On September 20th, we said goodbye to Tom Reece ...

Tom Reece had Stage 4 Glioblastoma. They gave him 12-18 months to live if he had surgery and chemo. He fought long and hard and the disease took him away on September 20th. I will continue to pray that a cure is found, and soon.

I am flying to Salt Lake City, UT for his Celebration of Life. He was an amazing man and his family is too!! 

You can read his obituary here. 

He lived an amazing life and was an amazing man. He was always smiling, always a happy, go lucky guy. He will certainly be missed by so many people. His family is one of the strongest I know. And I want to be a part of their special day to remember this cute dad!!

All You Need is Love!

Emily and I met CJ when he was just 3 weeks old. (Emily was only 5 weeks old)  He's now 24 and he's getting married today to Madison. I made this card for them.

Wedding stamp by Stampendous
Sentiment by Recollections
Background is KOI watercolors
Stampin Up glitter on her veil

Thank you card

I made this thank you card for my friend Cindee. Cindee and I have never met face to face but we are stamping friends who go "way back". She lives in California and I really hope we can meet in person one day. Anyway, she knows how obsessed I am with my pumpkin flavored "anything" that she surprised me with this cute pumpkin care package. In return, I made her this thank you card. I used a real leaf from my yard and inked it up with Memento inks in different colors and ran it through my big Big Shot machine. It looks so real and I love how it came out!!  I will definitely be using the cute pumpkin book mark for my most recent book I'm reading :). Thanks again Cindee. I love it all!!!

Some Florida pics

I went to FL last week for my mom's birthday. Here are some photos I took.

I walked 2 mornings on Indian Rocks Beach while I was down there. It was so peaceful, first thing in the morning!!

We went to this awesome Christmas store in Clearwater called Roberts Christmas House and its open year-round. It was so fun looking at all the pretty decorations and the Christmas trees. Mom really enjoyed it.

And here we are --- Mom, Debbie, and me :).

The last of my home grown tomatoes are picked

Looks like this is the last of my home grown tomatoes for the summer .... My larger tomatoes didn't do much this year but we had plenty of cherry tomatoes ....

Happy "Howlidays"!!

Can you believe Christmas will be here in 3 months?????  I signed up for a Christmas tag swap over at Stampers Alley and here is what I came up with. We had to make 16 total.  I got them done while I was in FL last week.

Stamps by Avery Elle. I paper pieced his scarf using paper from Paper Studio. I added sequins by Neat & Tangled. I colored them with copic markers and then added a cord to each one.

Gift tag challenge at Unity

I made this tag for a "gift tag" challenge on the Unity show and tell facebook page. We had to make a cute gift tag using Unity stamps. This is one of my favorite owls from Unity and the stamp set used is called Owl Bundle Up and can be found here ... I paper pieced his sweater using Lawn Fawn plaid paper. (Can you tell how much I love that plaid paper? I'm using it on everything)

More cards in Just Cards

Can you tell I LOVE my Unity Stamps!!  All of these cards are made with Unity Stamps.

9 years ago today ....

My wonderful friend Robin passed away from breast cancer ... 9 years ago !!!  Not a day goes by that I don't miss her!! She fought for 6 long years!!!  She was so positive throughout the whole process saying each time I saw her "I am going to beat it" yet the breast cancer beat her :(.

Cards published in Just Cards

I submitted cards back in January (9 months ago) to Just Cards and I got my free issue today... Yay!!

Owl shaker card

I've always been shaker card challenged. I just "don't get it". I found this tool called a fuse tool from Project Life. It is a miracle worker. I was able to use regular pocket folders and fuse together the plastic to make pockets. I made this cute shaker card with this owl stamp from Unity Stamps.

The fuse tool made it super easy and I can now make shaker cards :).

Another word search for my little sister's birthday

My little sister Debbie turns 49 on Wednesday!!  She has one more year to enjoy her 40's. Next year is the BIG 5-0!!!!  I better start planning her 50th now!!! LOL

Once again, I used this word search website to make this word search for her birthday. Since she is YOUNGER than me and I am already over 50, I decided I would make it funny and put some "interesting" words on here. Not sure if she appreciated all the words I picked out but isn't that what big sisters are for???

The only stamps I used are for the inside of the card and this set is from Mama Elephant. I love the sentiments that come in this set. The stamp set is called Birthday Wishes and I've used the sentiments so many times!!!

I made this for someone going through a tough time

I really love how this card came out. The stamp and sentiment are both from Unity Stamps. I love their stamps and have quite a few in my collection. The background was done with a stencil and Tim Holtz distress crayons. I added twine and tied it in a bow. 

Can you Case It? CYCI#137

I made this llama card for this week's Can You Case It CYCI#137 challenge. You can see it here

I just picked up this brand new llama stamp set from My Favorite Things and its called Llama Love. I have "a thing" for llama stamps!!  LOL

I have all kinds of ideas going on in my head for this cute stamp set!

Have a great day!!

 
I made these cards a few months ago for Cards for a Cause over at Splitcoast.  It was for the humane society.  I used dog dies from Impression Obsession. On one of the cards I used Color Burst. The other cards I just painted stripes on the cards using watercolors.

My mom's birthday is this week

My mom turns 75 this week!!!  She loves doing her word searches so I made her a card with a word search from this website .  I think it came out really cute and she's going to love finding all of the things she knows on the word search.  Pretty neat huh?

Graduation!

I made this card for Amber's graduation. She graduated from Appalachian State University and we couldn't be more proud of her. (I had to add her dog Leo to the card too!) The graduation girl die is from Impression Obsession. I drew the yellow and black lines (App's colors) on with Tim Holtz distress crayons.

Photo card anyone?

I love to add a photo to a card every once in awhile. This die from Taylored Expressions is perfect for these photos.  In the first photo, it was Mary, Angie, Traci and me in Vegas. We went a few years ago and had a great time. When I think of Vegas, I laugh when I think of the Michael Jackson show we went to.  Seated directly in front of me, was this woman with a HUGE BUN on the top of her head. I could barely see the show. It was so funny!! I just kept laughing throughout the whole show.

In the 2nd card, is Angie, Traci and me with her dog, Bailey. We were visiting Traci and we snapped a selfie before Bailey got up :).

Go Cindee Go!!

 I made this card for my friend, Cindee who was running in a 5k race.

Stamp by Unity Stamps
Background is watercolored using Koi watercolors

Unity challenge

I made these 2 cards for the Unity challenge on Unity's facebook page. They post a different challenge each week. This week we are to use these 3 fall colors: yellow/orange, maroon, and olive green. This is what I came up with...

For the background of this card, I used my Koi watercolors and painted on the colors onto watercolor paper. I let each color dry before adding the next color so they wouldn't run into each other. This owl is from a Unity set called "Going to be OWL-RIGHT" and its one of my favorites from them.

For this card, I used my Memento markers and stamped directly onto the stamp in the different colors. Then I added some sequins. This Unity stamp is called BFF. 

Some cat cards I made for my Cards for a Cause

I dug out my cat stamps and made these cat cards for Cards for a Cause at Splitcoast Stampers.

Stamp by Rubbernecker
Background by Color Burst (Ken Oliver)

Cat stamp by Magenta
Verse by Amuse Stamps

60 bridal shower invites done!

60 bride and grooms cut out.
Bride and groom die by IO.
Heart Sprinkle Sash die by Poppystamps.

Thanks to Brenda and Karen at Stampers Alley for helping me come up with this design. No stamps were used in making this card. My sister did the inside of the card and I just printed them on my printer.

All 60 cards done and in the mail!

Charlie's granddaughter Amber is getting married in December so i got these done over the Labor Day weekend. 

Cards for a Cause at Splitcoast for September

Stamps by Technique Junkie. Paper by Lawn Fawn

Stamps by Unity. Plaid paper by Lawn Fawn

Stamps by Unity. Watercolor
background by PeerlessWatercolors

For the month of September, the Cards for a Cause over at Splitcoast Stampers is the Tri-County Humane Society in St. Cloud, MN.  I bought the perfect dog stamps at the W. Springfield stamp show and I've been waiting to ink them all up. Each month they pick a different organization who needs cards donated to them. I've been donating to this great cause for about a year and each month I look forward to seeing who they will pick.  I think I need to go through my cat stamps and make some cat cards next!!

Stamps by Technique Junkie. Paper by Lawn Fawn

Autumn themed cards for Unity Stamps challenge

I went outside and picked up some leaves. I added ink to the leaves, then I ran the leaves and my paper through my Big Shot. I love how the leaves came out. Stamp sentiment from Unity Stamps.

Again, this one I also added ink to this one leaf that I found outside.
I used Memento inks and colored the leaves, then mashed it on
the piece of paper using my Big Kick. I love how detailed the leaf
came out. 

This is one of my favorites by Unity. I made this card for Splitcoast
which for September is Tri-County Humane Society.