Just a Few Pics.

 I thought I would post a few pictures to show what we have been up to lately.  We recently went to Gainesville for the weekend to visit with my step-mom who had foot surgery in December.  She got out of her boots this week and is walking in her regular sheos with crutches. She is back to some of her normal routine and will start work in another week.  

We took Sasha and Brendalynn with us.  I wanted my step-mom to see her.  We went to the nursing home to see Great-Grandma.  Great-Grandma has been in the hospital 3 times this year already, but last Sunday she was doing great.  She knew who we were and visited with us a while.  She loved holding the baby and playing with her.  Great-Grandma will be 94 in March!  She is probably the toughest woman I have ever met.  She has worked so hard all her life and been through so much, but she has always been such a sweet, faithful woman.  She is truly a Saint!  

Ciara loved sleeping with Brendalynn on one side and Aunt Lacretia's chihuahua puppy, Sassy on the other side!!

My dad adores children and loved playing with Brendalynn.  He was supposed to be working in Louisiana that weekend, so we were glad he got to make it home so we could see him.

I had my first Stampin' Up! Party of 2010.  This is going to be a great year for creativity.  If you missed it, then you missed a fun time.  There were several oldies and some newbies there.  I enjoy seeing the eyes light up when a new stampers sees all that she can learn to create.  It is good for me.  We covered a lot of techniques.  

This is a card that I cased and changed a bit from splitcoaststampers.com.  That is a great website to get ideas from.  I wanted to use my new Very Vintage roller and Vintage Vogue set that are in the new mini catalog.  I used the roller with basic brown ink rolled on very vanilla paper.  Then I used the new scallop border (that I am crazy over) to punch an edge.  I topped it with a piece of cameo coral card stock that I had punched with the border punch also and then run through the crimper.  Then I used versa mark ink to make texture on the chocolate chip background.  I embossed the words Life Happens.  Love Helps on a strip of cameo coral for the bottom.  I stamped several of the flowers and leaves on very vanilla cardstock.  I added irridescent ice embossing powder to the flowers to make them shine.  I added just a simple white piece of printer paper to the inside for the message.  I added more embossed flowers on the top and bottom corners to frame it out.  I think this may be one of my favorite cards this year.  I loved the color combination and the flowers and the scallop border and the very vintage roller!!!  I just loved it ALL! 

 

This was a hostess gift I made using the new Sending Love Specialty Designer Series Paper.  I stamped the hearts and embossed them in white and punched them with the heart punch.  I used the new Scalloped Heart of Hearts embosslits die to punch the big pink heart.  It cuts the heart and embosses it with tiny little hearts at the same time.  It is so easy and I love it!!  I also love that this dsp paper has glitter!!  Fun, Fun, Fun!!

 

This was the other project we made at the party.  I totally cased it from another site.  I did change it up a little, but not much!!  It was quite a feat for me to figure out the measurements and folds, but when I did, it made a really unique card.  I know that everyone else at the party loved it also.  I am working on some more ideas like this.  I also used the Heart of Hearts embosslits die to decorate this card.

 

 Today we had a winter storm blow in.  We stayed home from school which was very fun.  However, Ciara had so much make up work from being absent earlier in the week (I had a sinus infection and stayed home and she has had a cold) that I made her work for 3 hours.  We lost electricity for about 4 hours.  Now the electric is back on and we are planning on starting school at ten tomorrow morning.  Several trees have broken branches and one of ours landed on our fence and broke it.  But we are thankful that is the worst we suffered.  Many had trees land on their houses and cars.