Happy New Year!!!  I hope you enjoyed spending time with family and friends.  I just got back from my cousin's house this morning.  It seems like I went from one house to another for over a week now.  It is so good to be home.

My Darling Husband got me a new Cricut Cartridge....Life's a Beach.  I think he is so wonderful.  But it couldn't have come at a better time.  When we visited my sister-in-law they were talking about making baby shower invitations for her in February.  I told them I might be able to help them out.  They wanted to do a pirate themed baby shower.  I never heard of that before, but I was up for the challenge.  I just finished designing 4 different pirate themed baby shower invitations earlier today.  My first 2 attempts screamed pirate theme party, but not baby shower.  My next two attempts were better.  You can't tell in the pictures, but the sails on the boats are actually copies of a picture of Leia's ultrasound that she had posted on Facebook awhile back.  I hope she like them.  It was fun trying to come up with all the details and the wording for these invitations. 

I decided not to make any new year's resolutions this year.  It seems like that would only take time away from my crafts, and I didn't really want to do that.  So I guess I will just try to be more organized so I can have more time to do what I like to do. 

I hope your coming new year is filled with good friends, family, laughter and crafts.  May God grant you the grace to be thankful for the good days and the strenght to get through the tough days.  Have a wonderful new year and I look forward to sharing my crafts with you.

Sorry I haven't made much this month.  I've been pre-occupied with all these holidays parties and events.  Last weekend I sold some stuff at the swapmeet.  There was a little old lady in the next stall over that sang to me.  It was pretty funny, but she was cute.  Yesterday we made gingerbread houses over at a friend's house.  It was funny watching a bunch of adults get all into this.  Tommorrow I will be doing my annual cookie bake-off here.  This morning I finally sat down and tried to start organizing all of my pictures into categories so that I could start scrapbooking some of my own stuff.  I had no idea I had so many pictures.  The bad thing is I don't remeber a lot of the people in the pictures anymore.  I took so many pictures when I was in high school and I fell out of contact with so many of the people back then.  I used to have a passion for taking pictures of sunsets and scenery.  Looking at the pictures now, I just decided to throw away a lot of the pictures...honestly how many pictures of Shamu, skylines, trees, and animals do we really need?  Now instead of taking a picture of a building, I try to take a picture of myself or my husband in front of the buliding....the picture is more memorable to me with one of us in it, and I feel like the picture isn't as much of a waste as before.  It freed up so much space just getting rid of those sunset pictures, blurry photos, and the ones that were too dark to figure out who was in the picture.  When I went through my picture downsizing exercise, I sorted the pictures into themes and put them into piles by categories:  College days, high school days, our wedding, Christmas, etc.  Then i put each pile of pictures into an envelope and labeled it.  It was very time consuming, but I figured that I would start scrapbooking next year by just grabbing an envelope and use those pictures until I filled up an albumn. 

With the fires that were in southern California a few years ago, I know I need to get these albums put together soon.  We were evacuated and I grabbed the few belongings that I truly valued---my pictures.  When I left my house I only grabbed the finished scrapbooks and the pictures that were on the wall.  I would have lost so many pictures if the house would have burned.  Before I used to store the scrapbooks on a lower shelf  of my book case.  It was a pain to get a laundry basket and throw all the pictures in there in a hurry.  Now I store my scrapbooks in 2 big designer boxes I got from Ross, which I keep in the living room near the front door.  It is a pain to get out a scrapbook to thumb through, but if we ever need to be evacuated again, it will be easier to grab these boxes and throw them in the car then it was scrambling around trying to get everything out quickly.  I guess my new year's resolution is going to be to get more organized and to try to finish up my scrapbooks.  I need to go to the grocery store.  Have a wonderful and safe Christmas vacation filled with happiness, family, friends, and fond memories.  Merry Christmas and may you and your family have a wonderful New Year!!!  God's blessings on all of You.    

Yesterday I went over to a friend's house to work on Christmas cards, wrap presents, and learn how to make bows.  My friend works with a missionary organization in Romania....Heart to Heart.  They run an orphanage over there and a training facility for the kids that are aging out of the system.  We wrapped gifts for the girls that are transitioning out of the program.  One of the girls wants to be a chef and the other two want to go into cosmotology.  They also wrapped gifts for the current residents.  Then we made about 10 cards for the people over there.  It was a great time with good food, good company, and lots of laughter.

There will be a team that goes out this Christmas to deliver all of the packages.  It was good to be a part of such a good cause.  Hopefully one day I'll be able to go out to meet some of these kids in Romania.  But I have to renew my passport first.

Well here are the rest of the cards I made from the other day.  Enjoy and have a great week as we head into the final week before Christmas.  Hard to believe it is only a week and a half away.  Happy scrapping!!!

On Saturday it rained all day.  It was good for me because it gave me plenty of time to clean up my scrapbook room and make some new projects.  It was a great feeling to accomplish two major goals without too many distractions. 

I pulled out the Paper Pups cartridge to see what I could make with it.  I can't believe how many cards I came up with in a day.  I find that it is easier and faster to cut out a bunch of images and then decide what to do with them later.  This does 2 things:  it saves time and paper.  After I cut out the images, I go back through all my scrap papers and just try to mix and match papers that I think will work well together.  After I get the front of the card  made, I go back and put on a title and/or add a vellum quote on the inside.  Most of the time I leave the cards blank. 

I love blank note cards because I love letters that express the person's thoughts rather than Hallmark's.  In this digital age, I think we have lost the art of letter writing to e-mail and text messaging.  I'd much rather get a handwritten card from my husband, instead of a card that he just signed his name on. 

I digress.  Here are the pictures of my latest creations.  I hope you like them.  Have a great wekk.

Sorry, I haven't really had time to create anything new lately.  I didn't forget about you.  I've just been trying to meet all the deadlines for meetings at the school.  Between finals, grades, and IEP meetings I haven't found much time to work on crafts.  I haven't even started my Christmas shopping yet...it seems like this month is just getting crazier and crazier with a frenzy of activities.  One of these days, I think I'm going to quit my day job so I can give you my full attention.   But for now, I have to keep paying my bills.  Next week we have 1/2 days during finals week, so I'm sure I will have something together before the end of the week.  I wish there was a way for you to post your crafts on this website, I'd love to see what you are making to.  Maybe I'll do some research for a viewer's gallery.  I know there are a lot more talented people out there than me.  Happy crafting to you.  Have a great weekend.

I can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner.  It seems like it comes faster and faster every year.  What's more amazing is that I am actually ahead of the game.

We put up the tree last week when I was on vacation.  All the decorations are up.  I actually have Christmas cards written out and I just put the stamps on them, so they are ready to be mailed out.  I have a 101 things to still get done at work.  But somehow, it is getting done.  This weekend I'm heading up to the LA area for our first Christmas party of the season.  They put me in charge of games, so I've been racking my brains to come up with something.  I found christmas Bingo cards at Walmart today.  I'm going to make up a Christmas Taboo game.  We will also play a dress up the snowman game, where you have a relay race to have a team put on a scarf, a hat, gloves, a jacket, and I'm trying to figure out how to make the carrot nose. 

Below are pictures of the rest of the pictures of the cards that I made earlier in the week.  Have an awesome week and be creative!