What a Week! Santa Came!

Totally crazy busy around here this last week getting ready running around baking etc. Dave of course had surgery a week ago Christmas Day. We were at the hospital at 5:30am and got home around 4pm. It seemed a lot longer sitting in the waiting room waiting to hear how it was going. The Dr. feels very posititive about it though he rebuilt 2 bones behind his ear and thinks he got the nerve working again. It will take a few weeks before we see results. This --> is my Christmas present! At least he's happy and animated again! Below is a pic of him after we came home from the surgery. And before anyone gets upset he asked me to take a pic. I know he looks like he's annoyed but that's just the drugs! HA


The girls had a great Christmas! Mommy made it to Abs Dance show Thursday after the hospital and on Friday Daddy and Mommy made it to Em's Dance show! We finished all of our shopping and wrapping and even a little baking. In and around all of the snow and ice and freezing cold! On Christmas eve we headed out to Grandma's house and had a great time then came home to unwrap our pj's and put out reindeer food and cookies and milk. Santa did arrive and he even hooked up the Wii. Don't you just love the hedgies he brought the girls.


Here's before the holiday's! The nurses in recovery called him Princess Leah! HA Gotta love the headgear!
Anyhoo now that we're all recovered from our holiday festivities and the snow is melting as we speak! Back to our regularly scheduled program!
Hope everyone had a safe and Happy Holiday!




Gingerbread House!!! Food/Candy Post Warning!

A favorite holiday tradition is decorating a gingerbread house. I'm not sure if it's the decorating or the planning of eating all the candy that's the most important but either way we all have alot of fun with it! The last couple of years I've ordered the house premade from the bakery here in our neighborhood. It's awesome putting together a house and getting it to stand with two little girls jumping around me asking when it will be done is not my favorite part. So the bakery makes it tons easier and the bonus is their gingerbread is FABULOUS tasting and they add a cotton ball poof coming out of the chimney like smoke. As you can see we had lots of candy including traditional gum drops, lifesavers, and red hots as well as some things I discovered while perusing the stores candy isle. Love the Peep trees I have to get a shot of the wall with the JOY Peep that was cool. So that's it for now I'm sure I'll have another angle tomorrow. I have to destickify my table now! ICK!

Have a great day!

Get Your NEW DESIGNS HERE!!!!

I'm so excited we can purchase the new Odd Bird Planet stamps! Here is another card I made using a new image. I love this little gingerbread house! I colored it with pencils and cut it out. The branch is also an OBP stamp. The snow is liquid applique. The gingerbread man is Jolee's along with the stars. I die cute a piece of acetate the same as the ornament and glued them together under the snowflakes.

So this works perfect tonight we are decorating our gingerbread house. We were supposed to last night but I'm afraid my children were way WIRED, complete with jumping off the couches etc. I have girls, really I'm not equipped for this abnormal behavior for them. I think their exciting weekend and an after school play date got the best of them and they lost it! I know I lost it!

They did both loose teeth this weekend. Very exciting. Abbi lost her first tooth yesterday. The tooth fairy has to be getting tired of my kids and their questions they leave for her!!! They write her long notes asking lots and lots of questions. Em asked for 1,000,000,000 wishes and Abs wants to know her name as well! Then there was can we talk about her name now etc. going on! They crack me up! I did here Emily say the other night to Abbi. "The Tooth Fairy has her own special pink marker." Thank goodness I heard that! I had to dig out the pen I used last time! YIKES!!

Have a great day!

Ooops MIA Cookies Cookies and More Cookies




I know I've been MIA for a little bit but have very good excuses I swear! First last Wed. we had our cookie exchange and celebrated Ana's b-day Happy Birthday Ana. Which was so much fun we took her to Claim Jumpers and we all love that! Yummy Yummy Yummy then we came home and exchanged cookies. Only 4 of us this year but very cute very delicious cookies were exchanged. Here they are. Dianne's are up top she embossed that giant snowflake and added vintage looking buttons. So adorable. I love the Kraft paper boxes! The snowman tub is Paula. I love that little tub I think the Kelly Dolls have a pool now! Or maybe it will be a washtub for Daisy and Petunia.


Next we have Ana's with these cute little lunch boxes. I think my cat's eyes might fit in there? Gotta check it out after the cookies are gone! Our recipes were even personalized with our initials I didn't get a good pic of that it kept glaring out the brad.








These are mine not a big deal I just added a poinsettia to the recipe and a cute pewter sleigh.
Besides that my Mom and Joel came for the weekend to celebrate Christmas with us. We spent a great weekend together shopping and eating and opening presents. The girls had a wonderful time. Although they were very very very sad when it came time for them to leave last night. The sobbing was almost more than I could bear. They talked to Grandma this morning though before school she was on the road heading home.
I have lots of projects to share with you that I've been working on. I just thought the cookies were more important! I would always do dessert first if given the opportunity.
Have a great day!


Cards For Heros I

So I forgot to share this one. I have more but I'm going to try to add one a day. We'll see how long that lasts! This is done with Odd Bird Planet images. I had a moment when I could only use polka dots. What am I saying the moment isn't over I'm working on a polka dot card right now.

So after the snow snow snow yesterday it's all white and bright and sunny! We're going outside for Girl Scouts today to trek through the snow.

Odd Bird Planet Preview #2

Here is another preview of a new upcoming stamp from Odd Bird Planet! The elf on the right Roger is on his lunch hour from Home Depot. He met up with Charlie who works across the way at the Best Buy and they decided to build a snowman! They're both trying to quit smoking so this is the latest break time project! HA I realized after I colored the vest red he was a Home Depot elf! The paper is all Doodlebug! And I stickled the snowman and all of the snowflakes however the scan doesn't show that very well.

This is how it is outside here. Snowing!!!! Except our has an underlying layer of 12 hours of ice and rain! It's lovely driving weather especially with the salt shortage! Oh well nowhere to go tonight I'm baking cookies for the cookie exchange!

OBP Preview #1

Here is a preview of a couple of new images coming from the Odd Bird Planet soon! I love this little guy with his part down the middle and his uncertainty that this Mushroom Village is really his new home sweet home!

So Dave had his first day at work, and he wasn't as exhausted as I thought he would be. We met his parents for his Birthday dinner early so that was fun and the girls loved going out with Grandma and Grandpa. I did Laundry yesterday. It truly was a regular Monday it's been so long since I've had one!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Monday Feature *Gift Card Holder*

It's Monday and time for a Linnecards feature project. This week we're focusing on Gift Card Holders. There are some really cool ones in the Gallery today!

Supplies Used:
Patterned Paper - Basic Grey Figgy Pudding
Punches - Martha Stewart, Stampin Up
Ink - Clearsnap Fluid Chalk Ink
Ribbon - Making Memories
Hardware - Stampin Up

The Snow Stopped The Snow Stopped

Dianne and I had a disappointing day at the open house, but we had lots of fun laughing. We're hoping today is much better! If not I'm working on getting all my Holiday cards ready to go out. Yesterday I colored a bunch of OBP images for cards I need to make. So at least I was productive.

Here are some necklaces I made using very nice shiny washers from Lowes(they're much nicer than some other places I've found), beautiful scrapbook paper, and Diamond Glaze. They are kinda cool I put a lobster claw clasp on the rope. I did have someone buy one yesterday that suggested I do both sides to make it reversible which is an Awesome idea I think the next ones I do will have that. These were kind of popular I only have 1 left and both shows they were the first things to sell.
Everyone had a great day yesterday well except maybe Suz(my 16 yr old niece) poor girl she babysat for the girls all day yesterday. The girlies loved it so, they Adore her and think she is super COOL so they were in heaven all day. Even to the point of ordering the exact same meal as her at the restaurant last night! Suz seemed to take it in stride but she was a bit tired when we took her home. Dave met with a bunch of guys in Galena to "plan" for their reenacting year. I'm sure they "planned" a lot. HA

Hope everyone has a great Sunday!

Good News!

Dave went to our family Dr. today and he's been released to go back to work and to have his surgery. Phew! He is so excited! He was really beyond bored here at home it was making him cranky! Now tomorrow he's going to Galena to meet up with friends so that will be an excellent way to end his stay at home.

So here is another set of Holiday cards. These are elegant and simple. I used Dew Drops for the berries.
Supplies Used:
Tag Corner Punch (Stampin Up)
Cardstock(Old Olive, Rose Red, Very Vanilla - Stampin Up)
Gold Embossing Powder
Pigment Ink Gold
Hope everyone has a great Saturday. After shovling all the snow we are getting right now of course!

Felicitations!

So Dianne and I are working on our last craft show open house thing for this weekend. My goal was to finish my Christmas fudge, reindeer noses and 2009 calendars and I'm almost done I can't believe it. I keep having to hunt down things I put away during the chaos so it's taking longer than normal. I haven't finished sharing what I worked on last month so I have lots more coming. Plus I'm doing a fun Camp tomorrow night so that will come too!

Speaking of things I put away during the chaos here are some cards I put away during the mess. All OddBird Planet stamps and Flair Designs papers. Today was a bit of a disappointment. The Dr.s office didn't do what they had to do with the insurance so the next tests could take place today so now we're looking at next week sometime before Dave is released to work. He's very upset but everyone that could do anything about it today was in surgery and things had to be rescheduled. Crossing my fingers his Dr.'s appt goes well tomorrow. He's starting to get a little stir crazy and I'm afraid my errands to the post-office, grocery store etc. aren't that satisfying anymore.

Ab's had a good day she was the best Jump Roper in a game in gym class today so she was very excited about that. Em and I went and picked up the final supplies for her Indian Clay Doll she's doing for a school project. Now we have to do jewelry and clothing so that should be fun.

Have a great Friday and try to do something fun today!

Odd Bird Planet News

New Design Team Announced! After ten days of spotlights, here's the complete list of the design team for the next six months. New Members Alex Maldonado Karrie Baker Laura Kayra Laura O'Donnell Nicole Maki Ryann Salamon Sparkle Smith Suzy Haghighi Tanis Giesbrecht Tiffany Johnson

Continuing Members Beth Norman Debbie Scheunemann Dianne McInrue Godelieve Tijskens Kathi Rerek Kerry Urbatch Kim Schofield - Design Team Manager Marnie Bushmole Teresa Abajo Tracy Durcan

Plus the December Deal is Here!

December's Special Deal! December's Special Deal is especially special as it includes two new-release stamps, one of which is a super-cute gnome! The Special Deal bundle of stamps is specially priced at 25% off retail. This bundle is only available during the month of December, so click here to get one for yourself! You gnome you want it! December's Special Deal includes: Gnome on Branch Right Tiny Bird Right Fairytale Birdhouse"Thanks a Birdie Bunch"

More Catching Up

I'm catching up online this week. After almost a month of hospital/doctor stuff and then trying to find the house under the painting and flooring stuff left undone. I'm finally getting things put back together enough that I can hold my head above water! Thank goodness. So I found this fun thing online today. My Favorite Things of MFT is having a blog hop with previews of their new stamp line! They have cute stamps. I'm in love with the paper doll she is adorable. So I thought today I would share a card set I made using an older set of their stamps. Baby It's Cold Outside. I did this on Fabriano cards and used watercolor crayons to color.

Have a great day!




Still Home!

Dave was hoping his neurosurgeon would release him to go back to work tomorrow. ARGHHH he needs more tests to make sure he's good to go. He's so bored at home it's bugging him. That plus I'm making him do things around the house! HA! So he's really going nuts!

So here are some more Holiday cards I made. This stamp is from Impression Obsession. I colored it with my PrismaColor Markers. I know the ribbon looks burgundy but really it's red it's just the strange light I think it looks better in the multiples picture. I did about 6 of these cards. Doing small batches is more interesting to me than 50 or more of one style. My attention span is not that long!


So this is exciting... I'm all done with Holiday Decorating! Finally something is done on time or at lest in time for the upcoming weeks. My goal is to get everything in order before the surgery so that all we have to do is come home and take care of Dave. I'm working on my shopping next!

How is everyones week going? What have you done to prepare for the Holiday's this week? Are you done and enjoying the season already?

Have you gone to Tim Holtzs' blog and seen his 12 tags of Xmas? He's on Day 2 and he's going to knock your socks off! Especially the step by step instructions not to mention prizes each day!

Do Not Open Till Christmas!

Cute Chritsmas gift tags. I found these little jems on clearance and had to have them a couple of years back. Stamped embossed glittered and even puffy painted them! They are lots of fun and even a little secretive! Stamps Basic Grey and Doodlebug.

Ahhhhhh! I'm back!

It feels so good to be back online and somewhat done with my house. We went from the upper left picture to the bottom left in a matter of days. Finishing all of the painting in the living room/dining room. Then we moved on to the bathroom. Where unfortunately Dave broke the toilet and we had to have a plumber come and fix that up. But once he was gone that room was done and it was on to Holiday prep. Finishing with our Turkey on Thursday. Phew! After that it was cleaning out our Garage so we could move our cars in. We finished just in time there was a light dusting on the cars as we moved them in yesterday. But at least it wasn't the 2.5 inches we got last night.

I'm back to boxes in the LR/DR but that's all the Christmas stuff that needs to go up. By the end of the evening yesterday the tree had lights and the was it we were done for the weekend! Tonight we'll finish that.

Dave is doing ok. Not really sleeping well? He needs to be doing something more I think? He went to the Hospital this morning for his pre-surgery prep stuff. I'm very worried about the surgery he seems excited though so I'm trying to keep to myself.

I'm making some Christmas fudge today to give as gifts and sell at the Holiday Bazaar this weekend. That should be fun. OOH and I have lots of projects ready to load up! Hope everyone had a great holiday!