A Puppy with an Attitude
I am grateful for my sweet Sadie who has quite the attitude & thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba. We have friends coming from Washington to stay overnight tomorrow and I’m getting the house and two guest rooms ready. Sadie is not cooperating. LOL! This is how I found her after tucking in the slip cover on the clove seat and placing the pillows back on the love seat neatly…. This is the look she gave me when I ordered her off the love seat….. And this is what she was still doing while I was glaring at her with the “mean mommy glare” that means “I meant what I said…move it!”…. LOL! The little punk! Still need to put baseboard trim back up and finish things around the house… the “minor remodel” is coming along nicely. We’ve taken a break for a few weeks, but I’m ready to get finished… 🙂 I will post more about the remodel another time.. hopefully sooner than later 🙂
Thoughts For Thursday: Gratitude – Day Fifteen & Artwork
Today is day #15 for me on this journey. I have been keeping track of my daily gratitude and compiling it on my computer. I am having way too much fun thinking about my blessings… and it’s hard to choose just one per day to write down. Here’s where we’re at today: Tonight I am going to visit some ladies for church and I am bringing them a fun little gift. Years ago when I was with CTMH, I received one of these in a swap or a buy in or something, I don’t remember. I liked them so much that I made hordes of the little guys to give to friends here and there. They are SUPER simple and inexpensive to make. Materials Needed:Blank notepads (3x5x3/8″) – I picked mine up in 6 packs at WalMart12×12 paper cut into 3″x 10 3/8″ stripsCoordinating cardstock for embellishingCoordinating ribbonStamps – I used “Give Thanks” from CTMH & Watercolor pencils. Decorate and embellish the front as desired and tie a ribbon around the flap… easy schmeasy and you have a cute little gift for a friend. 🙂
Gratitude – Day Six
How are you doing keeping track of your blessings? I started my 30 days of Gratitude on November 6th, so today are days 1-6 for me. (Keep in mind that you can start whenever you want… just go for a straight 30 days.) A few folks have emailed me and asked what supplies I used to create the digital Gratitude page and I realized that I forgot to mention that… The supplies used are from the absolutely FREE digital kit Harvest Spice (Oct 2007) by Shabby Princess. It’s a SUPER fabulous kit and I absolutely LOVE it. Be sure to surf around their site and hit the “Downloads” page and be prepared for a whole lotta digital megabyte love!!
Thoughts for Thursday: Power of Gratitude
“It’s not the power of the curse,it’s the power we give the curse.”~ Billy, from the movie “Penelope” This month I am trying to focus on the abundance of blessings that God has given me. We (the sisters in Relief Society -women’s organization) talked in church on Sunday about how sometimes we EXPECT certain blessings from God and sometimes don’t get those blessings, but we do get other blessings that He knows that we NEED.Take a look at this amazing video about a young man named Nick Vujicic: and then check out this one… pay special attention to 3:30 minutes…. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtweZxNGk1Y&hl=en&fs=1] Sometimes we may feel “cursed” because we don’t get the blessings we EXPECT…. but I love how little Billy said at the end of the movie, “It’s not the power of the curse, it’s the power we give the curse.” So very true!!! Basically, by giving ourselves an attitude/perspective adjustment, we can go from feeling miserable to seeing how God has TRULY blessed us. The holiday season can really be hard on a lot of people. During this time of year the world seems to focus on the “haves” and “have nots”… often times we see so many things we don’t have and want. “The grass is greener…”, “If only I could….”, “I’d be happy if…”, “I’m not perfect enough” type of ideas… Let’s do something about this. So here is the challenge for us: Click on the image to the left to view it larger & print it off. (Sorry, it’s huge, about 1 MB.)For the next 30 days take a moment each day to write down something that you are grateful for. Then maybe snap a photo or write a journal entry and make a scrapbook layout or keep a photo journal of it to remind you. It can be anything… a sharp pencil for sketching notes, a warm bath, the love of a friend/sibling/parent/spouse or significant other, the smile on a strangers face, a bed to sleep in, a favorite pair of shoes, a difficult child (because that means God entrusted you with His child), a burnt loaf of bread (because that means you have the ingredients & knowledge to bake bread), your job, etc…. Whatever you feel grateful for. I guarantee that at the end of 30 days you will see an ABUNDANCE of blessings. You may even want to continue writing them down because as you focus on your blessings you will find more than one thing every day to write down. Feel free to share on your blog, invite others to join us, and post what you are grateful for. So what are you waiting for??
A Simple Card 3 Ways
Here’s a really simple card that I did with the partial emboss side fold. I needed a card for a friend and had fun playing around. One card with the sentiment moved around = 3 cards. I used my Fiskars Threading Water punch, some generic green cardstock and Papertrey Ink printed paper & ribbon. I am in LOVE with the Cuttlebug polka dot embossing folder. The stamp set is from CTMH – September’s Stamp of the Month – Treasure Life. I love this stamp set and am getting a lot of use out of it! Glad I got it for free, too!
Partial Embossing with a Cuttlebug
I have got to stop promising to post things “later” in the day in my posts. Sometimes the day just gets away from you and things come up. I know I promised this yesterday, but we got super busy after we worked on the yard and didn’t get back home until late in the evening and then an unexpected guest stopped by…. so excuses aside, here we go… Miranda asked about partial embossing with the fold on the left, instead of at the top as I have shown on this post and this post. This is showing partial embossing on the card base. You can always partial emboss on a card front that you adhere to the card base, too. 1.) Determine where you want the fold of your card and how much you want to emboss on the front of the card.2.) Line up the folder so that it covers the area that you want to emboss. Set on the plates and run through your Cuttlebug. In this example I am partial embossing from the top of my card and tucked the back of the card around the outside of the embossing folder. 3.) In this example I am partial embossing from the side of the card and left the card open and unfolded. It’s really super simple and basically, you can partial emboss anywhere on a card as long as the embossing folder and the paper you’re embossing can fit in the space of the Cuttlebug plates.
Sketch Challenge {013}
I’ve been checking out cool artwork on the web lately and it seems that “cropped corners” are highly popular, so I figured that I might try my hand at them, too! It has been quite some time since we’ve done a Sketch Challenge and I had some time to play around in PSE today while waiting for laundry to be ready to switch over and get folded… (oh the joys of laundry)…. So ladies n gents… here’s a Sketch Challenge for you. Use this basic sketch, add some patterned paper, a sentiment, something metal or sparkley and maybe a stamp that you haven’t used in a while (or yet) and make a card or a layout, digi or paper. Share the link to your artwork in the comments on this post because we all love to see everyone’s take on a sketch! ** If you have trouble posting your link, try making it shorter using TinyURL. Blogger seems to have a hard time with long links in comments. Inky Smiles!! PS – I have an answer for Miranda’s question on my last post as well as a few cards to show you later today. But first I have to help Brent with some yard work (winterizing everything) before the snow flies (yes, we’re expecting a storm in the next few days… ugh) and my yard is buried.
More 5 Minute Cards
More 5 minute cards for my Grandma… We repeated the technique we used to make the girls night invitations and made a ladies note set. Super easy and fun. Here are a few of my favorites…
Cupcakes & Sweet Friends
I’m so stoked to share this find!! A friend of mine posted a fabulous cupcake like this in one of my Yahoo Groups. It’s a PINCUSHION…. perfect for my new (under construction) scrapping space! Linda Cummings makes these and sells them. I immediately emailed Linda and begged her to make me one and ziiiip it was on it’s way to my house… wooo hoo! The cupcake is so darling and comes with a little plate. Linda included a cute little personalized card. I LOVE IT! If you’d like to purchase a cupcake, feel free to email Linda. She doesn’t have a blog or website, but if you shoot her an email she’ll respond right away and take excellent care of you. They come in several 2 color combinations – pink/brown, pink/white, green/pink – depending on what colors you like. The cost is $15 and includes shipping and the plate. Inky Smiles & Sweet Cupcakes!
Bone Scan Update & Thoughts for Thursday
“There is no such thing as a ‘self-made’ man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success.” —George Burton Adams (1851-1925), educator, historian I have received so many heartwarming emails and it would take ages to answer each and every one, so I am going to let everyone know… THE BONE SCAN CAME BACK CLEAN!!!! HALLELUJAH!!! God is good and wonderful and the prayers and well wishes of others really helped me feel comforted and a heck of a lot less anxious when I went in for my scan. It is always scary when the word cancer is brought up by your doctor. The worst part was the mineral solution that they injected in the vein in my hand followed by a saline solution to push it through. Brent came with me and then we went and had lunch at the Olive Garden and waited for the solution to circulate. I swear I drank 5 full glasses of water over lunch and sloshed back to the hospital 2 hours later for the scan. I had a really hard time laying still for the 23 minutes of the first full body scan. (I’m such an antsy wiggle worm!) The scan was actually pretty neat to watch as the machine moved me out of the main scanner thingamajig. I’ve never seen my whole skeletal system and it was so neat. They did my lower back separately and then a scan of m y neck and head. (It was cool to see my neck scan because it turns out that a previous problem that I;d had with my neck has corrected itself!!!!) It was also neat to see that my brain is alive and kicking in it’s cozy little home, too… LOL! Anyway… we are still not sure what the problem is with the pain, but the dr now feels that it’s something muscular and we’ll try some manipulations and therapy to try to relieve the pain. I’d like to avoid pill therapy… .but something to ease the pain to allow sleeping would be mighty nice. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your well wishes, prayers, and positive thoughts. I firmly believe that God listens to our prayers and the prayers of others praying on our behalf. With much love, Inky Smiles! Erin “The crest and crowning of all good, Life’s final star, is Brotherhood.” —Edwin Markham (1852-1940); poet