It's Been Awhile

Yes, as you can see my previous post was back in January.  Work was busy for awhile, then I was not feeling well for awhile.  Now, I'm on some thyroid meds and iron and about three weeks into taking those I felt "normal" again. 

I did, however, keep checking out Mojo Monday and when I saw this I thought I knew where I'd go with it. Graphic 45 is always fun to work with.  

Here is the Mojo Monday 340 Sketch

 And here is the card I came up with.  When I saw this cute sentiment, I just had to get it. It's from a stamp company I had never heard of before.  I picked it up at my LSS Picture This.  I tried finding the name of the company but my scrap table is a little messy at the moment. 

Thanks for taking time to stop by.  Hope your upcoming week is Awesome!  

PS Oh, and if you'd like to stop by my friend Kelly's blog, she has some blog candy.  

Snowing in April

Yes, it's April 14 and it looks like a blizzard out my windows.  I wonder if we're going from winter to summer or winter to fall?  One of my cousins went to Nevada for a warm getaway.  She posted about not being sure if she wanted to come back to Wisconsin.  She got a few responses, but the cutest one came from her mom.  She posted something to the effect of since you've been gone we've had spring, summer and fall and now it's winter again.  

Lately my mojo has been on fire...well maybe not to that extreme, but it's been good.  Really weird since my mood has been pretty much in a funk.  I'm not sure why, but I just don't feel up to much.  Thankfully being crafty is so good for the soul.  Way back in college I remember asking someone what they were studying and they said Art Therapy. I thought it was cool, but never imagined the depth of how it actually heals until the past few years.  Reading about Melody Ross and joining the Brave Girl's Club has helped me immensely.  She too went through a lot in her life. Suffering one loss is difficult enough, but having to go through more than one is quite a test to one's soul.  I really wish I could help people the same way Melody and her crew do.  Maybe one day in the future I will be able to help people who like me have been through so much and are working to keep moving forward. 

Guess it's time to show you what I've been up to.  I have seen some great pages, projects and cards made with Graphic 45's Secret Garden line.  So I thought it would be fun to see what I could come up with it.  With Mother's Day just a little less than a month away I thought I'd make some cards for moms. So here are some of them.

A window card with matching envie

My first card using Secret Garden

Window card with embossed frame popped up with mounting tape

Inside of above card 

Gatefold card  

Inside of Gatefold card using a paper doily

Embossed Z-fold card - love using die cuts 

Inside of Z-fold card - with a place for a sentiment or your own wishes

Last month I received a nice surprise, more of my cards sold at Colfax Arts and A ntiques Mall. So I want to get more cards to them.  Also, I've started a page on Facebook to showcase and sell my cards.  You can find my Handmade Greeting cards page here.

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope your week is wonderful and that a warming Spring is on it's way soon!

Croswell LO

I finally finished my layout of the Croswell Opera House in Adrian, MI. I had been thinking of what current photos could be used with the wonderful Graphic 45 paper and I remembered the pix of the Croswell and some of the storefronts nearby. So I looked at some sketches and tried to come up with some idea of what I wanted to do. I liked the paper I chose one from Fashionista, one from Communique and then the Collage Press shaped paper sealed it! I did lots of distressing with inks, the metal edge of a ruler and an emery board. Of course I had to do some paper tearing too, to make it look extra distressed! At first I had a semi circle around the photos, but then thought of my grungeboard and voila! I inked the grungeboard with Fired Brick distress ink and then inked it with Vintage Photo for a deeper distressed look. I put that all down and then remembered the mini bingo cards from Jenni Bowlin Studios and had to add one. The Walt Disney quote is from the Communique paper. I had hoped to have more layers...but am pretty happy with the end result. Sometimes I think it's hard for me to do all the frou frou stuff because I have boys and was a bit of a tomboy myself. Who knows??
June 4 Tim will be starting all the prep for the drug trial(s) he will be in. They are either Stage 1 or Stage 2 trials. So it will be back up to Karmanos for that. June 12 he is going to have genetic counseling done. He is to get all his family's health information and cause of death and age at death I think. Then he will have a genetic family tree for his son and the rest of his family. One thing good is Karmanos has about 60 drug trials for the cancer Tim has been dealing with so if one isn't working they will move him onto the next. He saw his Chemotherapy Oncologist on Friday and he let Tim know that if he needs anything to give the clinic a call. The sad thing is that his oncologist will be retiring in June. But there are other well qualified oncologists in the clinic that will be able to help us out. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Also, remember the Cutest Craft Giveaway at The Original Scrapbox. You can vote for me once a day! I would so love to win that awesome EZ View Desk. Look at all the storage space in that wonderful piece of furniture. Gosh I think that would help me to be more organized. I mean I bought a microwave stand to hold our George Foreman grill and also have a place to put staple items like canned goods and pasta in the cabinet underneath. Well the George Foreman isn't on the stand. You know whats on the stand? You guessed it scrapbook stuff! Because my laptop is at my scrap table and needs to be used by Mitch for school and occasionally by Noah to contact friends. In order to scrap/make cards I have some of my stuff in the dining room so I can work on the table there!

Well that's it for now. I hope you're all having a wonderful long weekend! Tomorrow evening we're headed over to my friend Priscilla's for a cookout. Oh and I just want to mention that you should check out the Hero Arts Blog on Monday. They are looking for those who are willing to help out Cards for Heroes and "have something really cool up their sleeves." I'm sure I'll be there as I feel Cards for Heroes is an AWESOME cause!

Goodies

Well I've been told I should post my experience at Scrappy Chic and the goodies I got. Thanks honey! We stopped at Scrappy Chic in Livonia MI on our way to Karmanos Cancer Center on Thursday. When I walked in I was greeted and then so were the guys, I think the clerk was surprised to see two men with me! Mitch joined us for the trip. I looked around a bit and she asked me if I was looking for something in particular and I said yes, the Graphic 45 paper. So she showed me where it was and I picked up what I thought I could use. I'm hoping to use it for some vintage photos. So family please scan and send some vintage photos to me. smiles. I also have been looking on sb.com to see what other people are using their Graphic 45 paper for and see that some are using it for current photos too. Scrappy Chic is just full of goodies and it took awhile to pick out what I wanted. I had some coupons so I knew for sure a couple of things I wanted to pick up. I saw a Crafty Secrets stamp set I wanted. I know only the pkg is shown in the photo because I'm already trying to create something with it and I want it to be a surprise. I also like Scrappy Chic because they carry paper lines that you don't see to often in scrapbook stores or at least not the ones I've been to. In Toledo and just over the border into MI all the scrapbook stores have closed. There are only big box stores like: Michael's, Hobby Lobby and JoAnn fabrics. There is a woman who has a store in her basement that I go to once in awhile, but she is only open once a week and although she has quite a bit of goodies she doesn't have the room for a lot of different stuff. Ok back to the goodies, I also got some mini bingo cards from Jenni Bowlin, some Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday and a CC spinner card. I think it's cute because you can use it for your layout theme/journaling. I also picked up two shaped papers from Collage Press. My biggest purchase that doe was the Scor-Pal. I've been wanting one for awhile, but didn't really want to order it and pay shipping. So just before check out I picked it up and decided to use one of my coupons for that. I think my cards will look a bit more professional with it. My dear friend Carolyn says I will use it a lot. She said at first she didn't remember to use hers, but once she started she said she uses it all the time now. If you stop by her blog PMS, Etc. you will see the cute backpack she created with her Scor_Pal. So here are the goodies:



I'm sure we'll stop at Scrappy Chic every so often as Tim has committed to going to Karmanos for the drug trials. They offer 60 different drug trials, way more than the two offered at Cleveland Clinic. Karmanos Cancer Center is at Wayne State University in Detroit MI. While we were there I told Mitch that Wayne State does offer a theater program. He said he wouldn't mind living in Detroit. We also noticed that the planetarium is right there and they have a Star Trek exhibit until September of this year, so I'm sure we'll go there for a visit too. We took the camera along, however the batteries decided to die before I could take my first photo! I looked before we left to see if we had batteries to take along, but couldn't find any. However, as you know the photo above was taken with a camera...I found some batteries and even set the settings on the camera this time. It's Tim's camera so I'm always a bit wary of settings, etc. I don't want to break or harm anything!

Well that's it, I just want to say I really enjoyed my visit at Scrappy Chic. I think the gal was very friendly and helpful. Hope you have a wonderful Saturday! It's gloomy and wet around here. The wind looks like it's picking up too. Oh well I guess it's a good day to play with my goodies! :D