Valentine Giveaway Alert............

There is a Valentine giveaway going on at To Stitch or Not To Stitch.  Check it out!

Have A Seat!

I was at the Archiver's store a few weeks ago and saw the *cutest* paper by October Afternoon.  It is Farmhouse collection - this particular 12x12 sheet was titled "Sunday Dinner".   I didn't know what I was going to do with a 12x12 sheet full of empty chairs....but it didn't take me long to come up with the perfect card using the paper.  Here is a picture of the finished product:

The top part of the card is paper from the Lost & Found - Union Square collection by My Mind's Eye.  The bottom is the Sunday Dinner paper.  A brown ribbon dresses up the middle of the card and the top sentiment is a stamp from the Scripted Year stamp set by Pink by Design (I *LOVE* this stamp set!).

I used my Stampin' Up scallop oval paper punch and distress ink around the edges.  Foam stickies were used to attach the sentiment to the top of the card.  I also used distress ink around the edges of the card.  I left the inside blank.

I've made quite a few cards over the past 2 weeks - I'm just    s...l....o...w   in posting them here!!!

Tom's Birthday Card

Tom celebrated his birthday last Friday.  I don't know about other card crafters but I think it's difficult to come up with a masculine design for birthday cards.  Maybe it is because many of my supplies (paper, stamps, embellishments, etc) lean toward the feminine side....you know, pastels, flowers, cutesy stuff.  So, months ago when I came across a sheet of "Target Practice" (Play Date collection) by Jenni Bowlin, I immediately bought it and added it to my paper stash!  I knew that I would use it somehow in crafting a card for Tom.  Without further ado, let me post a picture of the finished card....

The Target Practice paper was used for the middle part of the card front.  The gun-related items above and below the target paper are just color copies of pictures from gun books and boxes of ammo.  After getting all the pieces situated where I wanted them, I glued them to the front using my handy dandy adhesive tape.  The card still needed a little something so I inked up my brayer using Tim Holtz Tea-Dye distress ink and rolled the brayer over the front of the card several times.  It was my first attempt at using the brayer so I did practice on a scrap sheet first.  I didn't want the ink to be too heavy. 

I "embellished" the front of the card with two fake bullet holes going thru the middle target.  I knew that real bullet holes would not stop after going thru the front of a card so............the bullet holes also went thru the inside greeting.  I had already decided upon a related inside greeting so the bullet holes inside just added to the theme.  The inside greeting????? how about "Have a sure shootin' birthday" with the bullet holes going thru the two "O's" of the word shootin'.  I used alphabet stickers for the inside wording (actually had enough from one alphabet sticker set to use for the entire phrase).  I used the Tea-Dyed distress ink on the inside also around the bullet holes.  I may be a girl but I do know that there would be some powder residue around a bullet hole!

Now for a pic of the inside............

Needless to say, the birthday card was right on target (no pun intended) - Tom loved it! 

Three New Cards!!!!

I've been card crafting yesterday and today.  Here is a thank you card that I made yesterday.  The dragonfly paper is part of the Huckleberry Pond collection from The Paper Loft.  The ribbon and stamps are Stampin' Up products.  The tree stamp is from the "Lovely as a Tree" stamp set which I use quite frequently.  The thank you is from the "Faith In Nature" hostess set.  I love the way the card turned out! 

 And then today I did a similar layout for this card:

I've mentioned my friend Cheryl before.  Cheryl loves paper crafts probably more than I do.  Anyway, Cheryl was a winner of some Prima paper stacks a few months ago.  I stopped by to visit Cheryl last week and.....she shared some of her Prima winnings with me!!!!!  Here is a card that I made using the Prima paper Printery Collection. 



The stamps are from a retired Stampin' Up set that my sister found for me on Ebay. She gave them to me for Christmas.    The background stamp on the top of the card is a 3 cent stamp and the stamped sentiment says "Letters are visits when friends are apart". They are both from the retired "Letters from Friends" stamp set.  The brown ribbon in the middle is also a Stampin' Up product.  I also used some brown distress ink around the edges of the card and the stamped sentiment.  Isn't the nostalgic-looking paper great??? The Prima paper "Printery Collection" is a 6"x6" paper stack with 48 sheets (3 sheets of 16 different designs).  I liked this card so much I made two of this design and plan on making a few more.

This year I read..........................





Isn't that the cutest picture?  It is by Charles Wysocki - one of my favorite "modern" artists.  I thought it would be an appropriate picture to use to do this post on books. 

I started keeping "A Record of Books I've Read" journal in 1995.  How I wish I had started this journal as a child.  I decided to "organize" my journal alphabetically instead of chronologically.  That makes it easy for me to check and see if I've previously read a particular book.  In my journal I record the book's title, author and the day I finished reading the book. 

I read lots of different types of books (you'll notice that as you read thru my 2011 list) and usually try to finish a book once I've started it unless it proves to be not worth reading due to filthy language/content.  So, here's my list for 2011:

• Classic New England Stories: True Tales and Tall Tales of Character & Culture (ed. Jake Elwell)
• Watch for the Light:  Readings for Advent and Christmas (var. authors)
• Lovely is the Lee by Robert Gibbings
• The Assault by Harry Mulisch
• Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika by Maria Anne Hirschmann
• Rereadings:  17 Writers Revisit Books They Love (ed. Anne Fadiman)
• Good Grief:  The Story of Charles M. Schultz by Rheta Grimsley Johnson
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows
• The House on Beartown Road:  A Memoir of Learning and Forgetting by Elizabeth Cohen
• Cat Stories by James Herriot  :o)
• Good Daughters: Loving Our Mothers as They Age by Patricia Beard
• A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller
• The Gospel for Muslims: An Encouragement to Share Christ with Confidence by Thabiti Anyabwile
• How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read by Pierre Bayard (loved the title.....not so much the book)
• O Love That Will Not Let Me Go:  Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God (ed. Nancy Guthrie)   - great book!
• By Grace Alone:  How the Grace of God Amazes Me by Sinclair Ferguson
• The Cat and the Curmudgeon by Cleveland Amory (another cat book!)
• The Violin of Auschwitz by Maria Angels Anglada
• What Angels Wish They Knew:  The Basics of True Christianity by Alistair Begg
• Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill (a book about books!)
• Room by Emma Donoghue
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (my first reading of this classic!)
• Managing God's Money by Randy Alcorn
• A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community & Mission around the Table by Tim Chester
• A Memory of Vermont: Our Life in the Johnny Appleseed Bookshop by Margaret Hard
• Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (so glad my friend Marjorie recommended this book!)
• The Early Church by Henry Chadwick
• A Page Out of Life by Kathleen Reid
• The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma

So, there it is.  My favorites?  "The Reading Promise", "Unbroken", "Frankenstein" and "The House on Beartown Road".

What book did you enjoy reading in 2011?