OWH Veteran's Day Blog Hop

**Chances to win - now closed**

Welcome to the Hop! Ok so it isn't actually Veteran's Day today, that was on Wednesday! But you've gotta love that 75 cardmakers have gotten together to promote Operation Write Home. A wonderful cause for our servicemen and women to get handmade greeting cards to send home to family and friends. If you can why not create some cards for Operation Write Home. Do it yourself, have a few friends over or have a card making party. If you don't have the time or just aren't a card maker please consider donating $$ for shipping. Shipping all the wonderful cards overseas does cost quite a bit. You can see for yourself on Operation Write Home's site. Here is the Any Hero card I created.
(Remember you can click on the image to enlarge photo)

I created this with a digi stamp from Fresh Brewed Designs. Heather Dennis is the creator of this wonderful Love Mug image. You can find out more about Fresh Brewed Designs here. Here is my Valentine's card:

I realize my Valentine's card is just a bit different from the usual Valentine's Day Card, but I wanted to use the Bubbly Beauty Cameo. I thought cameo sounded cool after I diecut the image in an oval. This digi stamp comes from Busy Beauties Boutique. My dear friend Carolyn and her friend Thomas create these wonderful images. I followed the Sketch Saturday sketch and just love how this card turned out! You can go to the Busy Beauties Boutique by clicking the image in my sidebar. I know she has some new images in the works, so please be sure to check back again soon! From now until January 8th please consider making Valentine's cards for OWH. Servicemen and women love to send love home. Occasionally you can find a note on the Homefront Blog about a serviceman/woman who sent home a card and the recipient's reaction. Which always warms my heart and gives me the motivation to create more cards for OWH. Also OWH is on Facebook and Twitter so you can follow there to for the most recent updates. It's always great to see Mailroom Monday and Thankful Thursday posts. You will also want to check the Homefront Blog to hop along and see all the wonderful cards created. Some will offer prizes. I will be offering 3 prizes for those who leave a comment. I will choose 3 random names from all those who comment today! One Grand Prize winner will receive 2 images 1 from Fresh Brewed Designs and 1 from Busy Beauties. One winner will receive 1 digi image of their choice from Busy Beauties Boutique and one winner will win 1 digi image of their choice from Fresh Brewed Designs. I will also throw in some goodies, like gems because you know Busy Beauties need some bling. hehehe . If you would like to boost your chances at winning, make sure you stop by and visit the blogs of the following ladies: Carolyn, Catherine, Heather D & Kelly

Here are two Free images to get you started from Busy Beauties & Fresh Brewed

Bubbly Beauty and God Bless Ewe Now hop on over to Heather and see what wonderful cards she's created!

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge & Updates

I've been busy creating cards for Cards for Heroes. I decided to look up One Sheet Wonder to see if I could make some cards quicker. I felt like I was behind in my promise to make some cards for CFH. So I found a couple of templates and thought I'd give them a try. I didn't cut the first one out quite right, turned the paper or something, but of course that doesn't mean that I can't use the paper. So that is why you'll see a few different papers. I started with the one and then went to the other and then decided to add another for some variety. So I can't tell you exactly how many cards I got from one 12x12 page this time. Double sided paper like the MME and Graphic 45 paper I chose works so nicely, because you have more choices. Here are the photos of the cards and the one card works for the Stamptacular Sunday challenge #15.


Here are the rest of the cards that I did. I made these last Monday while at Karmanos. Then I just had to add some decoration to each of the fronts.



I was also able to do a LO of Mitch when he was about 2.5 yrs old. I entered it in the Cosmo Cricket challenge on scrapbook.com. I actually started it last month, but with all that has been going on in our lives it took me this long to finish. I'm glad I was able to use it for this month's challenge which was to have 2 or more photos on the LO.

Also this week Hero Arts has been having some fabulous giveaways to mark their new and improved website and blog. I follow them on Twitter and I re-tweeted regarding their upcoming new and improved site and I won a Design Block. I've been eyeing one up at Hobby Lobby, but just can't swing it right now. So it was so sweet to see that I had won! So excited to see what one they send me. Here is the one I've been eyeing. The only thing is I do not see it in their 2009 catalog. Oh well they have plenty other fabulous Design blocks! So stop by the Hero Arts blog or add Hero Arts to your Twitter to see what you can win!


The second week of Tim's drug trial was last week and things were going well until Thurs night. Tim got a pain in his back/side and it went up to his shoulder/neck on his right side. So when he was still in pain on Friday morning I called his primary doc for an appt. His doc examined him and then prescribed a muscle relaxer. Well by Sunday he wasn't any better, so he called into work. He didn't look good, was sweaty and in a lot of pain. By the time I was ready to go to Adrian to get Mitch he had a fever. He wouldn't let me call 911 so I asked his sister to come over while I ran to get Mitch. On Monday he was to go to Karmanos to have a check up. I had to get a wheelchair to get him up to the fifth floor. Since he wasn't doing well they had to take cultures and then the PA came and checked him out and then sent him for a chest xray and also requested a sinus xray as well. Well when they got that all back and she conferred with the oncology doc they diagnosed him with pneumonia. So he was off work through yesterday and returned to work today. Today was supposed to be OT to make up for missed time. I keep worrying about not working, but then I've also been able to be there and support Tim through all this, so there is definitely a reason I'm still unemployed. On Monday Tim goes again for the drug trial but it will only be about a 3 hr day and we don't need to get there until 11am -noon. Then he'll go again the following week, after that they will do another CAT scan to see how things are going. So please keep Tim and all of us in your prayers.

HM Challenge #39

Challenge #39 over at House Mouse and Friends is Birthday. I blog-hopped at Hero Arts for their Memorial Blog Hop for Cards for Heroes. So I decided that once again I would make and send cards for CFH. While on Cards for Heroes.org I noticed that there was a special projects link and clicking that link I found that they are in need of A9 size cards. If you take a 8.5"x11" piece of cardstock and fold it in half that would be an A9 card. Apparently someone has donated 4000 A9 envelopes and they would like cards to fill those envelopes. So while deciding on what to make for this week's challenge I decided the card would be A9 size.

It was a bit of a challenge for me to figure out what to do for a larger size card, but I think I finally came up with a suitable card. I will make a few more of this size, then I think I'll do some of the A2 size also. I'm at the Spotted Cow in Adrian again and will need to pack up soon here to go get Mitch from the theater, so I will quickly post and add more if I need to later. Please check out Cards for Heroes and participate if you can. :D.

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!

Paper Trunk

Finally today I was able to send my handmade cards for the Cards for Heroes entry. I checked Paper Trunk's blog to see about changing the address to the Cards for Heroes address as I knew it would not arrive by Saturday. I happened to read a couple of their posts and saw that the date was extended until November 1st, so if you're thinking about getting some of your handmade cards to the servicemen and women you have a bit more time.

Noah called from his friend's place tonight to see if he could sleep over. I said you're going to go to school from Dylan's house? He's like yeah. I said you're going to wear the same clothes as you wore today, he said yeah. All of a sudden he started to snicker. I said ok you're coming home right? Thinking he was just teasing me about sleeping over. He says no, there's no school tomorrow can I sleep over at Dylan's? I said sure there is no school, he said there isn't school tomorrow. He said here, hear it from a friend. I'm thinking to myself like I'm going to believe Dylan. I happened to see the school calendar and picked it up, sure enough there is no school tomorrow. I said how come you didn't let me know earlier? He laughed and said he wanted to do it this way. Yesterday he wore my plaid clogs around the house and said these are so comfortable. When he went to his room he kicked them off in the dining room. I said that is not where you found them. He says shhh don't tell mom and heads to his room!

Yesterday I got my first blog award! I was definitely surprised as I don't consider myself an inspiration. I just enjoy what I create...well most of the time. Carolyn is such an inspiration to me, she is a DT member of the House Mouse Monday Challenge blog and always takes time to leave such nice comments on our creations that we submit. Heck, she even takes time to comment when I do not have a creation and has left a few comments on Tim's blog.

Isn't this just the prettiest blog award you've every seen! I guess it's because I'm partial to butterflies and their meaning.


Now, I am to pass this award on to six other inspirational people. There are several people I would like to give this to; unfortunately, I can only choose six. So here goes:

Priscilla of Skraptacular Designs - always an inspiration in many ways!

Staci of Stop It's Scrappin Time - I've loved and been inspired by her work since I first found her on scrapbook.com

Estee of One Ginormous Adventure - not only am I inspired by her creativity on layouts and cards, but she writes some awesome blogs that are featured on Mondays every week on scrapbook.com. Oh and she posts some awesome recipes too, I've tried a few of them myself.

Angela of Here, Now she has some awesome layouts and cards.

Catherine of Inksomnia - she always stops by and comments and like Carolyn, she stops by whether I have a creation or just a post about life. She creates some awesome cards.

Adria of Studio S - she may not post a lot, but her stamping is awesome! She is so creative as well.

So please stop by and check out these awesome bloggers! I'm so glad to have made some friends just by blogging.

Hope you're having a great week and that you have an awesome weekend! Rain is predicted here for our weather. It's been awfully cold in the mornings around the low 30's. BRRR

Cards for Heroes

While browsing on scrapbook.com I noticed a blog post update for Paper Trunk. I decided to click on the link and found that Paper Trunk is collecting handmade cards for Cards For Heroes. I decided that since I've been making cards for challenges and to learn new techniques that I would send off what I have. I looked at the FAQ's to see what kind of cards they were looking for and most of mine fit. I had to exclude some because glitter is not good. It can get stuck to the hero who then can be seen by night vision goggles. So I'm sending around 16 cards off to Paper Trunk. There is a chance to win something from Paper Trunk, but I'm more interested in getting the cards to the servicemen and women. I won't be able to send these until tomorrow and they must be received by 10/25 to be entered in the drawing. So it'll be interesting to see if they even make it that quickly. Click on the Paper Trunk link above if you want to send some cards for our heroes. Here are some photos of the cards I'm sending. I had to take out the True Friends card as it has glitter mist on it and it could possibly be rubbed off.


If you decide you still want to send cards and you're not sure they'll make it to Paper Trunk on time, check out cards for heroes and send your cards to them. I included envelopes for the ones I had envelopes for, but you do not have to send envelopes.

See my Yahoo pingbox? Apparently anyone who visits my blog can chat with me in the box and it is a private conversation between just us two. If you see that I'm on, give it a try I'd sure like to know if it works. :D