My Top 10 Favorite Cards of 2010 and my word of 2011

Hello!  And Happy New Years Eve!  I love the feeling of hope and joy a new year brings!  2010 has been a great year for us, although this past month has been a bit of a trying time with all of us getting sick before, over and after Christmas!  I am looking forward to 2011 as I am believing that it can only get better!  I have been seeing all over bloggers sharing there top 10 favorite cards/projects of 2010.  I thought it would be fun to share mine.  I also thought it would be so easy to pick 10.  How wrong was I?  I picked 20 and than took forever narrowing it down.  I even thought to post my top favorite 15 but it seemed too much!  So here they are in order of when I posted them:

I still love this card, the colors and those ribbon roses!

I made these Valentines sucker pop's for Ariel's preschool class and I remember the happiness I felt making this for her and her classmates!

This was my first attempt with the rolled paper roses.  I won top 5 at Hero Arts with this card and it will forever be one of my favorites.

I have to share one of my cards with this silhouette flower. I love this stamp so and really enjoyed it in 2010, and plan to in 2011 also!  This was my first time trying the pearlized water technique and I was so thrilled when I captured it's shine in a picture!

This is the card I made for my hubby Chad for his birthday!  I think this is the only masculine card I am sharing and it's my favorite of them.

This is a card I made for one of the Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge, in the summer I became part of the DT.  I love being on the DT, working with Jenny and the other DT gals has been great!  I really enjoy it!

I think this may be one of my favorite cards because I really enjoyed making it, and the way I used string...

This is one of my favorites because I liked coming up with the embossing and stamping on the embossed circles.  I also have fond memories of this card because it's one of the ones I took to Scrapfest for the card swap we had at our Hero Arts Flickr dinner!

These are the invitations I made for Ariel's birthday.  I loved coloring each princess to look like the little girl receiving the invitation and making them magnets! 

This is my favorite of the Christmas cards I made this year!  I think my favorite part is the twine and the way it loops!

So this is really number 11 but I wanted to pick from my favorite of the card sets and this is it!

Another thing I have seen a lot of bloggers do is pick a word for 2011.  It's Ali Edwards idea you can see more about it here.  I like this idea.  As a new year begins I think we all look at our lives and ponder.  Chad and I have been.  We have been writing down goals and aspirations because we have heard that if you don't write it down you forget and more than likely it doesn't happen.  We also found old plans and goals from before and saw that pretty much everything had been met!  So I encourage you to do the same!  This one word falls into what we already were doing and something I have been pondering.  I have always been a happy person, but I have been finding that with life's little set backs my mood isn't always happy, that I let these little things make me moody.  So my word is joy, it's easy for me to be happy, but I want the joy.  It's easy to be happy in front of others even when your moody.  I want the joy that being happy all the way through brings! I know that through Christ is where I find my joy.  And I am going to focus on that!  

Here are some great bible verses that mention joy:

Isaiah 55:12 - "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands." (NIV)

Proverbs 15:13 - "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit." (NIV)

Psalm 97:11-12 - "Light is shed upon the righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Rejoice in the LORD, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name." (NIV)

If you've made it all the way here I applaud you.  I know this is my crafty blog but it's also my place to be me.  I hope you enjoy tonight as we ring in the new year!

Thank You Poppies

Hello all!  I hope you are having a wonderful Thursday!  Hope you have been enjoying the lovely relaxing week between Christmas and New Years.  We have been although sadly my Ariel has been sick.  Hubby just took her the doctor and she has Scarlet Fever now too.  She hasn't been feeling all that well and had a fever but whenever I asked her what hurt, your throat, your ears she said no she just didn't feel that well.  We thought she had what her cousins did, a fever that turned into a cough.

I have a thank you card to share today.  I made this for my mother's coworker who gave her the tickets to the Nutcracker ballet I took Ariel to on Tuesday.  Which she just loved (even though she didn't feel well she didn't want to go home and sat happily through it all), I forgot to mention that it was a ballet.  In my city we have a world renown ballet company!  The nutcracker was magical, oh the costumes!  We were so blessed to have been given tickets that I really wanted to make sure to make a card for her. 

Products Used:  Bazill cardstock, Stamps: Hero Arts CL272, CL449. Inks: Colorbox Frost White,  SU Black and Chocolate Chip.  Other:  Prisma and Derwent pencils.

A pretty simple card but one that I think shows off the beauty of the poppies.  I stamped and colored them in with my pencils, when I color on the kraft I color quite hard to give it a rich color.  I added pearls that I colored black with a sharpe.  I swept the sides with my white pigment ink by Colorbox which I think adds so much!  I am entering this into two challenges the last day for the Hero Arts, one theme was thanks.  And the Cute Card Thursday challenge (cute name!) which is thank you cards!

At the beginning of December I organized a Holiday Card Exchange at my favorite online group, the Hero Arts Flickr Group!  Here is the card I made for Linda:

And than I was floored when I received this in the mail from Marilyn!

WOW!  She sent me not only a Christmas card but a birthday one too! And wow love her cards, so beautiful and works of art! And such wonderful crafty goodies and a beautiful tea towel and pot holder!  I had been wanting a Christmas one!  :>

That's it for me today!  Off to finish supper!

Card set for Lisa

Hello!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!  I can't beleive how fast it's over!  We had a great Christmas, busy but full of family fun and great food!  With Christmas and boxing day being over the weekend many people are still off until Wednesday!  It makes the holiday last longer!  Chad and I have been enjoying some couple time as my parents took the kids for a sleepover on Sunday night and than my inlaws took all the grandkids for big sleepover last night (Monday)!  It's been nice having time alone with Chad and being able to sleep in!  It's good to be able to recoup after Carter was sick, than me, than Chad over Christmas and now Ariel.  I found myself so busy right before Christmas with the preparations and than busy with Christmas!  

Today I have a card set to share that I made as part of my gift for Chad's sister Lisa.  I made her six cards of the same design but some differences:

 

Close ups:

Products used:  SU Blossom Party Die, Wilton Doilies, Bazill Cardstock, PTI buttons.  Stamps: Hero Arts CL272, CL371, Horizontal Background, and Friends Def.  PTI polka Dot basics.  Ink: SU Chocolate Chip, Tumbled Glass by Tim Holtz, Colorbox Razzberry Pigment. 

Not the best photos some are on a angle making it look like it's not straight!  I stamped a bunch of backgrounds than die cut them and cardstock and made some flowers.  I made each card a bit different with the layout of the flowers and the buttons.  I really enjoyed making this card set, and she really liked it!  I enjoy making card sets and giving them as gifts.  One of my friends encourages me to even just go through my stacks of cards and gift those, but I think giving a set is better.  I think as I have ideas for sets I am going to work on making them to have on hand for gifts throught the year, or even be ready for Christmas!  Did you give away any cards or card sets this Christmas?  What was the reaction, and if not why not?

Here are some photos from Christmas that I thought I would share:

All of us on Christmas Day just before opening presents..

Christmas tradition before presents the bible passage of Christ's birth is read while the kids act out the nativity!  Hopefully next year Carter will be old enough to take part!  Ariel was an angel.  My favorite moment was when the shepherds (the two girls holding staffs) walked to see Mary and Joeseph, they walked with a hunched back and limps.  No idea why but boy oh boy did we laugh!

And this photo is for you Barb!  It was a Vikings Christmas for Chad and Carter!  Chad loves this hat that says " Future Viking!"  And Carter loves his Viking's footballs and really likes wearing the hat!

Well I hope your having a great week between Christmas and New Years!  Tonight I am taking Ariel to the Nutcracker!  She is quite excited, it's too bad she isn't feeling her best but she doesn't want to miss it!

Merry Christmas!

The most wonderful day of the year is here!  Wishing you and your family all the wonders of Christmas!  We are enjoying celebrating the birth of our savior!   I wanted to pop in and share our card that we gave out this year:

I hope your day is special!

Snowflake Picture Frame

Happy Christmas Eve Eve!  It's almost here!  Are you ready?  I am so close!  It's a bit of a crafty Christmas for me, and I would like it to be even more so of a crafty Christmas but time is almost out!  Oh well!  My shopping is done, my wrapping is almost done (have to do it when the kiddos are sleeping otherwise I will be wrapping the same gift several times as Carter doesn't seem to get it!)  I made a picture frame for Chad's grandmother last night and like it so much that I went and bought more to make my mom and Chad's mom one too!  Here it is:

 I bought a plain white 5 by 7 wood frame at Michaels.  I stamped it with a Hero Arts sentiment with Staz on ink, I took the glass and everything out of the frame when I did it so that it would lay as flat as it could.  When I stamped it I took my time lifting the block from the frame because sometimes staz on sticks and not much ink comes off.  Practice on the back like I did to see what works! I decorated the frame with a few silver and sparkly teal Nestabilities snowflakes that I cut out at my photographer/friends house!  Simple but I think it compliments the picture perfect and makes a great gift!  It's great to add to a gift or even alone.

I want to share a cute photo of Ariel:

I hope that you have a great Christmas!  I am so blessed by all of you!

Marshmallow Snowman and Thank you card set

Happy Tuesday!  I have a few things to share with you!  Today is Ariel's last day of school before Christmas break!  I had so many ideas running through my head on what to make her teacher but with all the sickness over here I didn't get a chance!  So I decided to go with a card set.  Coming up with a design that suited her teacher was hard with a foggy mind when your not feeling well since I don't see her teacher liking a very girly set of cards or the color pink.  (And friends lately I am in the mood to play with hot pink but haven't got the chance!)  So on Sunday night after our crazy crazy day I finally got inspired and made her these:

I stamped the silhouette flower by Hero Arts on cream cardstock with Tumbled Glass by Tim Holtz on 4 and Chestnut Roam on the other 4.  I made 8 cards, 4 of each color and stamped with 2 different thank you sentiments by HA also.  I really like the touch of the button!  I am also glad that I made the card purses early that I shared a few weeks ago, I gave one of those to the Education assistant in her class.   Here it is all "wrapped up" I made a simple tag for it:

Last night I was online searching around when I saw this and had to make them!  Nevermind being sick and all.  I had another more papercraft idea in my head but never got a chance to make it.  When I saw this snowman idea I got so excited.  I asked Chad what he thought since he was going to be helping me make it! (little did he know...) And I ran to the store and bought supplies.  Here is what I made for each of the kids in Ariel's class:

Basically I put 3 marshmallows on skewers dipped them in melted white chocolate wafers and added mini m&m's for the eyes, nose and buttons.  From the girl who I got the idea she made earmuffs too, I was going to but I couldn't find twizllers pullaparts only licorice laces so I gave up on that idea!  They look good but not perfect but hey it's my first try with anything like this!  And by the way they are sooo yummy!  :>  Here they are all wrapped up, wrapping them up took longer than it did making them!

I wrapped them up since I wasn't sure if they would stick together or if the kids would have time to eat them at the party.  I made simple tags too!  These were so fun to make and I plan on making more!  I am so glad that even though I didn't feel that well I made myself make them, I knew if I didn't I would totally regret it and I want to be the sort of mom who does these things.  

I have so many crafty ideas for gifts so I am hoping they work out, I want it to be a crafty Christmas!

Colors of the Season!

Hello!  Happy Monday!  I am here with a late post for the Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge.  I am so sorry to be late but with Carter having Scarlet Fever and myself not feeling well I just didn't get a chance to post.  I went to a walk in today and I have tonsillitis, the doctor said he didn't even need a swab to know!  I am on meds now so I hope that I will be feeling a lot better soon.  It's hard to be sick right before Christmas, I have so much to do, I have such great crafty ideas that I need to make!   Plus I want my taste bubs back!

Even with not feeling well we had a really busy day yesterday!  At church it was Carter's turn to go on stage and sing his song.  He was so cute when I went up to take his picture before it started he pointed and said look!  It got caught on the mike!  Than at the end Chad and I waved to him from our seats and he waved back so happily!  In the afternoon it was Ariel's Holiday dance recital.  She went on stage twice and danced for both her hip hop and ballet/jazz/tap class.  She did so well and so happily, she loves to dance!  That evening we attended a gathering on one of Chad's family side, it was fun.  I made turtle tarts which were a big hit, sadly I couldn't taste them!

This week we have a great sponsor Pin Cat Studios!  They gave us some adorable digital images to make!  And I see on there site they have some cute rubber ones too!  You can check them out here

Our challenge this week is to find inspiration in the "Colors of the Season".  

So ummm well I may not have really.  I made my card while Carter was sick when he was napping last week.  And while making it, it somehow didn't occur to me that we had a theme!  Oy!  Oh well it's cute....

I hope that you will join us!  The challenge runs longer than usual with Christmas being this weekend so there is lots of time to play!  Until December 31st, so two weeks to play!  Click here for more info.

Retro Tags

Hello!  I wanted to post today to share some tags and to share with you that my son Carter is sick with Scarlet Fever.  He woke up yesterday sick but it was different than a regular fever because his face was all chapped and red and his eyes were swollen, later I noticed a rash.  I am very glad that I took him to the pediatrician right away as now he is on medication and is starting to do better.  Giving him the medication has been a huge ordeal as he has never been on any.  I am thankful that the pharmacy ordered the banana flavor of the medication and is charging me less for this new prescription   Everyone else seems to be doing fine.  I am not sure about me as my throat is hurting and I do feel a bit under the weather.  I wonder if we will make it to the family gathering this weekend!  Ariel has her Holiday dance recital for her ballet class and hip hop class, I really want her and us to be able to go!

Here are a set of tags that I made.  I made a few of them.  I had planned to use them for myself, to give them away if I needed to.  Than I changed my mind and thought to make something else for the teachers, but now with what's going on this may be the teacher gift.  We shall see!

I used the Practicing Creativity set Retro Christmas for these tags.  It's hard to tell but the candy cane has a thin layer of tape with glitter on it!  Really blings it up!  What do you think, if I make a pretty card to hold them it would be a good teacher's gift right?  It may have to be!  :>

Rudolf the Retro Reindeer

Hello!  Only 10 days until Christmas! Thank you for your sweet comments on my last post of my kids with Santa!  :>  It's been a busy couple of days over here.  On Monday I went shopping for 10 hours, yes you read that right 10!  My SIL and I went to a mall across the city and all the stores along the way, did a lot of searching and thinking so that's why it took so long!  We also enjoyed a nice dinner at Olive Garden, yum!  I only have 1 present left to buy!  And many to make!  ACK!  Yesterday I went with Ariel on her class field trip to a retirement home.  They sang Christmas songs and poems!  It was so sweet!  Driving on the bus for a half an hour each way was not!  

I have another Christmas card to share today!  This one I made with Retro Christmas, I really love this reindeer!

I embossed the background with my Tim Holtz folder, isn't it pretty?  The bottom is velum that I hand cut to shape than lined with glossy accents and glitter over top! The twine is from The Twinery,  love there twine!

I better run!  I hope to catch up on blogs tomorrow when Ariel is in school!  :>

Mittens Chirstmas Card and Santa photo!

Hello!  Happy Monday!  Today is the first of what I hope to be a week of Christmas related posts.  I have been busy with cards and other creative things and with Christmas only 12 days away I figure I better share it! I hope that you had a great weekend.  We had a busy family filled one!  On Sunday we were supposed to go on a sleigh ride but it was canceled due to the cold weather. We ended up just having supper and family time indoors!  It's really cold here, -24 Celsius but feels like -34.  I figured out what that is in Fahrenheit  -11 Fahrenheit but feels like -29 Fahrenheit!!!!!!  Due to the windchill!  It's so very cold!  And seriously it could get colder!  

Today I have a card to share that I made with the Spellbinders Mittens die.  When we went for our family photos our photographer is also a paper crafter and had this die!  So I die cut this card over at her place!  And finished it later at home.  

I die cut the mittens and used the leftover card as the front. I stamped the sentiment than clear embossed Magical background.  I than added the twine from The Twinery for the string and a button. I adhered a striped piece of patterned paper underneath and attached the kraft cardstock with foam...

Last Thursday I took my kids to see Santa!  One of the malls had free Santa photos, it's a bit further but not as busy of a mall during the day so it was nice not to have to wait in line.  Plus they took several photos until I got Carter to look and sorta smile.  I think it's cute:

Hope your week is great!

DeNami Blog Hop!

Hello!  Happy Sunday!  I am here with the DeNami Blog Hop featuring tags!  If this is your first time at my blog welcome!  So happy to have you here!  You should have arrived from Jinny's Blog! For my regular readers I hope that you will join in the fun, there are prizes!  They are giving away 2 gift certificates to those who comment along the hop!

The weather here is frightful, so cold!  It had been so mild but just got cold on Thursday!  Looking forward to seeing my daughter Ariel on stage at church singing Kalikimaka Hawaiian Christmas song with her Sunday school class!  Ariel was so cute when we found out what song she was singing and we started to sing it at home, "You know that song?"  So surprised and cute!  Later in the afternoon we are going on a sleigh ride with my husband's family and having a family dinner to celebrate my MIL's birthday! I hope we don't freeze!

I am very excited to be taking part in this hop!  I love this angel stamp, it's so pretty!  I created a Christmas tag, the front of the tag:

The back of the tag:

I used some patterned paper I had leftover from last year and embossed the angel with red pigment ink, and clear embossing powder.  I distressed the edges with Tim Holtz vintage photo ink and a distressing tool.  I adhered it to a kraft cardstock and stamped the back with the Rejoice sentiment and a to and from one.  I added a big red bow and a silver snowflake!  

Thank you for stopping by!  And your next stop on the hop is Tenia! If you would like to start the beginning of the blog make sure to go to the DeNami Blog!

Thinking of You

Hi everyone!  I hope that you are having a great Saturday!  We have a busy weekend full of family gatherings!  It's going to be nice to see some distant family!  And take the kids skating for the first time.  On a whim we decided to buy Carter skates too (they do come that small!) and he surprised us with how well he walked around the house on the carpet with it (your supposed to do that so they learn how to balance in them)  The next morning he shocked me when he walked up to me when I was laying in bed with the skates and said "Hockey! Hockey!!!!" I than hid them!  Should be an interesting day for sure!

I am here with another great Wee Memories Scrappy Saturday Challenge!  This time we are sponsored by Limelight Papercrafts! They are actually closing the store so there are some great deals so make sure to head over there and check it out!  They have provided a great prize of a Patterned Paper prize pack for the winner of this challenge!  

Our challenge this week is to CASE our favorite designer.  Well this was hard!  I spent ALL WEEK THINKING and LOOKING AT YOUR BLOGS!  I just didn't know who I wanted to CASE, I mean I am inspired by so many of you and want to CASE you all but I had to pick one.  And it was soooo hard! So who did I pick?  Maile Belles!  I love her clean and simple style that still wows!  When I first saw her work I was so amazed by her CAS style and it really influenced me to not be so fussy and to make things shine by being CAS.  I love her blog and love seeing what she comes up with, I didn't CASE a card, I CASED her style.  Here is my card:

I made a thinking of you card as I need a sympathy card for someone.  I embossed the Blooming meadow stamp in black on the pp, it's actually a scrap that didn't emboss well on the bottom so I cut it off with the die cut!  I stamped the sentiment and added buttons!

I hope that you join us this week at the Wee Memories Blog  I can't wait to see who you CASE!  Don't forget to check out who the rest of the DT CASED!  :>  Hope your almost done your shopping!

Happy Birthday!

Hello!  Today is my birthday!  I wondered if I should blog on my birthday or not but I have been quite creative lately that I may as well share it!  Ariel had school today so Carter and I enjoyed some time at home.  I hate to say it but it's not that bad when she's gone, Carter plays with me a lot and enjoys sitting my lap with me reading stories or just cuddling!  Ariel had her Christmas concert tonight at school so that was our evening! She was so sweet singing 2 songs with her class!  Chad and I are going to try to fit in a date sometime soon to celebrate, between all the Christmas activities!

With it being my birthday I figure I should share a birthday card I made. Trying to work on my stash of birthdays! 

I embossed the blooming meadow stamp on some pp by Cosmo Cricket, and distressed the edges with vintage photo ink.  The twine is from the twinery and I thought the bright button added!  The sentiment is by PTI.

As for my December daily.  I have been doing really well with taking the photos but that's it!  I know I will catch up!  I can totally see the use of a cricket or a silhouette right now...hmmm... Or even some alphabet stamps!

Here's some photos from the concert, get used to this pretty dress of Ariel's.  There is a lot of things she will be wearing it to, but that's good, it's such a pretty dress (oh and now that I have figured out how easy it is to curl Ariel's hair, I may be doing it all the time!)

On stage singing.

Trying to get a photo of Carter looking when there's cake just doesn't happen!  Hmm Tiramisu! 

Blowing the candles is the best part!

Hope your week is great!  Thank you for reading!