My free issue of Just Cards came in yesterday's mail

I had 3 cards in it and all had Riley Hanna Stamps on them. I love my Rileys!! (the moose) So many others are also in the same magazine ... Erin, Awna, Vicki, Ethel, Deborah M, Jennifer E, Joan, and Barbara

York Peppermint Patty spiders

Look how cute these spiders are, made out of punches. I had to dupicate them - they are so cute for Halloween. Here are mine below. I used the scalloped circle punch, photo corner punch, 1/2 " circle punch, and the 1/4" circle punch. I did not put noses on my spiders as I didn't have anything that could be used as a nose. I still think they came out cute.



Today I am going to Enchanted Cottage with 4 friends. We still have a gas shortage here in the Carolinas so hopefully we can find gas before we head home.

Last night we had a varsity home football game at Emily's school. Friday night's game had been rescheduled due to rain. I helped out in the concession stand and we had alot of fun. We were busy the whole 4 hours and I came home smelling like popcorn. I was in charge of the popcorn! I signed up again to work it in 2 weeks, the next home game.

My friend Teresa Chapman is participating in the 3 day breast cancer walk

for the Susan G. Komen for the Cure in Michigan this weekend. Today is her final day and I can't wait to hear how she did. You can check out her website here. Read Teresa's story on her blog. She is walking in honor of our friend Lesa who is currently fighting breast cancer; in memory of Nancy Labas; who lost her battle on April 1st, 2008; and in memory of my friend Robin Cheeks & Dr. Deborah Duerden McDonald, who both lost their battles in 2007. Teresa is such an inspiration to us all!!! Go Teresa Go!!!

I just found out I am in the current fall issue of Just Cards

I haven't gotten my free copy yet so I have no idea how many cards are in it but this is what it looks like. I know I sent them a bunch of cards a few months ago so I am anxious to see which ones they picked.... Stay tuned :)

I noticed my birthday card "stash" was getting low

so I whipped this up today using this Stampin Up set called Under the Stars. I have had this set for awhile now but I couldn't think of anything cute to make with it. I saw this card and she has the bear holding Christmas lights so I thought "ah, my bear can hold birthday cupcakes". Voila, this is what I came up with.



The 2nd photo is a close up of the cupcakes. I tried to make them look 3D but I am not sure this scan is showing it...

These are some Christmas cards I have done. Yes, I am done and its not even October 1st. WOO HOO

In case you haven't heard about our gas shortage in Charlotte,

it is just horrible here. No gas at any of the gas stations and then when we have it, the lines are 50-60 cars deep! Police are at these gas stations so fights don't break out. Its crazy. We are just trying to stay close to home. We do have a soccer game tomorrow but that is the only place we're going all weekend, as far as I know. The news said this morning that gas trunks were in town so people waited in line in the middle of the night to get gas. All i can say is they must really need it! No way am I going to interrupt my sleep for that!! Certainly, next week will be better!!

Here are some ATC swaps I have hosted recently

I hosted a Frankenstein ATC swap in honor of Halloween coming up and I think these came out so cute.


Top left to right Me, Sarah P, Paula C
Middle left to right Michelle, Marie J, Chris H
Bottom left to right Suzi, Terry H, Gaerria

The other ATC I hosted was an owl swap. I love all owl stamps.


Top left to right Me, Joanie, Cheri
Middle left to right Angie, Christie, Ellie
Bottom left to right Cindy H, Traci, Chelsea

Feels like Fall to me outside this morning ...

Its only 53 degrees this morning. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr. But I love it. Now I just want the leaves to start changing. I can't wait! Last night I helped out in the concession stand at the boys soccer game at the high school. They have never asked me to do this but I liked it. It wasn't all that busy as the soccer games aren't that crowded. Friday night is a football game and of course, they asked me if i would work that one too. That one will be ALOT more busy and I have to work it from 6:15-10:00 so it will be a long night. They are calling for rain so we'll see how busy we actually are tomorrow night.

My stamping friend Tonii had a baby girl last night

and this is the card I made for her. Tonii lives in California and she loves Coach purses so I HAD to come up with a card that has a Coach purse for the baby too. I crack up everytime I look at this card. I hope she gets a laugh out of it too :). (This is how I did the purse. I had a plain purse stamp. I googled "coach" images and printed one off. Then I stamped the purse on top of the Coach image and cut around it and paper pieced it on so it looks like a Coach purse). What do you think?

Here is a photo of Sharon and I taken last week at the Charlotte airport

Sharon came through Charlotte on her way to Florida so I met up with her. Sharon is from WI. Here we are :)

It was one year ago today that my dear friend Robin passed away from breast cancer ...

September 22, 2008. Lorraine, Mary, Robin and I all met each other about 13 years ago at our kid's preschool. We have been friends ever since and always made sure to go out once a month. When we moved to FL, we would still get together when we would come back to visit. Lorraine, Mary & I met at the cemetary today for an hour and half just reminiscing about old times. We brought flowers and put them next to her grave site. We sure do miss her!!

We had our 2nd soccer game of the season yesterday for Nicholas

and the other team did not show up. So automatically this means we won. Well, other coaches and other players wanted to know if our boys wanted to "scrimage" anyway and of course, they said yes. So they did that. An hour later, the other team starts showing up. They had been told the wrong start time so they asked our team if they wanted to still play. Once again, the boys said yes. We ended up being there 2 1/2 hours. The boy sure had a great workout! Here are some photos I took. I am making them small but you can click on each one to see them bigger.

I discovered this new website (new to me) to jazz up my blog background

for the upcoming holidays. Anyway, here is the website if you want to check it out. Its pretty easy to change your layout and its FREE :). (and you do not have to register to get it to work.) Have fun with it!!

Did you miss me???

WOW, its been almost a whole week since I posted on my blog. Not sure that has ever happened so I hope I haven't lost all of my faithful blog readers (all 3 of you! LOL) I was having computer problems so had to take it into get fixed. Finally got it back today, yippee!! Does anyone remember what we did BEFORE computers?

Today my friend Sharon from Wisconsin came into town on her way to FL. Sharon and I have known each other since we worked at Jerger & Sons which goes back a LONG time (right Sharon?). Anyway, she had a 2 hour layover in Charlotte so I met her at the airport and we got to chat for a little while. It was great to see her. Afterwards, I met my other friend Linda at Cracker Barrel for lunch so it was a nice day!
Here are a few cards I have made over this past week:

And I got a reward today from Jan ...

Jan from the Stamp Shack loves MY blog? WOW. I feel honored!!

I choose:

Lesa - Lesa is an amazing stamping friend who is a breast cancer survivor. She makes the most awesome cards and has started this new website for other women fighting breast cancer. She is taking card donations. Check out her website.

Erin - Erin I have known for a few years and we both lived in Florida until I moved away and moved to NC. She is now into sewing but also loves to stamp. Now she is incorporating sewing and stamping so that's pretty cool.

Traci - Traci is my stamping friend in Ohio. She just recently started a blog and she has some pretty cool samples already on it. You'll have to check it out.

Jackie - Jackie works at one of my favorite stamp stores near me so I get to see her when I drop in there on Tuesdays. She has cute cupcakes on her blog.

Angie - Angie lives in Utah so even though she is far away from me, she's just a phone call away and we do call each other from time to time. Right Ang? :)

Anna Wight - I have never met Anna but I love her blog. She lives on a farm with lots and lots of donkeys, cows, chickens, etc. and is an amazing illustrator and stamper. I want to be "her" when I grow up. LOL

Barb - Barb is my stamping friend up in Canada. She and I shared a hotel room at the Mall of America stamp convention last summer and we were up giggling until all hours of the night one night. After laughing for what seemed like an hour, both of us couldn't remember what we were even laughing about!! But we didn't care!!

Here are the instructions for award recipients:

1. Pick 7 of your favorite blogs
2. Winners can put the logo on their blog.
3. Link the person who gave your award to your blog.
4. Name the 7 that you are giving the award to with their links.
5. Leave a message on their blogs so that they know they've won!

Here is the calendar I gave my sister for her birthday

Its similar to Joanne's but I did use different images in Debbie's. In Joanne's I used all Riley moose images. In Debbie's, I tried to use ALOT of purple. Purple is Debbie's favorite color, in case you haven't noticed. HA (I must've missed the month of April as I can't find it in my photos. Also, if you click on each photo, you can see each one bigger if you need to. And if you want a laugh, click on May - that's when MY birthday is and I made her an extra special note so she would not forget when MY birthday is!!! HA HA)

All this talk about candy corn and I have to show you my candy corn ATC's I made

I am hosting 2 candy corn ATC swaps at the Stamp Shack and this is what I came up with. Some of my non-stamping friends have asked "what is an ATC?" including my husband who asked me this question while we were eating lunch yesterday as I was putting my most recent ones I had just gotten back in the mail in my big binder. ATC stands for Altered Trading Cards. I explained it to him like this "Remember when you were little and you collected baseball cards?" He said yes. I said its like that only we make them ourselves and they are all different themes. Its like an addiction. And he just shrugged his shoulders and kept on eating! LOL (So Debbie, do you approve of the candy corn cupcake one I "whipped" up this morning?)

I made this calendar for my friend Joanne in Tennessee. Her birthday is next week

Click on each photo to see them larger.






She loves Riley the Moose as much as I do so I begged a few stamping friends for some images and made her a calendar. Thanks to all who sent me the extra images. As you can see, I put them all to good use. I also stamped my sister her very own calendar too which she also opened today. I did hers a little differently and I will upload that one tomorrow :).