HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

This is a good way for me to start my New Year. I needed to get back to my blog since there have been some changes in our lives.

One very important thing for my stamping life is the re-opening of Club Posh! I am so thrilled that it is back and going well now for over a month or so. I am still moderator and we still have some of the best members ever! Hope the traffic will pick up on the club and that we will grow as Judikins starts doing some fun things with the Posh Impressions line.

We went to Pennsylvania on our vacation and had a wonderful time!! The trees were simply gorgeous! I'll never get over the beauty that we saw in God's nature. It was amazing. We had a wonderful visit with our daughter, Katy, and her family. It was a long trip, but absolutely worth it!

Thanksgiving and Christmas were great. Katy and Darin came to Texas for Christmas. The weather cooperated for us this year and no one was snowed in as we were last year.

Here's hoping I can do better with my blog posting. Have a wonderful 2011, everyone!!

A lot of things have happened since I posted last. Some good and some not so good. The bad news is that Posh Impression's club, Club Posh, has gone "dark" for an undisclosed period of time. IBFS and Posh have severed relationship and are no longer together. With that happening, those of us who were on the design team for Posh have been dismissed from that position. It has caused a bit of upheaval in my life, as I was very active in the club. It greatly saddens me. I do hope it will come back someday. A new company called Judikins is thinking of becoming the representative for Posh, so maybe they will bring the club back.

Now for the good. When the club closed, we were having a contest. It ended before the winning card could be posted, so I am posting it here! The winning card, the purple one, was made by Daniel R. Boone! He did an excellent job on his card. Very unique and "spooky" without being scary! Congratulations, Daniel! Good job.

The other card I posted was also made by our Daniel. Some of the club members decided to continue the Card Of The Month (COTM) swap. I happened to be the recipient of Daniel's card this month! He did a great job with this card. It is hard to tell about the "rising moon" at the top. The scanner did not do it justice at all. There is a witch riding her broom in the circle with the moon behind her. Thanks, Daniel. I love it.

We will be gone on vacation to Pennsylvania starting Wednesday through the end of the month. I hope to be able to share some of the things we see in my next blog installment. I also hope to see, or at least talk to Daniel, as he lives in that area. What a treat!

Until then, keep stamping and looking UP!

Thank You!

Today is my birthday. I have hit a milestone, and I am grateful. On the other hand, I don't think I like the idea of 60. I hated 30, but I'd like to go back and do that again! I guess I'd rather be 60 than not here!

I did some fun things today. I went to church. I ate pizza and didn't throw up. I watch a movie with my husband. I got barrels of birthday wishes on Facebook. I got phone calls from friends and relatives. I got e-cards from people at Posh. I stamped a card.

The card you see above is my "thank you" to everyone for making this day a wonderful birthday! I just felt like I needed to make a card for all the blessings I had today, but if I did a card for everyone of them, I'd be stamping them til my birthday next year! So, thank you all for such a wonderful birthday. I am blessed.

I'll tell you a little about the card. It is done on craft color cardstock. I stamped the flower background, using a Posh Asian stamp from the new set. I stamped it on bamboo colored CS from CTMH. I then did the butterfly with another of the Asian set stamps and put pearls on it and some glitter gel pen. I also put pearls in the flower centers. The "thank you" is a Posh stamp from an ATC set. I used rusty hinge distress ink on the bamboo layer and tea dye distress ink on the butterfly and borders. Borders were punched using a MS punch and the scalloped circle is from a Marvy punch. Hope you like it.

Rooster in the Weeds

For this weeks' card, I used the rooster and the vegetation from the Asian set. I really love the images on the two new sets. I stamped the rooster and weeds with the brown blending blox. I used Tea Dye Distress ink around the card. The borders are punched with a Martha Stewart punch. I used copper brads on the borders.

I have had my sweet little Abby with me for most of the week. She is my 6 year old grand daughter. We had so much fun. It's getting hard to keep up with her energy! We baked cookies, cooked quesadillas and watched dozens of movies. She stayed up late every night and I dragged every day!

She said she thought I was looking better and better. I asked her how I looked better to her, and she said, "Well, Nana. I think you are getting shorter." Not exactly what I wanted to hear! She was precious.

Hope you enjoy the card. If you like it, leave a comment! (or even if you don't like it!)

Rick Rack Medallion Card

Philip is gone for the weekend to a Walk to Emmaus retreat. He asked me to make him some cards, and this is one of the ones I made him. He seemed to really like them. I used a medallion stamp from the new Posh Asian set and layered it on circles I punched out with Marvy punches. I then took some decorative zigzag scissors and cut out the "rick rack" and then intertwined them to make the borders. I like the simplicity of the card. Works well for a "manly" type card, I think.

I have been doing better with my weight loss this week. I have lost 143 pounds so far. My sweet daughter, Katy, told me that I was not getting enough protein. She said that would make my weight come off slower. So I started doing my protein shakes like I should have been doing all along, and I believe she must be right. I still get sick some, but not as much as I did before. I have a doctor's appointment on Sept. 9. That will be 3 months post op. I lost 100 pounds 6 months before the surgery and 43 pounds so far since the surgery. Not too bad. I am certainly not skinny yet! I am working on it, though!!

Asian Card

This is an unusual card if I do say so myself! I took a long border stamp from the new Posh Asian set, stamped it with Versamark ink, embossed it with Ultra Thick Embossing Powder and then cut it up. I think this set is very versatile and I love cutting up stamped images. The little branch is also from that same set. I ran the little pieces through my Xyron machine, so it was very easy to adhere to the card.

Don't forget, if you want to order some of these stamps from I Brake For Stamps, you can use my design team code and get 10% off your purchase. Pretty good deal I think. The code to use is SAVE10LAELA. Use this code, and I'll get a discount, too!

I have been doing very well this week. Feeling much better. Hope to see about getting my oldest granddaughter for a visit next week. She's a doll! I'll show you a picture of all my grandkids soon!

Butterfly Wishes

Another week has flown by! More laundry, more rain and more stamping!! The truth is, I never have minded laundry and I love the rain. Stamping is always the highlight of my day. It doesn't have to be physically stamping on cards, but anything to do with stamping will do. I love to watch You Tube videos of other stampers creating cards or scrap book pages. I also love to read stamping magazines. One of my favorite things to do is to go online and visit Posh Impressions where I have a bunch of friends that I talk to almost daily. It's a good time.

I have stamped the card for this week using stamps from the new Posh Asian set. I really do love these stamps. You can find them at the IBFS website. They are a great buy. This card was made using a 5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inch card base that opens from the bottom up. Each consecutive layer is 1/4 inch smaller than the last. The last pink layer is embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. I used Marvy Blending Blox to stamp the images. The butterfly has Star Dust Stickles on it. Each corner has a small rhinestone flower.

Hope you enjoy this card as much as I enjoyed making it!