I have been making some cards lately, but just haven't had time to post, so I'm going to try and get started on some of them today.  I came across a wonderful sketch a while back and have been needing an anniversary card to put in my stack of cards to take to one of the stores I have them in and loved this one.  I like the sketch a lot and can see myself using it often.  This was a different color for me, but think it worked out okay.

I hope you have a great Sunday and I'll be back soon.

Janet

Cardabilities Sketch #61

It's that wonderful time again :)  Time for a new sketch over at Cardabilities.  Karan has done it again and provided us with a great sketch to work with.  For my take on the sketch, I used a digi stamp created by one of our own design team members.  Sonia is so creative and has such a talent for creating some fun digi stamps.  In fact, Sonia has generously offered to be the sponsor for our challenges this month, so come on and join in the challenge and in the meantime, head over to SKDigis and shop around :)

 

Don't you just love this digi stamp?  I have been going through some of my old supplies and came across some crepe paper and thought why not use it for this colorful card :)  It was different, that's for sure.

I hope you have a great Monday.

Janet

InLinkz.com