It's a Beautiful Day...

It has been so very pretty in Missouri today! A bit cool, and a tad windy, but the sunshine has been glorious.

I had to go back to work today, but I actually took a lunch hour and met a BFF for lunch today at our local Thai place. The food was good, but the conversation was better than the food by far. I hadn't seen my friend since September, when she moved to another building, and I have missed her SO much. It was a delightful visit, a delightful day, and she brought me a box of 'goodies' to send to Melissa in New York, so she'll make two Gilliam ladies smile today! She makes handmade jewelry, and I have several surprises to send in a care package! I'll take a few pictures, and after Melissa is surprised, I'll post them so you can all see her talent in technicolor!!!

Speaking of pictures, I have a friend who has been a bit sad lately, and I just wanted to put together a card to bring her a smile. I chose some Inkadinkadoo birds and words, and here's what I did to have a card ready for mailing in a hurry:

I used a Bazzill light blue card stock for the card itself, and for the matte on the front. I stamped the birds and the saying on white card stock, and stamped the birds again on a light blue paper that was patterned with clouds. I cut out the bodies of the birds from the cloud paper, and paper pieced them over the birds on the white c.s. I colored the vines with a green & orange Jelly Roll Glaze pens. I used my Stamping up "ticket" punch on the corners, then distressed all edges with my Color Box Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink. I layered a piece of patterned dotted paper, then the blue, and finally the white, adding a silk flower for an extra little 3-D 'pop'. Voila, another quick and simple card!!!

I hope the day was as good for anyone reading this as it was for me! My dh is on his way to Branson for work, but hopefully, will be back at an early hour tomorrow, and we plan to spend the New Year in front of a crackling fire for a totally relaxed day!

Cya tomorrow!

Patti J.

~There's always a lot to be thankful for if you just take the time to look for it. For example, I'm sitting here now being very thankful that wrinkles don't hurt! ~Anonomys

THE plus IRS = Theirs.....

Yup, the holidays are over, now we have taxes to pay, and W-2's to prepare, etc. Seems like we just went through that!

Our holidays were delightful. Both John and Melissa made it in for several days. We thoroughly enjoyed having them both, and are quite sad that the visits had to end. The Christmas break is the toughest, as we know it's going to be many months before seeing them again. Thank goodness for e-mail, cell phones, and landlines!

I would have made a terrible pironeer mama.

Here is a little card that I made on the spur of the moment over the holidays. (Sorry, am getting used to TAKING photo's of my work as well as uploading it - I got some file folders in my picture that weren't supposed to be there!)

I used Ivory cardstock (just a generic stock I found at Office Max). I adhered a layer of blue snowflake paper from the DCWV Winter Matstack collection. I then punched a scalloped circle from the front using the yellow Marvy punch. I punched a black circle using the same size, and a circle from the ivory c.s. using the next smalled sized circle. On it, I stamped the star with Versamark, and heat embossed using Judikins Egyptian Gold Embossing Powder (I love, love, love the sparkle you get with it!) I adhered the ivory to the black, and fit them both inside of the punched scalloped circle on the card. I then stamped a snowman image from the Angel Co. Snowmen Nativity set on the ivory c.s. I colored it with my Koh-I-Noor pencils, and blended with odorless mineral spirits. I matted it in black and Voila - a 10 minute card!

I have to go back to work tomorrow - ugh. Hopefully, me and Chat Dump Gal can meet for Thai food for lunch!

Have a blessed day tomorrow...

Patti J.

~The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat have gotten to be really good friends!

PS - Theresa M. - if you are reading this post, I have no idea how to reply, so thank you so much for your kind words about my snowmen/santa treats, and any others you have commented on! I loved your off-kelter card too!!!

It's all Good!

So...It seems to be all good!

I can finally start posting some photo's!

I'm going to start with a couple of before and after bathroom pictures.

You have all heard me go on for months now about our bathroom remodel.

Here is a before and after photo of our tub area (which also moved from one wall to another), and of a beautiful stained glass light fixture created by a very talented friend of mine!

The old and new vanity are pictured as well! You can see why we are so excited!

I promise not to bore you with any further bathroom photo's!

Hopefully, from now on, my uploads will all be of my paper addiction!

I want to take just a moment to thank my few readers for being patient, and to wish you all a very blessed, safe, and healthy holiday. Enjoy every single moment with your family members, and...

Cherish each precious day!

Merry Christmas, and God Bless

Patti J.

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Yippee! Thank heaven for daughters that know more about blogger than I do!!! Yippee!!!

By the way - The idea for the snowmen came from Dawn Griffith's site - Dawn's Stampin' Studio. The Santa suit was my invention!

Test Message

Test Test Test :)

Good news - it worked!

Found one, lost one, one yet to get here!

Well, we got our Melissa home yesterday. It's so good to see her, and to have her back home for a week - a whole week!!!

We get to pick our John up on Wednesday night - we are so anxious to have him here as well. He has such a long trip in, and we so appreciate him coming home again.

On a sad note, Stan the man had a broken water main in Branson, so left a while ago for the 4 hour plus trip to Branson. I'm praying that he can make it in tomorrow night or Weds. a.m. The weather looks terrible again, especially for that area, so I'm praying hard for his saftety!

Melissa is going to help me try to figure out this photo issue. I received my first Gina K order last week, and I'd love to post the card I made. I would love to send it directly to Gina to thank her for such quality products, but haven't found a way yet. I'll keep trying!

Theresa M., thanks so much for your tips on the photo issue. We will try everything you suggested. If I can't make it work, we'll look for a plan 'b'!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Patti J.

~A penny saved is a government oversight...

One more time!

Well, I am going to attempt one more time to upload some photo's. If this doesn't work, I will probably be in need of some intensive therapy!

Here are some covered Hershey Bars that I made to go into teacher mailboxes at school tomorrow. Tomorrow is our last day - Monday starts Christmas break! Yippee!



Have a great night.


Patti J.

~Some people try to turn back their odometers...Not me - I want to know why I look this way! I've traveled a lot of roads, and some of them weren't paved! ~Unknown

I give up! The kids will be in next week, and maybe they can get me straightened out! Until then, God bless!!! pg

Sunday in anticipation....

Aniticipation of what mother nature is bringing us tonight! It's gloomy doomy again, and cold! The wind has just blown and blown. We went into the city last night (almost wasted trip) to do some Christmas shopping, and it felt several times like the wind was going to lift us up into the jet stream and fly us home!



Had a successful class yesterday. I didn't advertise, just called a couple of folks. We had four, so that was plenty for a nice quiet class. I'd love to be posting photo's of the finished work, but for some reason, my picture posting is a failure. It used to work....



If you have suggestions....



Going to get busy now. Have a great Sunday - stay dry and warm!



Patti J.

~We are the people our parents warned us about.

Hope we don't blow away!

Jeepers - the wind is blowing out there and it is SO cold! Looks like our baby girl got her first large snowfall of the year in New York today. Bet our son is in California saying something akin to "muhahahaha".....




So! Got my little S'more packets finished this evening. They turned out pretty cute - thanks Shirley for the idea - I think the ladies will like them. The Angel Co. has the most perfect stamp for the project - it's a little snowman that is actually roasting a marshmallow (I used liquid applique that I heated until it puffed and poofed!). He's just too cute! I have tried and tried to add a photo to this entry and it won't let me!



Okay, I give up. I've tried off and on for several days to get photo's in here to no avail. If anyone knows why I can insert photo's one day and cannot the next, please let me know!



Have a great day everyone...



Patti J.


~I'd rather have Lockheed deliver the mail than ride around in a plane built by the post office.

Weekends are entirely too short...

Yeah, they are! Seems like we just wake up saying, "hooray, it's Saturday", and then it's time to go back to work. Oh, well...in today's crisis, I am very happy to have a job to go to each week. (did I really, really say that? lol)



Theresa M., I hope you get over your cold very soon! And your tree silhouette card is just beautiful. I got my first order of Gina K. stamps this week, and can't wait to try them out.



So Shirley, I 'scraplifted' another of your cutie-patootie ideas! For our party this week, I am creating 40 of the S'More packets. The ladies will oooh and aaaah like crazy. I will be very honest and tell them that you are the mastermind! I'll post photo's tomorrow! Need to make a SaveALot run today for some snowman peeps!



Hopefully you are all finished with holiday shopping! One of these days soon, we will 'start' ours! Probably next Saturday afternoon after I teach a class!



For now, there is paperwork to do. ugh. Enjoy your day everyone and I will post some pictures tomorrow - Patti J.

~ I used to be lost in the shuffle. Now I just shuffle along with the lost! ~Unknown

Brrr....

So, it's cold in the midwest! This morning, on my way to work, it was 20 degrees! Thank goodness for my man Stan - he takes such good care of me. My heated seats definitely felt delightful today!

It's been a while since I have been here. I am making a promise to do better. Even boring is better than nothing. The bathroom is finished, and I must say that I don't miss the old bathtub yet! I am so spoiled - tee hee!

We had the most wonderful Thanksgiving. Our son got home from California and our daughter came in from New York. We ate way too much turkey, played games at the kitchen table, watched holiday movies, listened to Christmas carols, and decorated the house for Christmas. Having the kids help with the decorating made it so much fun! Stan took pretty much the entire time off, which was delightful as well. With him working 7 days/week most weeks, having him here for even a day or two is a treasure that we cherish!

So, I thought that it would be nice to share the invitations I did for our secretarial Christmas party at work. My good friend Shirley, had sent me the cutest little Easter card last year. It was a tri-fold card about 3.5 x 3.5, and had this cute little cut out front - lots of work and time involved! And of course, it had a little bitty chocolate bunny!

I took the idea of the tri-fold card, and of course, the chocolate (Ghirardelli even!), and "easied" it up a bit! I stamped the snow angel, colored it with my Kooh-i-noor pencils, blended with mineral spirits, glittered the halo and wings with my Sakura Gelly Roll Stardust pen, and punched the ivory oval. I took my larger scallopped oval punch and matted the ivory oval. I took a 3.5 x 9.5 strip of red card stock, made some folds with my scor-pal, added the "snow much fun" stamp on a scrap of ivory, a cute little ribbon, and voila - the outside was complete! On the inside, I stamped the chocolate saying and some snowflakes, glittered them up a bit, and adhered the chocolate square.

At the bottom of the card was the invitation, printed very quickly and simply with my computer. I adhered it with removable tape. On the envelope, I attached a label that stated the invitation was adhered with removable tape, so that if one would like to 'regift' the card, they could remove the invitation and do so quite quickly!

They were a lot of fun, and 40 were made assembly line style in about two evenings.

My next project that week was a swap for November. The theme was snowmen, snowladies, snowflakes, etc. Most of what was coming in so far was in Christmas and seasonal colors - blues, greens, reds, etc. Having to be just a bit different, I opted for hot pink and black! (The colors aren't very bright here, but in real life they pop!)

I used the Zutter bind it tool to punch a scrap of pink. I attached this scrap to a piece of black that was run through the Cuttlebug using a swirly embossing folder. The stamps were from the Angel Company. I colored them with my pencils, blending with a bit of low odor mineral spirits, and the snow is made from fun flock. A bit of glitter, a snowflake brad, and a scrap of ribbon completed the cards in a jiffy!

This time of year is so much fun for paper crafters!

Have a great evening everyone - I'm off to the craft room to try to alleviate some of the stress of the day by playing with sharp objects, glue, and coloring things!!!

Hugs - Patti J.

~When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~Erma Bombeck~