November COTM

I joined a Colorado Stampers group on Yahoo and we managed to squeeze in a round of Card of the Month before the holidays hit. I had so much fun making the card I sent! I had a bit of a challenge getting the background just the way I wanted. I was stamping on a plain ivory card. The first one seemed too busy, the second one seemed like the images were too big. I had already picked what I wanted on the card, so the background stamping had to be just right. Here's the final product ~

This is what I made out of the "rejects" ;) My mentor has taught me that there are no "mistakes" you cannot fix!!

And here is the lovely card I received ~

She even stamped on the back of it!!

Mojo Monday ~ Word Wednesday

I really liked Julee's sketch for Mojo Monday, so I tried it out. The only problem was I really wasn't up to a square card. I didn't feel like cutting one, I didn't have an envelope for one (and I prefer to be able to use all my cards to give to someone) and I didn't feel like making one. Pretty grumpy, eh? Well, I was doing this on the heels of a two day migraine and a week long toothache. :) So, I improvised a little and this is what I came up with.

The sentiment is one of my favorite stamps from PSX - I found it on Ebay, of all places! And it fits with Creativity {unbound}'s Word Wednesday's Challenge! WoooHoo! How cool is that? That have a lot of fun stuff going on all the time, you really should check them out!

As usual, I just threw together a little of this and a little of that. The stamps however are SU A Tree for All Seasons and the punch was Fiskars Lace punch.

Running Straight To Heaven

I found out today that my mom's beloved little dog, Bobo, slipped away from her at a rest stop Monday and was hit by a car. It is a tragic story, my heart is aching for my mom. I cannot seem to stop crying. She is heartbroken and so far away form all the family right now. But she is being surrounded by and with the love of her internet family. One of her readers left the most beautiful comment. It is reproduced here. I sure hope Joan will find this and get in touch with me. I cannot thank you enough for your kind words of comfort to my mom.

Dear Donna,

I just wanted to say how terribly sorry I am about the loss of your dog. It is a horribly painful thing to go through.

Just from reading your blog, it's obvious you gave Bobo all the love and care a dog could want while he was here. The fact that you were literally sick when it happened says volumes about how much he meant to you.

Speaking as a fellow dog owner, there is just no way that you can be in control of everything every minute. I dropped one of my dogs' leashes just yesterday, and the same tragic thing could have happened, or could happen next time.

If it did, I would try to remember that my dogs (both rescued, as I seem to remember your Bobo was) have had good lives that they otherwise very likely wouldn't have enjoyed. Also, that there's no way of knowing what the alternate scenario would have been. There could have been illness or some other kind of unavoidable suffering.

As it was, Bobo surely couldn't have known what was about to happen, since dogs can't really think into the future, or know that something's about to happen because they've heard about it happening to somebody else.

All he could have known was that he was having one of the peak experiences of a dog's life - getting loose and running as fast as he could wherever he wanted to go! And the next moment he was in heaven, just as though he had run straight there. (Most people don't realize this, but there's even a couple of places in the Bible that talk about animals and heaven.)

And how noble of you to have had the grace and generosity, even in the midst of that kind of awful shock, to forgive the driver of the car. That may have saved her from being traumatized for the rest of her life.

I hope that you will be as easy on yourself as possible and give yourself every break you can while you're healing from this heartbreaking experience.

You are doing wonderful things with your life and are a great inspiration and example, and I know I'm one of many whose prayers and best wishes are with you.

Sincerest sympathy,

Joan

November RAK aka "Courtney's Monthly RAK Club"

Wow!!! This is my first participation in a RAK exchange and I am floored by what I received!! I am so terribly late in posting it (I took the picture on the 17th), I feel so ungrateful - but I am not. I was sooooo excited to see what I was given. My RAK partner ~ Danielle Marcus of American Fork, UT ~ was so incredibly generous, I was just amazed!! In the picture you can see the beautiful card she made, along with two sets of clear stamps and a bottle of Liquid Pearls. I haven't had a chance to use any of it yet, but I plan to very soon!! I cannot say enough - thank you thank you thank you!!! (and I thought RAKS were just about card exchanges!)

WCS28 ~ With Sympathy

Over at Fresh and Fun, Beate released her regular weekend sketch for us to play around with. I am probably the latest to post mine. :) Unless some early bird gets up and posts theirs before 9 am. But I knew I wouldn't be up that early!

I had a bit of trouble with this one, since I don't have any circle or oval punches or embellishments. Luckily I do have some stencils for cutting photos. So, I thought about using those to make layers. What I used for the embellishment - well, that was originally a machine made card. ;) I put the stencil over it, traced and cut! It looks like there's a big wrinkle in the paper, but there really isn't. It must be y poor photography. ;)

I unfortunately had need of a sympathy card. So, I made this one especially for her. One of my dearest friends lost her younger (teen) sister this past weekend. It is still being sorted out. Prayers would be greatly appreciated!

JBWW ~ Marine

This week's challenge from JBWW was to make a black and white card with a splash of color. I looked at a few samples, but did not have a large stamp like several of them had used. Luckily, I have these great military stamps from Crazy Mountain Stamps that look great in black ink on white cardstock! Add a little red ribbon and Real Red SU marker and Voila! I will be sending this out this week to some "lucky" Marine. Inside it says "Thank you!"

Ting-a-Ling & a HoHoHo'Lotta Bling!

Sponsored by Terri Conrad Designs

Check out her blog too!!

Come play!!! You can post on her blog every day between now and Nov 24th. Each day a winner will be chosen and the next day the winner's name will be posted to the blog and prize will be awarded!! Have fun.....

Blog Candy!!!

I just found a new blog, Erika Designs!! I added it to my Google reader (only the BEST way on the planet to keep up with all your favorite blogs - no more missing challenges or blog candy or anything else!!!) and entered to win a great prize!! All you gotta do is visit her blog, post which A Muse product is your favorite, then provide a link back to her blog on yours!! Easy Peasy. My favorites are Birch Trees and Deer Pals.

Angel's Weekly Sketch and DP Challenge

I decided to do two challenges at once again. I had been planning to do Angel's Weekly Sketch challenge than I saw that over at JBWW, Sherry had issued a designer paper challenge. So, I figured, what the heck? I'll combine them. Easy peasy says I, right?

Well, I pulled out what I wanted to work with and set to work. Problem was, the DP I picked wasn't long enough for the strips on the side of this sketch.


So, I turned the card sideways. I sure hope that works for you, Angel. I did "faux" stitching with a silver gel pen and used my brand new photo corner punch for the sentiment part!! But if not, not to worry. I wanted to make two cards for these challenges anyway. :) So here's the second one!!






I really had fun with this one. The "stitching" is a stamp from my Thinking of You set. The paw prints I stamped were done in Handsome Hunter. I don't usually color, but I decided to with this one. I used my SU markers for the dog house and bow, then decided to do another bowl and put it on top for a little dimension. The picture's not very good, but the darker strip is actually a hunter green and the doghouse is Always Artichoke. The dog bowl and roof of the dog house is Real Red.


I didn't even realize I was doing it in Christmas colors also. So I guess I kinda' ended up with a non-traditional Christmas card, if I put a Merry Christmas sentiment inside. Right now they're both blank inside. Very useful that way!

Rosey Our Foster Kitty

She appeared one evening on our porch. We had heard about her from the neighbors down the street. They had reported seeing a small Maine Coon looking cat that had been injured somehow. They said it smelled bad, was terribly matted, held it's head crooked and walked kind of sideways. They called it "Sideways kitty." They managed to capture it so I could bring it down to the Max Fund No-Kill Animal Adoption Center, but it was not to be. I was unable to get confirmation regarding our cat capacity. Our friends let the sideways kitty go and it disappeared for several months.

August 20th, she showed up at our place. I was recuperating from ankle surgery, but made it out to the porch where Vance was getting acquainted with her. She didn't look as bad as our friends had described, but we were pretty sure it was her. They had described her as looking like a baby "Tigger" (a neighborhood cat) and she definitely looked like Tigger coulda' been her daddy. She was a tiny thing, not smelly, but certainly matted, and starving. Vance and I gave her some food and some loving and decided to see what would happen. By the third night, we had agreed that we would put her in Harley's kennel and bring her to MaxFund.

We got her down there the next day, but they were too full and could not take her. Since Ryan and I are volunteers there, they asked us if we could hold onto her over the weekend, when they were having a big adoption event. They figured they would have room for her after that. So, she came into our house on Thursday August 23. She stayed until the next Tuesday, then she went to the shelter for treatment.

Rosey taking over the nurse's station at MaxFund

She had definitely been hit by a car. She had neurological deficits, she seemed to have some hearing and sight loss on one side and she has serious balance issues. We had bathed and groomed her, but she was still a pitiful looking thing. She stayed at MaxFund for about 2 weeks. She started out doing better with treatment, but after a while got depressed (we think, it's somewhat typical)and stopped eating. So we brought her home at 4.25 pounds. She quickly found a favorite spot.......






She has since moved up to 5.5 pounds and most recently 6.25 pounds. She is doing so much better and looking so much better than when she first came to be with us. The transformation is amazing!! I will try to find an old picture and post some before and after shots but for now all I have are pics of her looking good! :) She finally has gotten past her need for pure survival and has begun to play. She races around chasing nothing, as well as the various cat toys we have that the older boys have given up on.

She still has problems with vomiting from time to time. And when she gets that way she gets nauseous and doesn't want to eat, so she needs special treatment. Our latest adventure has been giving her shots of anti-nausea medicine. Hopefully that won't last long since she has started eating again (after 2 days without!!).

Beginnings....ends....

I got all the posts (that I wanted) moved over from nannyventure - so it is now gone. It is no longer in my sig line in my emails either. Everything that was there is here- and more. :) I will try to keep this more up to date. With that in mind, here is that latest picture of Ryan. I took it in my friend's back yard. It's his "official" school photo for the year. I get a kick out of taking his "school pictures" myself. :)

Old cards...

I am so behind on posting cards I have made, I am just going to put up a bunch of pictures with a little description. :) These are all cards I made to use for soldiers' birthdays and other occasions. Some times I get the request for the birthday card so close to the birthday, that by the time the card will reach the soldier, it will be late. So all of these are your basic "blank" cards. They are patriotic or at the very least not feminine in design and they might say "hello" or "thinking of you" on the front, but no actual "Happy Birthday" ones.









I made them in sets of four or five with pre-made cards and envelopes. I was trying to get a bunch made up so I could be better prepared when the requests for cards come in and not fall behind. :) I got this great lighthouse stamp that I thought would be really good for all the masculine cards I need to make. So I made a bunch with it. Slight variations.....








I also like to use nature stamps in my cards for guys. Trees, leaves, etc., as you can see. When I ran out of the lighthouse images I had stamped, I made these with the rest of the pre-made cards.

Thoughts on being a veteran....

A mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die in Iraq?"


A mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die in Saudi Arabia?"


A mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die in Kuwait?"


Another mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die in Vietnam?"


Another mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die in Korea?"


Another mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die on Iwo Jima?"


Another mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die on a battlefield in France?"


Yet another mother asked a President ...


"Why did my son have to die at Gettysburg?"


And yet another mother asked a President ...

"Why did my son have to die on a frozen field near Valley Forge?"


Then long, long ago, a mother asked...


"Heavenly Father ..
why did my Son have to die on a cross outside of Jerusalem ?"


The answer is the same ..
"So that others may have life and dwell
in peace, happiness, and freedom."
This was emailed to me with no author.
I thought the magnitude and the simplicity were awesome.


IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS,

PLEASE, PLEASE, FEEL FREE...
TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM !!!