January 1, 2011

His Unfailing Presence
Another year I enter
Its history unknown;
Oh, how my feet would tremble
To tread its paths alone!
But I have heard a whisper,
I know I shall be blest;
"My presence shall go with thee,
And I will give thee rest."

What will the New Year bring me?
I may not, must not know;
Will it be love and rapture,
Or loneliness and woe?
Hush! Hush! I hear His whisper;
I surely shall be blest;
"My presence shall go with thee,
And I will give thee rest."

--Unknown Author

More Note Pad Holders

Good morning. Well...it is Thursday! Yay! I'm glad to be heading into Friday...wait I said all of this yesterday, huh? Never mind then. Lets move onto the craft projects.

Remember when I showed you the note pad holders I made HERE? I thought I'd show you a couple of more that I made. These were for my nieces and it is my understanding that they really liked them. It was definitely fun personalizing them! I have to say that I really like Bailey's note pad holder but don't love Brittany's. I wish I would have done something different with her name but I think I was getting tired when I made it...lol!

The patterned paper that I used for these are just random sheets that I had in my stash and I really think that is what made these so fun...I got to use a bunch of different papers to make one that suited each person.

This is a quick post today. I've got several things to accomplish prior to going to Care Net for the day.

I hope your day is super!

More Note Holders

Good morning friends! Kyler and I were just talking yesterday about how slow the week has gone, of course he is waiting for Friday when his friend comes to spend the night. Me? I'm not sure what it is but I'm glad it is Wednesday (kind of) as I know the rest of the week will fly right by. Today is Papa Al's memorial service. If you would be praying for an extra measure of strength and love for them as they walk through this difficult time I'd so appreciate it.

Today I'm just showing you a couple of more of the note holders I made. The top holder is made with PTI patterned papers and the sentiment is from Verve Stamps. I gave this to a friend for Christmas and I think she really liked it. The other note holder is made with some SU! patterned paper and again, the sentiment is from Verve Stamps. Both of these sentiments are so meaningful for us as we go through our lives as our joy for the journey IS our delight in the Lord! There is a huge difference between being happy and being joyful. I hope you are working on being joyful in your life circumstances!

I had two really exciting things happen yesterday that I can't tell you about right now. I do want you to be excited for me though and know that I will be sharing with you in the future!

Well, I'm off! Maybe I'll do a little jig like my animated friend here.... Hope he makes you smile. Have a super day everyone!

Going Grey with Scrap- Creations

Hello friends! Well, I'm finally back from a couple of days off after Christmas. It was a wonderful break but I'm ready to be back to crafting and blogging again.

Today is Going Grey with Scrap-Creations day (and yes, I'm posting it a bit late) and our theme is New Year. I took that very broadly and just made a celebrate card for today. The patterned papers are from the DeLovely pack so you can see how off the coloring in my photo and I apologize for that. The balloons and sentiment are from Verve's Birthday Bash set and I did use a sketch from the Lizzy Ann Designs blog. Even though it isn't a typical New Years card I still love how festive and fun it is!

Now for some news. I just want to let you guys know that this is my last post with Kristen and the Scrap-Creations crew. I have had a wonderful time with them for sure but I haven't been feeling like I've been making anything for the fun of it lately so I'm going to give this up and only have two DT commitments. Thank you, Kristen, for having me!

I have some thank you cards to make, both of the generic type and specifically "thank you for dinner" type so I'll be busy working on that today.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

He Shall Be Named Jesus

More Exciting News!

Happy Christmas Eve day everyone! Can you believe it is finally here? Whether you are ready or not tomorrow is the big day...I just wish for you to all enjoy your day with friends and family!

Remember when I had exciting news to share with you a couple of weeks ago? Well, I have more today...woohoo! I am a new member of the McMahon Five Designs Design Team! I have been admiring the store/blog through my friend Kris for some time now so I decided to go for it when the M5D owner, Sue, had a DT call and I was accepted along with four other talented women! You can learn more about it below!

New DT Members

Lorie Ames

Raven Baca

Shelly Schmidt

Amy Johnson

January Guest Designer

Ruby Taylor

There will be a more official Meet-n-Greet on January 1st. Mark your calendars! :)

Something that M5D's does each month is give away a digi specifically for those of you who do your monthly self breast exam. I just think that is the neatest! Find out more below...


<a href="http://www.mcmahonfivedesign.com/store/store_results.asp?ShopByStyle=35&Section=Breast+Cancer+Charity/" target="”_blank”"><img border="”0”" src="http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p19/KristineBphotobucket/M5DfreebieDEC.jpg" /></a>

It's that time again when we remind you about your monthly self exam! And when you have completed it, you can download the image below for FREE!

Hope

Something NEW we are going to do per a request we received

is to let you know even though WE focus on Breast Cancer Awareness,

the ribbon represents so many other cancers and diseases.

Each month we will list that month's Awareness and their Colors.

Below are the Awareness and Colors for January

Cervical Health Awareness Month - Teal & White Ribbon

www.nccc-online.org/awareness.html

National Birth Defects Prevention Month - Pink & Blue Ribbon www.nbdpn.org/current/resources/bdpm2010.html

Thyroid Awareness Month - Pink, Blue & Teal (tri-color)

www.aace.com

Glaucoma Awareness Month - Green Ribbon http://www.preventblindness.org/news/observe.html

Thank you Sue for taking on this monthly reminder...I definitely know I can use a reminder each month! Just a quick note about the card...this is my interpretation of the Mojo Monday Sketch for the week.

Well, that was a lot of information and I'm sure you have tons of things you'd like to do today so off you go! Have an amazing day today!

A Christmas Card?

Morning all! Eek! I am getting so excited for Christmas Day even though I will be missing one of my boys!

Speaking of Christmas Day...the card I'm posting today is a Christmas card. You can tell, can't ya? This is actually an image from the 12 Days of Christmas collection over at McMahon Five Designs called 12 Drummers Drumming (obviously). Kyler is playing drums, a little, at school so I thought this would be a super cute image to make his card with well...that and it is a hint of what his gift for Christmas is (shhh! don't tell!). This card is full of details you can't see in this photo. The center of the bass has clear glaze on it, the bottom of the snares (for the lack of a better, more knowledgeable word) has clear glaze and a little glitter on it. The cymbal...glitter and the motion in the drum sticks are glittery black. All in all...this was super fun to color and put together! Finally, there is a lot of green as that is Kyler's favorite color but alas, they were out of that color when we ordered his gift so he will get boring black.

This card uses the Mercy Tuesday Sketch Challenge for this week, too so I'll be linking it up there.

So, can you handle a bit more excitement? Well...just stop on back tomorrow for another super fun announcement! Hehehe!

Caffeine Is Good AND Cute!

Happy Tuesday everyone! I can't believe there are only FOUR days until Christmas. I am SO excited for my family and friends to open up their gifts...I hope they all like what I found for them!

Today I have for you a card with a new Paper Pretties image called Caffeine and oh, my goodness this Caffeine is adorable! I just felt the need to create something bright and happy so I pulled out this paper and used a simple sentiment with letter stickers. Sorry about the lighting of the photo...it really is much cuter in real life! The layout of this card is from The Sweet Stop. And, I'm going to enter this card in the Doodle Pantry Blog challenge this week which is either a new theme or made with something new (my wonky squares nesties...it is the first time I've used them) and a digital image. Fun stuff, huh?

Well, I've got some crafting to do today and an errand or two so I should run. I hope you all have a super, wonderful day!

Critter Sketch Challenge

Good morning all and Happy Christmas week! At this point I'm sure you are much like me and are thinking...if it isn't done by now it isn't going to be so...I'm letting the rest go. All the gifts are purchased and will be wrapped this week, the things I wanted to bake are done and I'm happy with the way the house looks so, that is it!

Today at the Critter Sketch Challenge Blog our challenge is anything Christmas. Well, I thought I would take the chance to show you a couple of gifts that I made for Christmas this year. I saw this idea on the Chic n Scratch blog and just needed to make some of them...they are note pad holders made with the clear stamp holders that SU! has available for purchase. I have actually made about six of these and if the extra three that I bought make it here on time I will make one more. Anyway, basically you just take the box, decide on papers that will fit your recipient and decorate. I did have to take my note pads to the local paper shop and have them cut a little bit shorter so I could fit a pen in there too but if I did it again I wouldn't do that.

You see here the one I made for my nephew Noah. I wanted to make his in all Army stuff but I just didn't have enough paper to do that...unfortunately as it is his favorite thing right now. Instead I just made it with very boy colors. The other holder you see I made for Katherine. She is the daughter of a friend and Katherine was just baptized yesterday! Yep, a really neat day for sure! I also took a photo of the inside of Katherine's note pad holder so that you could see what it looks like. Just a small piece of scrap paper fits right over the top of the note pad and the pen tucks in at the bottom of the box. These were actually very fun to make and I'm very pleased with how they all came out.

I also want you to know that this will be my last post with the Critter Sketch Challenge Team. I have had such a fun time playing along with the challenges and images from the different sponsors and I thank Melanie for having me on the team!

Now, why don't you head on over to the Critter Sketch Challenge blog and see what the other design team members have for you today!

I also just want to let you know that my posting will be erratic this week simply due to Kyler being home, friends coming over and yes, maybe a last minute thing or two needing to be done. Tomorrow I will have another super cute Paper Pretties card for ya so I hope you'll stop back!

Sunday Share

Do you want to feel the presence of God with you? Friends, as Beth Moore teaches, it is all about spending time with Jesus. I am not saying I am exactly where I should be with this but I am saying that when I take the time to tarry with Christ I know his presence is with me. This video is 3 minutes 30 seconds long. Take the time to watch it and then carve time with Jesus everyday. HUGS to you all!

Fun Gift Card Holders!

Happy Friday! I'm so glad we are at the weekend! It seems like there has been something going on everyday this week and whether it was a big something or a little something it was in the middle of the day. We don't have anything planned tomorrow so it will be a day full of crafting. Yay!

Today I thought I'd show you some super cute gift card holders that I threw together last night. SVG Cuts has a wonderful new freebie (when you purchase $9.98 in SVG files from them which is easy to do as they have great SVG files!) called Give a Gift Card SVG Kit. There are 20 different types of holders and all are super cool! As you can see I used the Gingerbread Man shape and the Playstation Controller shape but I thought it could be an XBox controller too, right? There is an iPhone/iPod holder as well that I should have used for the iTunes cards but I had already cut this the controller so I let it be. I just know that these are going to be a big hit and that is SO exciting! Go check them out if you have SCAL or MTC and a Cricut!

I have excellent news about both Scott and Jon. Scott said his interview went well and that he would hear back from them in a couple of days. I hope it isn't too long. I know how hard it can be to wait on news like that! And Jon talked with the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and he will not have to have surgery! The finger tips are crushed but they will heal naturally. He has new splints for them and goes back in 3 weeks but YAY! Thank you all for praying for my boys and family a lot over the last couple of months!

Alright, I'm off to officially start my day. I hope you have a wonderful Friday!

A Lot Of Bags...

Good morning all! How has your week been going? Are you ready for Christmas? I think we are. Just two more boxes to get out and we are all set. Yay!

When looking back on my day yesterday I was thinking that I didn't really get much done. I did take the kids to the assisted living place to carol (and then took my car of kids for hot chocolate...that was fun and one of the benefits of having kids at a small private school, you can get away with that type of thing...lol!), did laundry, and made 11 of the bags that you see above for Kyler's teachers (well, 10 are for the teachers the extra one is in case we forgot someone)! The bags were super easy though. Click on the photo to see them better. I cut them with my Cricut so all I had to do was choose the paper I wanted to use. Can you say easy button? I know this photo shows the more girlie type of papers but there are four male type of bags in the back for the four male teachers that Kyler has. I had bought a large bag of Ghirardelli chocolate through Ebates (with an 18% rebate!) a few weeks ago for this purpose. Each of the gift bags above has five candies in it (I'm happy to have a few leftover). The bags measure 4 1/4" x 3 3/8". I got the SVG file for these at My Scrap Chick.

Today is a pretty big day for our family. My oldest son, Scott, is going to an interview for an internship in Olympia and Jon is heading to the orthopedic surgeon this afternoon to see what is to be done with his fingers. I guess it will be another day of "praying without ceasing." I seem to be doing that a lot recently.

Anyway, I hope you have a super day today!

Quick and Cute

Good morning to you all! Thank you for all your kind words and prayers for the family of Papa Al and for us. They are so appreciated!

This are some tags that I made to go on one of the items I put into the stockings that we went to a couple of soldiers through AdoptaPlatoon. I was wanting to get the box ready to go but also wanted to put a personal note with the stockings so I grabbed my Snow Much Fun set from Gina K, cut some cardstock and then just did a little coloring. I have to say while simple, these were perfect for their intended use. Love that! I think the red layer ended up being 4"x3".

This will be a super short post today as I need to hop in the shower before Kyler gets up. I'm going to drive some of the kids in Kyler's class to the assisted living home at which they will be singing Christmas carols this morning. They do this every year and I love it! Only a day and a half of school left for him. Well really, only a day as Friday is the day the 7th and 8th graders go and help with the child care at MOPS as part of their community service commitment. Anyway, all that to say....

Have a super Wednesday everyone!

Going Grey with Scrap- Creations

Morning everyone. Today at Going Grey with Scrap-Creations challenge we have the challenge to make a tag and this week we have a sponsor, The Character Cafe.

The gave us some really cute images to work with including the snowman you see here. I'm not very good at making tags but I tried. This one is 5"x3" and the snowflake embossed portion is shimmery white as well as the snowman. I was impressed with how well shimmery white took the Copic marker color. I just added a grommet at the top and some coordinating ribbon. I thought that I would just use a sharpie type marker to write the to/from on the tag. Again, I have to apologize for the dark photo...I can't get a good photo for anything right now.

Please be sure to check out the rest of the design team. Kris, Kim, Kristen, Marie, Jacki, Mary, and Peggy.

And, now I need to ask for prayers again. I need to ask for prayers for our friend Nancy. Nancy and her husband Al were one of the first couples to introduce themselves to us at church when we were new there about nine years ago. That introduction encouraged us to stay at the church and more than that it encouraged a friendship that turned into Todd and I asking Al and Nancy to be fill in grandparents for our boys since our own parents live so far away. They did not hesitate to fill that roll for the boys and they have been attending concerts, taking the boys to birthday breakfasts, and loving on us since then. We received the very sad news, this morning, that Papa Al has passed away. It was quite sudden and we are extremely sad. We were just at their house on Tuesday night celebrating "the boys" birthdays...Todd and Al whom have birthdays just a day apart. Kyler spoke with Papa Al at church on Sunday. I'm just asking you to pray for the Moss family and for the boys (okay all of us) as we deal with the loss of this wonderful man. We love you Papa Al and will see you at our joyous reunion in heaven!

Exciting News!

Good Monday morning to ya! Did you get a chance to look at my Sunday Share? If you have about 2 1/2 minutes make sure you go take a look, k? Please let me know if you have any questions!

Anyway, I'm sure you are wondering why I titled my post "Exciting News!", right? No, I am not pregnant! Awhile ago I decided to send my application in to Paper Pretties to apply to become part of their design team. Well, guess what? I was accepted as part of their digital design team! I can hardly believe it! My term begins on January 1st but I thought I'd jump in and get started right away with a couple of images that are being released TODAY! This is Ranger Raccoon and his Campfire. Normally I don't care for raccoons but this Ranger guy...he is a cutie! The patterned paper is from Basic Gray's Pyrus paper pad and works beautifully with this outdoor scene.

I will be posting brand new Paper Pretties Digital Images here each and every Monday so I hope that you'll check back for those each week! I can't wait to use next week's image!

Well, I hope you have a wonderful Monday! I'm looking forward to getting some Christmas gifts in the mail today!

Sunday Share

Good morning! Welcome to today's Sunday Share. Today I'm sharing with you a short clip from Randy Alcorn that is an excellent reminder to keep God where he belongs...in first place in our lives. If you don't already know Jesus as your Lord and Savior please e-mail or leave a comment for me me so we can chat!

A Fishy Happy Birthday

all! Who is happy it is Saturday? I am! We are supposed to get some snow today but the last time they said that we got none, zip, zero, zilch. I wouldn't mind a little bit, of course I don't have to shovel it so maybe I should just be quiet, huh? LOL!

Today's card is a birthday card that I made for a friend of ours. Papa Al loves to fish so it is a no brainer to make a card of some sort with a fish on it. I tried to make the image look like a salmon but I had a hard time with it this year. Anyway, this image is from Designed2Delight, whose images I love. The paper is from a Taylored Expressions key ingredient kit and the fishing hooks are from my garage and were quite painful to my fingers trying to get them to stay down. LOL! This card layout is again one of Carly's Sketches (have you checked them out yet?).

Alright, I have tons of crafting to get done this weekend so I can get gifts in the mail on Monday. Have a wonderful day and I'll see you tomorrow for my Sunday share!

Here is a wonderful verse for you today. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12 How might this verse apply to your life today or even this week?