Friday, November 30, 2012

Thursday, November 29, 2012

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!  Here in northwestern New Jersey, we havesnow on the ground.  It's not enough to make a snowman, but at least I can make a snowman card!  This cutie comes from Unity Stamp Company.  Every month, Unity offers a Kit of the Month Sketch challenge.  You can use stamps from any previous kits, which  is very generous of them.  Each month, Unity puts out a fabulous kit for a fabulous price,and it is shipped right to your door.  For more info, contact: http://unitystampco.com
Bundle up and enjoy!

Monday, November 26, 2012

What I love most about fall is fall colors.  So, when Unity Stamp Company's November Unity Challenge was a fall theme, I chose to create a card which the focal point was color.  I love butterflies, but do not see so many in the fall, especially late autumn, so I added them, with artistic license, in fall colors.  I also love autumn sunsets and added that to the card.  I also love silhouettes against an autumn sky, so I added that as well.  Here is my entry.  I hope you like it.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012


I needed to make a masculine birthday card, and this is it.  No stamping on this one, just cutting and pasting.

Monday, November 12, 2012


It's that time of year again.  Time to start preparing for Christmas.  I have a group of stampers, mostly from Maine, that I trade with---this month's swap theme is gift tags.  I used a Sizzix die cut for the tags and a mitten punch from Stampin' Up.  The stamp sets I used are from Stampin' Up as well.  The "A Gift for" stamp is from the set called "Sweet Season" and the Mitten is from a set called "Make a Mitten."  The grosgrain ribbon is also from Stampin' Up.  I feel like they need a little glitz.  I will have to see what I can do to spruce them up a bit.  Enjoy!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

I cased this color theme and layout from my Stampin' Up demonstrator, Michelle Stein.  She used another set and a punch that I did not have.  I looked in my supplies to see what I had that was comparable, and this is what I made.  I really like these colors.  They are crisp and vibrant, cheerful without being saccharine, and offer a beautiful simplicity.  I made this card using two sets from Stampin' Up.  I used a retired set called "The Snowflake Spot" and a current set called "Blessings from Heaven."  The sentiment reads "You are such a blessing in my life."  It is suitable to give to any friend who makes your world a better place.





On FB, many of my friends and myself are doing a month's worth of things we are thankful for each day for 30 days.  One of the things I am very grateful for are first responders.  My nephew is an EMT in New York City, and he has had some very gruelling and heart wrenching work these past few days.  It takes a lot of courage and strength to do what he and other first responders do.  I made this card to let him know that we are thinking of him and praying for him.  The quote is from Desmond Tutu which says "Do your little bit of GOOD where you are.  It's those little bits of GOOD put together that OVERWHELM the world."  Somedays it is hard to imagine that the little bits of good we do truly make a difference, but they do, oh they do!  The stamps used on this card are from Stampin' Up.  I used two sets:  Pursuit of Happiness and Serene Silhouettes.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

"The secret to life is little birds" said the poet e.e.cummings.  Here is my little bird tag.  It is one of my favorites, and I think I like the simplicity of it.  The stamps are from Tim Holtz for Stamper's Anonymous.  The little butterfly is a die cut from Stampin'Up.  The little bird cardboard die cut comes from Magenta rubberstamps.  I stamped on top of the flower petals with stamps to add extra interest.  The postal mark behind the real postal mark is a part of the background paper which I believe is from K&Co.  The white postal mark is a real postal mark.  You can find old postage stamps online at ebay, etsy.com, and other places.  Sometimes they still come with pieces of paper around them and you can cut them out for your purposes.  The ribbon is from Stampin' Up.

Enjoy!
My husband is one of the biggest supporters of my art.  He takes me to art galleries, buys me stamps, and goes with me to conventions.  He offers opinions and advice and true constructive criticism.  Here are the two anniversary cards I have made him.  We just celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary.


This is my favorite one.  Because of that, we have had it on the fireplace mantle for a year now.  Time to retire it.  The stamps are from Stampington.com.

This is the anniversary card from this year.  It was hard to follow up last year's since that was a tough act to follow.  Here is what I made using stamps from Tim Holtz for Stamper's Anonymous.



The little medallion that says "Promise" on it was ordered off etsy.com.  In addition to beautiful hand crafted items, they also offer embellishments and cards for sale.
"What a doll you are!"  This is my first Character Constructions Swap.  The swap was for fall themed dolls attached to an art tag.  I have no idea what the other people's dolls will look like.  Some of the people in this swap made 15 tags to swap.  I only made 5 because I work very slowly and I knew I could not do that many.  I have to thank Catherine Arnold for allowing me (and some others) to just swap 5 of them. 

Catherine Moore is the creator of Character Constructions.  These stamps are off the beaten path.  I like them because they are artsy and whimsical and very, very feminine.  If you like these stamps, you can find them and many more beautiful stamps at: http://www.characterconstructions.com
Enjoy! 

Saturday, November 3, 2012


Hurricane Sandy left a trail of devastation in her path.  We here in NJ and in NY are really feeling the brunt of it.  So many people have lost homes, some have lost family members and loved ones, and some have lost their businesses.  It is hard to grasp the magnitude of this event and the change it has had on so many lives.  I made this card in honor of all who lost their homes to hurricane Sandy.  In 1972, my family lost our home to Hurricane Agnes.  The flood waters came, lifted our house off its foundation, and when the flood waters cleared, our house was upside down.  All was lost.   The most devastating thing that was lost was our childhood and baby pictures of all the family.  We have a few that we had given out to family members but there are very few pictures of us left as children.  I was 6 when this happened.  As a child, it was very frightening but the adults around me did everything to make it as nice for me as they could.  I was sent to the home of one of my mother's cousins to live until we could find housing.  I remember that she was a sweet lady and let me play on her tire swing, where I spent most of my days until we got new housing.  The government helped out, and we got HUD housing.  Many of my friends from my old neighborhood were moved to the HUD housing so we were able to stay together, which was nice.  I ended up in a better school district.  The townspeople were very generous.  They donated toys and clothing and dishes and houseware products that we needed to start over.  It certainly was a time of transition.  We had to take it "one day at a time" each step of the way.  A path became clear. 

With regards to Hurricane Sandy, we were fortunate to have lost only our electricity, the food in our fridge and freezer, and a few shingles on the roof.  Many were not so fortunate.  I remember them.  We will rebuild.  In time, things will work themselves out as they always do.

I made this card using the template from the Final Ippity Chick Challenge.  The stamps are from the Ippity (by Unity Stamp Company) called "What Matters Most."  I have loosely interpreted the sketch presented, and I hope you will enjoy it.  This is my entry for the Ippity Chick Challenge.  You may this set online for sale at: http://unitystampco.com/shop/what-matters-most/.

  Jen Marie Taylor is my Ippity Chick.  Thanks, Jen, for all your inspiration!



What you are seeing in this picture is a large root ball, upturned, that is covering up the log cabin here.  The rootball looks to be about 20 feet long by about 10 feet wide.  It is sort of a rectangular orb, if that makes sense.  This root ball is in one neighbor's yard, it is their clump of trees that came uprooted, which fall into their next door neighbor's yard, which is seen in the next picture.  Amazing!  Really amazing!



The root clump in the picture with the cabin belongs to this cluster of trees.  There is a rather large house behind these trees!  Can you imagine have a small grove of trees falling on your house?  Thankfully no one was hurt.  My town is roughly situated in the middle of a forest.  People move here because they fall in love with the natural beauty of the land.  The trees in my neighborhood are quite mature, and most of them are well over 50 feet tall.  Whenever we have a serious storm, there are always some downed trees somewhere but nothing like what we experienced with Sandy.  One of my friends wrote to me that between her and her two surrounding neighbors, they lost about 50 trees!  I finally was able to get out and drive on a street that had been closed down.  I was surprised to see groves of trees all felled.  It looked as if a tornado had gone through.  The trees that fell like dominoes were mainly on open lots.  Where there were houses, the houses broke the wind somewhat but there were downed electrical wires as electrical poles snapped in half, for miles.  No wonder the power companies are having such a difficult time getting electricity back.  Some people in my town still do not have electricity.

The weather has been so strange.  I never thought I would be saying this, but in a two week time space, we experienced a hurricane (major!), an earthquake (small, magnitude 2.0) and a snow fall (about 3 inches).  Needless to say, I feel wiped out!