Happy Birthday, Nate and Family Reunion

My nephew Nate turned 16 on June 25. The highlight of his day was going to motor vehicles and getting his permit. Seems that my kids did the same as did I and most of my siblings!

Those of you who have followed my blog will remember that in July, 2008, just after his 15th birthday, he was diagnosed with t-cell lymphoma.

Shortly after that I began anonymously sending Riley Moose cards to Nate. It seems that when Nate gets one, he can't get it opened fast enough for the rest of the family! The whole family has really enjoyed those goofy cards! (I did tell my sister who Riley really was so they didn't think some pervert was stalking Nate.) To keep the postmark from giving me away, I took the cards to the PO and had real stamps put on them and then the clerk smeared the hand cancellation.

So here is the birthday card from Riley to Nate for this year.

I found the little propeller at
Utopia Stamps in Rochester, NY
on a shopping spree with my daughter.
I love just browsing in Jenn's shop.
She has some of the neatest stuff - l
ike that propeller.
I mounted it to the card front with a long-pronged brad so the prop turns.



The inside has glittered cupcake papers and puff painted frosting on the cuppies.

Not very fancy, but everyone loved it.

And Nate has not figured out who is sending the cards.


Family reunion was cancelled in 2008 due to Nate's illness. So -- 2009 was a celebration of God's grace and healing in Nate's life as well as a great time to catch up on the last 2 years. The tumor that nearly ended his life a year ago has shrunk to be so small it cannot be distinguished from the tumor debris in the scans. Praise God!! He still has at least one more year of chemo, possibly two.

Riley Moose also had a famoosely reunion that he went to.


Here is that card--

Riley is always on a red tractor as Nate also has a red tractor that his dad gave him. I sure hope I find out if Nate paints his tractor another color.







I stamped the heads of several of my Riley stamps to create the "herd" on a 1/4 sheet of green and copied it to make the full inside.

The card arrived on reunion Friday. Nate was sure it had to be a relative sending the cards because of the family reunion theme. Everyone got a huge kick out of the card!
While Nate was outside, I told his dad, Kenny, and 3 of my sisters that I was Riley. My sister Diane, Nate's mom, had known since Christmas, but hadn't even told her hubby. So he was surprised too. It was soooooo much fun!

As we were leaving to come home, Kenny asked me if I would like to really mess with Nate's head since he was so sure he knew who Riley was. Of course I would!!!!!!! As I make the next few Riley cards, I'm sending them to friends in several states to drop in the mail from their homes. Now how sneaky is that!?!

I hope you have enjoyed the famoosely reunion card!

God's blessings to you,

Riley's Winter Fun

Because the words on this card are difficult to read, I've put my comments in blue and Riley's words in brown. I was not good at getting Nate a Riley card after Christmas. When I finally got to making one, I had several months of fun to share so made a book!

The cover was embellished with liquid applique and puffed up with my heating tool to look like snow.

Riley is on his red tractor again!

Hi Nate, do you remember me?

All the stuff under the tree was colored, cut out and put under the tree - some on pop dots.

I got new skis, a hockey stick and a for-real cammo outfit.

Sophie got new knitting needles, lots of yarn and a new pink four-four for her ballet classes.

Here I am on my new skis! Sophie made my hat and scarf. Pretty nice, huh?

Most of the events were put on backgrounds and added to the book pages without a lot of embellies.

While I was outside playing, Sophie made us some muffins.

When I came back in, Sophie was working on another scarf for me and I had hot cocoa and a warm muffin. Yummy!

When I went to play hockey, I didn't wear my hat and scarf like Sophie told me to.

After hockey some of us made a snowman. I put my hat on, but it was too late.

Sophie was right again.

Don't you just hate when that happens?

What about that Super Bowl - way to go Steelers! YEAH!

For Valentine's Day I got Sophie some chocolates in a fancy heart box.

I guess she liked them. She ate ALL of them in one day.

But then --

She worked very hard to lose all that extra weight.

It was very funny watching her do aerobics!

Guess I should not have laughed at her:-(

St. Patrick's day was great. I found the 4-leaf clover and won the pot of gold!

Sophie danced a jig wearing her green four-four.

Hmmm -- why do they call that thing a four-four?

Bet you can hardly see me in my cammo!

Maybe I can hide from Sophie when she has chores for me to do.

Time for bed now. Good night, Nate. Sleep tight.

Your friend,

Riley Moose

Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed this card!

Blessings,

More fun cards

I've been having tons of fun with these fancy cards for our church card ministry. Even though the cards look very complex, they really are not.

The elegance of the card is the Cuttlebug designs on the white cardstock. I used sheer ribbon on many of the cards to add to the elegance.
The tulip cards use the Swiss Dots embossing folder on the background piece. The scalloped oval was embossed first using the Textile embossing folder and then cut using Nestabilities scalloped oval.
The image oval was colored using Koh-I-Noor woodless colour pencils and Gamsol, then cut and embossed using a classic oval Nestie.
I added polka dot sheer ribbon and mounted the finished piece to pastel card bases.

The rhinestones in the center of the Cuttlebugged flowers gave a nice touch of color to these cards. The flowers are from the With Love borders folders. Argyle embossing folder and ScorPal detailed the card front. I added sheer ribbons. The sentiment circle was cut using the Nesties Petite Scalloped circle and Classic circle dies. A tiny nail gem was added to the circle. I hand drew the dotted line and used a marker to slightly edge the circle.
This card can be used for nearly any occasion by simply replacing the "thank you" sentiment with any other one you want.

The main image of these cards was stamped and colored, embossed using the Swiss Dots folder, then cut with a Nesties oval die and mounted on a pink scalloped oval.

The plaid paper inspired the colors in the Garden Boots image. Each card has different colored Prima flowers and brads for the centers.

Thanks for looking.

Spring is almost here!

Blessings,

Happy Valentine's Day!

I really did have these done for Valentine's Day for my daughter and co-workers.

House Mouse images have been become real favorites of mine.



The little heart confetti pieces are dabbed with Stickles.

Very fun to make and very cute when finished.

I cut and embossed the heart using one of the scalloped heart Nestibilities dies.

The edges were inked with Real Red ink and I tried to get each point on the embossed edge with the ink.

Quick and simple tonight.

Thanks for looking!

Blessings,

Jodie's Cards

In my last post I probably wore your eyes out doing all that reading!
Now - here are pictures of the cards Jodie made during her weekend with us.


She fell in love with the House Mouse stamps. So she stamped up lots of them on folded cardstock so they were actual cards when she finished coloring them. Most she left blank on the inside so she could write personal messages in them.



Jodie did all the coloring using only colored pencils. I was amazed at her shading of the colors - especially on the cupcake card.

The marshmallows in the cups of cocoa were puffed up using Liquid Applique and my heat tool.




Then we got really creative and used the Cuttlebug to emboss a border across the bottom of the Friendship card.
Nestibilities were used to cut the scalloped oval window from the white card. She stamped the daisy vase from Gina K's Flowers for Daisy so it would show through the window.
Then she stamped a House Mouse on the oval cutout, layered it and mounted it on the front of another card. She REALLY caught on fast!

Enjoy! Blessings,

One Very Special Young Lady - Jodie

Since 1999 my DH and I have been volunteering at Freedom Village, USA. Over the years I have done sewing for dozens of the girls who have been there at one time or another.

We have also had several Adopt-A-Teen girls during that time. When we first heard Jodie's story of how she came to Freedom Village I told DH that "she is mine!" And when she became eligible to be an AAT she was assigned to us. She has been at the Village for about 5 years now. She got saved, became a beautiful Christian young lady, graduated from high school and now works on senior staff . This is her way to say thank you for the chance she was given to change her life and now tell others about the saving power of Jesus Christ. She travels with one of the singing groups and gives her testimony at schools, churches, banquets - anywhere she can.

For nearly a year we have been talking about Jodie coming to spend a weekend with us and teaching her to make cards.
WELL---- on February 27 we brought Jodie home for the weekend.
On Friday night we started stamping images, coloring them, putting a card together. Saturday after breakfast, we stamped and colored more images. Saturday afternoon we went to a Stampin' Up! workshop. After dinner Saturday evening - you guessed it!! - we stamped more images, colored images and made more cards! What a fantastic weekend.

Here is most of our stamping gang - from left -
Me, Roxy, Deby, Jodie, Betty, Kim and Lori.

A couple of our group don't attend our church so they are missing from the pic.
(I forgot to take my camera to the workshop)



My DH does not like having his picture taken, but he allowed it this time for Jodie.
We are so proud of Jodie and the beautiful Christian young lady she has become.

She wants to use the cardmaking as a tool to encourage girls who are having a difficult time and to have something fun to do while just "hanging out".

But, as the saying goes - all good things must come to an end. On Sunday afternoon we had to take Jodie back to Freedom Village. BUT - she took with her cardstock, images, colored pencils, tape, 2 sets of stamps, Stampin' Spots inks and anything else I could think of to give her!

Be blessed,

Special Occasion Cards

Our pastor's wife asked me to make some cards for special occasions to be available for the card ministry our church does. Birthday and anniversary cards are sent out to our attendees and their families. There are many people who never get cards from anyone to mark a birthday or any event in their lives.

Here are some of the ones I came up with. Nearly all of the ideas are cased from a Cuttlebug website.


This card is shimmery white. The design is done using the Cuttlebug With Love border folders and ScorPal. Self adhesive flat pearls were added on the flowers.



Very simple - very elegant.

This card is done with the tiny heart embossing folder from Love Language and the long stem flowers from With Love border folder and the ScorPal.

The flower centers are tiny self adhesive nail decorations. The sheer ribbon bows are attached with Zots.

This card was so easy and quick to make that I got carried away and made it in several other colors!

The same rough diamond shape cut around the flower bouquet was placed in different positions on the cards.

Each one is embossed with a different Cuttlebug folder and the ScorPal.

The "Thank you" and "thanks" were embossed using the Thanks small embossing folders.

I really like this card - very simple and can be used for any number of card giving occasions.

The Just My Type embossing folder was used for the dots and the lines are ScorPal!

Small sentiment words can be easily stamped near the bottom of the stems or above the daisies.

I used several different colors of dotted sheer ribbon on the cards.

One of the embossing folders from Fancy Corners was used for this card. It was embossed three times along one side of the card. A fourth one was mounted alone and used as the focal point of this card. The sheer ribbon is lined up along two ScorPal lines. Another plus for this card is that it can be either top fold or side fold.

Hope you enjoyed seeing these cards!

Blessings,

Family Christmas Cards

Some where along the way I missed these two cards in my Christmas Cards Galore post.
These went to my two grandsons in Georgia, Jeremy and Stephen.


This looks just like Christmas morning when my kids were little. And the grandkids too!

Both images were colored with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. The main images were hand torn, inked and attached to the card base and the edges were slightly bent up.

I remember one year when -----. Maybe that's why I love this image so much!

Their mom said they both enjoyed the cards and the checks that were inside :-). They took all their Christmas and birthday money and went shopping and got whatever they wanted. Sometimes that's best, especially when they live so far away.

Blessings,

Happy December Birthdays!

Our family seems to have a lot of December events. In addition to the obvious one - Christmas - there are several birthdays and anniversaries.

My grandson Stephen's is on the 11th.


He lives in Georgia so I could use a Crab and Company card for him. His mom said he laughed at the booglie eyes!


And really liked the check inside too:-)

My stepmother-in-law's b-day is on the 12th.

I made this card at a "stamp camp" last year, so I don't remember much about it.



One of our Adopt-A-Teen girls, Jodie, at Freedom Village has a birthday on the 16th (I forgot to take a picture of her card) and our newest AAT, Ravyn's birthday is on the 27th and no pic of her card either.

My granddaughter Paula's b-day is the 28th.
The House Mouse images are some of my favorites and Paula's too now! The image was colored with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.

The party hat paper is from a House Mouse set. The cupcake brad was something I came across on the internet. The ribbon was from AC Moore.

My DH's b-day is on the 30th.

He is a real car buff, so -- the antique car is from SU's Thoughts of Father. The bird and watering can is stamped in Versamark. The car is colored with pencils and Gamsol.

Then there are our SBS22 sisters birthdays and anniversaries in December - Chrissie, Nancy and Anne's anniversaries and Norma and Gwen's birthdays. I'm sorry I didn't get your cards done. But I hope all of you had happy days with many more to follow.

Other December birthdays that I don't normally send cards to are my sister-in-law Marion on the 10th, my niece Sarah Beth on the 20th, and a brother, Richard on the 23rd (talk about a bad b-day!).

Have a fantastic week!

Get Well Cards

While my daughter was in the hospital a while back, she was on a diet of IV's and popsicles.
I made her a card and had the ladies in our Bible study group sign a "popsicle" for her.

The image is House Mouse Brain Freeze and colored with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol.




The words were computer generated and the "freezer door" was held shut with a photo turn and crystal brad.

After the ladies signed the popsicles, I colored them with the pencils, but no Gamsol so the messages wouldn't smear.
Then all the "popsicles" were put in the freezer so Becky could choose which flavor she wanted.

She really liked the card!






This image was received in a WishRAK (Random Act of Kindness) and was perfect for a card for an older man in our church who fell this winter.

He is always kidding and joking around with my hubby and me, telling us he can't sit with us in the "Rowdy" section at church, so I couldn't resist some teasing back.


I used several alphabets from my $1.00 stamps to stamp the inside so it looked like it "fell down" too. I inked the letters with Kaleidacolor Berry Blaze ink.

He and his wife weren't in church Sunday, so I don't know his reaction.

Maybe that is a good thing!







Have a wonderful day!